Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

This gave me a good laugh earlier in the week:

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster?

- - - -

Me know. Me have problem.

Me love cookies. Me tend to get out of control when me see cookies. Me know it not natural to react so strongly to cookies, but me have weakness. Me know me do wrong. Me know it isn’t normal. Me see disapproving looks. Me see stares. Me hurt inside.

(Click here to read the full article)

Cookie Monster on Colbert Report:

My personal fav - Cookie Monster Vs Martha Stewart

And hysterical interview with Cookie Monster on NPR

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I got a lovely surprise in the mail from BlackCat (from the Unaboard) this week.

Heidi loved her Pineapple Pony (it has a little pineapple on its flank and smells like Pineapple) and Annies Strawberry Pony was a very helpful distraction at the doctors.

The animal balloons were a big hit on Wednesday when I was babysitting

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Ages ago I got tickets for my hubby and 17 year old nephew to go see SmackDown! and ECW live on Friday 13 June at Rod Laver Arena. I didn’t get tickets for myself because I didn’t think I could leave the girls for so long at night and with someone else to put them to bed.

But thanks to the amazing generosity of a friend I got a free ticket to go see the show and my SIL L was more than happy to put the girls to bed. We had a schedule that I read to Heidi throughout the day and there was no problems.

So I got to have THE MOST AWESOME NIGHT EVER!

Best part of the night was sitting practically on top of the fireworks, I was in the seating directly behind the Superstars entrance ramp and the fireworks went off a mere 6 rows of seats in front of me.

Undertakers Entrance

Batistas Entrance

Okay lets be honest having naked flame and explosions that close was freaking terrifying but also the most awesome experience. The whole row of seats would shake with the explosions and everyones screams added to the noise and excitement.

And I got to see Edge :: squeee :: I’m such a fan girl.

Some official tour pictures on the WWE website - I’m up behind those fireworks

Sorry about the picture quality I didn’t think to take a camera so had to do what I could with my mobile phone. While I’m here a few more pictures from my mobile that make me smile.

Ralph and my wedding rings:

Annie in the tree at Kinder - she was of course the first child up the tree:

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

This week Lightening has suggested using as our Smiley Saturday theme the idea that we need to care for ourselves more. Taking care of myself seems like a good reason to smile.

One big way I’m taking care of myself more is not doing Kinder duty as often. This week the Aide started at Heidis kinder which means Heidi and the other two special needs children in her class have someone on hand with experience who can help them.

My health is still problematic but I’ve started to get test results back and we’ve been able to rule out a few things that were worrying me. Plus I’m working out how to balance my diet to keep the latest flareup under control. Whilst the Crohns flare up has not really improved it has not gotten worse either and I’m working out how to manage with it as it is, sort of stability within the instability. The head cold and asthma have mostly gone away for which I’m very relieved.

I was flicking through TV stations 20 minutes ago and realised that the latest Barbie movie is on channel 7 today (started 10 minutes ago) AWESOME! I now have a guaranteed hour of children glued to tv so I can get some precious me time. Then once they get wriggly I should have enough energy to take us out to the park and run off those wiggles.

Reading over my journal for this time last year when we had our week from hell, in a period of 7days the following happened:

Ralph had just started a new job.
I was applying for that camp managers job.
Mr H passed away.
SIL L went to hospital.
One of the playgroup mums had a baby.
Got Heidi’s diagnosis.
Tante Anita passed away.
2 funerals to go to.
Lots of time spent at FILs house.

Life is super busy now but it is so much better than it was 12 months ago. That is something to reflect on and to maybe think that in 12 months time it will be just a little bit better again.

Edited to add another reason to smile is Stitch Pinks latest giveaway. Head on over and leave a comment to enter, you could win the kit to make this -

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

Taking the easy option this Saturday with some funny pictures.

Heidi had Kinder yesterday afternoon, they finally have an Aide for her so I no longer need to stay for Kinder sessions. Was really good yesterday because the Aide was there for the first time, Heidi’s teacher from the early intervention centre came to visit and the Kinder teacher had enough helpers that she was able to spend some time talking with us. Got some really good dialogs happening between the four of us which can only be of benefit to Heidi later.

more cat pictures

more cat pictures

more cat pictures

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With Ralph and both the girls sick with some virus and my Crohns flaring up again I thought I’d struggle to find things to smile about but seems that is not the case.

1. I got some stitching done this week.

2. Because the girls are sick I got to use my jelly / jello hack for the first time.

When my girls are sick they get really dehydrated very quickly, so I like to keep a track of their fluid intake. So being that jelly / jello is a sort of fluid I wanted to track how much they eat because it is one of their fav. foods when ill. I’ve been collecting my empty yogurt cups, washing them out and storing them.

