Overdyk Odyssey

2010-01-14T14:24:00.002+11:00

hmmmm should I or shouldn't I?

Start blogging again that is?

Have been thinking of just sharing photos and a few little bits here and there when I have time. So what do you think? Kaytie is just about to kick me off the computer to play a Dora game, so I might post some pics up tonight.

2009-07-01T14:33:00.010+10:00

Shock, Horror!!! I'm updating the blog lol!!
It is certainly becoming a hard task updating the blog, but I love to keep track of our lives as they can become so busy and we forget all the little things we do. I was just reading back on the blog the other day and its pretty cool to see what we used to get up to and how quickly things change with the kiddies growing up.

Anyways enough of that, I'll get on with it lol.

Dave has been a busy boy with the cubby house and has now finished it. We are just waiting to find a slide to fit down the other side of the stairs and it will be finished.

It was also my Aunty Lanie's 50th birthday. We had to dress up kind of Mamma Mia style, it was called a Medditarian millionairess party and there were no boys allowed lol. We had lots of fun, she has some amazing family and friends. Mum did a speech about her and growing up, her nursing friends did a speech and other friends did songs etc. Was a great night!

Michelle, our cousin Amanda and me.

The kids are going well atm. Here they are making a nice mess baking some cupcakes. Notice Luke isn't much of a help, but thought it was tasty hehe.

We also had Axel's Christening. Can't believe he is already 8 month old!!! He wore the hand-me-down Overdyk Christening gown that Paula made and that Kaytie and Luke wore for their Christening. Here was some photos I took of Kaytie all dressed up before we left.

Proud parents and Godparents.

Aedan had his Confirmation and I was his sponsor. So I went to mass on my own on a friday night (was too late for the kiddies to endure after child care). It was a nice Mass and I was so proud to be Aedan's sponsor, he is such a good kid. He sang along to all the songs with me and did all the things he was supposed to do. I didn't get any photos of the night, will have to get Michelle to email them to me.

On the Sunday afterwards, we went and picked up a bed from Michelle's house, a hand-me-down from the boys, for Kaytie. Yup that's right she's in a big girl bed and loving it now. The only thing is, she won't go down easily for an afternoon nap and will just get out of bed.

Just some fun shots in the park. Oh yeh and I went on Artypants' scrapbooking retreat in May. Was so much fun and got so much scrapping done. It was nice to have all my meals cooked, no cleaning and we could leave our scrapping stuff out for two nights running. I also went for a walk to the beach as the weather was so good. I've also updated my scrapbooking blog as I'm now on two design teams, Crafting in Style and Artypants. So you can check out what I've been up to over there.

Here's a photo we got from Mother's day this year, except it was hard to get a decent one as the kids were so hyper. (Luke was in bed )

Now the story of when things went bad.

Kaytie was booked in for a dilatation on the 29th May. She had had a bit of a cough but the respiratory specialist we saw beforehand said she would be right to have the anaesthetic and procedure. She didn't wake too well from the anaesthetic and was trying to vomit afterwards and had a bit of diarrhoea. Dave and I had planned our anniversary weekend away, so he was waiting with Luke at his mum and dad's house ready to go to the movies. We got there at around 8pm or something. Kaytie woke up and was bright and looking alot better, so we went ahead with our plans. We went and saw 'Angels and Demons' at Gold Class (care of pressies from our 30th) and then stayed the night in the city in an apartment.

In the morning we were having breakfast in Port Melbourne and I got a call from mum to say that Dad had a stroke. So I was all ready to turn around to go to the hospital, but she said to continue on the weekend and she would let me know what was going on. By lunchtime she said that they were sending him home (however, that never happened), so we continued onto Colac and then onto The Fly walk at the Otway Ranges and then to the Otways lighthouse, see photos below.

We then drove on to Lorne to stay in the hotel for the night and go out for dinner, but by the time we got there, we had messages on our mobile phones from both our mums saying that Kaytie had a temperature and Liz was taking her to the doctors (meanwhile Luke was having a stay with Aunty Yve hehe). The doctors then sent them to the Casey hospital, so at that point we said, nope we gotta go home. So I drove home and Dave was on the phone to the hospital giving Kaytie's long history to the doctor. Halfway to the city we got a call back to say they were transferrring her to the Children's hospital, so to meet them there. We ended up getting there before them and waiting around. Mum and Liz went with her in the ambulance and they ended up admitting her for the night. I left with mum and Liz later in the night and Dave spent the night (Kaytie's request haha) at the hospital.

Kaytie came home the next afternoon, however, Dad spent the next week in Dandenong hospital. He was doing quite well until the weekend just been when he had another little turn, but he is back from hospital again and will be seeing a specialist about the arteries in his brain to see if they can fix him up properly. So that ended up being a very eventful weekend!!

Yvonne took mum's place in the supervision of the GAT exams at my school, so Axel came to my place for a bit of a play date :) He's a good boy, I learnt very quickly that he likes noise around to fall asleep, he didnt like it when I shut the door, oops lol. But he loved playing with and watching Kaytie and Luke, they should be great mates when they grow up.

Dave and I took the kids to Myuna farm on one sunday. We hadn't been there since Luke was about 2 months old, so this time he got to see it all and loved it lol.

Kaytie's first pony ride!!!

Josh made his first communion last weekend. He looked very smart all dressed up, but he got changed very quickly when he got home lol.

some photos of the kids before we left to go to the Communion.

On the weekend just been we took the kids for a ride on the bikes (on the back of ours) to the playground and then went on to beaconsfield to tony and liz's house. Ended up being a nice sunny day :)

Well that's about it. I've probably missed heaps but I've been sitting here long enough now. That's it til next month!!!

2009-05-17T19:40:00.017+10:00

Why, When, Where, How?

OMG has it seriously been almost 3 months since I updated this blog?!?!?! That is ridiculous!!

So why the title?

Kaytie is why, or should I saying asking why and everything else at the moment. She has hit the stage where every response to what you say is a "why is......" or "what are you doing?....." or "where is..... and why?....". I know its important for her curiosity, but sometimes it does your head in just a little bit lol!! haha right now I can here the conversation she's having with Dave who is in the kitchen cooking somrthing...."Daddy? what are you doin?" Daddy "Don't ask why all the time", Kaytie "What are you cooking?" "What is that for?"......see what I mean LOL

I guess its also a fitting title to let you in on what our little Overdykers family have been up to lately. Not quite sure how I'm going to fit it all in and how long this is going to take, but I'll give it a go lol.
Growing Up

Yup these kiddies are certainly growing up!!!

