Changes...

Sounds like "Change" is the theme of the season?!! It's certainly happening around here... and as I read my fav blogs - it's happening all round the world!

So tell me... how many of you have decided to change your baby's name, from the one you'd picked out when you started? (heaven knows, our name changed 3 or 4 times!!!... and look out! could easily change again!) I'm not asking for you to spill the beans, just tell me if yours has changed!

A note on our changes:
The whole "keep your house immaculate for open inspections" is wearing incredibly thin... and we're only 2 weeks in!!! Yikes!!! We only had a handful of groups through last weekend, so the agent wants to have a mid week open. Yeah, great. Coz I've got nothing better to do, on a freezing winter's evening, than take my 2 kids and 2 dogs out for an hour?!! He's only doing 2 of these, before our auction. I think I'd claw his eyes out, if he suggests more. I'm not sure, where I'll go... maybe I'll just drive round the city, with the heater going flat out in the car, for an hour? But for the price of fuel... it's a pretty expensive exercise!!!


Lord, Grant me patience.... QUICK!!!

If there's one thing this "wait" for our daughter, has taught me...



OK, I'll be honest... I've learnt nothing!

3 word Sunday

Its a chilly Sunday night. I have the heater going flat out, the doggies are chewing their treats by the heater. I have my box of tissues, cup of coffee and chocolate biscuits... and am giving myself a "girlie" treat! Chick Flick Marathon! I've just watched Becoming Jane, I'm just about to put on Pride and Prejudice and if I'm still awake, I'm going to watch Sense and Sensibility!!! Awww... the romance of it all!! Watch out Mr T... I'll be expecting a bit more from you this week!!!

Poor Mr T. Despises my movies. He is bored to tears. (maybe coz it's a bit like an educational video?!!!) He won't watch them with me. I don't care. I can't stand "Cops" and Gladiators! And won't watch them with him!!!

Brrr....

1°C
Current:Clear
Wind: NE at 14 km/h
Humidity: 93%

I copied the above, from the online weather, for my city. Brrrr....


Thank you for all your kind comments re: my LID anniversary post, below. I'm very flattered that so many of you, think I'm actually THAT clever - to make a movie!!! Don't be ridiculous!!! I can't do that, but IMAGE CHEF can!!! I love that site!

And bless you Lisa, for your kind words - (Aren't you getting all cool with your LID numbers....Guess you had some practice, eh? 29 done!) Just imagine how clever I will be when we FINALLY get Mini home?!!! You guys, never fail to put a smile on my face!

EXTRA! EXTRA!

Kids Speak...

H-man said a funny thing tonight -

We were watching the movie "Spirit" about the horse.
H-man says to me "How come Indians don't wear a tee shirt"?
I said, "Coz they don't have clothes shops"
He says "Oooh. They only have pants shops"

God bless, my simple-minded boy!

3 Word Sunday

Well, I must be doubly blessed - coz not only do I have wonderful friends, I have wonderful family too! Surprise, Surprise - this week was chaos! Apparently I wouldn't live my life, any other way???!!! Mr T, though very busy with work, home late, and out early - still manages to do everything I ask. And my kids - well, they are just gems! Yesterday I had them dusting, washing glazed plant pots, cleaning the kitchen, dusting blinds, tidying their rooms and the family room ~ all this work, for a measly $2!! They never even complained! H-man, came into our room at 730 this morning, declaring he'd just done "Poo Patrol" all by himself. (*poo patrol, is what we call it when you pick up the dog poo in the backyard!*) Miss M is sposed to do it - as Milo is her puppy... and definitely the biggest supplier of poo!!! I can't wait to be living on our new acreage... surely we won't need to do poo patrol?!!!

On that lovely note, I better be off, my office still looks like a hurricane has just swept through!

Exciting Day!

Oh Happy Day! We erected Mini's cot today! Although it wasn't in preparation for her arrival... rather preparation for the sale of our house!!! Our Agent suggested the tiny room we were using as a 2nd office, might be better presented as another bedroom. Mr T suggested maybe a cot would be a good piece of furniture, due to the small dimensions of the room - our Agent was rapt! We cleaned out all Mr T's crap - carefully carried the box out of the shed, unwrapped the pieces out of the bubble wrap, put together Mini's cot, and my sister in law excitedly helped me make her bed and stack her shelves! I painted the canvas today (pink/green stripes), and have been in there (just to visit) about 10 times today!!! It's not the room, she'll come home to... but it's HER COT. It's just so exciting!!!

ONE DAY our daughter will be sleeping like an angel under the quilt I made, wearing the gorgeous clothes on the shelves.

