Dentist

Last week the School Dentist Nurse called to say it was time for Alex to have his check up. I knew that Ben would go through his school when they visit but he needed to see someone more than Alex, so I asked if he could be seen as well.

So we all trotted off to the dentist and had a great visit.

I ended up with 2 very cool dudes, who sat in the chair so nicely and behaved so well. I was very pleased with my children.

Of course at the end of the visit my 2 inquisitive boys had to see how the chair works?

Daycare

When I went to collect Alex from Daycare yesterday, his first words to me were 'Evaporation'

Yep that is right, I have been sending him to play lots learn lots and he blows me away with things like evaporation.
He even went on to tell me that you get a glass of water, leave it in the garden and it evaporates up to the sky to make the clouds!

He is 3 1/2!
So consequently I love this new Daycare, I am going to have a buddy Einstein before the end of the year.


Oh and thank you so much to Mary over at Owlhaven for leaving a comment to my blogging post abd explaining to me how to do strickthrough. As yoyu can see above it worked brilliantly and I am so impressed with myself for doing it first time. You are great, thanks.

Hair Cut

Had my hair cut the other week.

Went a little shorter than I really wanted, but luckily it will grow.

I also decided that seeing as all the highlights had now been removed then why not go dark red!

So I did....

Paint

Yesterday we went to a hardware shop to get some stuff.

As I had 5 minutes to spare I had a quick look at the paint sheets, we are doing the bathroom so am looking at colours for the walls.

2 minutes later I heard an 'Oh No!' and knew it must be trouble....

There stood next to me was Alex, with a sample pot of paint in his hand, with the lid undone!

You guessed it, all down his clothes, his hands, feet and of course the shop floor!

Luckily there was a shop lady on hand to help clear up and they didn't even make me buy the pot, which was lucky as I didn't like the colour!

The Miracle of Blogging

I am amazed at myself for all I have self taught myself on this wonderful programme.

I was always a self taught computer person from the beginning and now I have successfully taught myself loads of stuff about Blogger.
I am sure there are still other little things that I could do to give my blog more pinaze and flare, or some special little button that does some simple wonderful effect, I will find them one day.

In my time I have learnt to log on, create a blog, change the template and even change the colour of the font.
I can make the font small or large, pink or blue.
I can make it bold, make it look pretty in Italics.

I can centre it

I can move it to the right

And even back again to the left.
I have learnt to write a list

1. eggs
2. bananas
3. bread

And even how to add a photo of someone special

A picture that deplicts what I am writing about







Or a special video of something interesting





I have even managed to change the background on my page with the wonderful stuff from over at The Cutest Blog on the Block, which reminds me, I have even managed to create hyperlinks to places!

But in all my blogging time, I have yet to work out how to write some text and place strikethrough on a word???

There is no button for it in the create a post screen and I am at a lose as to how to do it?
Maybe one day Google will create the button for us or some kind person will give me a tutorial on what to do??

Till then, I will do what I have learnt and keep trying new things to find out what they do.
Happy Blogging

Anniversary Gifts

I am a very traditional person, well I try to be, seeing as I had both kids before getting married, maybe I am not as traditional as I would like to be.
But one area that I have always been traditional is in the area of gift giving for Anniversaries.
I have always used the gift list that people refer to all the time.

Gifts by the year
This list was compiled by librarians at the Chicago Public Library’s Information Center Sources. The traditional gift is listed first (with alternatives in parentheses), and the modern gift is second.

1st: Paper – Clocks

2nd: Cotton – China

3rd : Leather – Crystal, glass

4th : Linen (silk) – Appliances

5th : Wood – Silverware

6th : Iron – Wood objects

7th : Wool (copper) – Desk sets

8th: Bronze – Linens, lace

9th : Pottery (China) – Leather goods

10th : Tin/aluminum – Diamond

11th : Steel – Fashion jewelry

12th : Silk – Pearls, colored gems

13th : Lace – Textiles, furs

14th: Ivory – Gold jewelry

15th : Crystal – Watches

20th : China – Platinum

25th : Silver – Sterling silver

30th : Pearl – Diamond

35th : Coral (Jade) – Jade

40th : Ruby

45th : Sapphire

50th : Gold

55th : Emerald

60th: Diamond

75th : Diamonds/diamondlike stones/gold

I haven't quite worked out why they have had to come up with a modern version of the list?? Nothing wrong with the traditional one as far as I am concerned, apart from it definitely makes you have to think a little when coming up with the gift.
When searching the internet for this list I came across the following with it....