Kaytie turned 3 on the 12th Feb. We had a little party for her and looking back now, I actually didn't take that many photos, oops!
Got a bit slack on the cake making too and bought an ice-cream cake lol. Kaytie picked out the topper though with mum.

Kaytie's big present from us was the trampoline. I've already scrapped the photos, so it was easier to show them all like this lol.

Some more pics of both of them playing with a doll mum gave her.

And here, Kaytie in her towel that was sent from Sydney from Joe and Zoe, Luke in the background with the one he got for his birthday hehe, two little earwocks (sp?).

Talking of parties, Kaytie and I also went along to Kye's 3rd birthday party, little did we know that that day would be remembered as "Black Saturday", it was 46 degrees!!! Sharon was game to have the party, but to be honest, it didn't actually feel as hot as it was, or maybe that was because I was watching the kids in the little kiddie pool and slide. Kaytie had an absolute ball!

Kaytie also started 3 year old kinder, but I only let her do one term as it ended up being a bit much with child care once a week and kinder twice a week. So I've put both the kids into childcare twice a week now instead and they both seem happier with that anyways.
Here's some pics though from her 3 year old kinder
Kaytie accomplished a big milestone on the 24th February. She finally had the surgery to close the open duct in her heart, the PDA. We have had this monitored every 3-6 months since she was born, so it was great that the day had finally come. It was very scary as I didn't realise it would actually take that long to do the procedure, but after approx. 4 hours she was in recovery and the surgery had been a complete success! They threaded a device up through two puncture wounds in her groin, through her artery and into the area where the duct is (not sure if it actually had to go into her heart?), they also did an angiogram as well and that showed that her aorta is slightly narrow as they suspected but they will just continue to monitor it as its not THAT bad. She was not a happy girl in recovery as she didn't like the contiuous blood pressure being taken on her leg. However, by the time we went up to the ward and got her settled, she was happy watching tv and back to eating again. By the morning they did another echo and xray to make sure the device hadn't moved and then we were right to go home. It was as if nothing had ever happened, except for a "snake bite" in her groin. I took photos, but a bit revealing to put up here. Her check up was a couple of weeks ago and the murmur is gone and she put on one kg in 6 weeks, so they are very happy with it and no need to see the cardiologist for a year now whooohoo!!! That appointment was a whole day in itself. We had the surgeon in the morning and then we met up and played and had lunch with Sharon and Kye, met up with some new TOF mums and had an x-ray. Kaytie's cardiologist appt was at 3:15pm but we didn't get in til 5:15pm, so am very happy that is another year away before we have to go back.

Ok some news on Luke before I go any further. Boy has that kid got character and continues to crack us up daily LOL. He is starting to get a good vocab happening now, so I want to share some of the words he says now.
His favourite one is CAR lol I think he's obssessed with cars!!

BYE he used to say WHYWHY when saying goodbye hehe so cute!

THANKYOU

MUMMA

DADDY

NANA

GRENDED (Grandad)

OMAAA

OOPAA

KAYDEE
DOG
MOO

REEEOWWW (that's a cat noise lol)

BUBBUB for the frog noise

BABY
TOOT TOOT
ME

SHOE haha he used to say sssssue

YO for hello

Ok so he says alot now, these heaps more but can't remember them at the moment. He does do a lot of whinging so lucky he's cute cause after a few of his latest tantrums, its lucky he's still here lol. The worst was a week or so ago. Dave took him to the shops and he wanted to take the big guitar with him, but Dave didn't let him and he screamed from then, into the shop, out of the shop, in the car, in the garage (laid on the floor), into my room, into the hallway, it just went on and on and on. By the end of it, he was absolutely exhausted!! I've never seen such a thing before, we were lucky with Kaytie as she is still yet to chuck a tantie!!

Oh yeh, the kids now have a wonderful cubby house to play in that Dave made out the back. I should have taken more photos of how this Taj Mahal came to life, but here's a few anyways.

Also in March, OARA put on a Family Fun Day Fundraiser ran by Suzanne. It was a great day, however, the weather scared a few off. It turned out a great day and a bit of a family day for us. Mum and I got there early in the morning and helped set up. Greg, being treasurer, was on the gate for the day collecting entry fee and Tony also came along and helped out across the tracks and opening gates. Michelle came with the boys who seemed to have a ball on the trains.

The kids and also had a meet up with the lovely Karen and Jazi that I met through scrapbooking over the forums. She is also a design team member on the Crafting in Style website that I'm a part of and she is extremely talented lady! Her husband was in Nagambi attempting a world record in skydiving formations (which they did btw) so she met up with us in Melbourne for a day trip. She took some great photos, I'll show you a few in the scrapping I've done with them.

We also went to Tracey's 30th and Geoff's 40th birthday party in Beveridge (near Wallan), in a great little hall there. It was certainly geared up for the kids, and there was plenty of them all around the same age which was great. Kaytie and Luke had an absolute ball. Check out the cakes that Trace made too!!! The other photos I took, didn't come out very well, bit blurry :(

We did the Run 4 Kids again at the start of April. We all took the train in (Dave, Me, Kaytie, Luke, mum, dad, Steve, Mel, Greg, Yve and Axel). The boys did the big run (except for dad lol) and Mel did the short run, so mum, dad, Yve and I did the short walk with the kids in the pram. It was a great day and a great walk!! Got some cute Kaytie/Axel shots afterwards too!That brings us to EASTER!!!

Dave and I had the families over for dinner and a egg hunt, to celebrate Easter on Holy Thursday as we were going to Loch Sport for the weekend. Here's some pics of the hunt.

Boy did they get alot of chocolate!!!

