Three in the Bed

I've finally figured out why Aaron and I ended up buying a king sized bed a few years ago.  It wasn't so we could spread out - it was so I could have enough room in my bed for two little boys.

Harri is still sleeping in bed with me every night which I'm okay with but the last few weeks Kobe has had an awful cough.  It's okay during the day but gets really bad at night.  Usually by 11 pm he ends up sleeping in my bed too because it's much easier to help him when he's in my bed, than going back and forth to his room. Thank goodness for having a king sized bed, so it's not too squashy with these two in there.

 

Poor Kobes has been coughing so much that sometimes he vomits on himself, which means changes of clothes during the night.  He often ends up with different tops and bottoms on.  This was him last week on the bathroom floor as I had a shower one morning.  He has been so tired from all the coughing during the night.

 

As much as I love my boys, hopefully it won't be long till there are just two of us in the bed again so we can all get a decent nights sleep.

A Weekend of Fun

Last weekend was another busy weekend, full of lots of fun.   On Friday night we went along to the Punchbowl Primary School fair.  It was a great night despite it pouring with rain for the first half an hour.  The boys were so excited to meet Sticky and Sam from The Amazing Race.  Sam's Mum is the co-principal at the school so we had followed the show anxiously hoping that they were going to win.

Harri cracked me up as we were telling them we watched them every week and Harri then says 'no we didn't! If it was on at 10.30 we didn't watch it 'cause it was on too late!'. 

On Saturday morning we went to my cousin Cade's and Talissa's engagement party. It was such a beautiful day and it was at a park, so we had a lovely morning eating and catching up with lots of family and friends.

That night we went to a halloween party at the Webster's house.  Although we don't really celebrate halloween in Australia it's fun to see it getting a little bigger every year. The boys wish so much that we celebrated it like they do in the USA. 

I was hoping that the boys would want to get dressed up using costumes that we already have at home, but they had to be difficult and decided that they all wanted to dress up as 'team rocket' from Pokemon. I had no idea what that even was, so Jay had to google lots of pics for me.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not creative at all, and can't sew to save myself. It was a stressful week trying to sort the costumes out, but after a bit of hand sewing and iron on transfer paper we came up with some okay costumes. The boys were SO excited about them which made it all worth it.

The best thing about the weekend was that Chrish flew home from Sydney for it, and surprised everyone, except me. I knew he was coming down on Wednesday and we planned on not telling anyone.  It was so funny seeing everyone's faces when they saw him at the engagement party.   Mum even gave him a whack!

The boys were so excited when he walked in the house and surprised them. He came with an awesome costume and all for the halloween party.   Mum wore Chrish's 'Where's Wally' costume that he wore for his footy team's 'silly sunday'.

The Websters always throw a great party with a sausage sizzle, games, a face painter and hayrides.  Everyone was asked to decorate their car boots and the kids go around trick or treating at the car boots and have the best time.

Kobe was SO excited about halloween and couldn't believe that he could just go around and get so many lollies from everyone.

There were so many people at the party that Uncle Kim had to do three separate hay rides so everyone had a ride.

 The kids loved the pinata.

On Sunday Chrish flew back to Sydney, but before he left we went for a walk up at the Gorge as it was such a beautiful night.  The boys had so much fun running up and down the empty pool. 

Chrish and I had lots of fun stalking the peacocks, trying to get a good photo.

It was a lovely weekend and it was nice to keep busy as it makes the weekend go a lot faster.

Three Kings

How cool is this card!?  We found it while shopping in town one day. 

Kobe knows how to read 'King' because we have it on the wall in our hallway.   When he saw the card he yelled 'we ARE the King family!!'.  I think he was surprised that they were making a card about him and his brothers! :)

My Amazing Brother

I can't help but be proud of Jalen.  He has always been a great big brother to all of his brothers, but especially to Noah.  He loved him right from the start.

He always knew right from the start that Noah's life would be short.  As Noah got older he became more and more aware that there wasn't much time left with him.  On Noah's tenth birthday Jay got very emotional and said to me that he knew that Noah may not be around for much longer. I played it down and said that we will just have to wait and see, but deep down I knew it was the truth too.


On the 12 month anniversary of Noah passing away, Jalen posted this as his status on Facebook.  He made me so proud that he still talks about what an influence Noah had on his life.  He said the same things in his talk at Noah's funeral.

A couple of weeks ago Jay said to me that he wondered what it felt like to 'be normal'.  I asked him what he meant and he said that his whole life he has thought about someone dying.  He always knew that Noah would die one day and had it in the back of his mind that one day he would have to say goodbye to him.  Then Noah passed away and then Aaron and he said his whole life he has had to think about death and he wondered what it was like to not have to think about it. 

I reminded him that everyone has something that they worry about, even if you may not know what it is. It may not be that they have to worry that someone they love is going to die, but it is still hard.  I also reminded him that even though we knew that Noah was going to die one day, that we wouldn't give up having him. 

It's nice to know that he agreed.   I'm so proud of him for the way that he can see that having a brother like Noah is a blessing, even though there are hard things about it as well.  I have no doubt that Jay wouldn't be the person he is today without having Noah as a brother.

p.s If you've never had the chance to go to a TOFW event or would like to participate again then you're in luck because this weekend (Friday and Saturday USA time) for the first time ever they are steaming TOFW live from SLC, Utah for FREE.  If you are like me and would prefer to watch it during daylight hours (if only there was no time difference between Tassie and SLC!) or when the kids are quiet and in bed, then it will be online for the next week.

