Life

So I haven't blogged in a while, my last post showed what a mess i've been lately but i'm actually doing ok at the moment. Amazing how 1 thing can make a big difference. 3 weeks ago now I got a call from my sis at 7.30am to say her husband hadn't made it to work and had an accident on his motorbike, all she knew at that point was that he was alive. And after we all saw the extent of his injuries and heard what happened we know it is only the hand of God on that man that has kept him here with us, even medical people were amazed that he was alive and that despite the severity of all the bones he broke, there was no spinal, brain or organ damage!! I am so thankful to God that Andrew is still here with us!!! That thankfulness has made me see the world a bit differently and helped snap me out of the grief I had been drowning in. Every day and every moment with the people I love is something to be thankful for and celebrated and all of a sudden the priorities of my family changed.

 We had been house hunting cause I wanted an extra bedroom to separate the girls and help me cope better, but there wasn't much in our price range with 4 bedrooms and the 3 houses that weren't awful that we applied for all picked someone else which was very disheartening. The craziness of house hunting out there with so many people at inspections and seeing some really yucky houses that were more expensive than the lovely house we have and seeing again the rude way real estates deal with renters made us realise how so very blessed we are here and wonder whether we should move after all. Then when Andrew had his accident and we realised the long road ahead he has for recovery it was clear that we needed to think beyond our own little household.

All the houses we had applied for were nowhere near here and the money for bond, movng etc was going to be coming out of the savings we were putting aside to buy a van making the van a longer term goal. Not anymore, we bought a van so that I could actually fit my niece and nephew in the car and be available to help my sis with school pick ups or watch the kids when Andrew has to go to appointments etc, and this has already proved to be necessary in the past week! Not moving also keeps us 2 minutes away from my sis and close by when needed! Nothing like nearly losing yet another family member to get a huge reality check and figure out what's more important!!

So this is our new transport:

I am now a van driving, home schooling, stay at home mother, never saw that in my future, but quite content that it's God's plan for me. Jaden loves the extra space and we no longer have to hear him complain about little hands touching him in the car!

So since we decided not to move we bit the bullet and put Bethy in her toddler bed. I was expecting it to be a lot harder than it was. Daytime naps have proven to not work well cause she just pulls everything out of the cupboards but I have discovered that if I put Elora down for a sleep and sit Bethy on the lounge with a dvd she falls asleep there anyway and i'm happy to go with what works. At  night time she still gets out of the bed but it actually doesn't take that long to get her to sleep cause she's so tired. The fun will be when we unleash Elora from her cot in a few months as well and then it could be an all night party in there!

Schooling for term 3 was a bit of a disaster really, I was just not in a good headspace and we just did the basics, so we are having a break for holidays now and both Jaden and I are looking forward to getting back into it in term 4 to finish up his final term of primary school. A couple of highlights of what we did actually get done in term 3 were making a volcano, and looking at rock types (Jaden is very interested in rocks), which timed in well with our visit to Bathurst because Jaden loved the fossil and mineral museum.

Jaden is also now offically a scout. He's been attending for a full term now and also went on a craft camp, but he has now been 'invested' which means he has his uniform and was presented with his groups scarf and their region badges etc on Friday night.

Other than that we've been trying to enjoy the beautfiul spring weather we've had lately (apart from the rain all the past weeekend and it's looking gloomy today too) and i've been watching my little bubba start to grow up all of a sudden saying new words and learning new things. Here are some recent family snaps:

fun with cousins in the sandpit

water play at playgroup

meeting lazytown characters (the big girl is my niece Abi)

Dr Elora all set for a house call, got her hat, her wallet, her phone, her stethoscope, and 2 bags, this cheeky bubba is growing up too fast!

So that's a snapshot of life here over the past few weeks. I am in a much better place emotionally and am feeling far more on top of things. I've done heaps of culling, sorting and spring cleaning in the house too which has made it a lot easier to keep on top of the everyday cleaning and i'm learning to just chill out a bit more, i've ditched my schedule that we could just never keep and am learning to go with flexible plans and to try to just enjoy spending time with my kids. In fact I think an indoor picnic might be in store today :-)