Then on Good Friday, once we packed everything up, we left for Loch Sport. We had a leisurely drive down there, stopped for an hour for the kids to have a play and lunch and got there early afternoon. We stayed at Tania and Scott's mum's holiday house, but we pitched a tent outside. The kids thought this was great! Andrea, Adrian, Scott, Tania, Marty and Julie and all the kids were already there. Things we got up to: motorbike riding, playing at the Lake, fishing, going to the "lolly shop", Easter hunt and Dinner at the bistro. There were 8 adults and 9 kids, so Kaytie and Luke were in their element hehe.

before the easter hunt!

Ok I'm off to bed, so I'll stop there, but I promise I'll be back before the end of the week to finish it off in a new post! Thanks for getting this far lol.

2009-02-19T13:45:00.014+11:00

HERE'S WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR lol!!!! - an update

Ok so this time it's been months! I have been procrastinating a bit and even thought about giving up the blogging thing, but all your comments of late asking for an update has been encouraging :) So here goes, I recommend grabbing a drink and a comfy chair cause this might be a long one! Let's see if I can remember everything that's been going on!

CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!
Love Christmas and it gets better each year with the kids getting older. We got video footage of the kids coming out of their rooms to see what Santa had placed under the Chritmas tree and it was priceless!! Kaytie was cute giving presents out to Luke and us as well as getting stuck into the opening of her own. The whole lead up for Christmas she was saying how Santa was going to get her a doll house, so when she got to the biggest present and opened it she was screaming "MY DOLL HOUSE!!" lol so cute. Here's the pics from the morning at our place.

Then we went off to mum and dad's for a yummy Christmas breakfast and the kids got spoilt rotten again :) We took her doll house and santa had left some more doll house furniture and dolls for it, for her. The kids had lots of fun playing with each other too!

Back home again, to refuel, so the kids can have a sleep and then it's off to the Overdyk's for a Christmas lunch/dinner of Seafood delights, yum! The kids had a great time getting stuck into the presents again and by now surely had the hang of things. They also had a nice time out in the fairy garden that Liz set up for them.

AXEL'S First Christmas

Luke not too sure of Captain Feathersword lol.

THE NEXT MORNING!!!

BOXING DAY!

Boxing Day is another big day for us as we catch up with the Verboon's (mum's family) in Coonwarra, but Dave and I bought ourselves portable dvd players to free the backseat of the car from whinging and screaming lol, the kids loved it! Although it kinda prevented them from sleeping as they didn't want to miss the show lol.

After a lunch with the family in the hall, and a big family photo, we drove back to Cransbourne to the Lawlor's house to continue on with Boxing Day celebrations with the Nieuwesteegs (Liz's family) and have some dinner. Luke was a little beyond it at this stage, so we couldn't hang around for long, however, we did get to see santa and the kids got a pressie. I tried to get Luke on his knee but that didn't work. I didn't get any photos of this, but I saw a few circulating on FB lol.

CAMPING!!

We finally bit the bullet and took the kids camping, the first time ever! Last time we had been to Moama I was 31 weeks pregnant with Kaytie! We loading up the car, taking everything, including the kitchen sink!! Wish I had of taken a photo of that. Dave had it all packed to a tee with everything in its spot in the back of the wagon and the trailer full to the brim! The kids were set in the back with Scotch, their food and their tvs. We stopped in the city for some KFC and then didn't stop again til we got there at about 3pm or so. Well the kids didn't know what hit them lol! After about an hour, Kaytie and Luke were trying to get back in the car and Kaytie was saying 'we go home now' lol. We kept trying to tell the little princess that this was their home now for a week! We had a good set up though with a tent for sleeping and a tent for eating and playing. I didn't get many photos as I thought we had plenty of time for that until Kaytie and Luke started to get conjunctivitis! We had just had New Year and in the morning the kids woke up with crusty eyes and with the dirt, dust and wind, it just wasn't mixing so well. Apart from the fact that there were another 7 or more kids there that I didn't want to pass it on to. So at about 3pm in the afternoon we made the decision to pack up and go home. After bathing the kids at about 5pm we had them in the car for a few hours watching tv as we packed up. They were just starting to get used to it too :( Oh well, we still managed to catch up with another TOF family who live in Echuca and the kids got a ride in the boat and Dave and I had a ski and kneeboard. We'll give it another go this year and see how things turn out :) This was the only pic I got really, except for some rudie nudie ones of the kids having a bush bath.

A BIKE RIDE IN THE CITY
After unpacking and cleaning up and trying to get the kids' conjunctivitis under control, we decided to have a family day out in the city. Mum, Dad and Dave & I with the kids, rode the bikes to Berwick train station and met up with Aunty Lenie. We jumped on the train and met up with Liz, Tony, Steve and Mel with Bella in one of the carriages. We also met up with Greg and Paula and her sister along the way and we all got off at Richmond. We rode over the yarra towards Albert Park Lake and had a little lunch there and the kids had a play in the playground. Then we set off again and rode to St Kilda road and went along the bike path there next to the beach, and stopped for an ice cream. Then we rode along the tram tracks trail back to Spencer station and caught a train home. It was a lovely day out!!

BEACH!

We also spent a little time at the beachhouse at Cape Patterson and the kids had a ball at the beach! Tony and Yvonne with Axel came down for a splash too!

AUSTRALIA DAY!
This year we went to Lysterfield Lake for Australia Day. We had a bbq with Michelle, Steve & Grace, Mel and Steve and Lisa and Mark. It was a beautiful day, the boys went off Mountain Biking for an hour and I splashed around in the Lake with the kids. Then we had a barbie and then everyone went into the lake. Luke loved the water, was just like a bath for him. But Kaytie gets cold very quickly so she soon got out and played in the sand instead.

GRACE'S CHRISTENING!

Grace Ewing was Christened during the holidays as well. We went to the church in St. Kilda (where Steve and Michelle were married) and then back to their place for lunch and drinks.

Toilet training!

We also decided to give the toilet training another go since Dave and I were both home for a while during January and she would be starting 3 year old kinder soon. It's proved to be a very frustrating time, but she is getting there. I thought (and other people had told me) that it would only take a couple of weeks and she would get there, but that was soooo not the case. She is still having 'accident's every day. Today we were out feeding the ducks and playing at the playground, when she just stood there and started to push. I said to her 'you better not be doing poos!!' and sure enough she was. She just doesn't get it truly yet and so the washing continues!!!

