Ah Christmas!

(Image from here )

Well we aren't going to be here for Christmas, our 1st Christmas with Michaels Mum and Dad since we got married, and our 1st Christmas as a family of 5, thankfully my In-Laws have space for all of us!

So tomorrow we'll be packing and for a whole week I'll have my hubby almost all to myself! Can't wait! Have a very safe and happy joyful Merry Christmas!!

While I'm gone: Tell me what you got for Christmas or what your excited about giving as a gift??

See you all when we get back!

Cooking cooking cooking

 Jack and I like to spend time together in the kitchen, we haven't had a chance to for a while. Charlie has been taking up all my time. So on the weekend (while Michael was home to keep the other boys occupied)we made chicken nuggets, with cheese in them, yummo!

I love our new kitchen, Jack isnt a short 4yr old but he needs a stool to reach the benches comfortably so for tall people like me thats great, no bending!

I was flouring the nuggets Jack was egging them and crumbing them, hence the pretiness of them!

Don't they look horendous! They were very tasty and the boys ate them up!
We had a really nice quiet time together, I'll have to remember to do it more often.

Santa time!

Well its not actually Santa its one of the other ladies husbands, but its all the same to kids!

We had such a fun time at the christmas party, Michael got to ride the train a few times with the kids, he was the adult that sat at the back to keep an eye on the kids, poor thing had no hat and it was 11am can you imagine how hot he was??

I got him a frozen drink, he was still boiling!

The boys don't often get to do stuff with Dad it always happens on days that Michael is at work, so this was a great day for them.

I dont know how they managed to stay on the train for as long as they did, I got sunburnt sitting in the shade of a tree, it was so hot!

James getting his gift from 'Santa'. they were more interested in their Kinder Suprises!

James has his towel still on from swimming, so much fun!

Backyard Cricket anyone?

Sometimes it dawns on me how big Jack actually is, especially when I see him in photos.

Michael's home today and I love it, Charlie always sleeps better when he's home(which drives me nuts, but it means I can get a lot done) and we always have a fun silly time, the kids get to play with their Dad and I can usually manage a sleep in, this morning Michael got some tennis balls and dragged the kids out in the heat of the day to play cricket, they are not quite big enough to understand it or know how to play it but they gave it a great go, made me laugh.

Michael and I didn't know that the kids had found a hole in the fence but as soon as a ball went over there, they both slipped through the fence to get the ball! Sneaky little buggers hadn't even told me about it! Michael will be fixing it this afternoon I think.

James in his cricket outfit which consisted of Jack's hat and his thomas gumboots with no socks, his feet were so sweaty in the 35 degree heat!

This is just for Dad, the last picture I posted with the billy cart and Jack's school in the background wasn't quite as obvious as I have hoped. I'm standing at our back fence, Jack's school is in between the two yellow digger things, there's a blue shade sail over the play equiptment and a white roof just behind it.

The Silly (busy) Season

I know having 3 kids is a huge time taker but when did christmas sart taking up so much of my time as well? We have two christmas parties to go to this weekend, shopping trip to Rocky to finish buying christmas pressies, we spent most of this morning making christmas cards (keep an eye on the mail box most of you will be getting a very handmade card from the boys) I love christmas time but I'm exausted from it already!

 Ok whine over, on a much happier note, My hubby who is a newely non-drinker has decided he wants to do everything better be a better dad, a better husband, a better employee (unfortunatly this last one eats into the first 2) so on saturday he cut up the old pram and made the kids a billy cart and do they love it, you know it!

If you look very hard you can see Jack's school play equipment in the background, I like knowing how close he will be.

How cute do they look!

Teeth anyone??

This is how Charlie spends a lot of his day, with his fingers in his mouth, he absolutely loves it, I'm trying not to look in his mouth I'm afraid he's teething already!

See that top all drool all over him, please no not teeth already!

My beautiful boy fast asleep after our picnic lunch.

The begining of the end

Jon and Kate Gosselin and there 8 children.