ONE DAY.

3 word Sunday

Hit the Ground Running!

Sounds all quite athletic, doesn't it?!! Getting the Olympic Spirit?!!! I'm not - no time to think about the Olympics!

Good grief it takes alotta effort to get a house ready for sale!!! It dawned on me the other day, that this is the first house, I've ever had to prepare for sale. We've owned one other house, but hubs got that in the settlement. Other than that, we've rented about 8 houses! But preparing your own house to sell, is another kettle of fish, entirely! The Agent said "declutter" - so I've basically scooped everything off the shelves and thrown them into a box. We decluttered the kids rooms - 3 garbage bags of broken or crappy toys were removed from H-man's room, and 6 garbage bags of paper were removed from Miss M's room!!! Miss M loves to draw and write things on a thousand tiny pieces of paper... Thank the Lord, she saw the light, and has decided she doesn't need all those tiny pieces of paper!!! Miss M also loves "knick-knacks", so even though her room was deemed "clean" - it still looked cluttered with all her keepsakes. So into the wardrobe they go! But don't open that wardrobe, call it'll all fall out!!!

I've got my bro and his wife staying with us, from interstate, which makes it interesting as far as keeping the house clean and tidy goes! Our "campaign" doesn't start til after they go... thank goodness! We still don't have anywhere to go... but the Agent, assures me, that its the best way to be, sell first - buy after. I said "Yeah! Coz you buy some crap-heap out of desperation!!!" So, if you're selling a crap-heap... we'll be in the market, shortly!

3 words Sunday

I am truly, truly blessed. I have wonderful friends. They make me laugh, sometimes, they make me cry! I have TRUE friends. Friends that will be with me til the day I die. My life would be so empty, if not for my friends.

We started out the week, attending our best friend's daughter's 9th birthday. I was going to post a pic of all the kids together, but decided not to (privacy & all) - but it really made me think, when I looked at the photos. The kids adore each other. They can't wait for the next time they'll hang out. Its funny, they don't really have a choice - they HAVE to be friends, coz their parents are OUR good friends!!! The kids finished school on Wed - said "see ya" to their friends, who'll they'll see again in 2 weeks time. Thursday, was chores at home day!!! And Friday, we hooked up with some more friends to go to the movies, and saw Kung Fu Panda (yes, we'd already seen it - but its so worth seeing again!) Saturday, we attended a friend's wedding - to his best friend! We sat at the Reception, surrounded by friends. We laughed, and talked til we were hoarse! Danced til our hips hurt. And today, we picked the kids up from Mr T's sister's, and had lunch with her family - our friends. This afternoon, I called a friend that I haven't seen for about 6 weeks, and talked for 2 hours!!! (so unlike me... no! I like to talk... just not on the phone!!)

So, it's very fitting that my 3 words be about my friends. They are Gold. No actually, far more valuable than gold. They are irreplacable ~ priceless.

I Thank God for my FRIENDS.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to my American contingent!



Enjoy your wonderful warm weather!!! And your freedom!





PS Early reports are estimating a 25th Jan cut off. C.c.A.@ allocated 5 days this month. Not terribly thrilled... but too busy to give it too much thought. OK, enough thought to estimate that if they continue to allocate 5 days, we're still 6 months off. 28 logged in days til our date ~ which is kind of freaky, as we're up to 28 logged in months at the moment! I've always said "2" is our number. (Approved 21/11/2005, DTC 2/2/06, LID 22/2/06) 2/12 suits me better than 2/2!!
Here in Aust. we get a "baby bonus" when we have babies. Recently the Govt approved adopting families for the same bonus (don't get me started on why they excluded them initially), it's a whopping $5k! But due to the recent change in Govt, the new tossbags have decided to "means test" the bonus as of 1/1/09. I've got everything crossed, that we do see Mini before Christmas. For all the obvious reasons (duh! the sooner the better!) but now there's $5k at stake!!!

Moving Right Along...

Doesn't look like it'll be much of a "holiday" these School Holidays! Got waaay too much to do, and very little time to do it! I did drop a hint the other day, that we might be moving. Well the "might" has been eliminated, and we ARE moving! Now don't all go, having a go at me and saying I pushed my hubs into it. After the last place I looked at (the hills property with the beautiful view), and getting a definite NO, I dropped it. No more looking, no more asking. Be satisfied with what I have. Then, out of the blue hubs says, lets move and buy some acreage!!! Men, I tell ya!!! So it's been a whirlwind few weeks, checking out properties etc; but moving means THIS house needs to be ready too! And because we're looking at land, not houses... we'll need somewhere to live, whilst we're building our dream house!!! So we've been looking at units (apartments) to squeeze into for a year. I've since found a nice 4 bedroom home, not far from the land we're looking at - CHEAP!!! And on heaps of land, for the doggies. So it looks like a GO! We'll probably be outta here, in 6 weeks!!! Holy cow!!! I've got so much work to do!!!



