Living my dream

4.15am

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!

Too early to be up. Daniel has now slept through the night several times. He is feeding well and is a big boy. Its time to make this official. So tonight is night one of trying. Thus I'm on the computer while he has a wee cry.

UPDATE: Ok, its now 4.45am and he hasn't been crying for 10 mins. I think he's gone back to sleep! YES! I'm going to try and go back to bed for another hours sleep. Wish us luck.

In the meantime heres something to make me feel better....a photo of me and all three kids at the beach last Monday.

Check out this weather!

Don't know what the weather is like where you are, but here, it is AMAZING! We have had hot sunny summery days for about 4-5 days running and its just divine. All the kids and I have been to the beach for the last 3 days. They love it. Matt and Sarah are so grown up now, charging around the beach collecting shells and seaweed for their sandcastles. Wow. Where did that time go?

This morning with the older kids at daycare Dan and I went for a walk along a walkway I spotted a week or so ago. It goes from one beach to another, then theres another one to the next beach. It literally runs along the water line and is BEAUTIFUL. You've gotta love this country we're lucky enough to live in!

On the down side of things, yesterday I took Daniel to the doctor for his checkup/immunisations. Man I hate that! He did pretty well. Obviously he cried when he got jabbed. And not just once, not twice, but three times with a needle! Poor little tyke. Then he stopped really quickly. He's such a good boy! The twins weren't like that. They would cry alot longer. And to this day don't like going to the doctors. But worse than him crying, was his sooky Mum crying. Yep, I started even before an injection was given. LOL. The nurse said it was quite common, but I felt so silly!

The scrapping community is full of kindness

Well, I got home today to more parcels from my scrapping buddies. I can't get over how the scrapping community is filled with kindness. Seriously, I've been blessed to meet some amazing women through scrapping, as I know I've said before, and I still can't believe how lucky I am to count alot of them as friends. Thanks everyone, but especially today to Sally Donovan and Nic Howard who have sent parcels for the birth of Dan the man. Sally created a mini album in an altered cube with photos off my blog. Its teeny tiny and very cute. It even got Andy thinking. He saw how Sally had made the mini album and decided I should make a big version with photos of the family for Daniel to look at when he's lying on his rug. Thanks Sally! LOL.

And Nic, well I'm proud to say I now have a Nic Howard original in the form of a card! How cool. LOL. But she also sent me a gift. It looks interesting and I'll update more on that when I can. LOL.

I also finished a LO today about my family. You've seen this photo from a post previously and I just decided to scrap it for fun, cause I love the photo and I'd just got my new Tarisota pack. Yeha.

Photos, photos and more photos

We've had a really busy weekend! So lots and lots of photos were taken and I decided we just 'had' to pop some up here.

First Friday - we went to the zoo. It was fun. And the kids for the first time took control of where they wanted to go and how quickly. I got dragged from one animal to the next very quickly and we even had time to go to the park at Western Springs as well. Whew!

Anyway, here's my fav shot:

Then over the weekend we went to Hamilton for the day. I wanted to go to the craft show and we thought it would be a nice outing for everyone.

Well this is what I managed to buy. Not a lot, but stuff all the same! Some of it is for stuff coming up, others just cause I really 'need' it. LOL.

Right next to the events centre, there is a huge park and so the kids and Andy hung out there. It was one of the best parks we've been to. If you're in Hamilton and have kids - take them there! They also had a travelling group of caravans/stalls which had ponies and a bouncy castle. Well our kids are a little on the nervous side trying anything new and so it was a mission seeing if they wanted to go on these things.....yes, no, yes, no, yes, no! ARGH!!!!! Anyway, in the end Matt decided he would have a ride on Peanut the pony. Too cute!

then it was off to the bouncy castle. Boy were they keen on trying this until they found out they had to take their shoes and socks off. My goodness!!!!!! What a drama that turned out to be. LOL. Still once they got on, we couldn't get them off. Luckily we have the countdown thing which seems to work pretty well in situations like this. whew. Check out these bouncing bunnies!!!! Love the motion in Matts photo and the tongue hanging out! That seems to be a new thing of his. Very cute.