DAYLESFORD

I took a little time out for myself and took a trip to Daylesford to see the Thompsons. Had a great time playing with the girls and having a good catch up with Michelle. Got to see her ultrasound pics, which btw, you can update your blog anytime soon lol!! We scrapped up a storm that night and got a few layouts done, will have to update the scrapbook blog too one of these days lol. Thanks for having me Michelle and Dave :)

MORE JANUARY PHOTOS!

Thought I'd just post a heap of pics as I've forgotten what else we got up to lol.

Well the kids are waking up now and I've got a sore bum from sitting here writing it, so I'll leave it there and be back with a February update and what the kids have been up to.

2009-02-18T15:58:00.003+11:00

KAYTIE'S NEXT PROCEDURE

Yes I'm still here lol. I've been flat out with school starting back and the kids going to child care and Kaytie starting kinder. Am slowly getting into the swing of things, so I might jump on here later tonight and update with a few photos since Christmas.

In the meantime, thought I would let you know that the day has come for Kaytie to go into RCH again, this time to have her PDA closed. This is the duct in her heart causing her to have a heart murmur. The link below has all the information about it and she will be having the coil closure.

We are going in on friday for pre-admission, but the actual procedure will be done on tuesday next week, with an expected one night stay. It is done through a major artery in her groin, so it's not too evasive and they will be able to do a contrast at the same time to check everything else out. They will be specifically looking at her aorta which is appearing to be narrowed, but it may just look like that on the echo due to the PDA.

Check out this http://www.rch.org.au/cardiology/health-info.cfm?doc_id=3540 for more information.

This one http://www.rch.org.au/cardiology/health-info.cfm?doc_id=3523 has more information about her possible coarctation of the aorta.

2009-01-08T10:13:00.000+11:00

Blogger is not playing nice atm, so I'll update later....stay tuned :)

2008-12-15T10:04:00.006+11:00

Santa is Coming!!!!!

Thought I would update again as I have heaps of photos from the last two weeks, with Chrissy parties etc.

The 5th december is St. Nicolas Day, so went went to Avondrest (sp?) on the saturday to see Sinterklaas and Black Peter. Mum and Dad were there and I went and picked Diva up on the way and Dave took his own car as he was off to work again that day. Dave's Aunty Susan and Ben were there too with Micayla and Bailey. As you can see Kaytie had an absolute ball with the dancing and Luke had a ball eating all the cookies off the floor til he realised who was throwing them (Black Pete) and then balled his eyes out LOL. As you can see they weren't too impressed with sitting on Sinterklaas' knees. Should have see all the crying kids up there LMAO!!!

The next day we had the OARA playgroup Christmas party at Princes Park in Melbourne. It was a beautiful day and the weather held out for us too which was great. We had 7 families come along, unfortunately there were a few sickies that couldn't make it. After a bit of a mishap with the BBQ, Dave and Pete took the meat to Denise and Pete's house (just up the road) and cooked it and brought it back. The kids had an absolute ball in the adventure playground and Kaytie and Luke kept mum and dad on their toes the whole day lol.

Last post I was whinging that Kaytie wouldn't smile for any Chrissie pics, but she couldn't get the grin off her face when Diva came to visit one friday night. So I popped the hat on and took her outside and snapped away :)

Oh here's a typical pic of Luke at dinner time when all the food is finished LOL, see how the mouth has still got food in it, but the plate is empty! haha.

Last monday night, Greg, Paula and I went out to the OARA Christmas dinner break up and unfortunately Dave was working. So Steve was around at 5:30pm to babysit and Mel turned out a little later to find Steve just getting the kids out of the bath and dressing them. Think Mel was in her element hehe, thanks for the babysitting guys, first time!

Kaytie's had a few appointments this week, one at the eye doctor, that Dave had to take her to as I went to a school PD. They said her eye turn hadn't got any worse so they'll check it again in 6 months time, pheww!

Then on friday, Kaytie and I were up early and out the door by 5:45am to go to the hospital for a scheduled dilatation. She was a little star and didn't even shed a tear! She was a little nervous at the start having her temp and weight taken, but was great with the anaesthetic. Think she was looking forward to the sleep. Took a while for her to wake in recovery, probably from being tired more than anything, but she when she did wake she ate and drank heaps! they said her oesophagus was a little tight, but not major, so am glad we got that done before Christmas. Here she is in day surgery recovery.

Yesterday, Berwick Springs had their family fun day and Christmas carols. We weren't going to go, because of the weather, but it seemed to fine up just beautifully at lunchtime so we went for a walk down there. Last year Kaytie loved watching the horse ride go round and round, so this year she had a go in the blue tubs (next year she may graduate to the horse lol), Luke was too scared to sit in it! Kaytie loved it so much she went on twice in a row.
Then they had a go in the farm animal pens and Luke had an absolute ball!! He kept going up to the animals with his cup of food and saying "Here ya" lol too cute! Kaytie is like me and is not too keen on chickens and ducks, so she gave her food to the lamb :) Turned out to be a nice day for an hour or so :)

While we were there, however, Mum called to say Dad had gone to hospital with chest pain and they were doing tests. But it turned out to be nothing too sinister, just needs to watch his blood pressure and they were home before dinner.

So there you go...a mid-month Overdyk update. Have been doing a bit of scrapping lately too, so will update the other blog too soon :)

2008-12-05T14:05:00.010+11:00

SUNNY DAYZ

Don't know why I chose that title, cause the weather hasn't always been sunny lately, but it is today, so there you go. Thought I would update the blog as I have a fair few photos to share of late.

Mel and Steve are finally hitched hoooooorayyyyyyy!! It was looking like a shocker of a day with the morning storms, but it all cleared up for them and it was an awesome day. I went and got my hair cut at lunchtime, whilst Dave did the lunch routine with the kids and put Luke to bed for a sleep so he would last the afternoon and Diva had turned up too by the time I got home, to help us out with the kids.

We were running a bit late and the traffic was horrible trying to get into St. Kilda on a friday afternoon, but that wasn't too bad as it meant we didn't need to wait long before Mel walked down the isle.

Mel's bridesmaid - Amy

Mel tearing up walking down the isle with her dad - oh so sweet!

Uncle Joe with Luke

And that was all the photos I took in the church, a bit pathetic really but there's heaps of photos going around so I thought I would ease up hehe.

