When your tired...you'll sleep just about anywhere.....

Ethan doesn't always think he needs a nap in the daytime. Actually sometimes he doesn't think he needs one at night either but thats a whole other story. So instead of calling it a 'nap' i tell him he needs to go to his room for a 'rest'. Totally different thing. He goes in there and plays with his toys and if he is tired he will usually go to sleep. I give him an hour and a half of 'rest' time then he can come out. He does the usual crying...fake crying mind you. The 'i'm just going to pretend you've cut out my heart' type crying that doesn't work at all on me. Then he decides, well thats not working so i'll just play...which he does....then he goes into sneeky mode. The 'i'll see if mummy is really watching' mode and tries to sneek out into the living room. At first he'll peak around the corner and i'll see him of course and tell him to go back to his room.....he runs away and then tries again. I ignore him. Then he starts on the army crawl....on his belly trying to sneek into the living room. You see i usually sit at the computer while he is napping and there is the couch between the computer and the door...so he thinks if he gets low enough i can't see him. ahhhh yeah in a perfect world maybe.
Most times i tell him to get back to his room...he looks up in surprise and wonder at how i managed to see him despite his army crawling. He will go back to his room where he either comes out to try again and again until his 1 1/2 hours is up or he will play some more or go to sleep.
Today though....it was just too much for him and this is what i found in the doorway of the living room....


And yes, that is a half naked doll and some black pasta tongs....but also works well as a pillow. No army man would go anywhere without them, right?

Introducing.......

Nicholas Patrick, born 12th October 2006 at 10.17am. Weighing 4270gms and measuring 55cm long.

See this little boy...doesn't he just look so innocent? So unassuming? So perfect? Don't let that fool you.

Behind that cutsey smile is a little boy who likes to hit and punch and shout. Ahhh yes, like most 2 1/2 year olds he has a problem with sharing.

My sister and her 4 kids are up visting for 2 weeks. Thankfully they are staying at our mums house and not mine(I would have been insane by now if that was the case) My sisters kids are aged 7, 5, 2 1/2 and 1. The 2 youngest(both girls) are the main issues. You see...well they like to play with things and touch his things and touch his Granma too. Big no-no in Ethans book!! How dare they! But trust me his cousins can give as much as they can take...so my sister and i have spent the last week trying to stop our kids from killing and/or maiming each other. Just 1 week to go. I love having my sister up but Ethan has been on the 'naughty spot' so many times i swear i might just have to make him stay there all day! I can't believe how he acts with them around. It's driving me nuts!!!

Tip for the day : do NOT go looking at display homes with 5 children in tow!

The Nesting Instinct

What on earth is this thing? Seriously, i don't think i had it with my first son. I can't remember wanting to clean everything...maybe i did have it and just didn't notice. But this time i've noticed. This morning i woke up and did the usual routine - pee, eat, iron dh work clothes, get Ethan installed on either the 'pute or the tv and then collapse while the wooziness takes over me. While in this woozy state this morning i realised that my house was a complete and utter mess and it would be criminal to go off to the hospital to birth my baby with the house in such a state. Even worse would be my dh coming home from the hospital after said birthing to a dirty and messy house!

When your 36 weeks pregnant you will know that it isn't easy to bend down and you get tired easily. I also seem to lose my breath when i bend over aswell, so it's slow progress to do anything. Thankfully my mum rang up this morning and she said she wasn't doing anything today and did she want me to come over. YES!!!!
So we have spend the morning cleaning and de-messing the house. It looks a darn side better, let me tell you!

But you know what perplexes me? I read somewhere that the 'nesting instinct' comes from the male side. Men having a nesting instinct???? WTH??? Ok maybe some men are like that...but seriously, who would have thought that. Its usually the women who are clean freaks.....
My dh for example.......the house can look like a tornado hit it and he wouldn't even notice...there could be dead animals in the house and he wouldn't even notice. I pity my daughter(if i ever have one) because she's not going to get any 'nesting instinct' from her father!

Confessions of an addict.....

Hi, my name is Andrea and i have a problem. I'm addicted to dying my hair.
My problem started when i was about 14. The lure of dye that only cost $3 was too much for this little black duck. Plus my big sister and future sister-in-law was all into it aswell so hey, you can't fight that.
It started out with temporary dyes. You know, the wash out in 6 washes ones. Then it advanced to much more permanent dyes. My sister also succumed to the dreaded 'streakers cap'. We have a very lovely pic of her posing with it on. Then came the ultimate. Me going completely blonde. I did this stupid thing when i was 16 and in year 12. One day i was a brunette/red head(depending on what i'd done with it lately) and suddenly i was a brassy blonde. Brassy being an understatement considering my sister did it and you know, she was no hairdresser. lol
That lasted until after graduation and i had lovely regrowth for that......i'd show you a pic but they are all downstairs in a box somewhere and then i would have to scan it.....too much hassle right now.
I got sick of the blonde and went back to being a brunette.