The other thing I wanted to show you all was one very proud big brother. He constantly wants to hold Dan and hug him and kiss him which is all very well until you are breastfeeding and well, suffice to say it hurts when big brothers yank little brothers around! LOL.

But here are a couple of shots. One up close and cute. One to show just how big our wee man is getting.

Oh and a big hi to Sandra who popped by today to visit and meet Dan. It was really great to see you and can't wait to start the classes again.

Ok, go and enjoy that sun everyone!!!!!

No 8 Wired, dare 8 is up

Yep, the new dare is up and its a goodie. Go check it out here. This time round you have to incorporate flowers onto a male page. Now the catch is that the male must be over 5 years old! Here's my LO:

Now I've gotta admit I kinda cheated cause there is a baby in there! BUT there is also my wonderful hubby too. And he's definitely over 5. LOL.

So I've used actual flowers plus flowers in the PP, rubons and trim.

My take on making it more masculine was colour. Lots of big bold bright boy colours.

The funny thing is I'd actually just done a LO with a great big flower on it (about Andy) which was part of my entry for a comp so I couldn't use it or show it and so had to do ANOTHER one for the dare blog! LOL. Gotta be good right?!

So a few people have been asking me how I get time to scrap? So here's my answer....

I find scrapping is my 'relaxation' time. Its about doing something that uses my brain (like work used to) at the same time as using a creative part of me. To put it simply...It makes me feel good. So once the kids have gone to bed, this is my time to create. The best part is that my 'scrap room' is actually the dining room table which means I don't get seperated from Andy. So come evening time once dinner is over and kids are in bed, we pop on the tv, he settles down to work on his laptop, I set up a new LO and we work and chat together. Its nice. Its comforting. But we both get to do things we 'need' to (in Andy's case he really does 'need' too! LOL). Ok, so the downside is that we don't have a dining room table anymore, but don't let Andy hear me say that! Its his pet peeve right now. Oh dear!

I generally don't scrap during the day as I figure the kids need my time more (but Wed/Thur - daycare days are an exception).

I've gotta admit, that my new 6 week old boy is a good boy. He doesn't cry unless there's something wrong. So having a very content, happy boy means I'm not stressed. That sure helps!

Ok, so I went away and got thinking and just had to come back to ask a question. When do you scrap? And what stops you from scrapping? Can you tell I'm wondering if I scrap tooooo much?! LOL. NEVER! Mwahahaha.

Anyway, its Sat and we're off to a craft show. I really don't need anymore scrapping stuff, but again, don't let Andy hear me say that! LOL.

Have a good one.

A LO to share

I recently entered the Scrapboxx DT call which is a process of elimination. Each round you are asked to do a certain something and from there they eliminate people until at the end of round 6 there is a winner. Round 1 was HARD, you had to create a LO which cost no more than $5. I didn't realise just how much I spent on each individual LO. Wow! So I did this LO and am really pleased with it (it started off with a white background but was a bit stark. This is much warmer). So round 1 is over and this was my LO:

I was thrilled when I saw I had gone through to the next round. This time we have to draw a sketch, then create your LO based on that.

So I did one, then decided I wanted to do another. Goodness knows why?! LOL. But anyway, here is the one I'm NOT using (and the sketch - just for fun).

Round two doesn't close til next week (Thurs 28th) so wish me luck.

Now I also wanted to show you some gorgeous pressies I've been given by my wonderful scrapping buddies....Evana, Donna and Lisa. Thanks so much for thinking of Daniel and I and the family. Its really sweet. Totally unexpected and truely special. Thanks!

Ok, that's about it for now. Hope you're all having good weeks.

Yesterday just got better - and a tag

We've had some pretty good days since Dan was born, but yesterday topped them. After a great morning, we had a fantastic afternoon/evening as well.

The shopping went really well. I went somewhere that had both a supermarket and shops so I could get 'everything' done.