The married couple having a kiss and Kaytie looking all innocent lol

Everyone congregated for a big family and friends photo!

Our family :)

Dave and I in the church, its not often we get a photo with just the two of us.

After the formal photos, it was time for Dave, Diva and I to get the kids into the car and back home. It was 5:30pm by the time we hit the road, so we went through drive thru macca's as it was right on dinner time and Luke wasn't waiting for anyone lol. Diva ended up driving us to the Berwick train station (that way it was only a little distance in the car for her with the whinging twosome lol) and a train was coming right as we got there. In all the rush I forgot my camera, so I wasn't able to take any photos of the reception. Tony ended up picking us up from the train station from the other end and we got there just in time to eat the entree before they took it away. Spewing we missed the Mr and Mrs Overdyk announcement and the cutting of the cake. But we got to see the bridal waltz or should I say re-enactment of 'dirty dancing', that was very cool guys!! It was a great night and everything went off well. Congratulations guys :) A big thank you to Diva who babysat for us!!!

Next are some photos from a while ago that I got from mum and dad's computer the other night when I was there.

Kaytie doing dress ups in one of mum's scarfs and dad's acrubra hat lol

Kaytie being a fairy at the Cranbourne Botanical Garden

On a lookout at the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens

Mum and Kaytie

Junction Village (near mum and dad) have just built a really cool playground, so Dave and I drove down, picked mum up and let the kids had a play one day before lunch.

Kaytie giving Dave a ride on the spinning ride lol

Kaytie up on the tall equipment - our little dare devil

It was also Josh's birthday during the week (11th november) so we had a little bit of a party for him on the Sunday. Happy Birthday Josh and also Happy birthday to Derek who was on the 27th November. Mum and Dad came home from their holiday that weekend too.
On the monday mum and I took the kids to the OARA playgroup and had lunch with a few of the others at the Docks afterwards.

Can't remember too much of what else happened if I didn't write it in my diary so I'll just update with the important stuff.

Dad's job at the moment is going through a few changes that is going to affect my time at home, so as of next year I'm back at work part-time. It's been great with Dave doing afternoon shift as he is here with the kids during the morning and we get to do things together or separately easier, but that will change next year.

Not too sure which campus and what I'm teaching yet, but I'm sure I'll find out soon. Speaking of work, I ended up doing another 3 and half days before the end of the term which was good.

Dave went for a bike ride, that turned into a very short ride for some, having to take Marty to hospital with a broken collarbone after a fall. Hope he's feeling better now!

My friend, Angela, who I used to work with, but has since moved back to Queensland was down for a visit aswell. Haven't seen her since Luke was born, so it was great to catch up with her and she also had her cousin Steph with her. She came over one day for lunch after I got home from work. Rebecca (who we also worked with) popped in for a visit too. Luke took to her straight away and wanted cuddles, so cute!!

Mum's friend Judy, had a milestone birthday too and her daughter, Kirsty came over from Darwin for a visit. So we all got to together on a saturday night for dinner.

Luke, Mum, Kirsty, Judy, Aedan, Michelle.

And some photos of the kids playing on the pool table. Took a funny video of luke too, will try and upload it if I can.

Kaytie had a respiratory appointment last week, so mum and I took the kids into the city. We got there 15 minutes before the appt, and were the first ones there with her history in the rack, but we ended up waiting an hour to go in!!! and we saw the doctor for less than 5 minutes!! grrrr!! only for him to say, yeh she's doing well - well I could off told him that over the phone!!! Luckily they had all activities set up for the kids in the outpatients area, so that kept them occupied. Mum had to take Luke for a walk at one stage cause he was getting tired and cranky. Then we went for lunch at macca's and met up with Matt and Jane (derek's friend). We then went up to the NNU to meet some more mum's whose babies have TOF/OA, so they were really glad to see Kaytie running around tiredlessly lol.

On the way home we popped into to see Kate and her boys Thomas and Harry. Kaytie and Luke had an absolute ball playing in the sandpit and in the cars, I didn't take my camera though so no photos :(

While we were at the hospital there was a kid in the macca's playground sharing his germs, so needless to say my two woke the next morning with snotty noses, grrr. So we've had a few whingy days, but they seem to be getting over it relatively quickly. Kaytie hasn't been sick since her last admission in september, so that's pretty good.

The weekend just been, I went to Cristi's house for a scrap night. It was nice to get out of the house and not have to worry about cooking dinner, feeding kids, cleaning up, bathing etc. Dave got to do it this time :)

Oh yeh, and our computer crashed!!! Woke up one morning to pop the computer on and it just wouldn't boot up. Ended up calling HP and $110 later they had some bott up discs in the mail for us. However, when Dave did a partial recovery it still didn't boot up, they told him he would have to do a full recovery which meant we would lose EVERYTHING!! photos, videos etc. So Dave called his friend Wes, and he came over on saturday and retreieved everything before we went ahead with it and gave us his old External Harddrive, thank you soooo much Wes, you are a life saver!! We still lost our documents, but they are things we can get back, the kids photos on the other hand aren't.

On monday this week, I taught my first online scrapping class at CIS. It was good, I had about 5 people who bought access and about two that came on the night for the lesson, the others will do it in their own time. So can't wait to see their projects from it.

Here's just some random photos of the kids having fun at the park and at home.

Dave finished off the sandpit today so next post I'll hopefully have some pics of the kids playing in there.

Kids update:

Luke is growing before our eyes and starting to talk more. His favourite saying "Here ya" gets him everything he needs and if it doesn't he'll say it until he does lol. He's also at the fake cry stage to try and get things when they aren't going his way lol. He can say dog, and he trys to woof like a dog. He was saying scotch too but has stopped this week. He loves the song "Dancing face" and blows a raspberry right at the right moment in the song. He loves to watch Elmo and that's the best babysitter for him as he will stay there from start to finish captivated lol. He cries when Humpty Dumpty falls of the wall in Dora lol. He loves to run everywhere now and has taught himself to get down stairs and climb on the couches.

