Four Eyes

Aaron has been complaining for a while that he has been having trouble focusing on things. With school holidays we thought we had better finally book him in for an eye appointment. The Optometrist confirmed what he thought - that he needs glasses.

We had lots of fun picking a pair of frames out. He isn't too worried that he has to wear them and it probably doesn't help that I've been cracking all the usual 'four eyes' jokes, but I actually think he looks quite good in them.

This photo was taken on Friday night at the youth convention formal dinner/dance. Aaron was the MC and whenever someone would leave their seat, he would jump into it and interview the lucky person next to him. Poor Tayla was the first victim and she handled him very well.

I'm still sorting through hundreds of photos, but a convention post will be coming very soon.

Youth Convention

Just a warning that it's going to be a quiet few days on the blog front. Tonight our multi stake youth convention started. It is running for two days and has been a huge event to plan and prepare for, so we are glad it's finally here so we can now have some fun!


We have about 70 or so youth from all over the state and tomorrow is going to be a very busy day, so I had better get off to bed and get my beauty sleep.

D.O.R.O.T.H.Y

A few months ago we booked tickets to take Kobe to see the Dorothy the Dinosaur concert. To say he is a fan of the Wiggles is an understatement. If he could he would watch the Wiggles all day long. He tells you the name of the colours according to a Wiggle, and if someone is asleep he says they are like Jeff, or if someone is playing the guitar he tells you it is like Murray. He was excited to go out with just Aaron and I this morning, while the boys stayed with Di.

We met up with some of my gym buddies as well as Pip and Ben, Bec and Karen and their kids. Kobe loves seeing Eden and Charlotte at the gym almost every day.

It was nice to have so many friends to go with, and fun to see the kids reactions to the concert.



I was wondering how Kobe was going to go at the concert, as the last concert we went to he freaked out and cried for most of it, but as soon as Dorothy came out he was so excited!

He was quite upset when she would leave the stage and the other characters would come out. He kept asking where Dorothy was.



It was so nice to spend the morning just with Kobe, and lucky for Aaron that it was held during the school holidays.


Kobe's favourite part was when they sang 'Hot Potato', and when it finished he kept asking 'again!?'.



I was waiting for the tears to come at the end, but he was really good waving and yelling 'byyyeee' as they left the stage.

We couldn't resist a photo with the cool van as we left.

It was a great concert. We missed out on seeing the Wiggles in concert this year, but I think Kobe would've enjoyed this concert just as much. The people in it were really good and they sang lots of popular songs that he knew. It was also nice to be up close and in a smaller venue. and of course it was a lot cheaper. Hopefully it won't be long till they come back and do another one, as I'm sure in a few more years he will be like his brothers and think he is too old for it.

The Last Photo with the Possum Tree

It's a sad year this year as it's our last year of taking the boys photos in front of our tree at the front of our house, in blossom. I'm sure we will cope though - having a new house will be worth it :)

Yesterday we took the annual photo and Jay said it was the 'quickest photo ever!', which he was very happy about. Harri still keeps calling it the 'possum tree' rather than the 'blossum tree'!

I can't get over how much taller Harri is this year compared to last!

and how skinny Noah used to be!!! Who would've thought my chunky boy was that skinny! That's what puberty does to you!

How cute were my boys!! They still are, but they are growing up to be young men so fast!

Kobe looks a lot like Harri did when he was younger. Kobe always thinks it is him in photos that he sees of Harri as a toddler. Noah's wheelchair was so tiny here too!

Thanks possum tree for some pretty photos and for reminding us that we made it through another winter, and the warm weather is on the way.

Wishing We Were In

We thought by now we would have moved into our new house. Unfortunately it has been going a lot slower than we had hoped. Our builder has been great and we can't complain as he has been working 7 days a week for months, but it is the first house he has built on his own and he said to me on the weekend that it is a much bigger job than he anticipated, especially with no other help other than family. It's slowly coming together though -it actually feels like a home now.

This is looking through the double garage into the kitchen/dining room.

Today has been VERY exciting as our floating floors have been laid. We went up this afternoon to have a look and were really happy with them.

Harri has been super excited about our huge hallway to kick the footy up and down (a soft footy of course - no way is he wrecking my new walls!), but today when he saw the floor he said 'this won't be very good for tackling on!'.

It seems like we are being told 'a couple of weeks' all the time, about when it will be finished, but hopefully it really WILL just be a couple of weeks until we can move in. In the meantime we are packing very slowly - probably just a couple of boxes a day. We don't want to pack too much just yet, as we are still needing a lot of things but want to be half organised when the builder finally says that we can move in. Our garage is slowly filling up with more and more boxes. Cant' wait till we can load them up and move on over!

My Baby is 11!!

