ON BEING SINGLE…

We had a lovely afternoon today with our “Mother and Daughter cupcake afternoon tea” celebrating Bella’s birthday.  It wasn’t a “party”, although we did have pass the parcel.  It was just an excuse to get together with our friends really.  I got my grandmother’s tea set out and we played ladies, and the small people had their tea set out too.

Bella next to her cupcake tower.

Close up of the cupcakes – aren’t these just soooooo adorable?

The girls had a lovely time playing dress-ups.  This was Bella’s final outfit for the day.  She makes me laugh – my little cowgirl!

I just remembered today that I forgot to post a picture of George’s new haircut the other week.  So here it is.  He looks so much better, don’t you think?

Boys!  What else can I say really?!

F x

Okay, sorry for the delay.  WordPress was giving me grief the other night when I was trying to upload the photos from Bella’s birthday.  Hopefully it will behave now!

Opening Presents

About to blow out the “fairy” candle + four more

In her “birthday dress” from Grandma

My Mum is a wonderful seamstress (if I haven’t told you before) and she loves making Bella a new dress for every birthday and Christmas.

This was the dress she made for Boo turning 5.  Isn’t it so adorable?  She’s going to make a hat to match but ran out of time before sending the parcel.

Yesterday Bella went to play with her friend in the afternoon and insisted that she had to wear her birthday dress (they are both very girly little girls, and love wearing pretty things).  About half an hour after I got home (I was trying to get a bit of work done) I had a phone call from my friend saying “We’ve had a bit of a catastrophe – Bella’s fine”.  “Y-e-s-s-s-s” I say (madly having terrible thoughts flicking through my mind of all the things which might have happened) only to hear “She’s ripped her dress and she’s terribly upset”.  Apparently Bella was sobbing and sobbing and my friend said to her “Are you worried about telling Mum about your dress” to which Bella replied “No, I just love my dress”.  Isn’t that so gorgeous.  I had a chat to her on the phone and assured her that either Grandma or I would be able to fix it up.  Once I actually SAW the dress I’m pretty convinced it’s a Grandma fix-it job, and I’m hoping she’ll have a spare piece of material to be able to sew a new section in the back.

I love the fact that Bella enjoys wearing dresses.  After having two boys, it’s so lovely to have a Princess who likes to look pretty and enjoys the beautiful things Grandma makes for her.  When Mum first starting giving me smocked dresses etc. I would always try and keep them for “best” but I soon realised that she grows so quickly and it’s much better to let her wear and enjoy them as much as possible – so at least once or twice a week she has a “Grandma special” on, and we ALWAYS get comments on her beautiful home-made outfits.

I hope you’re having a lovely weekend?  I’ve been busy working, but did get to go and help celebrate two special friends’ birthdays this afternoon – I had THE most delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake.  Yum-o.

Love,

F x

Well Birthday Season in my household is officially over for another year (well, that’s not strictly true, because I’m having a cupcake afternoon tea for a few of Bella’s little friends on Sunday … but the actual birthdays are all done and dusted).

Note to those of you who are yet to be blessed with children …. don’t have them all really close together like I did – and I don’t mean in age, I mean when they are actually born.  3 kids within 6 weeks of each other is definitely NOT good family planning when it comes to birthday time.

Angus turned 11 at the beginning of this month, and Bella was 5 on Tuesday.  FIVE, my baby is FIVE!!

Here’s a bit of photographic evidence from the various events surrounding the two most recent birthdays.  I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take more of Bella on Tuesday – but I did take video and I think got confused thinking I was taking still shots.  Oh well.  At least I have a few snaps of the happy day.

Angus first…

With the cake we made for his “actual” birthday.  My niece Mandy gave him the scarf – pretty groovy eh?

Angus had the BIG party this year, we hired the BIFF at the local pool and ate pizza and ice-cream cake afterwards.  Loads of fun for the kids.  I was too chicken to go on the BIFF … maybe next time (NOT!).

Birthday boy!

George

Bella

Angus and I contemplating whether we could high-tail it out of there with the ice-cream cake – would anybody notice if we disappeared??  It was seriously delicious – a Peter’s Neopolitan – Mmmmmmm!!

And now Miss Bella’s turn…  [due to technical difficulties - this post will be continued tomorrow night...]

Thanks for stopping by.

Fx

I’m doing a little dance in my chair at the moment.  After three (painful) years of a daylight saving “trial” – WA had a referendum today as to whether people actually wanted it – and it seems it’s a “NO”.  Yippee – it’s so unnecessary when you live in a very warm and windy climate like we do.

Looking at the figures on the web, 3,098 voted yes and a whopping 13,150 voted NO locally – so I’d say it was fairly clear that people don’t want it here. 

Hooray – I’m so glad we can get back to normal now and not have to deal with tired, grumpy kids (and Mums!) for 6 months of the year.  Y*I*P*P*E*E. (I’ll stop now… promise!).

Flat out working (again) finishing off the big data entry project I’ve had on the go.  G will have the kids for me tomorrow afternoon so I can get stuck in and get everything finished in time.

I hope you’re having an enjoyable weekend?

F x

Oh excitement, excitement – I actually WON a give-away on a Blog! I never win anything – seriously!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been following the read-along on Brené Brown’s blog for her book “I thought it was just me (but it isn’t)”. Every Friday she’s been having a “Trust Gratitude Inspiration Friday” with a giveaway – and last week I left a comment and won a prize.  I couldn’t believe it when I got an email today to say I was one of the three lucky winners.  You can check her blog here to see what I won.  Woooo hoooo.

I felt like a different look for my blog – so have gone for this “Sunburst” theme.  What do you think?  They say a change is as good as a holiday….

Here are another couple of Angus’ poems he wrote about his rabbit, Andre.  Thank you to the lovely people who have left comments about his work.  He’s very thrilled that you’re enjoying his poetry. 