Just go here to register before the event starts.

Representing Kingy

Aaron was passionate about his sporting teams, whether it be a professional team like his beloved Hawks or his school team - Tamar.  Whenever there was a sporting carnival Aaron would design a new t-shirt to wear for the day.  This photo was taken at the 2009 carnival with his t-shirt he made for that year. 

He always came up with some funny slogan and this was on the back of the t-shirt he made that year. 

Last week I heard that the Kings Meadows High School athletics carnival was on, so Kobe and I went along to watch a little bit of it.  I saw some of his work colleages posting photos on Instagram of them wearing their team bands, so I searched through Aaron's box to find his. 

I then went through all of his clothes to find his old shirts he would wear, and decided to wear his KMHS top with 'Tamar' written on the back (and no I don't iron!:) I knew that Aaron would be happy that I was  representing him by going along and going for Tamar for him. 

 

It was nice to visit and catch up with some of his old workmates. I felt sad knowing that he would usually be the one on the microphone and would be cracking jokes and cheering Tamar on whenever he could. 

Kobe and I stayed for the relay races and these lovely grade 8 girls who are in Tamar came up to me with their first place ribbon after winning their relay.  They said that they wanted to give me the ribbon and said they won their race 'for Kingy'.  They had even written on the back of it for me. 

I know that Aaron would be proud of them. Not for winning but for being beautiful and thoughtful girls.  It touched me that they would do something so kind.

Walking for a Wish

Yesterday we 'ran' in the second annual Run for a Wish fun run which raises funds for the Make a Wish Organisation.  I say 'ran' because I knew from the start that I would not be running as Kobe was going to be in it and there is no way he could run 6.4km.  I will use that as my excuse, rather than just being so unfit from hardly exercising since Aaron passed away, and comfort eating all year :)

It was a weird feeling to be doing it again, knowing how things were at the same time last year.  It was just a few weeks after Noah passed away and we were sad to be doing it without him, but happy at the same time that we could do it as a family for him.  

Last year Noah wasn't with us, and this year Noah AND Aaron wasn't with us. It's still strange to say that.  This morning I was organising our bibs to put them on and I pulled four out and put them on the bench and kept thinking that there was one missing. It just didn't seem like enough.  And it wasn't. It's so strange to see that my family on earth is now just four people.

The day started off with the kids 400m race around Aurora Stadium.  Kobe was so excited that Hawka was there to help them warm up.

We wore our tshirts with Noah on them from last year's run.  We were lucky that they still fitted - only just!

Simone and I were talking during the week and decided we couldn't do it without balloons for Noah again this year.  It was nice having so many family and friends join us again.

We started off at the back of the pack and that's pretty much where we finished.  It was nice to just walk it and chat along the way and enjoy the time together.

Harri and Jay took off running and left Kobe with us. He did surprisingly well and jogged for a while and then walked most of the way.  Mum was happy she could walk it this year, as she had a broken foot last year, although I'm not sure now if she is still happy that she was able to go in it. There has been a lot of moaning about sore hips since :)

Hugh was so cute and slept for most of the walk.

There were volunteers all along the way and often these guys on bikes would ride past making sure everyone was okay.  They were lovely to stop to try to help Steph pump up her pram wheels. 

It was also nice to have the Woodwards join us this year, as they were away living in the USA last year.

Mum giving me a big wave.

Luckily the whole course wasn't like this and there was only a couple of small hills.

The kids were such troopers and hardly complained.  When they saw the end was near they decided it was time to finally start running. It didn't last for too long though.

Even though we came about 400th out of 409 people Kobe said 'I won!! I beat you Mum!'.

Harri ran like a rocket and came 150th! He was at the end yelling 'about time you got here!! I came first out of all our family and friends!'.   Our Harri is very humble! ;)

Simone was waiting with her camera at the finish line.

At the end they gave out the prizes which included spot prizes.  I was lucky enough to win a voucher for a massage! It would've been the prize that I would've chosen if I had the chance.  Kobe was also lucky to have 'won' a helicopter ride.  The lovely organisers gave Jalen a helicopter ride last year, and this year Kobe was lucky to get one.  My boys are very spoilt and I am so grateful to people who show so much kindness to them, as they have had so much sadness in such a short time.

Kobe however didn't appreciate the gesture quite as much as I did and tThe little rat yelled 'I don't want it!' when they gave him the voucher and whacked Harri with it, and Harri quickly said that he would have it instead! Supposedly Jay and Harri are going to take it together.  I'm nervous that Harri will get scared and will need me with him, but we will see what happens. 

We waited till the end to release the balloons for Noah.

It made me smile when I saw them go near the scoreboard with 'always Hawthorn' on it.

The boys were so excited to get a medal for participating.  Kobe said to me tonight 'did you get a medal Mum, even though you were slow!?'.

Afterwards we all went to Maccas for lunch.  It kind of defeats the purpose of exercising, but we had a lovely day with our family and friends, helping to raise money for a great cause.  All together they raised $22,500!

We are looking forward to doing it again next year and hopefully each year we will get a bit quicker as the kids legs grow a bit more.