Here's a squiz at some of the properties we've got our eye on... haven't been able to narrow it down yet! Most of these, have no services (water, electricity, sewer etc) - so we're going GREEN ~ all solar. Solar water and power. Gas heating (can truck the gas in). Rainwater on the house. And there's some new "enviro" cycle sewer system... sewer isn't my favourite subject, so I haven't really looked into that one - I'll let the builders deal with that! It'll be expensive to set the solar up, but we'll never have to pay for electricity, water or sewer again! PLUS the enviroment will love us for it!

These are 5 different pieces of land. Ranging from 22 acres - 228 acres! The bigger pieces of land, are very hilly - so not really "usable" land. I'm such a girl when it comes to the land - I like the hills, coz its pretty!!! Who cares if you can't use it!!! Just enjoy looking at it!!! We don't plan on "farming" the land, although have considered "leasing" or "share farming" the land if we get the bigger acreage.

And, no, it's not closer to school!!! It'll be about the same travel time, that I'm doing now. Although the school is talking about putting a bus on, to this area, as there are several families (inc the principal!) living out this way. I've already talked to another Mum about car pooling and she is very excited! Its really close, to my favourite high school too, so it feels like a good move all round.

Time is a'wasting! I've got packing, painting, laundry, food shopping, and cleaning to do!!!

Take a peek!

This was the state of my house on Saturday! Crap everywhere!!!

Still crazy-busy with work. Hopefully, we've got all the right information in our new system!

Got everything crossed we see a BIG batch of babies this week!!!

Here's my furbabies, hangin' by the heater! Milo got his new collar today... he doesn't like it, but I think it looks like a red ribbon! Its the smallest size available, and I still had to punch 3 more holes in it, to fit him! He's all fluff!!!

3 word Sunday

Far out! What a week!!! I feel like a dog chasing her tail!!! My head feels like its about to explode... it could get messy!!!

End of financial year. (yes, we Aussie's finish our taxable year 30 June. End of calendar is too hard, everyone is on Christmas/summer holidays... since tax is depressing, may as well do it in the most depressing season... winter!) PLUS we're changing business software. PLUS it looks like I've sold my car... and have no new one lined up! PLUS we might be moving. PLUS we're doing renovations at the office. PLUS there's the new puppy, and all the "new puppy" poo and wee on everything!!! I woke up this morning, thinking about Superanuation... you know you are too involved in your business when you wake up thinking about work!!!

Hopefully next week everything will settle down a bit!

3 word Sunday

I did 2 "3 word Sunday" pics this week. The first one I realised, I can't count, and there are more than 3 words (although technically, there is one number and 3 words - and I'm not counting the proverb at the top!!!) And there's 4 words on Milo's pic as well, but I'm saying that "MILO" is "art", not to be included in the word count!

Geez, I'm waffling a bit today, hey?!! Might have something to do with, having 7 kids this weekend?!!! I don't know how my sister-in-law does it, every day!!! Cooking a meal, was like cooking on camp!!! I had to cook the mash potatoes in a huge stockpot!!! I cooked more than was needed, but I'd rather have too much, and have kiddies with full bellies, than not enough, and have them asking for junk after dinner!

....And then there's the added bonus of a new puppy to add to the mix, of overly excited children!

Lastly, we saw Kung Fu Panda yesterday - FANTASTIC - you must go see it!!! Can't wait for it to come out on DVD.

IT'S A BOY!!!

Miss M's new puppy, that is!!! Milo officially joined our family today. He's a 12 week old Spoodle, Miss M named him Milo. Surprisingly, Chewy was brilliant with him. Sniffed the poor pup to pieces, but didn't snap or growl at him at all!!! VERY unusual for Chewy! He has "little dog" syndrome, and is forever trying to show big dogs, how big he is on the inside, by barking, growling and generally being a bully!!! But, so far, so good. We've put them in the laundry tonight, to sleep together... so I'm hoping we still have 2 dogs when we get up in the morning! Milo is one of 6 pups, along with his Mum and his Dad and wonderful "Mummy" owner, all living in a little one bedroom apartment! So the poor thing was all a bit bewildered and "sookie" coming into our house (with two VERY excited children!), lots of space, and no mummy dog.



