2010 Updates

It is nearly mid way through 2010 and I'm finally catching up with some upddates. Here goes...

Dave is enjoying his business mostly, he's training to be a scout leader, is becoming very muscley and has gotten back on the Weight Watchers wagon. He's feeling pretty good about himself!!

I am finally feeling normal after the D&C I needed 7 weeks ago. We're desperate to have another baby and are so sad that we've lost our last four babies. We went to the RE (Reproductive Endocronologist sp?) and got our results back from the D&C. There was a problem with T16 which is a common reason to miscarry. The RE didn't think that there would be a problem next time. We're waiting another month and then we'll be back. It costs about $1800 a pop, so not cheap, but so worth it!!

It's my third year at my school and I'm on a year 1/2 class and really enjoying it. I'm the social committee organiser at school and thinking that I should start organising our Christmas party.

I've finished my first subject of my Masters in Education and will hopefully get back to it again soon.

On a very sad note, Joanne took her life. It still doesn't feel real!!

Joshua is about to turn 13. He wants to have a party at a Tepanyaki restaurant. He does drama with Kidz on Stage on Monday nights and after school on Thursdays. He also does Scouts on Thursday night. Friday he takes himself to a hip-hop class in the Putney Primary School hall and is absolutely loving it!! He practices his dancing as often as Sammy will let him into her room to watch himself in her floor to ceiling mirrors. They both like to dance to music in there and watch each other's moves. On Friday nights Josh sometimes goes to a youth group up at Gladesville church with some friends that he's made at school. One of the parents takes him up there and we pick him up at 9pm.

Josh has started year 7 this year and is doing really well at school. He's just managed to get his 10th certificate at school for good behaviour and wonderful assignments. He's made a few good friends and has settled down well. Toby would be his best friend at school at the moment. Josh found the assignments very overwhelming at the beginning of the year and missed a couple of projects that he ended up getting zero for. After getting him a whiteboard to help him stay organised and helping him with his homework, he has managed to get some good marks and is on his way to better organisational skills in homework tasks. He is a wonderful big brother to Sammy and Isabella.

Sammy is in year 5 and enjoying school as well. She has just had her hair cut into a bob, because of knots and issues with keeping her long hair clean and unknotty. It looks beautiful and is much easier for her to look after. She has a nice bunch of friends and is especially close to Brittnie, who has been in her class every year since year 1. I think if those girls were split up they would be devastated!! Sammy is doing Guides on Tuesday night and is doing contemporary and hip-hop dance on Wednesdays with Brittnie. I am the president of the Girl Guide support group for Gladesville. Sammy is a sensitive girl who can be easily upset but is also very intuitive, gorgeous, an avid reader and a caring sibling. She likes to cuddle with Bella, but is also very upset when her little sister breaks one of her things, which unfortunately is quite common now that they share. Sammy is still messy, but is learning to be more tidy.

Bella is at such a lovely age. She goes to Acre Wood childcare full-time and has some lovely carers there. Her favourite would be Rachel, who has followed her up from the baby room. Her favourite friends last year were Evie and Lucy. Evie has moved to another childcare closer to home, however we try and catch up with her when we can. Her new best friends are Jess and Will. On Wednesdays she does a fitness class at school called 'Mighty Mites'. The song that goes along with these lessons with 'Coach Kim' is 'Mighty Mites, happy and bright'. This is followed with some star jumps. Bella shares a room with Sammy and is still in a toddler bed. She goes to bed at about 8:30pm and takes forever to fall asleep. At about 4:30 she hops into our bed in the middle, between Daddy and Mommy. She is woken up at about 7:15 with great difficulty. Then breakfast and off to school. She always arrives at school very excited and jumps up and down as soon as she gets there.

Some family routines...

We all start the day together with breakfast. I love it!! I read the paper and we all sit and eat together. Then there is a mad rush to get out the door. I take Bella to school, Josh catches the bus (leaving the house at 7:45) and Sammy is taken to school by Dave.

Christmas 2009

Christmas Eve is really the start of Christmas in the Taylor clan. We were all supposed to head over to granny and pa's house for an evening of seafood. Well poor me got food poisoning from eating at the food court after having a lovely pedicure with Sammy. So the morning of the 24th started with an extended visit to the bathroom and then another and then another. Dave ended up going with the kids and leaving me lying on the coach feeling sorry for myself. They ended up having a lovely time and I finally stopped vomiting.

Christmas morning arrived at around 6am with a wake-up visit from both Josh and Sammy. I promised that if Isabella hadn't woken up in the next 10 minutes that I would wake her up myself. Unfortunately I had to wake her up AND she was so hard to rouse. But eventually we were all up and my oh my did Santa bring a lot of presents!!