At the supermarket we bumped into a midwife from our hospital. She thought the twins were 'adorable' and we got talking (as only Trina does, my hubby says). When I saw her uniform with 'midwife' on it, I casually mentioned that my Mum was a midwife and it turns out she knows her and in fact was on duty the night I had Dan. She remembered it well and had very nice things to say about Mum. It was lovely.

Plus the shopping went really well. The kids listened to me and did as I asked. Wow!

I also managed to get Dan his 'first Xmas' tree decoration. I know, what on earth are Xmas decorations doing in the shops in Sept?????? It gets earlier and earlier every year. But they were there and cute so the kids chose Dan his one. In true child fashion its one of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet (hugging a candy cane), but it has the date on it and is pretty cute so that was a winner!

Then when we were getting ready for baths, Matt told us he needed to do a poo. I thought he was joshing as we haven't toilet trained yet (although they are doing it themselves as this story proves). So off he went, grabbed his stool and jumped up. A few minutes later I went in to see he was ok, and with his little red face he proudly exclaimed he had done two! Sure enough he had. His first one. Seriously, how cool is that?! And its even more exciting for us as we're not 'in training'. Hmmmm. Maybe we should be?

Then to finish everything off, Andy fixed the wheel from the double buggy. You see we went for a walk the other day and Andy had pumped up the tyres a 'little' too much. LOL. Like a LOT too much and that night we heard this almight bang from downstairs. Off Andy ran to check who was invading our home to find nothing. It wasn't until the next morning when we went to use the buggy we realised what had happened. Wow. You should have seen the hole in the inner tube. Anyway, its now fixed so we can use it again. Oh and Andy and the kids played with the pump, making funny noises on their stomachs as the air was pumped out by one of them. You should have seen the laughter. Too cute. I'll try and put up photos later.

Ok, ok, so I've given you useless bits of info here about our lives, and not even any photos, but I'm doing this for posterity really. I've got a terrible memory at the best of times, but with my nappy brain, well it just gets worse. So here we go.

Oh and I forgot, to top off the day, Dan went to bed at 8pm, then only got up at 2am and was back down in half an hour and then didn't wake until just now. Speaking of which I must go. But here's my tag from Paula (one still to do from Susan! Will get to it soon! Promise).

1. What is your current pet peeve?
Washing up cloths that are left not rung out! You know who I mean! LOL.

2. Would you rather be annoyed or bored?
Bored - I'm annoyed far too often. LOL.

3. When did you last drink champagne?
Last night!! hehehe.

4. Who sleeps in your bed?
Me and DH - no kids!!!!!!!!!

5. What TV hunk can come knock at your door?
That McDreamy guy off Greys anatomy! Whats his real name? Sigh.

6. Do you wear perfume?
Sort of - I have got a bundle, but haven't worn any pretty much since I had kids. Was told that kids prefer your natural smell????? Oh well, reminds me must put some one!

7.If you wrote a book what type would it be?
Childrens. I actually did start one about 2 years ago. Hmmmmm. Must have another look at it.

8. When did you last go to the dentist?
When I was first preggie with Daniel - great excuse that they can't do anything. LOL.

9.Ooops, you've just had boy/girl twins- what are they called?
Hehehe. I do have boy/girl twins. Matt and Sarah.

10.How do you get your news- TV/Internet/paper?
TV at night, paper in the morning.

11.Do you believe the story that Naomi Robson was going to save a boy from cannibals?
huh??? Is this for real?

12. If you could go back in history where do you want to visit?
So many places! Wow, wouldn't it be amazing to see Elvis in concert, or be at Christs crucifixtion (Sp?), or be at a rally with Martin Luther King? Wow.

13.I am having a fancy dress party. What are you dressed as?
Oh man I'm so not good at fancy dress. The last one though was in May and I was a preggie pink pj wearing scrapping lady.

I tag: Chris and Lesley

My funny boy

Well, I went for a walk yesterday and wee Dan slept through most of it. Then about 5 mins from home I hear this giggle. A real live giggle. I looked down, and there's Dan still sound asleep giggling to himself. Must've been a GOOD dream! LOL.