Concrete … (Andre)

My rabbit Andre is something I couldn’t live without

He is big and soft with a little round tail

He is very cute

I LOVE MY RABBIT!

Cinquain … (Andre)

Andre

Cuddley, fluffy

Running, eating, playing

He’s soft and lovely.

Andre is going to school tomorrow morning to visit the class!  Hmmmm, large rabbit in small cat cage for transportation – could be interesting!  Must remember to take the camera along. 

I’m slowly plugging away at the Survey data entry.  I still have about 100 Surveys to finish, and might get more before the end of the week.  I’m also doing a few extra hours at the Church this week as the normal Secretary is away sick with Shingles.  Poor thing.  So busy, busy, as always.

Exciting news of the week – Bella is reading!  Hip hip hooray.  Her Teacher started sending readers home last week and told me this morning that she’s already bumped Bella up two levels because last week’s book seemed too easy for her.  We’ve also dragged out the collection of readers hanging around from when the boy’s learned to read and she’s taken off like a rocket.  It’s so exciting watching them take those first steps from sounding out letters to “hey Mum, I’m reading this” with a big grin on their face.  The Teacher was gracious enough to say “you’ve laid wonderful building blocks for Bella” this morning.  She’s such a gorgeous Teacher.  I wish I could convince her just to move class with Bella each year!

I’ll try and get some video of little Miss and stick it on the blog.  I bought a whoop-de-doo video converter thing a few months back but haven’t had a chance to get it going yet.

Will also post some birthday photos in the next few days if I get a chance.

Well back to the data entry.

Thanks for stopping by…

F x

Amended later:  I forgot to mention which prize I won on the blog – it was the Jen Lee CD AND the Bone Sigh Arts Print! 

You’ve probably noticed the Love Quotes which appear on my side bar whenever you visit my blog.
I thought today’s was worth commenting on:-

“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within” by James A. Baldwin.

Don’t you think that’s so true?

If you’re a regular visitor here, then you know that I separated from my husband last year. I don’t even know WHY I have Love Quotes (of all things!) on the sidebar of my blog, but I stumbled across these quotes wandering around the web one day, and thought some of them seemed rather lovely.

Ultimately I think we all long to be loved; we all long for that special someone in our life who we can share the ups and downs with.

But when we find that special someone, we can’t afford to hide our true selves – we have to be open, and honest, because if we’re not – nasty things start to build up behind the scenes and come out in ways we might never expect, or wish for.

One day I might meet somebody else to share my life with, and I’m going to write down this quote so I remember … to be honest, and to be open, and not to hide behind masks.

Hug your special mate today, if you have one! And ALWAYS be yourself.

Fx

Well my poor blog has been sadly neglected AGAIN!  You will all be thinking I’ve dropped off the face of the Earth.  I’m still here, just madly busy and not having much time for anything except work lately.

I thought I’d share another couple of Angus’ poems with you (and again, the spelling is all his – just in case you think I’m a shocking speller – he he):-

Haiku

Green Elms in the woods

Towering above most trees

Standing tall and proud.

The wind rustles leaves

The petals bend to the earth

The seconds tick till spring.

Tanka

Hedgehogs are spiky

Their skin is all rough and course

They are very cute

They are very short and squat

I like them so very much.

I’ll post a few more soon that he wrote about his rabbit, which I really liked.

Well it’s been a very busy week (again) for me.  I’ve been working flat out – and have been busy farming out data entry to other Virtual Assistants in Perth.  I’ve also got a friend who’s giving me a hand locally which is great.

I’ve been offered 2 days a week working at the kids’ school for 5 weeks this term, and 5 weeks next term.  One of the admin staff is going on Long Service Leave so they asked if I would be interested in helping out.  I’ll job share with another lady – so hopefully that will work out okay.  It will make the mornings stressful getting everyone up and ready and out of the door, but I’m sure I’ll manage.

I was also offered full-time work at the church, but I don’t believe it’s what I’m meant to be doing at the moment.  The office lady is leaving in about two months time, and as much as I would love to work for the church on a permanent basis, it comes back to the fact that I only want to work school hours (they really need someone at least 8.30-4pm) and I don’t want to have to work school holidays.  Of course with my own business I’m always going to have to work at least partially during the school hols, but at least most of the work I can do from home, or make arrangements for the one day of the week that I have a commitment at the moment.  The whole point of starting my own business was to have flexibility and I really don’t want to have to put the kids in daycare for lengthy periods if I can avoid it.

On a different note; I’ve found the Messies Manual Book soooooo excellent.  It’s given me the kick up the bum I needed to get myself organised and to stop procrastinating.  This morning I set myself a time limit to get housework done before I went to work – and I actually did it.  It’s going to take me a month or two to get the house de-cluttered and more under control, but I have a plan and I’m going for it.  Yippee.  Thanks Mum.  I’d take you out for a nice thank you lunch/coffee … but the distance thing makes it hard so I’ll have to owe you one next year when you visit! 

Tomorrow we have Angus’ birthday party – have invited about 17 kids to the local pool where we’ve booked the BIFF (big inflatable thingee) then will have pizza and icecream cake afterwards.  I’ve promised Angus that I’ll have a go on the BIFF.  My friend has very kindly offered to capture the photographic proof – but no promises that it will end up on the blog.  I’d have no readers left after that!

Mother’s Day tomorrow too.  I really dislike the commercialism of Mother’s Day.  I always want homemade cards and a hug on the day, and that’s enough for me.

Well I had better get back to work.  I have some legal transcription to get through tonight.  I’m really loving my job as a Virtual Assistant.  Every week is different and I love having the flexibility and variety.  It’s wonderful.

Thanks for stopping by….

F x