For the Life of us

The past few weeks have been a bit full on to say the least. A virus plagued our home, playing tag with the kids which made for those endless days at home that sort of blur into each other. The weather was also particularly wet and dreary last week which added to  the cabin fever. I wrote a whole blog post, a really deep one and then lost the whole thing because I wasn't connected to the internet. An hour of writing. Lost.... frustration much? We have some lovely boys from Hong King staying with us too which has added to the business but we have all enjoyed having them. I love that at dinner time our family has a full table and that the kids learn from people from around the world. Right now we have a border, a Chinese homestay uni student and 2 boys from Hong Kong. It's one FULL house! One of my precious moments this week was gardening with the kids. It started off as just planting the small plants we got free with our New World groceries. Then it culminated in a more ambitiou...

There is nothing I love more than a good road trip. Yes, the nature of what that is changes somewhat when you have kids...the length involved definitely makes a huge difference in the 'enjoyability' of the trip and what once was a car ride of long conversations and getting into a good book while you sit in happy silence now becomes being an innovative peace-maker between three kids who all want the same toy at the same time as well as feeling like Siri when you're asked a million questions about where you are and how much longer it will take to reach the destination...In spite of this evolved experience, this trip that has morphed into a totally different journey from what it once was, somehow is so much more fun. Adventuring with your little people, no matter how many more toilet stops there are along the way... Let's be honest, it isn't easy to be spontaneous with kids...and a dog...and home-stays who you cook for BUT it is possible and we totally nailed i...

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...