Countdown and challenge!!!!

For those of you who don't know, this year we will be making a big MOVE! Our last and final destination will be Australia. We're extremely excited about our big move and so, whenever Paul and I are excited about something we have a countdown calendar!!! Sweet!!!! In exactly 215 days we will be leaving on a jet plane and we know we won't be back again. We're slowly but surely starting to prepare for our big move so I'll keep you updated on our progress.

My friend, Kerry and I have decided upon a scrapbooking challenge in the hopes of actually "doing" more layouts. The challenge is to complete one layout a week. Not hard you might think - hah! By the end of each Monday we need to produce evidence of our layout. I will be posting my evidence on here where I will keep track of the whole challenge. If we don't manage to produce a layout there are certain penalties which will then apply. No chocolate for a week plus a fine of scrapbooking stash! I think its going to be fun and just hope I can keep up past week 1. The challenge starts in the week coming so watch out for evidence on Monday, 9 February.

Last bit of news - Gethin has a tooth! I think he's been trying to tell me for a few days now as he keeps waking up at 4 in the morning. I'm not really in the mood to chat at that time of the morning so we only discovered it yesterday afternoon. A far more reasonable time!

Photos: Some more random pictures from December.

Work and toilet troubles!

Between work and kids and doctor's appointments for kids, I don't seem to get much time to do anything these days.
Work has been quite consistent for me since school started in Jan. I've been working at the primary school in the next village which is really convenient for me. Its just 2 mins from my house which means more time to get ready in the morning - a very good thing for all family members concerned!
Last week, I had 2 days of work at the "school from hell". Once I'd finished there I had a new appreciation for my own children! Boy, I have never seen kids with such serious behaviour problems in my life! It was quite scary to see how bad some kids really are. Out of a class of about 30, 4 of them were unteachable. They would or could not even sit down for 1 minute without some disruption or disturbance. You really had to be there to understand what they were really like.
We've been having some rather serious toilet issues with our beloved Ross for a very long time. I finally succumbed to my own (sometimes torturous) toilet training scheme and took him to the doctor. Something I should have done ages ago!
He's prescribed medicine for him which is working brilliantly. I never thought I'd get excited about my child going to the loo but I really am!! Too much information I know!
I'm just hoping that when its Madison's turn to be potty trained in the next few months that I'll do a better job. Fingers crossed.
Our little baby, Gethin is growing up so fast. I can't believe he's 9 months old already. He's sitting quite nicely now, which I know is no great feat since he's already 9 months old BUT if you had a big sister like Maddy you would know that its amazing that he's even sitting at all. As soon as I put him on the floor she makes a beeline for him and within seconds she's pushed him over! I can't wait for him to be a bit bigger and give her a good thump for all her misdemeanors!
Lastly, before I go. In case you're wondering, the photos above are from our holiday at Centerparcs.

Back to the real world!!!!

Goodness me, its been ages since I last wrote! Time just flies when you're having fun. I can't believe that as we speak my parents are on a plane back to SA! It feels like just yesterday I was picking them up from the station.
We've had a lovely time over the last 3 weeks. We've celebrated Christmas, New Year, 2 Birthdays and Gethin's dedication plus had a week away at CentreParcs. The children have really loved having their Grandparents around, as have Paul and I. All the extra help definitely lightens our load!
Ross really enjoyed Christmas this year and was really excited when he finally woke up on Christmas morning. He got a Nintendo wii as his main present and we've had some good laughs playing it with him. Madison, on the other hand, was none too impressed with the whole event and spent the first part of Christmas day crying. She didn't want to open her presents and spent the rest of the day clinging to me. A bit too much for her!
Gethin was not well all Christmas week and had to be taken to the out of hours doc at the hospital on boxing day! Poor boy! He had a throat infection leading to the ears. He was much better once the antibiotics kicked in and was back to his usual happy self again!
We've had the coldest weather ever this year with the temps not getting much higher than 0 degrees! Although I'm not the greatest fan of cold weather I do prefer it to wind and rain so I can't really complain.
We had a lovely week away at CentreParcs. The place really is impressive set in a huge forest location! Our woodland lodge was tucked away in the trees and the kids were so excited in the morning with all the squirrels, rabbits and birds hopping around right in front of the sliding doors. We went on lovely wintery walks (no cars allowed in the park), rode the land train, took the kids swimming, played tenpin and much much more!! It was so cold the huge lake there froze - something I've never seen before!! I'll try and put some of the many photos up of the extremely cold weather we've had over the next few weeks.