Kaytie:

Thinks she's a kinder girl already and talks about going everyday. We had enrolment the other day and she cried when it was time to go lol. She is extremely hard to take photos of atm and will not pose for anyone or anything, grrr see below at the xmas photo (kinda looks like a "give money to the red cross" ad ). She loves puzzles and is getting very good at them, especially the harder ones now. Umm can't think of anything else.

So I'll leave you with these pics of trying to get Kaytie to pose for a photo lol.

2008-11-13T14:27:00.010+11:00

It has been a while hasn't it?!?!

Thought I'd better tame the beasts and give an update of what's been happening in the overdyker world haha. The munchkins are down for their arvo sleep (although not asleep), that should give me enough time to do a post :)

Ok well I have heaps of pics to share so I'll try not to waffle on too much haha yeh right!

After the last post we had the OARA golf day. Mum rocked up to our place at 6:30am to babysit the kids, which was fantastic as they were still asleep, thanks mum! and Dave and I jumped in the car to Boxhill for the big event and met up with Tony, Greg and Steve and my team Sharon and Suz. I borrowed Kylie's fantastic clubs (cow skin patterned bag and all!!), thanks heaps for that :) We all teed off at about 8am, and at about the sixth hole I was over it hehe. We had to the whole 18 holes, by the end of it I was doing the 'Happy Gilmore' style and the language was pretty similiar too hehe. Was a fantastic day though, perfect weather, great company, a nice lunch and about $14000 raised for OARA. Mum brought the kids up for the lunch time presentation which was nice :)
Here's the pics (didn't get any of the boys as we never met up with them on course):

Suz and I trying to salvage one of many balls lost to the creeks lol

Me probably having a another really crappy shot lol.

Sharon taking a shot, didn't quite catch the little pirouette that she did after her shot, very cute hehe.

Suz taking probably yet another good shot, she could always get them nice and high in the air wtg Suz :)

That weekend we had to get organised for mum and dad to go away on their big holiday trip to Queensland. So we popped over to pick up Jag and his food and check out the chickens. Before we took him though, the kids and dad gave him an outside bath, don't know who was having the bath though hehe. Dave took these shots, so we didn't get many of the actual dog washing, just the kids.

We also popped in to Yve and Dame's house for a visit that day too and Kaytie got to have a hold of Axel for the first time and boy did she love it, she just didn't want to let go. I thought I better stay close cause she'll get sick of him and just throw him, but she stayed there for ages and every time I said to give him back she just held on tight and said no. So cute he is so little but just the right size for Kaytie. How's the shot with Luke in there too, such a little man, they look like they could be little young parents hehe. Luke has his little builder tee on too :)

Oma had dropped in too, so she gave Lukey some cuddles too, so not to be left out :)

Uncle Dave having a cuddle

Yes that's right, no need to blink twice, That's proud daddy Dame having cuddles with his lil man :)

We also dropped in to see Michelle and Steve with lil Grace (although she's twice the size of Axel hehe, granted she is two weeks older!) Kaytie again wanted to have cuddles with Grace (she was all in baby mode after Axel), but being a little bigger and Grace was due a feed, it wasn't a long cuddle. How adorable is this pic tho?!?!

Dave got in there for a cuddle too...hang on you're not clucky are ya Dave?!?! PMSL!!

The following week I had TOF playgroup at the Docklands and we went for lunch in one of the cafes on the Docks too so that was really nice. I did a couple of days work here and there, some half days til lunch (so we didn't need a babysitter, my babysitter went on holiday lol) and some full days when Dave was home on RDO or day off and Tony babysat one arvo for us too, thanks for that :)

On the Friday 24th October, St Francis Xavier had a Showcase of talent from past and present students. Being a past student I sang a song like the good old days hehe. The MC's for the night (past students that I had taught!) said they were going to interview me and I said not unless you tell me the questions before hand. Anyway I was sooo nervous about the song, that when they did ask me I just froze and didn't know what to say, so I said I would answer after the song. So after the song, I just ran off stage LOL got outta that one. They asked who was my favourite teacher? well for a start I still teach with a lot of them, so I didn't want to offend and noone really jumped out at me when they asked, I should have been diplomatic and said they all were LOL.

Anyway here's the interview photo Anne got on the night.

We were supposed to have the OARA Regional Picnic in Winchelsea the next day but it got cancelled due to lack of families rsvped which was a shame. So Dave ended up going on a motorbike ride and I went to Diva's house and took the kids to the beach near her place. It was a great morning for it, warm, and quiet on the beach. We had a little morning picnic, they both ate so much grapes and watermelon and biccies, so by the time we were back in the car, Luke was exhausted and had a full tummy, he fell straight to sleep. We brought him into the house and laid him on the floor on some cushions next to the tv, but he didn't not budge for about an hour, even with Kaytie trying to jump in bed with him LOL. Here's some cute shots:There's been lots of birthday's going on too, always a busy month. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY to:

Mel (26th october)

Damien (27th october)

Diva (31st October)

Liz (1st November)

Micayla (2nd November)

Mum (3rd November)

Bailey (4th November)

Josh (11th November)

I organised a present for mum and tried to hide it in their packed car for while she was away hehe hopefully she didn't find it before hand.

We went round to Liz and Tony's for Liz's birthday. Here's some pics of the kids and Liz's family gathered round :)

Axel having a feed

Axel drunk from a feed lol

We also had Mel's hen's night and Dave went to Steve's bucks night. Michelle came round at about 2:30pm to babysit the kids for me, can't believe that is the first babysitting for her, thanks heaps. The kids were really good apparantely, all done to the T with the routine hehe. Michelle T came with Brem to pick me up and drop us off at the Mexican House for the begginings of a good night. The tales of the evening and pics are all over on her blog so you can check it all out here.

The day (on the monday), after we recovered we went to Diva's house for her birthday. She had an open house invite from 3:30pm onwards for all of her friends and the kids. There were heaps of littlies Kaytie's and Luke's age so they had a ball!! Haven't seen any photos from the day yet and I forgot my camera, naughty naughty.

Luke ended up with tonsilitis again. He was sleeping heaps and waking with a red face and ears and we just thought he was teething, but by mid week his temps were up to around 39 and he was shaking and turning blue. So we took him to the docs on thursday and put him on anitbiotics and with a lot of sleep (about 6 hours a day!!) and some tender loving care he was on the mend :) Kaytie escaped the cold WHAAAHOOO!!

