Challenge

Back in 2008 I set myself a little blog challenge.
It was to post 366 times in the year. It was a leap year so thus why 366.
I also did not set myself to post daily as I knew there was going to be times when I would not be near the computer for a few days, so made it that it had to be 366 posts.

Several people have wondered how I managed it.
Well 2008 turned out to be a very busy year for me, and here is why

1. We had just moved to Hamilton
2. We found a new house
3. We brought a caravan and set up our holiday site
4. We got engaged in the March
5. We moved into our new house in the April
6. I started my first job in Hamilton
7. I had a wedding to plan in 6 months
8. Ben turned 5 in the September
9. So started school
10. We got married in the September
11. We went on Honeymoon

Along with just general comments about life, friends and family, and wishing people Happy Birthday, then suddenly there were months when I was posting more than my quota for the month, but that at least made up for the months when I got a little behind.

Did I know the year was going to be so busy when I set the challenge?
No, I knew most of these things were going to happen, but not that life would get that busy for 2008

Was it easy?
Yes it actually was.

Why and how?
Because I only worked 2 days a week so getting to the computer at different times of the day was easy. The boys were little and life was a little simpler.

Could I manage it now?
Probably not at the moment because I only get to the computer in the evenings, sometimes with only enough time to check emails. I am now working 4 days a week so when I come up with ideas for things to post I usually have to write them down to remember them for later, but later on I loose focus on what I wanted to say and therefore do not blog about the subject!

I enjoyed doing the challenge. It was fun and I had a great time blogging about just about everything.
It didn't bother me that hardly anyone was reading my blog, I mean I only have 4 followers so not exactly widely popular with the world, but as many of you have mentioned before, this is my sort of journal of our life now and it is awesome fun to sometimes look back on what we were doing at the time, because if I didn't have this blog, I probably wouldn't have had a record of half the things we have done in the last several years.

Would I do it again? Yes

Sleeping

We regularly find Alex a sleep with Ben in Ben's bed at night.
We know that Alex will sometimes complain about not wanting to go to sleep on his own, not sure why as he shares a room with Ben and their beds are no more than 2 metres apart! but we were never sure as to who invited who into the bed?
Did Ben suggest Alex come and sleep with him?
Or did Alex keep moving over and snuggling next to Ben?

The other night was no exception, this is what I found when I went up to bed......

Now Alex will even take his pillow, wheat bag and bears with him sometimes.

So we asked them how this all goes down. The answer.....

Ben apparently invites Alex to snuggle with him until we go to bed because he knows that he doesn't like sleeping on his own. He would in fact like Alex to stay there all night.
Although this is not such a good idea, as Ben fell out of bed the other night and it was because Alex was with him at the time and managed to move him over so he lost balance, a little like the picture above, Alex has a great habit of taking over the bed and pushing the original owner out!

No School

Over the years of parenting, which when we really look at it is not that much for me at present (7yrs)! People have always given me advice on different stages of growing wonderful children.

For some reason, which I am not going to complain about, Ben seems to have managed to quietly slide through most ages at present with no real problems.
He is quiet, placid and just goes with the flow.
Yes we have had our fair share of problems with him, but nothing to really panic over.

BUT then we had Alex, and boy is he making up for everything we didn't have with Ben!
He is moody, loud, can hold a stubborn grudge and generally tests the waters with every move of every breath of everyday!

Last night at dinner he announce 'I don't want to go to school tomorrow'
I just played it off as something to say on the night before school holidays ended, knowing he had had a full on holiday and I must admit I wasn't too thrilled with going back to work after a week off.

Unfortunately this morning it wasn't quite so easy to shrug off.
At 7am he announced again that he didn't want to go to school
At 7.10am I was trying to get him to come out from under Ben's bed
At 7.25 Steve managed to get him out from under the bed and sitting on the bottom of the stairs
I got his uniform into a bag, along with some breakfast and made sure everyone else was ready to go.

We then informed Alex that we all had to go to work and school and he had to come with us.
So he did, in his pyjamas and still wearing his nighttime nappy.
They dropped me off at work, where I immediately went and found my manager and informed her that I had to leave again and that I would be back before 9.30am as Alex did not want to go to school. She was really good and just smiled and waved me away.

When I arrived at school, I found Alex in his uniform eating breakfast at before school care. He seemed quite happy although he wasn't too interested in playing with others.
He had earlier mentioned that he was scared of school, so I wanted to stick around and see him into his classroom in case there was a problem there.
Everything flowed nice and he was settled into class fine, way before the bell rang and with no problems we could see.

The teacher informed us later on in the day that she could not find out the reason for him being scared either and that maybe we were just unlucky today. He apparently had a great day and was very caring and sharing all day.

Unfortuanetly a friend was not so lucky with her 7yr old. She got him to the school but spent 15 minutes getting him out of the car!
She then spent another 15 minutes trying to get him off the pavement and into the school.
It ended when one of the teachers came out and assisted another teacher by actually holding him, whilst he screamed the street down, whilst mum quickly jumped in the car and drove away!
Apparently the rest of his day was super, he just had holiday itus like Alex!

Don't you just love kids??

