For the Life of us

School holidays are nearly done and with the end of the crazy two weeks comes the bittersweet taste of freedom and longing for your house full of little people 24/7 again!! There are very few things that satisfy in life as much as getting through a day (an enjoyable day at that) where you've spent good, quality time with your kids. Without distractions and trying to 'fit them' into our lives and around our schedules, but making them the main event and hanging out as though we have nothing in the world more important than just being with them. As wonderful and fulfilling as that sounds, this is not a realistic scenario for everyday. We cannot simply ignore the washing piles mounting up around the house as we lie on the floor and build forts with our kids, more than a day or so. We cannot skip cooking and ditch the kitchen for building sandcastles on the beach every day (although how good would that be)! But we can, we must, make time to push pause on all the things we have...

So if your house is like mine, school holidays have descended upon you in full force. The weight of the task of constantly having all your little people around you when you would usually have a quiet moment to throw dinner together or clean the house, is now bearing heavy on your shoulders. As much as you feel the strain some days in some moments, other moments are fun and careless as the everyday routine is thrown out the window and exchanged for a looser schedule of fun and freedom. It is a miracle I have gotten a Blog post up this week and for this I will reward myself with chocolate. Daylight savings doesn't help much either with kids wide awake way past their bedtime cutting into the little bit of 'quiet time'' I usually utilise to allow my mushy brain to function at adult-level capacity. The rest of the week's 'unproductiveness' aside, right now I have my 8 year old reading on a chair next to me while I type and my 5 year old on the lounge floor c...

We have just completed our 12 hour training for foster care this past weekend. I went into it with the mentality of ticking a box to be able to move into what we want to do, caring for children. I just love it when you're pleasantly surprised! This was one such occasion.Maybe it was the content covered, maybe it was the way it was explained? I think it was a combination of them both. Gavin and I both looked at each other half way through and said we wished we had done training on this BEFORE our own kids, never mind foster care training! We arrived to the inner-city location to a bunch of lovely social workers and trainers who greeted us upon arrival. Couples with  optimistic eyes climbed the four flights of stairs to the floor that held the Foster Care training course. There were around 12 of us altogether. I couldn't help but notice the bar graph in the corner, plastered on the wall. "New Foster Families for 2017", the bar graph went up to 50, the red marker show...

Wow, what a month. I don't think our kids (or we) have struggled with being sick in the past 3 years as much as we have this past Winter! Bring on Summer, Lord, BRING-IT-ON! In-between the crazy amount of washing that decorates my sunny living areas and the lovely mess that seems to sneakily build up as you tend to sick babies (or husbands), life has gone back to basics. Usually our days are filled with park visits, play-dates and weekly shopping trips. It seems like life slows right down when kids or yourself, are sick. Our week was not off to a good start unfortunately. We found our self at North Shore hospital with Jed on Monday. Usually I am the first to leave the kids to sweat out a fever and get over it with as little medical intervention as possible. With Jed, who had a febral convulsion as a little baby, we have had to be a bit more cautious that his temperature doesn't rise too quickly. I was out at Pak n Save doing the grocery shopping with Noah and Jed, and m...

Although the last few days have been mercilessly dragging us kicking and screaming, into a Wintery abyss, complete with hail and heater-hugging evenings... I am still convinced that Spring is most definitely here. The sun has been shining, our home is slightly cleaner than usual with the Spring-clean bug that comes with the fresh air and I had my first swim of the season last week! If I could I would hibernate all Winter. I am NOT a fan of the cold, especially with little people who need to get out during the day. It feels like we have been let off slightly easier this year with a shorter bout of really cold weather, thankfully as my carpets have had just about as much mud tracked through them as they can take! Slowly the Winter jackets are going on sale and shopping racks are being filled with swimwear.  And I kid you not, I have spotted my first Christmas tree of the warmer season which is utterly ridiculous but in some ways a beacon of hope that SUMMER IS ON IT'S WAY PEOPLE!!! ...

FORGET ME NOT Michael had been a hero once. A champion. People had shouted his name from expensive seats, cheering him on. Strangers would stop him in the street for autographs or just a short conversation with a legend. Hard work and sacrifice was the foundation to Michael’s life, his motto. His literal blood, sweat and tears now represented by some dusty trophies in a cardboard box and an old book of newspaper clippings from earlier times. It’s not everyday someone who was an impressive fighter, was nick-named the gentleman. Intent on keeping boxing a sport and not a personal vendetta against anyone, Michael would make sure he shook his opponents hand after every match. He was polite, humble and in all his years had never been knocked out. He was a true Champion. Dorothy was the typical young girl, swept off her feet by the attention and affections of a famous boxer. She was always in the background, playing the role of supportive wife, devoted mother and hard worker, nev...

As I sit here thinking about my own parenting journey, it is totally a sum of my own ideas, what I've learnt in the Bible and a lot were bits and pieces I picked up from people who were ahead of me in the game. I just cannot imagine trying to do family, raising kids and marriage without help. I don't think we were designed to do life as an island and so much research backs this up. We were made for community. Not just the Western idea of 'living in a community' but being a part of one. That means being vulnerable. That means opening up about EXACTLY what is going right and wrong in your family and being open enough to accept correction (yes, eating humble pie is a HUGE part of maturity...unfortunately) and seeking out wisdom, constantly. For some sad reason, many people I have come into contact with, whether it be at playgroup or sports classes or even the mums I get talking to at the indoor playgrounds, seem to have a very isolated parenting lifestyle. I think it is ...