A little bit of soul searching ....

....has been going on by me, for a loooonnnggg time. but over the last year or so, I've been doing it a lot more than i used too. Perhaps it's because i have my nights alone 4 out of 5 weeks? or maybe because I am starting to feel like a "proper" grown up? probably both.

I've been thinking about what things mean to us and how we live our lives, and the values/virtues that i hold dear (and hope Jamie does too). I've been thinking a lot about what is important to us. So we are going to make a few changes in our lives

Sooo, in all my thinking and after chatting with Jamie, plus getting the all important OK from the children.......

deep breath.......

We have decided to give up Christmas....*cringe.....waiting for reactions....*

Phew...

Well ok, not give up exactly, but more like exchange it for something that is more meaningful to us.
 Christmas, especially now Jamie is FIFO, has always been just a date for us, one that now means more money for us, as no one else wants to work those days except him.  Neither Jamie or I have any religious beliefs about Christmas, and I have spent the majority of my life having multiple christmas' anyway, to be able to see everyone :) 

Sooo what does all this mean to you, my lovely family and friends...well not much really.
It DOESN'T mean, that if you send us a Christmas card we will post it back to you saying "no thanks"
it doesn't mean we won't wish you a Merry Christmas if we speak to you on the phone or via email.
It doesn't mean we will shun the shopping centres because they have Xmas decorations up.
It does mean, that we (seriously, i mean it) would not expect any gifts from anyone, but wouldn't deny you the pleasure of gifting.
Oh and it also doesn't mean we will give up the annual Santa photo - I like that, as it gives me a definite point in time to show how the children have changed over the year.
 It just means that we won't have stockings 'from Santa',
 won't have a big ol' fake tree covered in plastic baubles, even though they ARE so puurrrty :D
and it doesn't mean we won't have any special celebrations or special meals. who knows we might mark the changing of the seasons with some gifts and a special meal? we'll just do what works for us.
 The children are all 'cool' with the 'no santa' thing - though Lily did take it the hardest,(damn you Polar Express!!)  but she is good now.
I've never been fully comfortable with the whole Santa (and tooth fairy/easter bunny) thing anyway, but I admit, I have on numerous occasions used it to my advantage ;p.
We are trying to slow down our pace a little more, and pay more attention to ourselves as a family, I seriously need to give up or at least curb my internet addiction! that is a key goal of mine!!! and we want to cut out all the "junk" in our life. I've noticed the children (especially Samuel) are getting a bit caught up in the whole "I want, I need, gimmee gimmee" aspect of Christmas. Also, after nearly a year in suburbia, i have had my fill and want to 'go bush' obviously not so easy when we have 3am wake up calls and 7:30pm arrivals at the airport for Jamie ;D, but we are planning to move a little more rural. Like they say you don't know what you've got until it's gone :)

Birthdays have always been more important to Jamie and I anyway, so we intend on focusing on them as a start. We would like to start some family traditions of our own. And..... well i haven't got that far in my thoughts yet, but I just wanted to get it out there and let you know what we're thinking.....and give us plenty of time in case we change our mind ;P

So I'll leave you with my revelations for the night...one thing at a time huh ;p and will try post some photos next time.

Happy 100th Birthday for Monday (22nd) again Nanna, Sorry we couldn't be there :c

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

PS. Just so you know, we aren't going to turn into a bunch of hippies dancing naked 'round the moon or anything!!  could you just imagine Jamie with dreadlocks and body paint!  *snort..BAAHAHAHAHAHaargh! thump!*
 sorry about that! I fell off my chair laughing!!!
no, we will still be completely normal and bathe regularly :D
LOL...body paint.. heh heh heh.

Finally the PROPER big reveal..... Our House :)

Have you got your cuppa ready, this will take awhile, it's a big house,
c'mon then, time for a tour.

The Photos are all a mish mash over various days/weeks and are mostly 'au naturale' so brace yourself ;P

The Front (no?? really???)