So today is a good day. No great day. The kids and I went to lapsit. They love it and are even getting adventurous enough to sit on the mat by themselves, rather than sitting on my knee or clinging to my legs. LOL. It shows me how grown up they are getting and puts a smile on my face.

Then I fed Dan and he did the biggest burp. I know, TMI, but hey, when you've got one that finds burping difficult it can make or break the rest of the day. So that was fantastic.

Then I went across to Mt Wellington where the Scrapbook Studio are having a sale. I got 40% off everything I brought, so of course I brought two of everything.....not really, but had to give Andy a fright. LOL.

The ladies there know me and the kids and gooed and gaahed over Dan so it really made me feel nice. Its that whole scrapping thing where you get to know people over a period of time and become friends due to a common interest. Its cool.

Then I had a couple of cool phone calls. You know the ones that make you feel good - I spoke to Andy, my Mum and sis.

Got some parcels in the post. THANK YOU Evana. Your gift for Dan the man, is soooooo cool. The big kids wanna play with it, but I think we might keep it somewhere safe for Dan otherwise they'll end up jumping on it or something. LOL. I'll put a pic up soon - Andy's got the camera today.

And now the kids are resting. Yeah!

Shortly we're gonna head out and do some shopping. Which to be honest I haven't really tried with all three yet. So wish me luck.

Oh, and I've been scrapping heaps. I think I've done 4 Lo's since this time last week. Yeah! Loving getting back into it. Don't get me wrong, its not easy and I'm finding I'm doing half an hour here or 45 mins there, but its using that creative part of the brain and gives you that warm gooey feeling when a LO's finished. Big happy sigh.

And thats about it.

So I must go and get myself a cup of tea and plonk myself down at the table to finish off another page I'm working on.

Hope you're having a good day and week too.

Come say hi in my comments if you haven't before. I'd love to 'meet' you.

Trina.

Scrapping

Well I haven't shown much of my scrapping lately cause well before Daniel I was getting ready for the FK awards for excellence and since Daniel I've been doing my Up2Scrap entry. So there hasn't been too much left to show you.

However, there is a new dare on the kiwidares site "No 8 Wired" and its all about METAL. Go check it out. There are some great LO's by the talented designers and I'm seeing a few entries popping up on blogs too. Yay. Well done girls. Do go check it out and put in an entry. Cause don't forget we've got another sponsor this month and you've gotta be in to win.

So anyway, here's my LO which is great to be able to share with you!!!!

We have a winner

Well I remembered what I was forgetting yesterday. LOL! It was the guessing game for Daniels birth!!!! I bet you thought I'd forgotten. Well I had! LOL, but now I've remembered and we do have a winner.

I decided to go with date first then closest to Dan's birth weight. So we had three people who guessed 10th August - Jodii, Kirsty and Kate - well done ladies!

And from them, Jodii guessed the highest weight of 9lbs 12.5 oz which while off a bit, was still closest. So Jodii send me a quick email with your addy and I'll pop a wee rak in the mail to you straight away.

As for today, it started off bad and keeps getting worse. I woke up with a chest cold which if I'm not really careful will turn into the full blown thing (it happens every year since I had glandular fever in England). So I'm feeling rotten. And the kids know it. Daniel was awake twice in the night! ARGH! What is going on with that?! And Matt and Sarah have done nothing but fight all day - oh except for the brief time we were at lapsit with Granny where they were very well behaved and the time they decided their dogs needed feeding Daniel style......

Poor wee Matt hasn't quite got it, he thinks Dan gets his food from the tummy button! LOL. But oh so cute.

Anyone have any suggestions for kids nearly three that are going through 'that' stage? Who said the two's were bad? Man this is MUCH worse!

Also, Andy asked me why I didn't put any photos of me up when I showed the family photos from the weekend. Well, I just didn't think about it. I mean photos of me just aren't that big a deal to me. So here's one that I actually quite like. Unfortunately by the time we did any with Matt as part of the 'Mummy' photos it was getting late and they weren't cooperating so they're all blurry, but this is still really nice.