When Laura and Bob Robertson-Boyd sold their home several years ago, one condition was non-negotiable: The lilac bush in back of the house would move with them to their new home in Bexley, Ohio.
“It’s not a bush, it’s my fifth anniversary present,” Laura Robertson-Boyd said.
The bush was her husband’s romantic interpretation of “wood,” the traditional fifth-year anniversary present. The couple, who celebrated their 10th anniversary in September, use the list as a guideline for gift exchanges.
“It takes much more planning, and it requires thought,” said Bob Robertson-Boyd, 40. “The care and special attention reinforces the original idea of putting the other person first.”

The idea of attaching symbolic presents to particular anniversaries is centuries old, and in modern times has been adapted as a marketing gimmick by retailers.

Many couples still consult the list in a nod to tradition, for a sense of whimsy or simply out of desperation when they can’t come up with a gift idea.
The practice of giving silver for the 25th anniversary originated in medieval Germany. The wood anniversary traces back to a 17th-century Celtic tradition of giving a carved wooden spoon as a token of affection.

In the U.S., a list of gift ideas for the first 15 years and every five years after that was compiled in 1937 by the American National Retail Jewelers’ Association. Paper (first year), copper (seventh) and tin (10th) are a few of the designated gifts.
Since then, an updated list adding jewelry and more high-ticket items also has been created. Clocks join paper for year No. 1, for instance.

It’s not uncommon for newlyweds to start a tradition of following the list, said Sheri Stritof, a marriage educator who writes about anniversaries for the Web site About.com. She and her husband, Bob, regularly field e-mails from readers looking for gift suggestions. “It’s a real popular topic,” she said.

Chris Moyer pulled up the list on the Internet as his first anniversary drew near. He thought it would appeal to his wife’s traditional and romantic side, and ended up sending paper roses.
His wife, Elizabeth, was impressed, he said. He figures he’ll use the list next year, too.
“It’s handy for me because I’m horrible at giving gifts,” said Moyer, who lives outside Hartford, Conn.
journalgazette

I do remember that on my parents 24th wedding anniversary I gave them an ornament of china flowers. 20th = china and the list I referred to at the time (1988) had 4th = flowers, so therefore China Flowers.

Another site I checked out, Canadian site, had fruit or flowers as their 4th year gift. So at the end of the day, I guess you just find a list and stick to that one, as they all vary slightly from each other

I still have 8 months until my first anniversary, but paper is probably what I will try to aim for as a traditional anniversary gift when the time comes.

Movie Homes

Julie over at Hooked on Houses, just loves houses.

And after looking at her blog I can honestly say that I am hooked too and never even knew it!

She pulls movies to pieces and shows things about the houses used in the movies, and it is so good.

She has reviewed the homes in 'Holiday' & 'While You Were Sleeping' her latest review is all about the Larabee Estate in the movie 'Sabrina'

It makes you think back to when you were watching the movie, makes you think about what you loved about it and just generally gives you a feelgood feeling for 5 minutes.

So if you love houses, of all shapes and sizes, well then, just slip on over to Julie's place and see what she has to say about the houses you love.

The Perfect Sleep

Over at Scribbit, she was giving some reviews and finds for the week.

What I liked was the bed she had fallen in love with.

Now I thought a bed was a bed, and that it stood on 4 legs but when you go check out these beds you will see that 4 legs are now optional.

Here are some pictures to get you started before you pop on over to see the other weird and wonderful delights on offer.