Through the front door

To the left of the front door is the front room
AND the Perfect spot for my craft desk...........
now i just need time to use it! :o)

The Children's play area - it WAS our 'formal dining area (HAHA!)
but the afternoon sun comes through those blinds and *sniff sniff*
completely warped our handmade table with the dry heat.
It has been almost fixed.  But was very traumatic for Jamie,
so i didn't take photos of how bad it was to remind him more. :(

OH I am SOOO loving the packaging from our IKEA visits! we have made some awesome things from it all.
You can see their shop/puppet theatre. we also have the cubby house outside (on the side bar then and NOW photos) We also made a jellyfish out of plastic packaging for our vacuum box tortoise to eat! There are so many other things, but they are the best ones :o)

So next up, walking through the door opposite the front door is our lounge.

the door i was talking about is opp. the white wall.

see the space behind the lounge on the white wall?? it's real weird, it's a planter box with tinted mirrors ceiling height behind it. maybe if we PUT plants in it it wouldn't look so odd. LOL
Oh FYI, the children are all watching an AUSLAN dvd and are doing sign language, we are using AUSLAN as our LOTE requirement for the year. (LOTE stands for Languages Other Than English)

the door to the right of the tv is back into the front room.
and yes that is Jamie's beloved wobbly  almost level table

to the left of this space is the 'schoolroom', i'll get to that last ;P so forward ho through the 'blue' door is the L shaped hall to the childrens bedroom, and laundry and main bathroom.

Oh hang on, the kitchen

Heh heh Clairebear 'washing up' for me

not particularly informative, but really it's a pretty boring layout,
which doesn't work overly well? oven to the left, pantry
 and fridge space to the right. oh and door behind me to the garage.

 The Children's Bedrooms

this is was Kaytie's room, it's now Lily's and looks a lot different.

see what the darling "cherub" drew on her bed
into the varnish! I am now torn as to
whether we DO sand them back and re-finish them?

I seem to have left out Lily's bedroom?, but that was probably because she will get a "new" decorated bedroom for her birthday in 3 weeks. We have had a big bedroom shuffle with the girls, Lily is in Kaytie's room above, Claire now shares with Kaytie, and is in Lily's old room and Sophie now is alone next door to us at the front of the house. but anyway.....

This is Samuel's room, bet you NEVER would have guessed :)

It now also looks completely different, so
I will update you all after Lily's Big b'day reveal.

Now back to the very front of the house and off the front room on the right is to Sophie's and my bedroom which I also seem to have forgotton about? probably because my bed was unmade :), i did however get my ensuite, which opens up into the room... outside that screen door, is my own little "retreat" space - though it is very bland, looking at an empty garden bed full of dirty sand LOL

I think Sophie's favourite place in the house
is IN the spabath, no water, just her or with a couple toys.

and what is now just sophie's  closet room,

Sophie has her cot back now as we bought lily a new bed ($59 from IKEA!!! ) as part of her room makeover, but she(sophie) will have to 'tough' it out in the travel cot a bit longer as i'm going to makeover the cot too, i think i will give Soph a room makeover too for her 2nd birthday this weekend :)

So if we go back to the main living area, where the door to the patio..... oh alright i'll show the 'school room' before we go outside :)

It has 4 stages we are in stage 3 at the moment

1st stage - i.e the week we moved in.

ok it's more like the 2nd week we moved in, as the 1st week
EVERY box for the whole house was in this space!

2nd stage

3rd stage - where we are now :)




"au naturale"



This is after an afternoon of 'school', as i told the children we have 'started' already. Jan 5 to be exact Mwah ha ha haaaaaaa ;p I am still waiting for curriculum to arrive from various places as they have ALL decided and want to do more bookwork/schooly stuff this year, which is hard as i now have to find stuff for Claire to do which is similar but not the same, as there is only so much colouring in a girl can do, even if i tell her that's what she'd be doing if she went to  kindy :)

Do you see my rug! I LOVE MY RUG!!!!! it's my favourite and my best!

we still need a few tweaks before stage 4, but i will go through it all when we get there :) oh i'm excited :)!!

