Blairs Boys

The lovely Angella has tagged me for a meme. I have to list 6 random facts about myself.

I have previously done a similar meme, requiring me to list 7 random facts about myself. You can read it here. I thought it would be a bit naff for me to rehash the same list, so I’ve put in the hard yards to think of 6 MORE random facts:

1. I really dislike changing toilet rolls. I dislike it so much that if I head into the downstairs toilet and see that the roll is almost empty, I will go upstairs to use the other bathroom!

2. I HATE bananas. I hate anything that is banana flavoured. I even hate the smell of banana. One of my ex-work colleagues loved bananas, but knew not to put her discarded banana skins in the trash can between our desks. That’s how bad I am!

I remember spooning banana baby food into my babies’ mouths and almost gagging because of the smell. I have definitely developed more of a tolerance to them after several years of peeling them for clumsy toddler fingers and retrieving bruised & battered skins from school lunchboxes.
Or perhaps I have simply learned to hold my breath whilst doing the deed?

I don’t remember a time in my life where I didn’t feel this way about bananas. Therefore, I’m chalking it up to a traumatic experience with mashed banana when I was a baby.

3. The cushions on my couches MUST be in a particular configuration at all times. Nobody else on the face of the earth knows the proper pattern. My husband certainly doesn’t.
We have 2 couches in our living room. One is a 3-seater and the other is a 2-seater. Both are red. On the 3-seater, there must be one grey cushion at one end, and one grey cushion and one brown cushion at the other end. On the 2-seater, there must be one grey cushion and one brown cushion at one end, with nothing at the other end.
Oh, and the brown cushions must always go on top of the grey ones. Always.

I already know I have OCD, so you don’t need to bring that up. M’kay?

4. I like reading Prison Break fanfic. I’m so addicted to Wentworth Miller the TV show that I need to read “fiction about characters or settings written by admirers of the original work, rather than by the original creators” (definition taken from here).

My favourite story on this particular site is called “Izzie’s Dad”. It’s sweet and fairly innocent, albiet a little soppy and cheesy at times. However, it provides me with a nice MiSa fix when I’m experiencing withdrawal symptoms (MiSa stands for Michael+Sara for those who don’t know).

The author is currently writing a sequel called “Izzie’s Dad 2″. I am enjoying it, but not as much as the first one. Perhaps it’s because Michael Scofield is about 50 years old in the sequel? He loses some of his hotness by being a similar age to my father. Ahem.

5. I am a huge puzzle fan. Crosswords, Wordfinds, Sudoku, Kakuro … I love them all.

Recently, I discovered Pixel Puzzles. Basically, it’s a block-placing puzzle based on a grid with a pixilated picture hidden inside. Using logic, you determine which squares are shaded and which should remain empty. Eventually, the hidden picture is completely exposed.

A puzzle combining logic and art! What could be better? I am definitely hooked on them. I bought a whole book of them and did the first 10 puzzles in about 2 days!

This website is a great place to go and give them a try. On here they are called “Pic-a-Pix”. You can do them online, or download paper ones to do while you’re watching TV.

6. I can’t whistle. Even my 5-year-old can whistle - and he could from the age of 3 or 4! As you can imagine, he finds it quite hilarious that I can’t do it. Just the thing to start off a “why my mum isn’t cool” list.

Two years ago, I signed up for an amazing ride. I joined a fantastic new online scrapbooking store, forum & gallery called Scrapbook Essentials. Owned & managed by the wonderful Meg, it soon became a huge part of my life.

It was here that my scrapbooking really grew, and I made many new friends. I was inspired, encouraged and motivated. Eventually, I was given the amazing opportunity to join the Scrapbook Essentials Design Team. And I have to say, the last 6 months have been amazing. I have loved every minute of my time on Meg’s team. Her kits are always fabulous and the other DT members are beyond awesome.

On Thursday night, I received some sad news. Meg has made the gut-wrenchingly hard decision to close down the business. Scrapbook Essentials will cease trading on 31 May. I know this decision has been incredibly hard for her, but I understand completely and I support her 100%. At the end of the day, it all comes down to priorities. Meg is putting her 3 young children first, and that is definitely the right choice. I am in awe of Meg’s courage, and have nothing but admiration for her.

How do I feel? I actually felt pretty numb for the first 24 hours after Meg phoned me. I was mostly sad for her as I know how much she is hurting. Reality finally hit me last night, and I had a wee cry. I haven’t felt able to blog about it until now. I didn’t really know what to say.