This bed above is actually a New Zealand designer with a company called Okooko. The New York Times did a piece on him and here is what they said:

For Setting Sail to the Land of NodOkooko, a 3-month-old eco-friendly mattress and bedroom-furniture company based in New Zealand, recently opened its first retail store in the United States, in Philadelphia. (There are two other stores, in New Zealand and Hong Kong; a fourth is expected to open in New York this spring.) The company — which takes its name from the Maori word for “to cradle in arms”— sells mattresses ($2,500 to $3,000) made of natural latex, bamboo and wool, and beds ($2,200 to $5,500) made of wood from sustainable forests managed by the New Zealand government. It also sells high-design beds like Float ($25,000, including the mattress), above, by David Trubridge, a New Zealand designer. And for every bedroom suite sold, Okooko promises to plant a native tree in New Zealand. Okooko, 205 Arch Street, Philadelphia, (215) 667-8240 or okooko.com. ANNIE BLOCK

Makes you wonder how comfortable and dreamy these bed can be. I think I need to totally rethink the house to fit beds like this in!

Weddings

Mary over at Owlhaven is in the middle of assisting her daughter with her wedding.
She has posted several times about the wedding and the last few posts have been asking the cyber community about their wedding and what they would do differently or what they loved etc.

The biggest thing I have picked up on from all the comments I have read is that everyone would do the Photographer differently.
Turns out this is where they all scrapped to save money and now regret it because they don't have many pictures, or pictures of the people they wanted.

I was very lucky with the photographer. My cousin had just got married the year before and she had her husband's cousin do the pictures. He is studying to do photography and I feel he did a lovely job at Kerry's wedding, so I asked him to do ours.
He was a little hesitant at first, worried he wouldn't do a good job and kept asking us if we were sure we didn't want a professional photographer?
But at the end of the day, the price we paid was for him to be there all day, come to the hotel to picture me getting ready, pictures of me arriving at the service, pictures of the service, afterwards, nice ones of the wedding party and then at the reception. We made him a guest at our reception and this then meant he could take pictures as he wanted but also enjoy the reception with an actually place setting. Afterwards he went through all the pictures, got rid of the very bad ones and then gave us all the pictures he had taken, well over 1000.
We didn't have to go through the straight away and make up an album with him at all. We now have all the pictures for us to take our time, put them together how we want them and when we can afford them.

I wouldn't have changed anything about our photographer.

Gardening

Alex is our little outside person.

If Steve is doing something in the garden, then Alex is the one to be out there with him, helping.

So for Christmas Santa was so kind as to bring Alex a whole lot of gardening items.

One being a wheelbarrow, as his plastic one has seen better days.

After Christmas Steve put it all together for him and he decided that it had to live in the garage just like daddy's.

In fact it has to live exactly like daddy's one.....!

Water Safety

Here in New Zealand they are good at letting us know the stats for most things.
Holiday Death Toll
Drownings since New Year
Last Day of Rain

Of course the holiday session has finished for Christmas, but we are just about to enter 2 long weekends. The first being Anniversary Weekend, so we have Monday off and the second (2 weeks later) being Waitangi Day (Feb 6), which just happens to fall on a Friday this year, so therefore creates a long weekend.

Death Tolls on the Roads are something that New Zealand go on about a lot, they are always trying to find ways to make the roads safer.
Water safety is also another biggy for NZ, seeing as we are an island, then water plays a big part of life here in NZ, well unless you live in Hamilton, like us, then you couldn't be further away from the sea if you tried!
Over Christmas there was a lot in the papers about accidents on the water and the amount of drownings we had had so far this year. It is about 15 - 18 drownings since Jan 1.

One that stood out for me was one mentioned in the newspaper. (NZ Herald)
Apparently these 2 male relatives had gone out on their 12m aluminium run about, for a fishing trip. BUT, they had been drinking prior to going and were drinking while fishing.
Unfortunately their boat capsized, one of the guys made it to shore using a chilly bin as a float, sadly the other never made it.
Neither men were wearing a life jacket.