So if we turn around and go out the screen door behind us we will be on the patio.

This is at the very end of the patio (d'uh lol) you'll have to excuse our washing on the line, as if we turn to the left you will see the full extent of our yard, and at the end of the yard you will see the pitiful excuse of a clothesline provided with a 5 bedroom house!!

you see it up there on the shed?? how about a close up?

?????????????      Crazy, I guess the people
who put it in must use the dryer alot?
It doesn't even fit a single sheet across the width!

this is down the other side of the house,
my 'retreat' is right at the end at the fibro fence. :)
The children have been banned from coming down here
(mainly for the neighbour's sake ;p) there is also a
BEAUTIFUL frangipani tree down here in constant flower!

Well that's my house hope you enjoyed the tour, you'll have to have another cuppa now... and how about a choccy bikky or cupcake?? 

I will leave you with my "entry" photo for "mother of the year"!

You see her little arms;and nose;and cheeks; and legs; even the tops of her feet! :( (ps, she was dancing in this shot lol) We saw an AWFUL lot of sun yesterday and today, and guess who forgot everone's sun cream? everybody is a horrible shade of pink, but brightside is, no one will complain next time the sun cream comes out!!

As for why we saw so much sun and are so pink........ next post sorry, i have a kitchen to clean as everybody has gone to bed.

OXOXoxoxoxoxox

BJslkcs

a bit of a mish mash really...slightly random.

We are striving to live this way...



it'd be nice to have, to remind us daily......
it's So puurty, so true <3, i could make that....with time.
maybe by the time I'm 80!!

Now i have been promising for a little while for house photos............
well I'm gunna delay it a little longer as we have a 'rental inspection' on Tuesday so I'm going to wait till then to take decent photos, and hopefully our classroom will be in order, don't worry I'll show (if you can handle it!) the nasty! horrifying! run for the hills! 'before' photos of that LOL

on another matter.... i need to re-name a previous post of mine, its been 'stewing' in my guts  ya know the shameless hint one, i am in fact slightly shamed about it, it feels wrong to have done it, Somewhat presumptuous, but i do know that my lovely family back east may have found it a relief.?? I know i am slightly difficult when it comes to suggesting ideas for gifts for the children (and myself notoriously ) but i think it's because i don't feel anyone should have to or be expected to, give us gifts, not because i don't think we're 'worthy', just because... well, it's complicated, and also because we chose to have so many children.. well , you know where I'm going with this?? (I'm a little confused myself ;p ) I think I'm trying to say, i don't want anyone to feel obligated to buy the (many)children (or us) anything just because it's what's "expected" or the norm. especially when I'm so 'difficult' at suggesting ideas, and cash ends up being given, Cash doesn't give anyone that warm and tingly feeling when it's given. It just feels (to me at least) like a 'chore' (gotten on the other hand, well that's always nice LOL) the children have enough toys to last them a lifetime.... a childhood at least ;) so anything gifted to them doesn't need to be worth much in $$ value, The boy is , well, very boy-ish and the girls are...very girl-y, so anything along those lines is going to appeal. an old comic from a garage sale, a little trinket from a market or back of the cupboard? you know if you see something and it makes you think of them?? those sorts of things? but i know time is a huge issue for y'all, as y'all  so darn busy. It is presumptuous (there's that word again ;p) of me to assume that this sort of thing is possible. On the other hand, i don't doubt that most people feel like i do about gifting. I love that warm tingly feeling of finding that 'perfect' gift for someone. you know the old adage (right word?) 'it's the thought that counts'
In my opinion, that phrase has been 'kicked to the kerb' and made into a cheap and nasty joke in this commercially driven world, as i know in previous years i have caught my self standing in line at a register, reeling of names and $$ spent, making sure everyone was equal.  making sure everyone had the "same" under the tree etc. or "oh we spent X amount on so and so, we'd better do the same now"
In saying all that, i also realise that i haven't exactly made it clear about what is "acceptable" for the children in our home, and moving so far away, doesn't exactly make it easy to keep up with their current interests. SO my new year resolution is, to update the childrens "pages" with current interests, sizes, things they would like, things they don't like ? and just about them in general. I will also tell the little voice in my head that the list etc, is my personal reminder list, which just happens to have access to anyone looking at the blog. that'll work....... i hope :)
Oh yes and speaking of the blog.. This is the 'physical' address of it, http://wevegonewacko.blogspot.com/ because i know a lot of you receive it as an email, but you are missing out on little other bits and pieces, which don't come through on emails, for example at the moment there are photos on the side bar of "then" and "now", which i intend on changing every now and than. you can copy the web address and save it in your favourites file or put it in your favourites bar, that way you can click on it when ever you desire. :)