Here's some doggie eye candy for ya!

850 Days Logged In - today.

A week!

Geez, I haven't posted for a week!!! Been flat-chat at work getting ready for the dreaded "end of financial year" (30th June). We're also making a major switch in software, and are trying to get as much training as possible, before 30th June, so we can start the new financial year, on the new system... oh joy!

The weekend was busy. H-man got a very special invitation, to go out on the field at half-time, with some other Auskick kids, at the Adelaide vs Hawthorn football game - and made his "Aussie Rules Football Debut"... in front of 45,000 people!!! I tried to download the videos I made, but they're not downloading... will work on it! He was a little champion! A huge thanks, to his classmate, that invited him along - to the experience of a lifetime! We asked him, what it was like, being out there infront of all those people, he said "what people?"!!! We said, "all the people in the stands" - he said "oh them - yeah". Unfortunately, after an extremely close game, our team, Adelaide ("The Crows") lost by 4 points. :(

So my 3 word Sunday pic, is in honour of our little footballer -

If you didn't work it out - he's the one the yellow arrow is pointing to -in black, long black socks and shiny white boots!

Last Friday, was Grandparent's Day, at school. Miss M and my Grandma (Miss M's GREAT Grandma!) featured in the Newsletter! I'm going to ask for a copy of the photo, but for now, you'll have to be satisfied with a scan from the Newsletter!

I thought it was a really nice photo! They drew a vase of flowers, together! H-man and Mr T's Dad, also got a spot in the Newsletter -

And lastly... CONGRATULATIONS! To the Adelaide families who received the wonderful news of their precious new additions! Including, one little boy (that I know of!)! I'm really starting to think that we might be seeing blue!!! Like I've said before, we don't care if we receive a boy or a girl... we just want to receive!!! (ps. I'll be advertising my e.b.a.y id if we do see blue... as I'll have a wardrobe full of pink that'll be going cheap!!!)

June Long Weekend

Happy Birthday to The Queen! And thank you for the long weekend to celebrate your birthday!!!

We took the opportunity to visit our friend's farm, with a bunch of other friends, and our motorbikes! It was glorious weather, and loads of fun! The kids had a ball, getting dirty and flogging their little bikes & quads, around the track - and the big boys, impressed us with their "serious air"! While the Mums enjoyed a cuppa around the campfire!

Thank you so much to D & K for sharing your fantastic property, and of course, your wonderful company! We all had such a great time.

My 3 word Sunday pic:

Isaiah 40:31

At a Guess...

OK, so I stole this from Shannon - who stole it from RumourQueen (thanks RQ for your awesome poll skillz!)

I was having a good look at the chart, on Shannon's blog, and it occured to me that looking at these numbers, and comparing with the days left til our LID (22Feb)... there is a very possible chance we COULD see Mini before Christmas! I know, I'm being ridiculously silly, "hoping" - especially knowing how unpredictable cCaA is - but here's what I was thinking.

According to the poll, 107 files were allocated (of course, there were a lot more than that world-wide, that don't read RQ, and didn't vote) between 13 - 22 Jan. At a guess, CcAa may get through til the 26th or 27th next month. But then there is virtually nothing logged til 6 Feb. So one could assume that they could get through to, anywhere from 6-13 Feb, in Aug (if they continue to allocate). Then in Sept, through til about the 19th Feb? And in Oct, to about the 26th Feb?.... Meaning and OCTOBER referral for us?!!! I've thought for a long time, that Mini would be born in March. (Only coz my birthday is in March, and I thought they'd be really cool!) That would make her 8 months in Oct - maybe that's a bit young, going on recent referrals? I also think she'll be in Guangdong. Don't know why, but I've thought that for a couple of years, now.

All completely hypothetical, and based on minute world wide figures, from one website. OK - it's not sounding all that convincing is it?!!! I'd settle for anything in 2008! Obviously the sooner the better, but the CcAa has proven, it won't be hurried!

Words of Wisdom

OMG! Just come from RQ - she's listed the latest rumour as an R3 (believable, but not 100%) - that C.C.A.A has referred through til 22 JAN!!! Geez! I just about pee'd my pants! I thought if they could get through til the 17th, that'd be awesome! (the SA batch ahead of us was logged in on 17th Jan!) But the 22nd?!!! Holy Cow - that's amazing! If it turns out to be true - we are just 31 days til they hit our file! I'm just so excited!!!


Oooohhh! Aly and Ford... thinking of you! You are so close!