Everyone got something they wanted. But the best present of the day was Josh's hat which he is still wearing as I type 4 days later!! It was one of the cheapest as well. The second best present was the wii that Santa bought as a surprise. Everyone has loved it!!

Next was granny and pa's house where poor me felt under par all day. It was only after the kids had left at 3:30pm and all the other guests that I started to feel myself. Boxing day and I was back to normal. What a sad way to pass Christmas by. : (

Boxing day was the day to pick up Josh and Sammy from Jim and Heather's house. There were the usual guests plus Kim and her parents. She has been having a hard time with morning sickness. The kids are very excited about getting a new brother or sister in 2010!! Although to be honest, Josh is dying for a baby brother all of his own. He insists that it's not fair if Sammy has a brother and two sisters and he only gets sisters. Poor thing! We'd love to give him a baby brother, but at the moment that is not to be.

I sit here on the 29th of December and wonder how the year has gone by so quickly. We've been blessed in so many ways this year and hope that we're blessed in another way this coming year.

Sammy's Dance Competition

Sammy had her first dance competition this last weekend and she did so well. We are so proud of her!!This is the third time we've paid for her to do dance lessons and she's finally made it to a concert. The last two times she's decided that dancing is too scary and has stopped it before it has been time to actually join in a concert.

Well we finally made it and she was wonderful! She has such good rhythm and so enjoyed all the beautiful costumes. She got to dress up in a tutu during her ballet dance and then a different costume for both the tap and then jazz numbers. Her troupe came second in both the ballet and tap numbers and first in the jazz performance. She was just beaming for the rest of the day.

The War Memorial

The War Memorial ended up being a lot more interesting than the kids thought it would be. They enjoyed the hands on activities which included dressing in an army shirt, riding in a helicopter, being in the trenches and riding a bicycle that powered a movie. It was just fascinating!

Lucy Elizabeth Alexander

A beautiful 7 pound 12 ounce baby girl by the name of Lucy was born to my dear big brother and his lovely wife Annabelle. We of course had to go and visit!! All of us HAD to have a pic taken with her. After we had visit we went to the war memorial. The kids weren't very excited about going, but I think they had a good time and found it interesting.

Lucy is Here!!!!

A brand new 'Alexander' has come into the world. Her name is Lucy. We've been told that she has dark brown hair and of course is beautiful!!

I'm looking forward to seeing her this weekend!!!

: )

First Week Back at Work!!

Well the first week back at work and of course it feels like we haven't been on holiday. I suppose that's always the way though...

The last weekend of the school holidays was spent preparing an hour long presentation that I had to give the teachers at my school. I was nicely surprised that the talk went so well. A few of the teachers came and personally thanked me for the talk, saying that it was really interesting and that I spoke very clearly and confidently. My principal came up and shook my hand after I gave the speech and said, 'well done!'. I was quite chuffed with myself. Dave was also very proud of me. : )

Now the reason that I've made time to get on today is because...





there is a new family member. Brenton and Annabelle welcomed their first child this afternoon about 4:00p.m. the 24th of July. Her name is Lucy. I got to hear her first cry over the telephone and it just made me want to cry. What a wonderful thing a new baby is. Such a miracle!!

Dave has already booked accomodation in Canberra for tomorrow night. So we're going up this weekend to go and see the brand new baby 'Lucy'. I'm so excited and of course so clucky and a little sad at the reminder that our baby would be due about now.

Will post some beautiful pics of the baby when we get back. : )

Josh's day with Granny and Pa

Josh got to have a day to himself with Granny and Pa. They went 'jet boating' in Sydney Harbour. Josh got to take lots of photos...

Here he is on the ferry with Pa and Granny.

The First Week of the School Holidays

Well its the end of the first week of the school holidays and of course it feels like its gone far too quickly. So I've decided to write down some of the things that I've done and hopefully this will make me feel like the holidays have gone on and on... lol I can only hope. So here goes:
* I have just about finished covering the dining room chairs. I've done 4 complete ones and half of the other two. Just need Dave to help me finish them.
* Sammy has had her best-friend Brittnie sleep over.
* Josh has finally had Michael over to play and was even invited to go out with his family to watch a dance recital.
* I've been to a jewellery party at Sandra's home. Brittnie's mother's house. I bought quite a bit of very nice jewellery!!
* I've had my mother's group over to our house. There were 6 of us altogether and of course 6 toddlers. Very noisy, but great fun!!
* I finished sewing the last three badges onto Sammy's brownie guide sash.
* I've done a bit of programming for school. I've nearly finished the spelling program, the homework sheet and I've also found a school assembly item and then completed it and typed it out.
* I've finally babysat for Lisa and Howard and let them go out and have a nice date night.
* Dave and I went to GoldClass movies and watched 'Get Smart'. A really great way to watch a movie!! My dear Dave's hand in mine, sitting on reclining chairs, being brought yummy food and then having a nice glass of wine.
* A date with Dave. We went to a beautiful Italian restaurant. The food and company were divine. : )
* Went to 'ClownTown' with Lisa, my mum, the nephews and of course Isabella. Great fun was had by all. Took lots of photos!! Then my mum and I went to 'Dominies', the teachers resource shop. It's so much fun to look around and so hard not to spend lots of money. I thought I did well by leaving having only spent $130. Well done me!! Then I took my mum out to lunch. It was lovely, and Isabella behaved quite well too!!
* Went to Ikea and bought a new cube to go in our wall unit. It makes such a difference to the mess of the shelves. It all looks tidy again.
* Today I'm going to the beautician at 3:00 for TWO HOURS!!!! It's my mother's day present that I'm finally going to use. Decadence for two hours!! I can't wait!!