Proud Parents

As mentioned here, the boys have decided that their sport of choice if Judo.
We have joined a wonderful caring club who are very proud of all their members. They support them at all times and take pride in doing so.
The boys have only been doing Judo for just over 11 weeks now, all of the last school term.

3 weeks ago they had a Fun Day at our Judo Club.
This involved having registrations from over 100 children from all over the Waikato region.
Ben and Alex insisted that they take part, so Steve took them along. They weighed in at 19kg & 21kg and were deemed as the youngest and lightest in the competition, but that didn't matter, they still got classed as 'PeeWees' and got to fight 2 others in their class.

Quick pep talk from Sensei

Got to do my warm ups

Man these people are all so big!

Anyone notice how much smaller I am to everyone else?

Sadly with the lack on numbers in this class Ben and Alex had to fight each other and with only 4 in the class only 3 could get a placing.
Ben walked  away with a Bronze Medal and Alex got a Certificate of Participation.

They both thoroughly enjoyed the tournament and learnt a lot.

We soon found out that Tauranga Judo Club was also going to hold a Fun Day and the boys decided that they wanted to be part of this as well.
What we didn't work out at the time was that this was going to involve a 6am start to get to the venue!
With a nice long earlier morning drive we arrived at the venue, where there were 60 other kids all ready to commence fighting.

After weigh in, it was established that the boys both came in the U24kg Class, so sadly, again they had to fight each other!

There were 6 in the class and Ben & Alex started the whole day off by being the first fight of the day. Ben won, but not before his little brother gave him a good fight for his money.
They both went on to have some great fights.
Alex sadly did not win any of his fights but he did score some points in some of his fights, so all was not in vain, he fought very well and give him a little more weight and maybe some height and he will whip them next time.

As for Ben, well he managed to walk in and just win all 4 of his fights, only one of the 6 to do that, so he walked away with 1st Place, yes that is right, he got Gold Medal in this tournament.

WE are so proud, he did an awesome job on the mats scoring some good points in his fights and working hard for his wins.

Mum managed to drive up from Rotorua to watch the boys fight, first time she has ever seen them fight, although it is also the first time I have seen them in a Tournament as I was away for their last one.
She was not disappointed either, and she was cheering moves to them during the fight just like a awesome Grandmother should do along with 2 very proud parents.
The other parents there kept laughing at me cause I was yelling so much during their fights! But everyone was cheering for them during their fights, they were the youngest and smallest from our club and it was obvious that everyone was very proud to sit and watch them fight.

Well done boys, you are awesome and we are very proud of you.
Do you think you can take on Tokoroa in September?

What's Been Happening

School holiday time again!
The boys have 2 weeks off, actually really happy about it because they are very tired.
Alex is loosing it very easily at present and unfortunately dinner tonight was one of the occassions. Steve however stuck to his guns when dealing with him and Alex suddenly left the table with a strong word from Steve and was in his pyjamas and up in bed before I had really understood what was going on!
15 minutes later when I checked on him, he was sound a sleep! Plain and simple....he was tired.
Think he might have grasped that sometimes when you upset Mum and Dad, you don't always get your way!

Ben on the other hand needs the holidays because he keeps coming down stairs crying saying he is having a bad dream about a movie. Usually it turns out he is remembering a movie he has watched at school, at sometime, because Ben has the wonderful ability of remembering things from weeks ago.
So even though I am now feeling that when school goes back I need to go and discuss with the Teacher exactly what movies the kids have been watching in class? I can't be sure as to exactly when these movies were watched, we could be looking at more than 6 weeks ago!
We just have to keep reminding him about more happier movies, like the up coming Toy Story 3, that we are hoping to have a family trip to see next week during the holidays.

Me, well I have been working. Although today I had the pleasure of attending a 10 hour study day on Level 5 Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
By the time I got home at 6pm I was tired and believe me if anyone had collapsed on the bus or in the street I would have happily kicked them under the nearest bush and just kept on walking by!
I was sick and tired of chest compressions, heart rates and whether the person had a pulse or not!
By the end of the day I had had enough of trying to work out if there was anything else we could do to keep the patient alive or whether they needed to be shocked once, twice or even 3 times!
Work will be fun tomorrow, all those people needing treatments because they have maybe had a heart attack, I just hope no one goes off in my Lab tomorrow!

Steve has luckily got tomorrow off work to look after the boys for the day, not sure what they will be getting up to, but I have left them laundry to do.
I may come home in the evening to find they have spent the whole day playing on the Wii, although seeing as we all did that yesterday it wouldn't be too bad. I certainly won't be playing with them this week, seeing as I have a very sore arm and shoulder from playing too much Wii Baseball yesterday. I actually can't place my right arm behind my back at present, think I might have over done it a little!

Have been happily blog surfing tonight and found this wonderful blog to follow. I actually found out about it over at a friend Needledmom, she has had the pleasure of entertaining Flat Girl for the last 2 weeks. Seems this princess, from Australia, came to stay for a vacation and Needledmom showed her a great time. She is now winging her way to Canada, so I look forward to catching up on her next adventures. I also happened to notice that a lot of people offered her accomodation, people in Holland, NZ and others in the US. Looks like Flat Girl is going to have a wonderful summer vacation.

Hope those that celebrate it had a wonderful July 4. Bet the fireworks were beautiful?

Catch you all soon