Sneak Peak

On Saturday at our Christmas party at church the Primary kids are putting on a nativity play. Today was our dress rehearsal. Here is a sneak peak of them. They all look so cute.

The Shepherds

Mary

The Three Wise Men


Giving the baby Jesus gifts

Escape!!

Yesterday we were going to go and watch the Christmas parade in town, but it had poured all night and drizzled all morning. The rain stopped, but we didn't feel like taking Noah and Kobe out in case it started again. Mum and Dad were coming into the parade as well and all morning I tried to ring them to tell them we weren't going. I finally got them on Dad's mobile as they were about ten minutes from town.

Mum said it was okay as they had jobs to do anyway, and I told her we thought we might go to a couple of open homes instead. Mum asked if we wanted her to look after the boys while we did that and of course we jumped at the chance! Jay and Harri decided they wanted to come though, and after we looked at houses we convinced them that it would be a LOT more fun spending time with Grandma and Grandpa than coming into town Christmas shopping with us!

They agreed, so we dropped them off at home and escaped for over three hours with NO boys!!! Oh boy was it nice! I rang Mum after a little while and asked if they were okay to stay for a while, as we were having too much fun and didn't want to come home in a hurry! She sounded worried and asked if we were going to get a motel for the night!!

We had a lovely time shopping, having a quiet lunch and shopping some more. It was very hard to drag ourselves home :) It's not very often that we are out for so long without the boys - actually I don't think we have ever been out for more than a couple of hours without any boys with us.

When we got home it was lovely to come home to tea in the oven, the ironing done and the washing folded! I think Mum and Dad should come in every Saturday!! :) I think they have other ideas. Mum now realises why I'm looking forward to Harri going to Kinder next year - he is soooo draining as he is just at you all day long. This is Mum telling him for the tenth time to just 'listen' before he started asking the same thing all over again.

Kobe is like 'why did you leave us for so long Mum!!!?'.

Dad was all tuckered out after a big day with the boys. He decided after we got back that he was going to go to Bunnings (his excuse to have a break!). Mum then says 'why don't you take Harri with you!!!?' (her way of having a break from Harri!!), so poor Dad was stuck taking Harri to Bunnings. He would have chewed Dad's ear off. Dad deserved a little nap after that!

Treats, Trees and Wreaths

Last night we had our Relief Society Christmas party at the Honey's house. Kym organised lots for us to do. The funniest thing was a game of 'wink murder'. One of us was the 'detective' and someone else was the 'murderer'. Whenever the murderer winked at someone they had to 'die', by making lots of dramatic noise. The detective had to work out who it was.

Me as detective. Don't I look like I mean business!? ;)

Some of the victims! Quick - someone steal Kym's good camera!!!


We then broke into three groups to do some Christmas things. Helen showed us some quick and easy Christmas recipes to make.

Annette showed us how to make mini wreaths using coloured ribbons.

Kym showed us how to make cute little Christmas trees out of blocks of wood. Collette being very proud of hers!

We were supposed to make a group of three, but Lisa and I ended up making a whole forest. They looked great. My boys were very impressed with them this morning, and were surprised I made them. I won't tell them how easy they were!

Of course no church activity is complete without yummy food.

Hanging Out For Kinder

Yesterday Harri, Kobe and I went to the last 'Kickstart' for the year at the Kinder at school. I love watching Harri's face when he is there as he just loves it. Yesterday they had a music session and Harri was really into it.




Kobe decided that he wanted to eat the maracas instead of playing them.

The music teacher did the Aussie Twelve Days of Christmas, using Australian animal soft toys. It was great. Harri was the only one getting into it yelling 'and a kookaburra up a gum treeeeee!'.

We are so looking forward to Kinder next year!

The Perfect Hat!

I have a very talented cousin, Toni. In the last 12 months or so she has started up her own business designing and selling her own patterns, and sells them to shops all around Australia. She recently had a competition on her blog to give away 4 of her new patterns that she has just released.

If anyone knows me, I can not sew to save my life!! I have no clue how to even thread a bobbin or what to do next, but I couldn't resist a free give away! I left a comment on her blog to enter the competition and this morning Toni announced that I was one of the four winners!!! Whoooo Hoooo!!!! I won the 'lazy day hat' pattern.

Tone - Aaron was wondering if a sewing machine also comes with the pattern!!? Doesn't matter that I can't sew - it's still exciting!! I will have to bribe someone to sew a hat for me.

Christmas Colours

I'm not sure whether brown and gold are considered to be Christmas colours. In Aaron's eyes though nothing is more beautiful than brown and gold!

For years Aaron has been wishing he had a Hawthorn Christmas stocking. A couple of years ago he found a Scooby Doo stocking and decided that he wanted it and has had that one ever since (yes - Aaron IS a big kid at heart!). A couple of days ago the Hawthorn yearbook arrived with their usual 'Hawks Nest' catalogue. Straight away Aaron spots the Christmas stocking and reminded me again that he wanted one (like I had forgotten!).

Being the good wife that I am I called into Balls and Bumpers while shopping yesterday and asked the guy if they had any AFL Christmas stockings in. The guy asks me which team I was after and for a second it suprised me, as I didn't think that anyone else would go for any other team than Hawthorn!!! Boy have a I been brainwashed!!!! I looked at the guy and said 'Hawthorn!!!' with that tone as in 'of course Hawthorn!'.

It doesn't quite match all our other lovely stockings that have Christmas colours.

I do love the 'Noah's Noel' stocking that Gillian quilted for us a couple of years ago. I have since claimed it as mine (don't tell Noah though!).