Well I have done quite a bit I suppose!! Still a week of the holidas to go too. A few things I have to do, but also some relaxing and FUN!!!!

Our Canberra Weekend

Well I'm not sure how to get multiple photos, but here goes:

This is Josh with his new "Ben 10" movie he got for the drive to Canberra. He's in the hotel room watching the rest of the movie on his portable DVD player with his headsets. He's been VERY quiet!!
Sammy is also being a quiet little Angel!! We had to drag them away from their movies!!

Isabella on the other hand just wanted to get into the kitchen and find those pots and pans. We were really hoping that maybe she wanted to cook something for dinner!!

Canberra for the Weekend

For Annabelle's baby shower we all went to Canberra for a visit. We stayed in a lovely unit and had Foxtel which we don't have at home. You can see that all three are appreciating the finer things in life. lol

My First Post

Well with a little help from Dave here I am up and away with my own blog!!

I'm hoping that this will be a way for me to keep a journalled photo album for the kids to enjoy as they get bigger. I've still got to get the photo issue sorted out as of course the main family photos won't show up on my computer as of yet!! Hopefully this will be sorted out soon. In the mean time I'm going to just try and get used to editing/writing ect this blog. : )

At the moment Josh is out on the water with our lovely next door neighbours. We really couldn't have asked for nicer people!! Often they have the kids at their house on the weekend and they don't ever complain. It saves us from those whiny moments of "I'm bored!" or "I don't have anyone to play with!" or "We never get to go anywhere!". lol

We've had such a busy weekend already and its only the first few days of the school holidays. Sammy had her best friend, Brittnie sleepover on Friday night, I went out for end of term staff dinner, Saturday Josh had his friend Michael over, I went to a jewellery party and took the girls along with me. Then Sammy and I went back home and she played with Josh and his friend. Michael got picked up at 5:30 and Josh was invited out to a dance recital and McDonalds. I think it was the McDonalds that actually won him over. Sunday I got breakfast in bed!!! I love my husband!!! Then Josh got invited by our lovely neighbours out on their boat!! We're planning to go and see a movie at the drive-in tonight and I nearly forgot, Dave and I have been recovering the chairs in the dining room!! They're red vinyl. Maybe a bit tacky, but hey, we can wipe them down with water and they don't stain.

Will hopefully get the photo thing sorted out soon and then post some of my beautiful family today.

Back in Sydney October 2007

Well we had a lovely 6 months away from Sydney and enjoyed ourselves immensley while away, but we have really missed family and friends here in Sydney and are having a great time catching up with everyone. Now we’re back we of course have missed some things from our life up in Evans Head, but most of all we’ve missed hanging out with Belinda and Paul on their amazing verandah/deck surrounded by the river on one side and sugar cane on the other. When we were there we’d be relaxing on the deck with a beer or a cuppa and feeding ‘boob boob’ to the littlies with of course Paul cooking some snags on the barbie. Invariably there would be the occasional tiff between the older kids, but this was always forgotten when dessert came out.

We’re looking forward to catching up with them soon to celebrate Paul’s 40th…on the deck!!!!!

Oak St. Performance

It’s been education week this week and the school has had open classrooms. I’ve got to go and sit at the back of Josh and Sammy’s classrooms and just watch. They were very excited that I was there!! It’s been a long time since I’ve had time to go into a classroom as just a parent.
Today was a chance for classes to go and perform in the main street (Oak St) of town. The kids walk there from school, which takes them about 6 minutes, maybe 8 for ones with little legs. There was even a programme given out to parents!! Kindy performed, “The Wheels on the Holden”, Year 1 did “I Jump” and Year 3/4 did “Brumby Jack” using lagerphones. Year 2 sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” however Sammy missed out as her teacher was sick. She was disapointed that she didn’t get to go.
Josh did an amazing job of shaking his lagerphone of course!!

Josh is infront of the rope coloured pole.