When i left home at the age of 19 i was still to set foot into a hair salon and get my hair done properly, though i had ventured to getting it cut by a professional.
Once i had a job and could afford it i went to a salon and had it dyed properly for the first time in my life. It was fabulous! Though the cut and colour did cost me $160 it was worth every penny.
I continued my movie star life style of getting my hair 'done' until i got married. After i had Ethan i decided i needed a pick-me-up and went and had it done. My dh almost had a fit at how much it cost...he didn't realise it costs that much. I have had it done a couple of more times but the guilt is just too much...spending that much on myself and i have yet to find a salon as great as the one i used to go to when i was single. So i have returned to doing it myself and i think i'm actually quite good at it. And it only costs me about $15 for the dye and up to $20 for a cut.

Yesterday i dyed it again. Now its a dark brown and will stay that way until after bubs is born. I am planning on getting it cut too for the warmer weather.
My dh and i actually have a deal. He loses 10kgs and i will go blonde (done professionally of course.....blonde and home jobs just don't go ;) He's supposed to do it by Christmas......yesterday he had to choose a smaller notch in his belt. Guess i'm going to be blonde soon......not that it bothers me......i'll probably be 'dying' to dye my hair again soon.

We've lost 3 famous Australians this week. Things happen in 3's right? On Monday it was Steve Irwin and Colin Thiele and today Peter Brock. Isn't it weird how you just never expect things like that to happen and yet everyday people are dying. I guess celebrities just seem to be able to live forever and its always a shock.....unless their known druggos or something like that.

I just wanted to touch on and reminisce about my association with Austraila Zoo. Of course i didn't know Steve Irwin, but I have been many many times to the zoo. When i was a kid it was run by his father. We lived only 1 town away from it and would go regularly. Back then it was called The Australian Reptile Park(i think) lol we used to just call it The Reptile Park and it was small and didn't have many vistors. When you went in the front door the small entry area was filled with speciman jars and spiders in those perspect blocks. It was kinda creepy and cool at the same time. The park wasn't very big and there weren't that many animals. I remember the snakes and that there was a big carved wooden crocodile out the front(i believe its the same one they now have inside).
We moved away from the area when i was 12 and sometime after that Steve took over and it became Australia Zoo. We have been twice since it became 'famous'. We first went when i was about 5mths pregnant with Ethan....it was November and it was hot! I think that day i almost passed out. But other then that it was great! Heres a pic of me and a kangaroo:

The next time we went was this year for Ethans 2nd Birthday in February. It was hot(again...please remind me never to go there again anytime from October to March)
Here's Ethan and Dh on a ride:

And Ethan and I taking a tour of the park...Ethans wearing Koala ears. lol


Its a great zoo....but you know what it will be missing now? The excitment that comes with wondering if Steve will be there the day you go.

Something too cute not to share.....


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing

7 weeks to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it??? I bet you probably can. lol 9 months seems like such a long time...especially in the first trimester when all you do is puke and sleep and feel like absolute crap. But yep, 7 measley weeks to go. I can't wait! I've finally done some preparation and have almost packed my hospital bag. The hospital booklet says to have it packed by 34 weeks, which is next week. It seems crazy that i could have my baby in as little as 4 weeks, considering 37 weeks is considered full term. I can't wait to have him out and i can't wait to be able to bend over without any pain......actually i would be happy to be just able to bend over ;)

Dh and i are having a slight dilema. Baby names. As you know we are having a boy. Which is great but we already have a boy so we already used the name we love on him. hmmmm so how do you pick another favourite? Very tough. I'm 30 weeks pregnant so we have had 12 weeks to pick a name and still have 10 week to go. BUT i am having real trouble feeling a bond with this baby. Its weird actually. It feel like it will never happen, like i'm not going to have a baby. I didn't feel like i did when i was pregnant with Ethan. Anyhow i thought that maybe it has a little to do with the fact we haven't named him yet. So last night, we got serious. We wrote down some names we each liked. For the first name we just wanted one we both liked and for the middle name we are using a name from my side of the family and this is what we came up with......please vote which one you like the best!!

Dhs fav first names -

Seamus
Patrick

Dhs fav middle names -

Cyril
Patrick
(yeah you can tell he has thought about this alot, huh? )

My fav first names -

Shamus(just different spelling to dhs)
Nicholas
Erik
Tobias
Silas
Sebastian
Reuben

My fav middle names -

Wentworth
Patrick

I didn't realise it was going to be so hard to choose!!

ahhh blogger how i do loath thee....seriously, whats up with not being able to post pics?? It's really annoying me, so much so that i went looking else where to set up a blog.......anyone know any good FREE places??