Lunch With My Gym Buddies

Today Jacquie, Bonnie and Simone came around for lunch. Simone and I have been texting back and forth saying we were missing each other and needed to catch up, so we arranged to have lunch today. It was so good to see her and also catch up with Jacquie and Bonnie.

Simone was saying that Jonty is 16 days old. It seems like he was born so long ago and I feel like I haven't seen Simone for ages. He seems like such a good baby - very placid and 'easy' (or as 'easy' as a newborn could be).

'Auntie' Bonnie having a little cuddle!

Harri had been hanging out all week for Ty and Callum to come around for a play. Jacquie made some awesome dinosaur biscuits which Harri thought were very cool. I just realised that I have no pics of Jacquie! Next time...

Cheeky Kobe looks huge compared to Jonty.

I'm having a little 'break' from the gym at the moment, and I'm already missing catching up with everyone regularly. It was nice to catch up with the girls away from the gym and especially to see Simone and little Jonty. We will have to do it more often.

With Love From Preston

Three weeks after Noah was diagnosed with hydranencephaly at 9 weeks old, I started to search the net for information. The first site I found was the Rays of Sunshine website, which had heaps of info about hydran and also a link to join a yahoogroup.

I joined the yahoogroup straight away and found over 150 other families on the group, from all around the world who all had kids just like Noah. Some had passed away (and were referred to as 'Angels') and others were still living. I was so happy to find other families to talk to and ask questions about Noah.

Over the past 7 years I have made lots of friends on the group. I am amazed by all of the families on the group. Many of them have adopted their kids with hydran, and many of them have adopted or foster many kids with hydran or with other disabilities. Many of them are members of the church (there are probably about 8 of us on the group) and it's great to be able to talk to them about things and know that they believe the same things that we do.

One person that I have kept in contact with over the years from the group is Kari. Kari is from New York and was a single Mum to Preston who had hydran.

I often followed Preston's life along closely because he was a similar age as Noah. Often Kari's Dad, Mike and Kari would email me about Noah and would say how Preston and Noah seemed very similar. I can see Noah's mouth and nose looks so similar to Preston in this photo.

Almost two years ago Preston passed away from pneumonia. He had struggled a lot in the last year of his life, and even though he had been sick on and off it was still a shock that he passed away.

Kari and I still keep in touch through emails and I have felt so sad as she has talked about how she feels since Preston has passed away. She is now living and teaching in England for a little while. After Preston passed away Kari set up a fund in his name. She had donated some of the money to get some rocking chairs made to be in the Drs surgery that Preston used to attend. These were for babies who liked to be rocked like Preston did.

A month or so ago Kari emailed me and said she had been reading my blog and saw how Noah needed funding for is new wheelchair. She asked me if we would like some money to go towards it as the fund still had a lot of money in it. I told her that we were okay and would eventually get the funding from an organisation such as Variety Club, and she then emailed me back and said she was going to send some money anyway and to do with it what we wanted for Noah.

I emailed her back and said how grateful we were, but we really didn't think we should accept the money. Her Dad, Mike then emailed me and was so lovely. He said he and Kari really wanted us to accept the money for Noah as it would mean a lot to them, and they know how hard having a child with a disability is and no one deserved it as much as Noah or we did (I felt differently!).

Today the money was transferred into our bank account. It is the only time I have ever been glad that the Aussie dollar is low! :) We feel so overwhelmed with how lucky and blessed we are. It is a lot of money - enough to cover the cost of a new seat on his wheelchair. We still aren't sure how it will be used, but know it will make things so much easier - even with the everyday expenses on things such as nappies, meds, feeds, and other supplies we use regularly.

Thank you so much Kari! We are so grateful and really wish that you got to use the money while Preston was alive, as we know how much easier it would've made things especially as a single Mum. Noah is a very lucky little boy.

Anyone Can Be A Gardener!

Okay - so I figure that anyone can be a gardener if they have roses in their garden! Check out the roses at the 'murderer's house' across the road.

No one has lived there for over two years and their roses still look amazing every year!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like..

I couldn't wait any longer! Years ago we used to put up our Christmas tree on the 1st of December. A few years ago Aaron got sick of me bugging him to put up our tree earlier, and we decided that we would start putting it up on the last Saturday in November, after the Christmas parade.

I wanted to put it up a week ago, but thought we should at least hang out until towards the end of November, so today after church we decided to put it up. Aaron did the usual and made a Christmas mix of music. Aaron has a secret love of any sort of Christmas music ranging from Harry Connick Jr to Hanson (although he hates the Christmas CDs that I like including Jewel and Mariah Carey!), and every year without fail he makes up a new mix to play while we are putting the tree up, and even listens to on his ipod as he walks to work!

The boys had a great time rummaging through all the Christmas decorations, while they waited for me to put up the lights first.

Aaron calls me the 'tree nazi' as I'm very particular about the tree and which decorations go where. The poor boys are told to put all their homemade decorations at the back and I rearrange everything when they aren't looking!

Aaron no longer touches the tree as he knows everything he puts on is going to be moved anyway, but puts up lights outside the house, and all the other things up around the house.



Kobe slept through the first half and when he got up was very excited to see lots of action going on. He occupied himself by rolling around in the ribbons all afternoon.

Harri got bored after the first 15 minutes and then kept asking when it was time to put the star on. He decided to go on strike and just sat down saying 'I'm sick!' (anytime he doesn't want to do anything, he all of a sudden feels very sick!).

He finally gave in and helped to finish it off, so he could put the star on.


Now we can really start getting into Christmas. It all starts next Saturday with the Christmas parade, then it seems like there is something on every week until Christmas. Can't wait!