A relative of the missing man had this to say:
"Fishing is not somethng new to him - it's his love, and every summer he takes the boat out a couple of times a week"

So what immediately jumped out at me, was, where were the life jackets? He apparently was experienced in fishing, so why not have safety equipement?
It saddens me to hear of families loosing loved ones, especially at sea (I have a fear of drowning) but when you then hear more about the incident, then you have to wonder what they were thinking when the accident happened and could have been preventable with a few safety tips.

You always hear on the headlines "They had no life jackets"
But you never hear "Sadly they drowned but they had a life jacket on"

Why do people take water saftey so lightly?

Is It A Car Or Is It A Bike?

"A two seater (inline) that's part motorcycle, part car, part jet fighter. Powered by a 660cc turbocharged engine the Carver One is a blast from corner to corner."

"You steer it like a car, but when cornering it banks like a motorcycle while you feel like you are flying a jetfighter. An exhilarating experience unlike any other! "

The Carver is the worlds only vehicle that tilts at 45 degrees, left or right, when cornering and is powered by an exhilarating 660cc turbo charged engine. It has 3 wheels and looks amazing.

It was featured on Top Gear and there is one right here in New Zealand.

They offer trips in the vehicle for either 20 mins, 3 hours or a full day. Prices start at $45

This one came to the campsite over the New Year Period. Not sure if he knew anyone there, but several people had a ride. The boss of the campsite paid for all his staff to take a short ride, he was only being charged $10 per person.

His grandson and Ben were very lucky to get a short ride in it.

The guy told me afterwards that apparently Ben spent the whole trip (about 5 mins) giggling and saying how cool it was.

3 Years Old

Alex is 3 1/2 and do we know about it!

He has hardly eaten over the last 4 weeks, well no, don't worry, he is eating, but he refuses most meals, although after he has been sat at the table with us for 10 mins he usually eats a little of what is there, because we will not just jump up and make him something different! If he doesn't want what is being offered well then he can go without, and he has been told this just about everynight "if you don't eat this, there is nothing else until breakfast tomorrow"

He is having the worst temper outbursts we have ever seen.
Because he is not eating properly, then he is not sleeping properly and because of that he is then in a very foul mood for the day! Viscious circle really.

He is drinking fine, and if he had his way would live off of bread and butter or bread and jam.
Now I have no worries with him having that for breakfast and lunch but dinner times I would like him to eat something a little more nourishing. So then the fighting begins.

Add to that he doesn't want to wear a nappy to bed at night, and he is so not ready to be dry at night on his own. I have had to change the sheets just about everynight this last week! I actually sneak a nappy on him about an hour after he has gone to bed, although then we get told in no uncertain words the next morning "I didn't want this on!"

So we are in the middle of the 3 year old wars! I hope it doesn't last too much longer, I would really like to enjoy Alex again sometime!

New Invention

I am sat at my desk at work and I am getting restless.
I have to keep moving around because my legs are sick of me sitting here on the computer.
So I wish I had a desk that was movable, movable as in goes up and down.
That would mean that when I want to stand up I could still work on the computer and stand at the same time.
Save my back from leaning over and also then the computer would be at the right height for me.
Then when I want to sit down, I could lower the desk back down and carry on.

Has this already been invented or have I just had a brain wave?

Red Hair

We always get people commenting on Ben's red hair.

How lovely it is, where does it come from (when they look at Steve and me), did we expect a red head?? And many other questions.

Well, I never envisaged my baby coming out with red hair. Steve and I had both been blonde as babies and then gone medium to dark brown.

When I was pregnant I wanted a little girl, always wanted a little girl, but even though we never actually found out I knew that we would have a boy. Just a feeling I had, I just knew it was going to be a boy, especially when I wanted a girl!

So at 1.30am when he was finally born, I remember Steve leaning in over my shoulder (I was kneeling on the floor at the time) and telling me it was a boy! Oh yea and that he was red!

I remember thinking to myself 'oh yea a boy, knew it would be! What do you mean he is red!'

I got over the boy bit very quickly because I think my subconscious had been preparing me for a boy for 9 months, but the red hair, I had never been prepared for that, had never even thought about it.