While I am unbelievably sad that Scrapbook Essentials will no longer be part of my life, I have absolutely no regrets about jumping on board for this amazing ride. Even if I had known it would end like this, I still would have strapped myself in, with my crash helmet on.

I am grateful for the opportunity that Meg has given me to be on her team.
I am grateful for the wonderful friends I have made on the forum.
I am grateful that most of these friends have blogs, and I know we will keep in touch after the forum is gone.

The ride itself may be over, but the memories will last forever.
Meg, it’s been a absolute blast - the ride of a lifetime. And I’ll never forget it.

Forget sneak peeks - today you can see it all!

Here are the Design Team layouts I created using Urban Rhapsody, the May kit from Scrapbook Essentials:

BEAR IN THE FRIDGE

You might remember my post about Beer and Hail. Rob asked Tyler to put a beer in the fridge but he put a bear in there! I used my blog post for the journalling on this layout.
Instructions for how to create this layout are in the kit.

YOU & HIM

To create the flower effect on the left hand side, I used my Heidi Swapp “Hibiscus” mask as a “stencil”, by drawing around it and then hand-cutting the design with a craft knife. You could do the same with any mask or stencil.
To make the title, I applied letter stickers, then drew around them with white pen and peeled them off again. I used Glimmer Mist (love this stuff!) as a thin “paint” and painted the inside of the letters.

Journalling: Love the bond you two share … it’s so special to see … Ethan & Rob @ Wenderholm 1/1/08.

{30}

I had heaps of photos of my 30th birthday party, but most needed to be cropped to cut out clashing backgrounds & random people who weren’t looking at the camera! So I decided to create a photo “montage” effect.

Journalling: Turning 30 was awesome. None of this “Oh, poor me, I’m sooo old” business! My lovely hubby threw me a fantastic party, complete with BBQ tea, marshmallow toasting, cricket and SingStar (until 2am even!). 30 is great so far. I feel young and look young, life is good, and I am happy!

DREAM

I wanted to keep this one nice and simple, to make the photo really stand out. I absolutely love this photo of Tyler! The “dream” rub-on was perfect. No further journalling needed, really.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends and spirit - and you’re keeping all of them in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family, health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.

Life is a journey to be savoured each step of the way. Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a Mystery, and Today is a gift. That’s why we call it The Present.

______________________________

I don’t think it was a coincidence that I read this today.

Sometimes I feel like juggling those five balls is too hard. Too often I treat the “work” ball as though it is made of glass, and the other balls as though they are made of rubber.

I definitely needed to be reminded that today is a gift. I need to live for today - not dwelling on the past, not wishing that tomorrow would come NOW, just enjoying today for what it is.

I hope all the mums out there had a good day yesterday!
How was my Mother’s Day? It was really nice.

I didn’t get to sleep in, because we all had to get ready for church. But before I got out of bed, the boys came in and gave me a lovely card and a present (the new Lee Child book), followed by breakfast in bed. Ethan had written in the card: “from Ethan and Tyler, we love you.”
We had our special Mother’s Day cafe service at church, which went really well.
After church, my parents, sister and Grandma came here for lunch, and we gave Mum and Grandma their presents.
Later in the afternoon, Rob played with the boys for a couple of hours while I lay on my bed and read my new book. Then he cooked a delicious dinner for us all.
A pretty perfect day, really!

In other news … I scrapped all day on Saturday! Rob took the boys fishing in the morning and then took them to the park in the afternoon, while I played with the new kit from Scrapbook Essentials .

Here are few sneak peeks:

When life gives you lemons, what do you do? Do you make lemonade? Or do you allow yourself to feel sour and bitter?

Yesterday I was feeling annoyed about a few things. Just silly little things that really “ripped my nightie”, so to speak.
But today I have made a decision. Being annoyed uses way too much energy! So I am attempting to look at things a different way and find the silver lining in each seemingly sour situation.

* I found out yesterday that Tyler’s preschool (daycare) fees are going up. By about 25%.
I was bummed, because we were hoping to save some money by reducing his hours at preschool. Now that he is going to afternoon Kindy, he only needs to be at preschool on Tuesday & Thursday mornings, instead of all day. We should have been saving $40/month. But with the fee increase, we are now paying THE SAME AMOUNT that we were paying for 2 full days!
Silver lining :: I also found out yesterday that Tyler’s preschool will be finally opting into the Government’s optional 20 Free Hours scheme from 1 July. Which means, since he is only there for 10h/week, that preschool will cost us NOTHING. We will be saving over $300/month!