I'm feeling cranky today. So its time for another list:

I'm thankful for......

*Rain! We need it desperately and it has rained off and on all week.

*My 'new' couch. We bought a 3 seater and 2 recliners off my sister and bil and it is fab-u-lous.

*Sleeping toddlers. Ethan slept through last night til 8.30am (although he didn't go to sleep until like 11pm) and the night before he slept through til 5am before coming to our bed then going back to sleep until mid morning. Oh and he's finally gone off to sleep now for his day time nap....he seems to be resisting those but i still need them!!!

*Ice cream and cheesecake to eat when i feel cranky

*Warmer weather. I generally love cold weather but this year i'm just not feeling the love. I'm so ready for it to be spring.

*Tax time!!! and the chance to pay off our debt and buy some maternity clothes! YAY!!!!

*My sister for giving Ethan a bag of hand-me-down winter clothes from her 2 boys. She just saved me heaps of money!

*My Dh for calling me from work just to say hi (even though i was cranky at him for calling at naptime)

*The Library - if i didn't have books to read i think i would be going mad. It saves my sanity, seriously.

The good, the bad, the ugly and the funny....

My experiences from the last few days:

The good: I decided to actually make a proper effort in toilet training Ethan and so i got the potty out this morning and he did 4 wees in it!!!

The bad: the 3 really big wees that he didn't do in the potty(he's such a piddle pot, seriously he wee'd 7 times in the space of like 2 hours), getting told i must be having a big baby because my tummy is poking out so much( please tell me i'm not THAT big!), stupid telemarketer that wouldn't take no for an answer so i told him i was going to hang up now and then did.

The ugly: Trying to stop Ethan from throwing around a wee soaked tissue that he put in his potty....and getting it on me. ewwwwwwwwwwwwww

The funny: At Enrichment on Thursday night we were talking about funerals and wills and basically being prepared. We had a Funeral Director come and talk to us about funerals and in the middle of his presentation Ethan stood up on the seat next to me, threw his hands in the air and said(very loudly) "Hooray!!!!" Lucky he's cute. ;)

Isn't Photoshop wonderful! I just took some pics of my big ol' belly to play around with photshop to see what cool things i could do. Please don't laugh if your a professional....this is just me playing around to de-stress!!!

The original:

Now for the cool stuff!:

you know its winter when.......

You get out of bed at 7.45am and its colder in your kitchen then it is in your refrigerator. Yep, that was this morning. The thermometer read 4 degrees celcius and i checked the fridge and its set at 5 degrees. It was a balmy 6 degrees in our living room. We also found this on our windscreen at 8.50am when we went off to church.














Big deal, you may say. Well it is to us considering what part of the country we live in! lol

Randomness

Isn't blogger block horrible. I feel like i've fallen off the blogger world but i will try and get back on. Please fogive me.
But i would like to address the few ideas suggested to me by my loyal fans, aka those who gave me suggestions. lol

Favourite colour - my favourite colour is red. I wrote about it a little while back. But my fav colour used to be purple, then changed it because every one seemed to like purple and i wanted something different so i changed it to a colour that no one i knew liked - red. Thankfully red is a great colour!

First Kiss - This is kinda embarrassing, well embarrassing because its a little sad. lol I had my first kiss when i was 23 years old. Yes, i know, i'm a late bloomer but some things just can't be helped. The first person i kissed is my dh. It was on our second date. Right by a waterfall. I thought it was gross but more pleasant with practice. ;) It was also right after our first kiss that dh told me he loved me.

Baby names - oh boy. This is a toughie. Since we already have a boy its hard because we already picked the one name that we love. So now we have to pick the second best and how does someone do that?! We did narrow it down to either Nicholas or Isaac. But i've gone of Isaac and dh tells me this morning that he's gone off Nicholas.....so i guess now we don't have any names!!!! We are thinking maybe we should just call him '#2' or 'Ethan the second'. What do you think?? ;)

Free time - I seem to have a lot of this in varying degrees. Once my housework is done then i don't have alot to do. I am not involved with any community activities, my ds is not in school so no school commitments. I do spend more time then i should on the computer though lately that has been hampered(good thing too) by my ds who doesn't like me on here unless he is on here too. I introduced him to a kids website that he loves, so unless that is on he hates me being near the computer....which means.....less computer time for me and more time for something else.
I play alot with my ds. Since he has noone else to play with, i'm it! I also love to sew. I am trying to get my quota of maternity clothes up. I love making maternity skirts!! I've made 4 so far and i'm always on the lookout for cheap fabric so i can make some more.
I also love to read and am trying to read more church related material to increase my spirituality.
So at the moment that is what i'm doing with my free time - playing, sewing and reading....oh and computer stuff ;)

So i'm stumped. I have blog block. Nothing of note is coming to mind. I really do lead such a boring life that i'm tempted to make stuff up for the hell of it.
Please, if there is anything you would like to know about me, ask. I will be happy to blog about it......