The weekend just been, after the kids had their sleep, we popped over to Andrea and Adrian's house to celebrate Micayla and Bailey's birthdays. They went roller skating beforehand with the older kiddies and met back for some drinks and pizza at their place. Another great evening to catch up with everyone and Kaytie and Luke had a ball with all the kids. There was a little boy, six months older than Kaytie, Jordan. When Kaytie saw him she was immediately attracted and went straight over to him, took him by the hand they they walked hand in hand to the cubby house, so cute!!!!

Kaytie has been getting on our nerves a tad lately with some of her antics, but at the same time its oh so cute. Her favourite catch phrases atm: "because......" "I have to do......" "You have to...." "I want a.....". The other day after their sleeps Luke came over to get a biscuit from her and Kaytie says to him "Gentle, gentle Luke, you'll get it everywhere!" I was almost literally ROFL!!!

Oh yeh MEL AND STEVE'S WEDDING is almost here!!!!! HOOORAY, can't wait to use my massage voucher Mel and Steve gave me for helping them out. The weekend just been, we organised the place cards and Michelle decorated the cake (a little story there, but have written too much already), but it looks beautiful. It's going to be a great day, hope the weather holds out for them!

Anyway that's me signing off, wasn't going to ramble, but I got carried away. I jump over and upload some scrapping news too over on the other blog.

Thanks for reading :)

2008-10-19T17:10:00.002+11:00

My New Scrapping blog

I have just created another blog for all my scrapping stuff, so feel free to check that out too :D

http://scrappingfamilymemories.blogspot.com/

2008-10-15T15:03:00.013+11:00

OCTOBERFEST

Alright, alright Michelle, here's an update hehe...

I won't write much but have heaps of photos and HUGE news to share!!

Firstly I would like to welcome ~ AXEL JAMES TONKS ~ into the world~!!!!Congratulations Yve and Dame, I bet you are glad he finally made an appearance at 8 days late!

Born on Friday 10th October (only by 15 minutes mind you lol)
6lb 5oz or 2.8kg (just tiny)

He is certainly a little cutie and beware as he can make you very clucky ;) LOL
Dave and I and the kids went to visit on the saturday morning before we went away to the beach and mum and bub were doing really well. Luke kept saying 'WOW WOW' hehe

I was a bit naughty and dropped in again on monday night at 9:45pm with a sundae for Yve and Dame, a good excuse a cuddle with my new little nephew, how cute!! But in all my excitement I didn't get a photo of Yve or Dame with him, however I did witness Damien holding him, yes that's right haha ;) and he was such a natural. Oh well will just have to go and visit at home to get some more pics!

AND!!!! A HUGE WELCOME TO......
Grace Jade Ewing

Our friends Michelle and Steve welcomed their precious little baby girl into the world on Wednesday 24th September (11 days late!) at 10:30pm (I think?) She is soooo beautiful and Michelle and bub is doing really well. I popped in to visit on the friday arvo, but didn't get any photos of Michelle with her and when I visited at her house I forgot my camera, looks like I'll have to get in another baby visit there too hehe;)

What else has been happening?

Kaytie and I have had some trips into hospital for appointments, one with the surgeon, which turned out a waste of time as he was in his Mitcham rooms, not RCH. And the other was the cardiology and Kaytie was a total angel. She knew the drill with everything, from being weighed, having her blood pressure done to getting her echo done. No new news there, just waiting on a date for her to have the cathedar procedure to close off her PDA duct.

We had a great time at the Grand Final Day at Adrian's and Andrea's house. Liz and Tony offered to babysit, which was great as they got to spend some time with the kids and we went stress free to the party. Check out Andrea's blog for photos of the day and night. I won one of the comps they ran for winner and margain (what a fluke, I couldn't care much for footy this year lol) and after the game we went back to Liz and Tony's to pick the kids up, went home to give them some dinner and a bath and then took them back out for a play with the kid that were still there. I left early for the kids to go to bed and Dave walked home later in the early morning hehe.

Now for some photos to explain what else has been going on...

Dave has started on the kids' cubby house and here they are in the holes he dug for the posts hehe.

The kids playing at Liz and Tony's after dinner one night.

Mum and I took a trip out to the Cranbourne Botanical gardens and met up with a couple of friends from work with their kids. They were having a fairy day on for the kids during the school holidays. So kaytie got dressed up and I took some photos of her under one of our weeping cherry trees out the front

The kids did some colouring in and made masks.

Also during the holidays I caught up with Sharon R. and her girls, Samantha, holly and Chelsey.

The following week, Sharon M. came to visit with Kye for lunch and they had a nice time playing...oh and kissing hehe, so cute!!

And over the weekend just passed, Dave and I decided to take the kids on a holiday to mum and dad's beach house. We left saturday morning and despite going at a time when Luke would have a sleep, both the kids stayed awake and drove us troppo lol!! We stopped at Wonthaggi for lunch and then met up with mum and dad with Josh and Tom at the beach house. I put Luke to bed and we got ready to go to the beach. Dad stayed at the house to mind Luke while we all took the kids to the beach. Kaytie didn't want to put her feet on the sand when we got there, so we put her in the beach hut and said ok see ya we're going. And she ran out without a care for the sand hehe. We ended up going back in the morning the next day with Luke and the kids had an absolute ball!!

Well that's about it really. I took heaps of photos of the kids playing at a park near mum and dad's place, but they are on her camera so I'll share as soon as I get them.

Dave and I also went for a game of golf with Tony last week. I dropped the kids off at mum's so that we could have a practice for the upcoming OARA golf classic on friday this week. Greg and Steve are also playing on the day :D Should be fun, don't know how many balls I'll lose but it's all for a good cause hehe. Oh yeh, Greg and I also had another OARA meeting and Paula minded the kids for us again, last meeting for the year apart from the xmas dinner, so that's one year for Greg and 18 months for me being part of OARA and its been very rewarding and interesting.

Some of the playgroup mum's also went out to dinner the other night. We met at 7pm and didn't end up leaving til 11pm, boy did we have a lot to talk about LOL it makes a huge difference to be able to chat to other mums that have been through the same thing though.