* Rob was feeling sick last night, with a suspected tummy bug. The nausea was getting progressively worse as the afternoon/evening wore on. Rob rarely gets sick, so for him to get the barf bucket out, I knew it must have been bad. The thought of a tummy bug weaving it’s way through the entire family? Not worth thinking about.
Silver lining :: I prayed for him. His nausea went away. By the time he went to bed, he was feeling completely fine.

* I have been having some issues with the database I use for doing my work at home. The internet platform they use for remote access is, er, temperamental, to put it mildly. Any miniscule internet outages cause it to disconnect (and cause me to lose whatever work I had done since the last Save). These are the “normal” internet outages that Outlook and most websites are able to recover from without any problem whatsoever. They are outages so small and unimportant that you normally wouldn’t notice them. But with the platform I use? They are definitely noticeable. I am tired of saving my work every nano-second and turning my modem off and on a million times a day. Slight exaggeration, but you can sense my frustration, no?
It’s nothing that I can fix. The IT department at work are “hoping to make the platform more stable in the future”. Hmmm … the words “in the future” don’t exactly fill me with hope.
Silver lining :: I know I am incredibly lucky to be able to work from home. A few little blips during the day are TOTALLY worth it to be here 24/7. I must always remember that. I know that many other mums would give anything to be able to work from home.
If anything, I am getting a lesson in patience!

Okay, I’m off to make some lemonade.

Today was Tyler’s first day at afternoon Kindy.

** Here in NZ, children start Kindergarten between the ages of 3 and 4 (depending on the length of the waiting list at each centre). They stay at Kindy until they turn 5, and then they start school (Year 0/1).

Anyway … Tyler has been SO. EXCITED. about starting Kindy. Almost every day during the school holidays, he would ask if he was going. This morning he finished his breakfast, then came and picked up his backpack - he was ready to go! We had to explain (again!) that Kindy started after lunch. When it was finally lunch time, he tidied up his toys in about 10 seconds flat (extremely out of character!) because he knew what would be coming next!

Since Monday is Rob’s day off, and I work from home, we were both able to walk down to Kindy with Tyler.
The Kindergarten is on the other side of the school, and it was lunchtime as we were walking through. We saw Ethan sitting with his friends eating his lunch, so we stopped to say hello. Tyler shouted “I’m going to Kindy!” very loudly … I’m pretty sure every child in Year 2 heard him, LOL!

When we got through the Kindy gate, Tyler was off!
He was so excited to find out which cubby hole would be his. We found his name on the board and looked to see what the picture was. It was a flower. Yikes. I held my breath, waiting for him to completely freak out and shout, “I don’t want a stupid bum-bum flower! Flowers are for giiiiiiiiiirls.” But he didn’t freak out at all. He just ran over to the cubby holes and looked carefully until he found the one with the flower picture on it. Then he proudly put his bag inside. Yes!!
He found his name on the whiteboard, and then sat down to write it. He did a pretty good job, and I only had to help him a little bit. As soon as he was finished, he raced outside, yelling “Bye, Daddy!” as he ran over to the playground. I actually had to follow him over there to get a goodbye hug & kiss!!

He is SO different to his brother. Ethan took a long time to settle into Kindy - it was probably a few months. I know Tyler’s confidence and independence will help him settle in really quickly.

Afterwards as Rob and I were walking home, he looked over at me and said, “Suck it up.” So I did. If I had been on my own, I SO would have cried. Why? Because it’s a bittersweet milestone. I love seeing him try new things, and I know he is more than ready for this next stage. But at the same time? I wish he would stay little forever. He’s my baby, after all.

Anyway, enough of the silly mummy ramblings.
Tyler had a great afternoon. And that’s what it’s all about, really.

On this day, 9 years ago:

**Sorry about the quality of these photos. Most wedding photographers weren’t digital back in 1999. And my scanner is broken, so I had to take photos of photos.**

I look back over the last 9 years and I can honestly say they have been the best years of my life. So far, I’ve spent all of my 20’s with the man of my dreams. And it’s been amazing. Yes, there have been ups and downs; no marriage is perfect. It is hard work sometimes - but it is so worth it!

Rob and I exchanged cards this morning. He also got me a chocolate rose (which I ate for breakfast). We will be celebrating properly on Saturday. The kids are going to Mum & Dad’s for the whole day & night. Yeah!
It is Rob’s turn to organise things this year, and he has planned for us to spend Saturday up in Matakana. We will go to the Farmer’s Market, look around Matakana village, have lunch (at a vineyard, perhaps?) and catch a movie. Then we’ll do some shopping. Every year we buy gifts from the traditional anniversary gift list. Nine years is pottery, so we will buy ourselves a present (something for the house) from Morris & James.
I’m not sure what the plans are for the rest of the afternoon/evening, but it’s good to have some surprises, right?