Battle of the bulge

Heres those belly pics i promised...if blogger loves me today.

5/6 weeks: No i'm not showing...thats my normal belly. yikes!!


11 weeks: Sorry for the dodgey pic.


16 weeks:


20 weeks:


22 weeks and currently the size of a small country.

As i stepped on the scales this morning and my eyes popped at how much weight i have suddenly gained i thought i would blog about it. Since there is nothing else in my life right now that is even remotely interesting- my pregnancy seems the only thing worth talking about...and even thats a stretch.
I am 22 weeks now. Just over half way and offically wanting it to be October already. I don't really enjoy being pregnant but its a means to an end, so to speak. What i really want is the baby at the end and not 9 mths of being sick, sore, hormonal, fat and tired. But since there really is not other way to go about it considering i am able to bare my own children thats just what is going on.
My dh and I started the ttc(trying to concieve) process in May 05. I figured that since our first baby was conceived so quickly(5 weeks after we got married) that this next baby would be just as easy. In the grand scheme of things the time it took was not much but still i was impatient. It took us 7 mths to get 2 of those little pinks lines to appear on the preg test. Unfortunately 8.5 wks into it we lost that baby. I was determined to try again as soon as possible but of course wait a month or so as per the drs orders. I got pregnant again 3 weeks later. Oooops and EEEKKK how did that happen???? Oh well, nevermind. We found out this wonderful thing after i threw up my breaky the morning of ours sons 2nd birthday. We went out and i bought a test and lo and behold, those 2 little pinks lines again.

I was about 5 wks....imagine i was walking around for a week without even knowing i was pregnant!! Any ttcer will know that it just plain wrong! You test before your period is due....and sometimes to really torture yourself, as early as 10 days past ovulation!
But nevertheless i was pregnant. I was shocked. My legs started shaking and i had to sit down. I started crying. My dh just smiled and said he wasn't surprised.
Those first several weeks were not only hard due to my paranoia about having another miscarriage but i spent them puking my guts up and spending alot of time in bed. There really is nothing worse. I'd rather give birth 10 times over then have morning sickness. That lasted until 16 weeks, though here i am at 22wks and still throwing up in the mornings. ick ick ick.

Even though i spent 11 weeks sick as a dog i still only lost 1kg. Whats up with that??? I would have liked to have lost at least 5! If i'm going to be sick i want it to have some benefit. But luckily my weight gaining didn't start until somewhere between 17-20wks(though i was having to wear my fat clothes from 8wks). I have gained a total of 5.5kgs. 2.5 of those have been in the last 2 weeks! I'm pretty happy with that all up though. Could be worse. lol

I've been having all the normal pregnancy complaints. Well not all of them but you know, the muscle pain and trouble bending down. The worst is the hip pain. And surprisingly i'm not as hormonal as i was with my first pregnancy.....my dh might not agree but i'm not crying every 2 seconds like i was then, except for Sunday when i had a mini emotional breakdown at church thanks to my dh.

I was going to post some pics of my belly progress but blogger is being sucky and won't let me :p I'll post them when blogger fixes itself.

A Favourite Childhood Toy

Ahhhh where to start. I had a couple of favourite toys. Of course the ones i really really wanted - like Barbie High Heel shoes and a Pound Puppy, i never got.
But this was my favourite:

My Child - my sister and i got My Child dolls. We came home from school one day and there they were! We were super excited. She named hers Kerrie and i named mine Servine(yeah, i know..WTH!!) Kerrie was blonde and had green eyes and Servine was a brunette with blue eyes. We loved them. They were our babies. We took them shopping. They ate dinner with us. They played outside with us. They went to my mums work with us when we went with her. They wore real nappies(not fake doll ones). Mum made clothes for them. We did their hair. We gave them baths. They were real to us!
I still have Servine. But i feel a little sad. She no longer looks clean and nice. Her lips and cheeks have lost their nice pink colour. Her hair is a little worse for wear(note: doll hair doesn't grow back after you cut it) and it needs a good wash. She now lives in Ethans toy box aswell to add insult to injury. Maybe if i have a little girl i can polish her up some!

Mission....possible

Check out the hair man(and the new Wiggles pjs)!




I seriously cut like 3 inches off it!