(Image courtesy of TLC)

After 5 season's my favorite reality show has finished. I feel a little ripped off as I only found it this year, but its definatly time for it to finish.

Last night I watched the end of season 4 where Jon and Kate talk about the fact they are seperating but there will still be a show, unfortunatly the end of season 5 they have had enough and there will be no more Jon & Kate plus 8. They can't agree on who will have the kids when, or if they should film them, even who will babysit the kids!

If you hadn't figured out yet there show is where I got the name of my blog, when I first found out I was pregnant with Charlie I found this show and it made me feel better about having a third I was extremely stressed about spreading my attention and time between 3 kids, a newborn who soaks up all your time, a 2yr old who's suffering middle cild syndrome along with terrible twos, and a 4yr old who needs constant stimulation because his brain never stops. If they could do it with 8 I could manage with 3 and I got very hooked on it!
Its a behind the scenes look at what happens when you have twins then sextuplets. It started out as a 1hr special but people wanted more and more., when they started the babie's weren't even walking or talking now they are 5 and off to school.
Unable to fall pregnant by themselves they used fertility treatments to fall pregnant, when they had twin girls they were over the moon but Kate wanted just one more and obviously they ended up with 6.
So now I guess I will have to continue on the name but there is no chance we are having 8, 3 is definatly busy enough!
What a logistical nightmare!

Big Trip part 2

While we were home on one of our many shopping trips we had our photo taken and we were in the paper, white ribbon day, men against domestic violence. The first thing I noticed in the photo was my mumma jugs! Charlie was due for a feed can you tell?? Doesn't James look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth? Cheeky little bugger!

Nanny pants and Jack having cuddles in Nannys chair

Charlie laughing in the bouncer. He spent a lot of time in it while we were there.

I spent a lot of time on mums lounge feeding the fat boy (who managed to put on 500gms in a week) and watching cars there's nothing better than Lightening McQueen 4 times a day! Nanny let Jack into her craft box which was very fun and it kept him busy for a few hours while James was having his afternoon nap, let me switch cars off for 5 minutes!
I saw Suez and Ben almost everyday,and caught up with Emily a few times, we had a very nice Indian night, and a night at the pub drinking bubbles and waiting for friends to turn up!
 But of course we managed to come home without catching up with a few people, somehow I just ran out of time.
It was lovely to be home and to see mum and my girls but my goodness i was g;ad to be home, living out of a bag is definatly not my thing!

Celebrate!

Finally 8 years after everyone else my age got there P's I got mine today!!
I am very late but I am still the first woman in my family to have a license, neither of my grandma's drove, my mum doesn't drive and my older sister (who is 9 years older than me!) doesn't drive, so really I'm a trend setter!
I may have driven by myself a couple of times in the last 12 months (ok maybe more than a couple of times) but now I can go shopping in Rocky by myself, could be very dangerous but very fun!!
The bad thing is Michael lost his license so I'm officialy the only one in the family who can drive, were deciding whether to sell his car as he wont be driving for the next 15 months, and his car isnt real practical for the whole family. Thankfully he gets a lift to work because I don't really fancy getting up at 5am and bundling three kids into the car before 6am, I don't think it would be great for Jack's schooling either!

Our big trip part 1

I have so much to tell you so I'll break it up so you don't get bored!!

19 days away from Michael is way to much for me and the kids, and for him.

We left on a Tuesday and by Sunday Michael had lost his license drink driving, I was so furious I was shaking! As a condition of his job contract he needs a license, we also live in a company house, so him losing his licence means no job AND no house. He had his day in court and he wont be driving for 15 months and were going to be paying the government $1800.00.
We are waiting to hear back from the company to see if the insurance company will cover him and allow him to drive on private property with no license. I'll keep you updated.

Meanwhile I was enjoying myself at Candice and Chris' wedding. Catching up with old friends and seing the bride!