… to pull out a loose baby tooth.

1. Tie string around tooth and attach other end to door handle. Slam door.
2. Tie string around tooth and attach other end to heavy brick. Throw brick off balcony.
3. Pliers.
4. The flannel grab.
5. Wiggle it. Just a little bit. (Or a lot).

OR …

… you can get your little brother to kick it out, Superhero-styles.

Ethan’s top 2 middle teeth have been loose for a few months. Over the weekend, one of them got really REALLY loose. He asked us to pull it out a few times. We tried, but we didn’t want to pull too hard, and one root was still attached. Poppa offered to get his pliers, Uncle Greg offered to get a piece of string. Not surprisingly, their offers were refused.

He has been pretty happy to just wiggle it a lot, and wait for it to come out by itself. Which I have to say, has been more pleasant than the drama of his first wiggly tooth.

Last night, the boys were play-fighting in the living room.
(By the way, this is a fairly normal occurrence in our house during the dreaded hours of 5-7pm).

All of a sudden, we hear Ethan say, “Tyler kicked my teeth out.”

He is standing there, holding 2 teeth in this hand.

Tyler says, “I thought he wanted them out.”

Ethan says, “He didn’t ask me first, he just kicked me in the mouth. I am so proud of Tyler!”

Ummm?

I did tell Tyler that kicking somebody in the mouth isn’t really a good idea, even if they have wiggly teeth. But Ethan’s obvious pleasure at Tyler’s “achievement” made my warning sound completely ridiculous!

Just quietly, I’m glad they are out. I remembered (at 10pm!) to put 2 coins under his pillow, and now we’ll have a short reprieve from loose teeth.

4 down … lots more to go.

And he’s not even 6 yet.

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent Anzac weekend up in Whangarei. Rob’s parents live there, along with 2 of his siblings and their spouses & kids. We obviously went to spend time with family, but there was another reason for our trip this time.

A reunion.

Rob went to a Youth Group when he lived in Whangarei as a teenager. He has kept in touch with some of his Youth Group friends, but many of them he hadn’t seen for 15 years.
Rob’s former Youth Leader (Max) organised a Youth Group reunion. It included an afternoon tea catch-up, to which all the ex-members’ spouses and children were invited. All up, there were probably about 25 kids between the ages of 2-12. And it rained. Fortunately, we were able to relocate from Max’s home to the local church hall, which meant the kids could run wild cause chaos kill each other play quietly while the adults chatted in the adjoining room. The kids actually got along really well. The older ones looked after the younger ones, and they had a fantastic (albeit very loud) time.

Later that evening, the adults all went out to a local restaurant for dinner, sans kids. We left our boys with Rob’s dad for the evening (we were staying at his place for the weekend). Poppa decided to go all-out and took the boys to the circus while we were at dinner. It was the same circus we’d seen at the Easter Show (Out of Africa), but the extended version included extra acts like a “real, live elephant!” and miniature horses. Poppa also splashed out on ringside seats, so they were EXTRA close to the action. We got home from dinner around 9pm, and the boys had just been tucked into bed. They were still reeling from their exciting evening, but eventually dropped off to sleep.

The reunion itself was heaps of fun, even for me (being the spouse of an ex-member and not an actual ex-member). I knew a few of the others already, but got to know some new people as well. Everybody was so friendly. Max had photos from their Youth Group days, and I had fun looking at all the photos of Rob when he was 15. I didn’t really know him then (although he did come down to Orewa occasionally, as his older brother Greg had already moved down here). The best part about looking at the photos? Laughing at the tragic 80’s haircuts and clothing!

The rest of our weekend was spent catching up with family and generally having fun! The weather wasn’t that nice, but the company was great.

Speaking of great company … I finally met my lovely online friend and fellow Design Team member Janine in real life! She lives in Whangarei. Not only that, but she and Carl are actually best friends with Rob’s little bro and his wife!
My boys dropped me off at Janine’s place on Saturday morning so we could chat in peace, and then came back to pick me up a couple of hours later.
Janine, it was so lovely meeting you! You’ve been a wonderful friend to me online (I love our email sessions, girl!) and our meeting just cements our friendship even further, with promises of more catch-ups in the future.