And now something a little different....
(I typed this part ages ago, then went back and added more above, it feels kinda weird leaving it here as it did kinda flow on. But i did say in the title that this was a little random and a mish mash)

We once had someone compare Jamie and I to an old fashioned 50's couple, at the time, i thought "like, wot -evah" but the further down we've gone along this path we're travelling, the more I'm starting to relate to it.I'm not sure if the 50's is the right decade, but the 'old fashioned' part seems to be. Our life is starting to slow right down, we are enjoying things more and making plans- simple everyday ones.Jamie has discovered that he enjoys cooking...and even baking though he was a bit critical on his first attempt, with my half-arsed  distracted instructions. It feels like those few years at public school have finally been 'washed' away, the children are still children, Lily talks about things being inappropriate for girls her age. Samuel is far more respectful to us than what the media portrays his age to be (even if i do complain bitterly about it - sheesh some people are never satisfied ;p) None of them seem overly drawn to the 'commercialism' of life around them, and they seem completely happy with each others company. yes they have fights, yes sometimes they are often, but there is never malice and contempt, never are grudges held, and they are always happy to share and help each other only 5 minutes after a disagreement.(mostly) ;p Jamie and I, after more than 10 years, are finally spending that all important 'quality time' together. It doesn't matter that it's only in 1 week bursts. Even though we "see" less of him, we finally get to be with him. I should add more here, but you're probably bored to tears by now, and anyway.....

..........Again it's way past bedtime,  so I'll sign off and go to bed, otherwise CRANKY mummy will be visiting tomorrow, and we have to buy a new vacuum tomorrow (nothing is open on Sundays here, capital city phiftfftt) but that is another post, perhaps I'll enlighten you on my (yester)day tonight??

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

I have a confession to make.......

I am in love, this may be the wrong way to share this news, but my heart flutters whenever I think of  this affair of the heart. I needed to let somebody know.

When did this happen you ask, How did this happen?
Thursday afternoon was the fateful day,and for me it was love at first sight. I plan on visiting my new found love at least once a week, the children are quite happy with this arrangement, in fact they have talked about visiting more often as it is fun for them too. I've never had this sort of variety in my life and the excitement of it all leaves me almost giddy. I feel almost guilty to have these feelings.

I found my new love at the Wanneroo Museum and Community Centre when I took the children to do  christmas craft activities.  I have a photo, Can you see my new love up on the 2nd floor? Shall I tell you the name of my new love, have I held you in suspense for long enough?

Well the name of my new love is.....

The Wanneroo Library! and there are 3 more - JUST in Wanneroo, what will happen when we visit Perth?!?!?!

 Oh what a relief to unburden myself with that truth. The children are very happy with our budding relationship and plan on us spending many long happy hours together :)  We are visiting again tomorrow, I hope you approve of this new love affair and wish us many happy years together ;P

oxo B