Doesn't she look beautiful! Candice Chris and their little boy Riley. Very rare to get a picture of Chris smiling!
It was a beautiful wedding, very pink and very organised (and I'm guessing very expensive) just like Candy.
I took Charlie for a few hours so I could feed him, and I didnt expect mum to look after three little boys at the grumbly time of day by herself, I can't do it by myself so I didnt expect her to.
After the wedding we went to our old pub for a drink or two and a fair few dances, was very strange to see all these kids we went to school with that are now old enough to be at the pub!!

Remember this? well I'll finish the story, Michael and I were engaged and 6 months later Jack was born, I was already pregnant when we got together but I had no idea. Anyway Michael decided to not only be my husband but to be Jacks dad, (I was very lucky to find him) he was there to hold my hand while I was giving birth and even named him. The guy that got me pregnant wanted nothing to do with me or Jack. This was fine with Michael not so fine with me but at least I knew Jack would have a Daddy. I hadn't heard from the sperm donor(as my mum calls him) for years until he added me as a friend on facebook of all places!! We planned to catch up while I was home and we did, just the two of us, and he said he'd like to meet Jack. I thought this could only be a good thing for he and Jack, but unfortunatly he got cold feet, Michael's pleased he gets to keep Jack all to himself, I am very peeved as we had a really good talk just the two of us and I thought he had grown up enough, obviously not just yet. One day not to far from now I'm going to explain to Jack why he looks so different to Charlie and James and I want to be able to say there is someone else in the world who wants to know you and be apart of your life, not say to him your real daddy doesn't want anything to do with you. Its something that plays on my mind everyday. I hope he doesn't react badly to it and doesn't feel like he's less a part of the family because of it.

Jack at 7 months old.

         James at 4 months old.

Charlie 2 months old.

My three gorgeous boys together Jack with his big blue eyes and his sandy coloured hair. James and Charlie with their olive skin and dark eyes.

I knew they looked different but it wasn't quite so obvious until Charlie was born and James and Charlie look so very the same and Jack is so very different!

Home again home again

Yay!
So nice to cach up with family and friends, but so nice to be sleeping in my own bed and having more than 5 sets of clothes to wear! Oh and its pretty nice to be back with my hubby as well, trying to wrangle 3 kids by myself was pretty tricky, lucky I did have a lot of help.
My 'little man' is very cranky today so just a quick post and a few pics, I'll try to post about my trip tomorrow

My beautiful little boys, James in a good mood.

Nanny (or Nanny pants as the kids and I were calling her : ) and the boys

How cute is this photo, I saw them and I just had to snap them! Sitting on Nannys front verandah

Baby Benji and Charlie, Ben is at 3 months the size Charlie was when he was born! Charlie is 2kgs heavier than him and a month younger! Michael and I definatly breed them big!
I'm peeved I didnt get a pic of Suez and Ben or of me and Ben, but we were a bit busy when ever we saw each other there was always one baby sleep or one baby ready for a feed!

Leaving on a jet plane

Don't now when I'll be back again. Well thats a lie, I'll be back on the 29th, which means 19 days of fun I'll have to fill you in on!

Can't wait for time with my favorite girls and my mumma, oh and of course couple of wedding to go to!

For now I'll leave you with my beautiful boy on his favorite thing, the bouncer, and yes if you leave him long enough he will just drop off to sleep.

Finally

This year I wanted a new digital camera for mothers day, I didn't get it, I didn't get anything actually. So I told Michael I want a new camera and I'm just going to go and buy one,easily said than done, I'd love a beautiful big tricky camera but I want to be able to leave it on the kitchen bench without worrying about little sticky fingers playing with it, I wanted one that was decent enough to take nice photos, not to cheap and nasty, well 6 months later I still haven't decided what sort I wanted and what sort I really need. Until now
I have been looking at the ad for this camera for a while now, and I've looked over the specs and I just love it!
It has a screen on the front so you can take great self portraits (my fav sort of photos!) or so the people you are taking the photos of can see what they look like, how cool is that!
I cant wait!

Our house in the...

middle of our street. Well right at the end of our street but you get what I mean!