Ok, have a good day all.

A new post

Cor, it feels like forever since I've written anything here. We've had a busy time and the twins are keeping me on my toes. They are really testing the boundaries with alot of things, but we seem to be coping so far.

Daniel is doing really well and has slept through another night. But we are struggling to find the right timing in getting him to bed at night to have this happen. If he goes down too early then he'll wake up at 3am, even if we wake him for a feed at 10pm. So we try to keep him up longer and thats not great for Andy and I. I know its early days and we'll work it out. At least he is still sleeping really well and eating really well. Its just a matter of timing it 'perfectly' for his Mum. LOL.

Yesterday was the 10th which means he was one month old so out came the camera and monthly teddy for these shots. Gotta say I think they are adorable, and big thanks to their Dad for putting up with me giving instructions on how to set up the camera shoot. He's so patient!

After when the older kids woke up I got some fun shots of Andy with the kids. They are so precious. Check out this one....

I know there was something else I was going to write, but for the life of me its gone. Nappy brain! So I'm gonna head off and give Dan his feed. Can hear him crying so he must've woken up.

Later...

I've been thinking

about babies and what they mean to a family. The joy they bring, but also the angst as a Mum struggles to learn how to breastfeed, or what her babies cries mean, what s/he wants when s/he wakes up and won't feed. All the things that even if you've been a mum before you second guess yourself. Worrying.

Two weeks ago, I had a serious case of the baby blues. Then there was a change in my thinking, things started to come together and I realised I couldn't worry about things that I couldn't control. I was anxious about whether Daniel would wake up in the night and if he did when he would and for how long. Then would he settle back down. I was worrying about this at 9am! I mean seriously, I have no control over things like this and yet was spending 90% of my time thinking about it.

I think the catalyst was when Jo came over. She is a doula. She was trained by my Mum, Kathryn O'Keefe who is the trainer in NZ for doulas. Now you might ask what a doula is and why I have one? Doulas take on the care for new mothers when they come home from hospital and don't have any help. They are trained in allsorts of practical ways like giving help with breastfeeding, but they also help out by doing other things you can't do, like looking after older children while you feed the new baby or doing some light housework. Their catchphrase is "Mothering the mother". Yes!

My Mum after being a midwife for many years saw the need in the community for doulas as the old style of bringing up children changed. 30-40 years ago people would stay in hospital for weeks, not days. They would have help looking after their babies at night and given rest times. I know in some instances they were not allowed to touch the floor for over a week i.e. they HAD to rest. They had a chance to recouperate. What happens now? Mothers are sent home in just a few days. With no help. And instead of the grandparents or neighbours being there to help new Mums as in those times, there are more and more people going it alone. It can be quite a lonely and scary time, thus where doulas step in and help.

The idea is to hopefully get hospitals on board so if you choose an early discharge then you get a doula for free (paid for by the hospital as its saving them money) for a certain amount of hours after your discharge, but this is a long term goal and Best Care Doulas are working with hospitals now to try to get this to happen.

Anyway, I was given a gift voucher from Mum for Jo's services as a doula for 15 hours.

And it turned things around for me. All of a sudden I had a sounding board, someone to look after the children while I concentrated on learning how to be a mum to a baby again and we even got to go for a walk - for me this is huge. I need my exercise to stay healthy, both physically and mentally and having a C-sec I couldn't push/carry things so Jo's help was enormous.

So I just wanted to talk about doulas, help, and what it can mean for a new Mum. I wanted to put it out there so people know about this service and that there are other forms of help and to say thanks to Jo and Mum for such an amazing thing they are doing.

Here's a pic of Mum taken today with her newest grandchild. Just beautiful and really shows how cool my Mum is.

Oh and by the way, I feel fantastic. The blues are well and truely gone. Life is fantastic and I couldn't ask for more right now.

Just thoughts running around my head as I'm one of the lucky ones who has family help, friends helping plus the services of a cool new idea - doulas.