Friday I got out 15 of those cups and filled each one with jelly. One standard packet of jelly fills 5 cups which = 100ml of jelly per cup. Now I can easily track their fluid, plus I can throw the cups out later which means no washing up, thus one less chore when I’m busy looking after sick kids.

I also served their ice-cream in the little yogurt cups, calculating roughly 100ml of ice cream per cup.

3. My Mum sent the girls a “Design Girls Fashion Studio” which arrived in the mail on Thursday.

I will admit my heart sank when I saw it - so many little pieces and for ages 7+, how much of a pain in the rear is this going to be to do with a 5yo and 3yo.

Friday morning the girls were getting pretty bored, they’d been up most of the night and I was rather tired and not feeling so great myself. Annie pulled out the design studio and asked if they could play with it. I distracted Heidi with the TV, figuring that this was going to be easier one child at a time.

Then Annie and I opened the box, she picked the blond paper doll, we chose what she was going to wear from the cardboard pattern sheets. Then Annie picked which fabric we would use and I traced out the pattern and cut the fabric. Annie decorated the skirt and top she had chosen whilst I cut out a pair of clogs and a handbag which she then also decorated. We used the magnets provided to attached the clothing to her paper doll.

My opinion of this Design Studio has changed radically, this is a great little kit, you could use fabrics and bits of crafty stuff you have at home to make the clothing - heck you could even make the doll yourself using a bit of sturdy cardboard and then the kiddies would have all the fun of making hair, eyes etc themselves.

Annie was entranced for almost a full hour which is impressive considering she was sick and very tired.

Here is a picture of our decorated clothing while it is waiting for the glue to dry.

Then while Annie had a rest in the lounge room I tried to make clothing for the other doll with Heidi. She was interested enough to pick out the patterns, jeans and a shirt. But then she discovered the pipe cleaners and buttons and proceeded to make a necklace. Which resulted in some fantastic language / communication from her. I even got a little video of it.

So I’m pleased as punch that Mum sent us this kit, which just goes to show that sometimes things are not as difficult as you think they are going to be.

4. The final reason I’m smiling is that after my humiliation on Tuesday I’ve managed to get on the treadmill for at least 30 minutes each day (except Thursday). I’m not doing much of a diet change due to my current Crohns flare up but after my first two coffees in the morning I’m alternating each cup of coffee with drinking a bottle of water. Thus reducing my caffeine intake and increasing my water intake.

I hope you’ve got your smile on this weekend also.

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I’m smiling because I survived the massage.

Wednesday afternoon I had an unfortunate run in with a massage chair that left me feeling very ouchy on Thursday morning.

Carried on as usual, had to do grocery shopping and stuff so I just went and did it all. See hubby was babysitting so I wanted to shop while I could do so child free. Anyways by Friday morning, I couldn’t walk, couldn’t bend, could sort of sit and stand - on one leg. Dragged myself off for a massage.

Fuck that was the most torturous experience EVER. I was crying and telling the guy it hurt and he’d poke and prod with great sadistic joy massage more in that area. It hurt.

After seemingly forever of being tortured he said I could stand up and I felt like laughing in his face. But I could! and I could walk! Fucking miracle. He said to walk around a bit to keep the muscles warm and stretch them out.

And I’m smiling because I KNOW my hubby loves me very much. How do I know this? Because when I put my cold feet up against his nice warm legs in bed at night, he not only snuggles me closer but he wraps one of those warm legs over my cold feet. I’m toasty warm in no time at all.

Anyways enough sitting at the ‘puter for me. It is apparently evil (and very bad for my back).

Updated to add - I got breakfast in bed today ! Woo!

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Lots of little things to smile about.

1. Picking Heidi up from Kinder I said to her “I missed you” and she said “I missed you too”. Her responsive language is just leaping along.

2. Annie’s birthday was heaps of fun and we spread the celebrations out over a few days which made it even more fun.

3. I got some stitching done. Which has helped ease the pain of my job a little.

I’ve been working hard to ignore this

and this

so I can do something I enjoy for a little while. And I’m smiling because of the wonderful support from my blogging friends about not enjoying my job.

5. I locked myself out of the house on Thursday and went to visit my SIL to get a spare key. She offered to babysit for me so that I got an hour to myself. Wonderful, a mistake turned into something very special. Sure I used the time to wash dishes and cleaning the living room but I could do it all with my music on at top volume.

6. Grandy the Gorilla is visiting us - he usually lives at Annie’s kinder. Last night Annie had many nightmares, all about the cookie monster. Grandy, DRD #5, Charlie the Doll and Annie’s WWE pillowcase helped protect her from the cookie monster.