We have officially moved in, no more stuff at the old house, just the horrid cleaning to finish off, we thought we had more time to be out of the house, luckily Michael rang the real estate yesterday to find out exactly when we needed to be out, 5pm today she said, this was at 4pm mind you! So we have the house for the weekend(which is going to cost almost $300, ridiculous as no one is moving in! Grr!) so we can clean and do the lawn, of course Michael is working this weekend so I am cleaning after the kids are in bed (no way I'm taking 3 kids to a empty house for hours and hours a day, boring for them and tiresome for me!) and Michae is going to bunk off early from work to do the lawns, tomorrow night he's going to clean the carpets, not exactly the way we wanted to do it, but at least it will be done.

So the exciting part is now were in the new house with its plain white walls I mentioned to Michael I wanted to redecorate, well as much as you can when your renting, and he said the house is mine, the yard is his, so I'm going with a chocolate brown and baby pink theme for the lounge room and kitchen and a baby blue and chocolate brown theme for the bathroom, I'm so excited!

We already have the chocolate brown lounges so I'm going to give them a good spruce with some soft textured pillows and a couple of nice throw blankets in pink obviously, a floor rug and I'm planning some pink and brown teatowels and pink kitchen utensils/appliances maybe some brown and pink vases scattered around oh and a wodden lamp with you guessed it a pink shade!! I cant wait to start shopping! As for the bathroom we desperatly need new towels and bath mats so its probably good timing, I'm sure I can mix it up with bath mats and towels.

I saw these here and I definatly think I might need to buy both of them you never know when you might need a tool caddy in your kitchen and bathroom!

I will have to do some before and after pics, I'm so excited!

Happy Anniversary!

5 years ago today Michael and I got engaged.

For all of you who don't know we had spent a total of FOUR days together. Yes just 4 days together.

We met 6 months previously, I gave him my name and number, well he thought I did, I actually gave him a fake name and a fake number, a few weeks later I ran into him again at our favorite pub and I'd obviously had too much to drink (oops!) because after he asked me why he couldn't reach me on the wrong number I gave him my real number!

3 months later I get a text message from this guy I met at the pub one night and couldn't fob off, and from then on we spent every night talking on the phone for at least an hour sometimes more, don't ask me what we talked about considering we didn't even know each other, and we'd only met twice, but it was the most enjoyable part of my day.

He was working just outside of Cober Pedy so we decided to finally meet up in Adelaide 3 months after we had started talking. I booked my flights and we were off! I got there on a Friday, I was so nervous!

Tuesday was Melbourne cup day so off we went to the races, after a few drinks and some nice lunch there was a really cool band playing Michael gets up on stage with the band and proposes and out comes the ring!

Sneaky bugger had gotten to Adelaide before me and bought the ring! He was pretty confident things were going to go well. There was a reporter from the Adelaide Advertiser who did a story on us and we had this photo taken to go with the story

We look so happy and we were, we had two more day together then he was back to work and I was back to Orange. That was the first and last holiday we had together just us, 6 months later Jack was born, but that's a whole different story!

5 years later here we are happily married with 3 adorable little boys. Not many people would have thought we would have made it this far, and we've both lost friends because of it, but I guess we just knew that it was meant to be, I'm not saying that it hasn't been hard and we haven't had days when we thought we were being stupid jumping in so quick, but were very happy and hopefully our 10 year anniversay will be just as happy :o)

Just so you don't forget

Yep just in case you forgot what my beautiful boys look like here are a couple of new pictures.

I was mucking around with the big boys while Charlie was asleep one day, I love the look on Jack's face!

Daddy and Charlie having a little cuddle on the lounge

My funny boy, still wont sleep if I lay him down flat, he's going to get too big for the swing soon though so he'll just have to learn to sleep in the cot! He's become a chucker which is why he's always got a bib on, keeps drinking even though he's full and then pukes up what he cant really fit in his belly, just like Jack and James did!

I just love his little feet, even though its not a great picture, still makes me smile :o)

So pretty

Well its official the 25yr old Kate is the same as the 19yr old Kate. I still love love love shoes! I started googling some fashion stuff this morning to blog about and I kept getting caught up in the shoe section!