Tues morning

Ok, ok, so I spoke too soon yesterday. LOL. Last night was not the dream. Hmmmm. I decided I'd get Daniel up at 10.30pm last night to see if he'd then sleep through to 7.30am. Wrong move! He didn't wake at 10.30pm, but we did get a good feed done, however it kept me up an extra couple of hours and then he woke up at 3am and wouldn't go back down. I think we'll just stick to the norm for now. Seems to be working much better! LOL.

So I have to reiterate again how amazing the scrapping community is. Yesterday I received in the post a set of tags and some gift vouchers from my friends at a Yahoo group in Aussie - hey POS girls! They were a gift for Daniels arrival and are so precious. The tags are absolutely amazing and such a treasure for me to have. I mean it takes time to organise these things, for people to make the effort to be involved then to ship it across the Tasman. Plus the gift vouchers were over and above anything that could ever be dreamed of. I mean you just don't expect things like this to happen to you and when they do, well, its so special. Seriously you girls made my day in so many ways. Words just don't cut it when trying to say thanks, but THANK YOU. And here is a wee look at the tags:

Also my friend Donna came to visit last week (so great to catch up again Donna!) and brought me an altered gift for Daniel. I can't show it just yet as its going in the SO newsletter. Way cool. But its really really neat and I'm stoked that again someone went to the effort for us. Wow.

And another big wow, I've hit the 10,000 mark for people visiting my blog. Wow, 10,000 people visiting! I can't believe it. I remember asking a couple of friends when I was deciding whether to start one if it was worth it and they both said yep. And honestly, I've loved it. I guess the biggest bonus though is getting to know people through it and that people come by and say hi. Its such a great feeling to make new friends and that's one of the things my blog has allowed me to do.

Its also put me in touch with people I otherwise wouldn't have been. Like Claire from the NZ Herald. She is doing a story for Canvas magazine and found me through Nics blog link. Well, she was here on Friday talking to my sister and I, then again yesterday for photos. Can't wait to see them as I and the house were a mess. Argh. Hopefully they aren't tooooo bad, but it was just one of those days, and hey can't be helped. I'm a Mum not superwoman.

Anyway I can hear disaster striking downstairs. Matt has decided tantrums are the new way to get things achieved which makes for a very long day and lots of time on the 'Thinking rug'. Also tires me out enormously. Sigh. I'm sure we'll get there though. After all as Ian Grant and Parenting with confidence would say......"We don't do tantrums in this family".

Have a good one everyone.

I just had to brag

I can't believe it, our little man slept through from 9.30pm last night til...wait for it.... 5.30am this morning!!!!!

I feel like a new woman!!!!

What a good boy!!!!!

Happy Wedding Annivesary to us - updated

Talk about time flying.... wow, I thought the last 3 weeks had gone fast? What about the last 5 years?! 5 YEARS TODAY!!!!! Wow, what an amazing time we've had. And one that some of you will know was totally unexpected. But finding Andy was like finding a lost part of myself. In some ways we are totally different which 'fixes' the parts of me that are missing and in other ways we are totally the same and are so at one with each other. I couldn't imagine a better mix. So this post is for my wonderful man who amazes me, puts up with me, challenges me, gets me. Thank you Andy. For being you, and loving me. 4!!!!! (ok, in joke!)

And for those of you who weren't around 5 years ago, This is a wedding picture that was close at hand....cor isn't it amazing what 5 years and 3 kids can do to a woman! LOL.

Updated: After I posted this, a courier van pulled up and rang the door bell. I opened the door to find 3 huge bunches of amazing, gorgeous flowers on the doorstep and the courier yelling out "There are still 2 to come". I couldn't believe it and checked to see whether he had the right name/address. Yep, my name was on the card! The courier was worried about that too, thinking they were for a function, then I said, its our 5th wedding anniversary, and he just gave a big grin and said, "one bunch for every year". Aren't I the luckiest?! They are now scattered throughout the house and even with my blocked up nose (yep, I've got a cold!) I can smell their wonderful scent. WOW.