My little gardener

Hollie seems to have a very green thumb. For the last 2 years we have bought bare rooted roses and grown them in pots. We buy them online and it is Kevin's job to tend to them every afternoon. Hollie helps him and this year has become very interested in gardening herself.

She even found seed pods in the yard and germinated them, planted them out and now we are the proud owners of these 4 tree seedling that I don't know what we are going to do with. I didn't think they'd survive the germination process let alone the planting out.

Here is Hollie with her seedlings.

Yesterday Hollie found her first red strawberry. She was so excited and said it was the most delicious strawberry she had every had. How cute.

At kindy they are also growing plants. Hollie's seddling is one of the biggest in the class. Everyday she shows me how much bigger it has grown. Yesterday when we were at Crazy Clarke's she wanted to buy more seeds to grow. She has been collecting the seeds off the lettuce plants to sow next season. She has a lot of patience for a girl of nearly 4 1/2. We are very proud of her.

An ultrasound

On Friday we went for the 19 week ultrasound. We were most relieved everything was ok. Unfortunately we didn't get a good picture of the face and there wasn't a chance to get a head and body shot like the others have. They couldn't get the hands because it had hands on head or hands on chest. It is head down. Face down. Very difficult for them to get measurements but at least everything is progressing well and NORMAL.

This is as good as it got for head and body.

3D profile. The umbilical cord is in front of its nose.

Another 3D.

Its feet.

Maybe I have time now

Maybe I have time to upload some pics and talk about what I've been doing lately. My MIL has gone home, Jessica is watching a Playschool DVD and Hannah is desing up as Dorothy the Dinosaur so I may just have a few minutes to update.

This is a very bad picture of the locusts which destroyed this tree. There were hundreds of them in this tree. Possibly thousands. Time will tell if it will recover.

Heading to Brisbane for Creative Block, me with the Scrappy Tech team. What a wonderful few days away.
 

I got to meet up with my Mum for dinner. It was lovely to see her even if it was only for a short while.

About to board the Brisbane Eye. It was a funny time. Thanks for the ear lick Heidi.

Packed and ready to go home. Pity I didn't have a bag big enough to take all my projects, make and takes and shopping. Ah, that's what Father-in-laws are for.

And in the bottom of one of the borrowed bags (which was mine, I'd just left it in Brisbane at their house) I found my engagement ring!! It had been lost for 3 months.

I arrived home to a sick househould. Here is Jessica sleeping in our bed trying to recover.

Kevin with his birthday cake chosen by Jessica. Can you guess by the colour of the icing?

I'm sure now that the house has returned to normal that I'll be able to update a little more reguarly. I must away now. There is too much fighting. Peace and Mummy time over.

Easter Saturday

This is the result of a long, long, long day. Here Jessica went to bed after the day we had today. She had been in trouble many times for mucking around in her room and not sleeping. This sleep was meant to make her well behaved and happy during the long Easter Mass tonight.

What a day today. We got up, had the last of the hot cross buns and loaded the kids in the pram, Hollie on her bike and we went to town. Hollie rode all the way!!! That's 1.7kms for a nearly 4 year old. Pretty good I reckon. We thought ahead and took a dog lead to attach to the bike for the homeward bound journey and Kevin towed her for part of the way.

After the street parade we came home and headed for Ilfracombe. There was another street parade and market stalls. A free jumping castle, face painting and rides in the Cob and Co. coach. The girls enjoyed the jumping castle and Hollie patiently waited in line for the face painting for 10 minutes to get her face done while Jessica just walked straight to the painter as there was no-one else in line by that time.

Home for sleeps (a very rare thing in this house), then a movie and dinner before baths and Mass. Hannah cried, no screamed the whole time during Mass and Kevin or I missed out. Kevin eventually taking her for a drive in the car to get her to sleep. She cried for 20 mins in the car while he drove her around Longreach. There aren't many places to drive to in Longreach, just lappies of town.

After the eventful day Hollie still wasn't asleep at 9:30pm!!! Tomorrow will be better when they are charged full on chocolate. Yeah sure.

My baby is one now

Birthday girl.

On Thursday my baby girl turned one. Gosh I can still remember how I felt just after she was born. Wow the time has gone so quickly. It's quite scary actually. It has been a truely wonderful year with her. She has been such a good baby.It is delightful to see her grow. She has just started to get some real attitude about her too. She doesn't like it when people take things off her, eat food and not share it, go somewhere she wants to go and she lets you know about it too. Kevin said over the weekend that he will be glad when she can talk because at least she can let us know what she wants. Unfortunately when that happens they let you know about everything. LOL.

Hannah in her party dress.

We celebrated Hannah's birthday with presents in the morning before Kevin went to work. We didn't go to playgroup because Hollie and I were sick. Jessica and I made the cupcakes for Hannah and they didn't burn which is a first for this oven. Hollie and Gan made the icing. When Kevin got home from school we had the cakes and the happy birthday song and tucked into the cupcakes. Unfortunately Hannah burnt her finger on the flame of the candle but when she was given the cake to destroy she was fine.

Hollie the princess had to put a good dress on for Hannah's party. This is the dress Caileigh wore to be our flower girl when we were married. Jessica, not such a princess, just wore a normal play dress because it was "pretty with flowers on it". They looked so cute all standing and dancing while holding hands. Poor Hannah can't keep up though.

A new Car

We bought a new car on Thursday. How exitig. It's an IMAX. The car that we've been looking at getting for when we are a family of  6. It meets all our requirements, except for looking cool. It has 8 seats, a big boot and drives well. We're not in the market for a new car because we don't have a 4th kid on the way but we now have enough room for 3 more children. Let's hope we don't need it for that reason.

Unfortunately it's in Brisbane until the end of June when the in-laws come out for Hollie's birthday. It is too far to travel to bring it back. We are wanting our Commodore to be in Brisbane so we need to swap the cars over. The current plan is the in-laws will drive the new car up and the old one back in June but gosh that is so long to wait. SO I'm a little sad that I won't get to see the car pass through 20,000km on the odometre. I would have loved to drive it into Longreach. Drive it home. But I have to deal with that. I just can't wait to drive it.

No pictures yet. I may be able to upload one if my mother-in-law took a photo of it and has it on her camera.

Diet and exercise

The diet, salad and tuna for luch most days and an increase in vegies for dinner, and the swimming and aqua aeorbics don't seem to be working. Initially I lost a lot of weight. 3kgs in 3 weeks but I have since put on weight and no I don't think the fat is turning into muscle that happened a long time ago. I have no idea what's going on. I don't feel heavier, in fact my clothes are baggy and I'm feeling really good except being a little tired from late nights and all the exercise. I did have a lady at aqua the other night, who hasn't seen me in a while, say that I looked really good and toned around the shoulders and my chin/neck area looked more trim. That was a lovely compliment because I don't know her apart from aqua classes so she was in no need for her to be polite as women often are. Maybe I am doing something right. It just sucks to put on weight when you're putting in all this effort.