So there we were with a gorgeous little boy who had red hair, and yes we had to field questions about it for the next few weeks. Like

'Were you expecting him to be red?'

'Where does the red come from?'

'Were you red as a baby?'

'You're hair is red so it comes from you I see?' (mine was via a bottle!)

Actually it is very simple to explain where the red came from....

On my dad's side of the family his sister (my aunty) is red, her daughter (my cousin) is also red.

On my mum's side her brother (my uncle) is red, in fact Ben looks just like him at the same age. several of his children (he has 4, my cousins) are also red.

On Steve's side of the family, well he has red colouring in his beard and his niece (brother's daughter) is also red.

So when it comes down to it, it is really no surprise at all that we ended up with a red headed child, just that is was a totally shock because we never actually expected it!

Old Pictures But Cute

I just found these pictures of the boys on my cousin's facebook page.
They are of the boys at her wedding in Nov 2007.

Mummy and her smart boys

Alex lounging around looking very cool

But I don't want to give him the rings, but I will have the lollipop...

Don't I look smart mummy?

New Job

Yea for me, I have a new job.

And yes I have accepted it and yes I am excited, finally.

I applied for a job as a Vaccinator, yes, one of those miserable people who sticks needles in children's arms.

Although the children I am going to be hurting are 15 & 16yr old girls who are receiving the Goverment Funded Human Papillomavirus (Cervical Cancer Vacinate)

It is given in a 3 course programme and so I am going to be going around the schools in the Hamilton area with a team of other nurses, during the whole of this years school year, through to November, giving the vacinate to these darling young ladies.

The position is for as many hours as I would like each week, so I am looking at 3 days, and we get the school holidays off each term.

The only down side of the position is that it is a fixed term contract through to the middle to end of November. So unfortunately as of Dec 1, I will be jobless, although there is always the Nursing Agency if I get desperate.

I had to speak to the lady today who was organising this job, I was only calling to find out exactly when we would be finding out if we had been successful, due to the fact there are so many other people involved with my current job that I needed to be able to give my current boss some acurate information which I just didn't know.

She said we would be finding out today, but that if I held on she would just confirm something. So I held and then she came back to me and said...

"We would love to have your onboard our team, please accept!"

When someone offers you a job like that, it makes you feel really nice, or at least they are desperate, what ever I don't care, I told her that as she had put it that way, how could I not accept and that I would be delighted to be part of their team.

So now I just have to wait for a call about the finer details of the job, start date, training dates etc and then I can get life organised for this year with my new position.

Big Brother

When you get up in the morning, and you creep downstairs to watch cartoons. If there is a scary one on at the time then your big brother will look after you.

Ben with a protective arm around Alex

WFMW - Egg Cups

Time again folks for Works For Me Wednesday, from Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

Whilst at the caravan, the boys announced one morning that they wanted boiled eggs for breakfast.

Nothing wrong with this except that:

1. I can count on one hand the amount of times they have requested eggs for breakfast in their whole life.
2. We do not have any egg cups to hold the eggs at the caravan

So whilst we were happily saying yes to the eggs, we were racking our brains over what we could do for egg cups.

Steve finally came up with the idea of using the egg carton.

He just cut out each little section that was holding an egg and voila you ahve a disposable egg cup.

Perfect for the caravan and when your kids want inprompture boiled eggs!

Purple Dinosaur

The Purple Dinosaur, otherwise known as Barney, has made another appearance in our lives. This time I am not sure how long he is here to stay as he is being taken everywhere.

Yesterday he had to go to Daycare, he was with us at dinnertime last night and today he went with us on errands, to the park and to the dentist in the afternoon. He is always there at bedtime, in fact that is where he normally lives.

Now neither of my boys have been that bothered by anything before, that it has to go everywhere with us, so this is rather unusual to have something constantly with us.

Alex telling daddy all about it

On the swing

Climbing rocks at the park

On the stand up roundabout

On the see-saw

Checking out the ducks on the lake

Oh yea, Ben was at the park too, but luckily there was no extra person or thing with him, just us.