Today is Jay's 11th birthday. He has been so excited about it. It's still so hard to believe that I have an eleven year old! We started celebrating yesterday by going out to Maccas for tea (Jalen's choice).

His brothers and Dad didn't mind at all, as they all love McDonalds too.

Jay said he got up early and came into our room and saw on our clock that it was 4am, so he went back to bed and then came back into our room at 5.45am. We were mean parents and told him he had to wait till Kobe woke up to open his presents, so he came running back into our room at 6.45 am when Kobe started calling out. He had asked for a couple of things including a Soleskate which is kind of a mini skate board that you put your foot on. He's going to have lots of fun trying to master it.

Jay has the funniest sense of humor (takes after his Dad) and is always making us laugh. He told us during the week that all he wanted for his birthday was for each of us to 'do a jig'. He is one strange kid! This morning after he opened up his presents he then says 'okay - time to do your jigs guys!'. We thought we would humor him and pulled out some crazy dance moves for him...little did I know that he was videoing me - pyjamas and all!! I thought he was going to take a photo - what a rat Bag! Check out the moves - I think I should be a Zumba instructor at the gym! ;)



Since the World Cup soccer was on all he has wanted was a vuvuzela (those horrible horn things that you could hear the whole time). Aaron ordered him one off eBay and he was so excited this morning to unwrap it and play it ALL day long!!! Nanna and Pa (Aaron's Dad and Step Mum) look excited about it! ;)

Noah hasn't had a happy day, so when Jay was blowing himself 'happy birthday' as Nanna and Pa sang to him, Noah yelled along with him. Aaron made a joke at tea time that Noah was imitating me in labour, eleven years ago!



After church, Grandma and Grandpa came for tea. Jay was cracking us up at tea time as he would break out in lots of toasts.

It's been a nice day with our BIG eleven year old! It's hard to believe that our little baby has grown up so much. We love you Jay - enough to do a jig for you and make ourselves look silly, just to see you smile :)

Life with a Pump

Since Noah's last stay in hospital we have been busy trying to work out the best regime with his feeding pump. At first (with advice from the dietician) we thought we would just run it overnight so that he gets all of his feeds during the night, and then just a couple of boluses of water in the day, plus water that he gets with his meds.

After a few days we realised that there was no way that was going to work, as he wasn't getting enough water. The dietician actually argued with me over how much water he should be getting, and asked our paediatrician at the hospital if he thought we were giving Noah too much water. He looked at me and asked me what I thought and I reminded him that without as much water as we give him, his bowels get even more blocked up than they already are. He then looked at the dieitician and said 'it's working for the family, so we stick with what Mum knows works best' :) I was just about ready to explode at a dieitician or two, a couple of times we were in hospital. They just seem to have NO clue about what it's like to care for a child like Noah. They often seem to go on their charts based on 'normal' kids, who don't have bowel issues and who are moving, running, walking and able to burn more calories than Noah.

After a week or so we realised that it was best to keep the pump running continuously - for around 22 hours a day - giving him a couple of hours break in the early evening (which is nice as it means it's easier to have a cuddle with him without the pump attached :).

We now give him all of his water at night time via the pump. The dietician wouldn't be happy as she would say he is getting way too much, but if Noah is happy then we are all happy. It makes it so much easier as it means we don't have to give him boluses of water during the day, and there is also less risk of him aspirating from having a bolus.

It took me a while to get used to the noise of having the pump running all night as Noah's bed is in our bedroom and about a metre away from my head . It's an awesome pump as it's so small and portable, but it doesn't run continuously but stops and starts every 60 seconds or so. It's only a soft whirring noise, but when it's stopping and starting every 60 seconds it's hard to get into a deep sleep, before hearing it start up again. I worked out that instead of having it on the IV pole, it was much quieter stuffing it under Noah's pillow as it muffled the sound. Now I get a much better sleep.

We now give him his feed continuously for 10 hours or so during the day. I LOVE that we can take the pump out with us and have it sitting on his wheelchair. The hardest (but best!) thing has been getting used to not feeding him every few hours in the day. Before the pump we were giving him a bolus of either water or his feed every one and a half hours, so we were constantly watching the clock, as we would know it was time to give him something.

The other day we were out for most of the day and we were saying how nice it was to know that Noah was being fed the whole time through the pump, and how we didn't have to stop and give him a feed. I wish we had it years ago.

Since coming out of hospital Noah has been back to his normal self. Everyone keeps asking me 'how's Noah now?' and I usually say 'he's good...or he's back to 'normal Noah'. That isn't great, but isn't terrible either...it's just Noah. At this time of the year it means lots of extra secretions because he has bad hayfever. It means we are having to do lots of extra nebs and suctioning, but it's actually hard to believe that he was so sick a month or so ago, but is now back to normal. I will take extra secretions and suctioning over how he was a month ago any day.