How beautiful are these shoes?! I have no idea where I would wear them or what I would wear them with but who cares they are divine!

I also couldn't go past this adorable Jimmy Choo bag. As if I would ever spend $500+ on a handbag that will end up with nappies and snacks in it. It actually looks like it might have pockets on the side for putting kids drink bottles :o) I'm sure that's not what its for, but its nice to dream!

Part 2

I've had a re-vamp, whataya think?? I'm getting very caught up in finding the new me, not in a creepy hippy sense of the phrase, I'm not planning to run away to India and study aromatherapy, nothing quite that dramatic, I'm just thinking about what I'm doing and who or what I'm doing it for. I remember when Jack was born I decided I needed to be a sensible responsible grown up to prove to everyone that even though I was only 21 I could be a good mum, in doing that I got rid of all the silly fun things I loved to do, but now I'm 25 and married with 3 kids I think its time to start doing silly things just for me and acting 25 not 45! Frangipanis are my favorite flower in the whole wide world, (the reason behind the new pic)There so delicate and soft and have such a beautiful soft scent, unfortunately they have become very popular and trendy in the last few years, so I feel like one of the crowd. Fortunately when we had our wedding I could find lots of frangipani stuff : ) Tomorrow I think we'll move onto fashion, I cant wait!

I've decided

This is my blog, but it seems to be all about my beautiful family and no so much about me, I'm not sure where I went but I know when it happened:

Engaged to my darling hubby at 20

First baby at 21

Married at 22

Second baby at 23

Pregnant with no.3 at 24

Mummy to 3 at 25

I'm not saying I don't love my little boys or my special big guy but I guess I got put on the back burner and never really came back. I know what I used to do/buy/want but I'm not sure the 19yr old Kate and the 25yr old Kate will be the same, I don't think my husband would be very impressed if I started going to BnS balls, partying every weekend, buying far too many shoes/handbags/CDs every week!

SO I am going to try to blog and buy/do something for me more often, starting today, and find out what the 25yr old Kate likes :o)

This is my favorite perfume, thanks to my sister who got me hooked my first year at high school, no high school kid can afford to wear this!

Its by a french fashion designer called Jean Paul Gaultier, who else do you want to design your perfume, of course a fashion designer!

Isn't it the nicest perfume bottle you have ever seen?

So tell me what part of you have you put on the back burner?

My beautiful special boys

I know your saying why isn't she packing?

Well I ran out of boxes and newspaper so for today I've given up, tomorrow when Michael's home were going to both get stuck into it. I've packed it all in my head, what is going in what box with what and where it will all go once we get there, and Monday and Tuesday Michael and I will be taking all the boxes to the new house and unpacking it all, doesn't that sound like a nice way to spend Michael's 6 days off work? ; )

I haven't been taking many photos of my big boys lately, bad mummy has been playing favorites and just taking pics of them if they have Charlie in their arms, so I tried to get some pics of them this week but do you think either of them would just pull a normal face? No wonder I don't take photos of them!

After about 6 photos like this, with tongues out and eyes closed I finally said just look at mum and don't smile! It seemed to have worked, I got a half decent photo!

Charlie on the other hand is always easy to take photos of, only because he has no choice! I love propping him in the beanbag, he has the funniest look on his face as he moves around and the beans move around him, I did it with all the boys, but it still cracks me up!

Jack has done a complete 180 with Charlie the last week or so, and it makes me very happy, he doesn't like change and so I knew bringing Charlie home would be a bit of a shock to the system but 5 weeks in he has decided he quite likes him, and has started interacting with him and is generally a bit happier about the whole thing, thank heavens, sure has taken a load off my mind!

My beautiful James

I have to remind myself every day to do something extra special with him, I don't want middle child syndrome, so just letting him know I'm taking photos of him all by himself and showing them to him makes me feel better, well at least for one day.

Last but not least my favorite photo of the week! This just melts my heart, James was talking to Charlie like he does all day, calling his name and rubbing his belly and Charlie just gave him the biggest grin, reminded me why having siblings is so special.