I've also been doing HEAPS of scrapping, so I'll do a layout share soon, haven't had time to set up another blog for it yet.

Take care and thanks for popping by and leaving a comment :D

2008-09-19T14:57:00.008+10:00

A bit of this and a bit of that!

It's almost been a month since my last post, but so much has happened I'd thought I'd do another post to share with you mainly photos.

The major event for this month was another trip into hospital for Kaytie. She still hadn't shaken her cough from her last cold and then we took the kids for a trial swimming lesson and the day after that Kaytie had a high temp. I had been working that day so I got her into the doctors the next day (friday), and I ended up waiting an hour for the doctor. The kids weren't too bad though and ended up bumping into Dame too so we had a chat to pass the time. Anyway she was prescribed some anti's and sent home. But on the saturday morning she looked to be worse and still with a temp so I ran her in to RCH and spent the day in emergency. I usually expect to be there most the day so I wasn't too anxious about hanging around, but in the end she was called through fairly quickly. The doctor there prescribed her different anti's, took an x ray which showed a touch of pnuemonia on her right lung, but ended up releases us just before dinner. Dave and I were supposed to have a wedding to go to, so I said to Dave to go and I'll stay home. Mum had taken Luke to her place to babysit, so I went to the chemist on the way home and picked up Luke. When I got home, I realised that the medicine he had prescribed were tablets and there was no way Kaytie was going to take them, crushed or not! no matter how many ways I tricked her. So I did a bit of ringing around the the pharmicist and back to the RCH to find out what to do and by this stage Kaytie had got worse again, so I planned to take her back in. Mum came over to look after Luke, I called Dave to come home from the wedding and Diva was on her way over to visit, so she ended up jumping in the car and going to the hospital with me. So back to RCH again. When we got there, emergency was pretty quiet thank God and they whisked her straight in. The nurses weighed her, and she had lost half a kilo!! and the doctor listened to her chest, but couldn't hear much air entry and her oxygen levels were below 90 so they took her into resus to give her oxygen and a one-on-one nurse. Here they also gave her lots of ventolin ad steroids to the point she was shacking, but she perked up enough to be able to watch Hi-Five and Wiggles lol. Another doctor came in to give her an IV for fluids and antibiotics and boy did she give the doctor an evil look hehe, Diva couldn't believe the greasies she was giving to everyone. Luckily she was on my lap so I didn't cop any lol. After a while they took her out of resus and waited for a room on the ward. By the time they found one it was about 11:30pm, so we said goodbye to Diva and went to settle in upstairs. Oh I also lost my phone at the cafe!! but that is another story, btw I got it back.

I felt so bad that night as Kaytie was coughing all night with her "TOF" cough, I thought she would wake the whole ward up lol. The hospital were so good with her and nursed her back to her happy and hyperactive self. Mum came in on sunday morning and cheered Kaytie up with some books and puzzles and played in the playroom. Dave came in in the afternoon after Father's day lunch with his family, but Kaytie was finally asleep. I was going a touch mad in there so I decided to go home and Dave could stay ~ HAPPY FATHER'S DAY ~ lol. I drove to mum and dad's to pick up Luke, put him to bed and jumped straight into bed for the night, I was exhausted. The next morning Dave and Kaytie came home and it was almost back to normal again. She wasn't eating very well, but that has picked up over time and she seems to be eating better than what she was before hand, so hopefully she will catch up with her weight again. Thanks to mum for babysitting Luke and coming in to visit us and thanks Diva for keeping me company at the hospital and preventing me from going mad lol.

Well I'm not going to write much more as that was a post in itself, so here are heaps of photos to explain what's been going on!

Tom's 5th Birthday!- school boy next year!

Michelle set up their own little petting zoo with their rabbits

Luke and Kaytie's first swimming lesson

Luke was not impressed and spent most of the time on the sideline playing with the toys, but Kaytie had an absolute ball! Am too scared to enrol them now as its so easy for Kaytie to get sick from these sorts of situations, but as the weather warms up I might become more game.

Mum came along for a look-see and Andrea came along to capture it all on film for me as Dave and I had a child each and she gots some ACE shots. Thanks heaps Andrea!!

Neonatal Coctail night

Mum, Diva and Ally and I all got dressed up for a fantastic night out at the Crown casino to raise money for the NNU ward at the RCH, where Kaytie spent half of her first year. Kaytie got her face up on the ppt presentation with other babies, so that's the photo below.

Thanks girls for coming along! AND thanks heaps Liz for babysitting the kids for me!

Luke's first haircut!!

Dave had had enough of the whispy bits of hair around Luke's ears so we took him to the hairdressers. We all walked up the street to a house who has just started her own business. He was such a good boy! He loved playing with his cape and looking at himself in the mirror. Kaytie is yet to have her first hair cut, but she enjoyed sitting in the chair :D

Dad's birthday!

Unfortunately I missed out of father's day with my dad, but we made up for it and Mum and dad took us all out for afternoon tea at the Cuckoo. Dave had gone up to Wodonga for a farewell party for Joe and Zoe and a bikeride the next day, so mum and dad came with me and the kids. It was great time, Luke couldn't believe his eyes with all the food. The entertainment was good and kept the kids occupied for a little while.

Here's the digi scrapping page that Kaytie did of some photos of Luke at her place. How awesome is it? I don't seem to know where I've put the other one of Kaytie, but I'll put it up as soon as I find it. I'm going to set up a different blog, to put up my scrap pages, so stay tuned for that one. will be easier to do it separately too.

There's been heaps more going on, but I think that's enough for now.

Am waiting patiently now for Michelle and Yvonne's little ones to arrive. Michelle shouldn't be long and Yvonne has another couple of weeks. Goodluck girls, can't wait to have a cuddle of your lil bubs :D

Take care

Laura xoxox

2008-08-29T10:27:00.005+10:00

SOME MORE PHOTOS

With everything happening I forgot to include some really cute photos of the week before Luke's birthday.

On the wednesday, Michelle, Macey and Kylah came for a visit from Daylesford and the kids had an absolute ball. Thanks for making the trip for Luke's birthday Michelle...

Oh yeh and he's a fun Daddy Daughter moment LOL...

And Diva has been doing some digi-scrapping of Kaytie and Luke and they look awesome, but I can't seem to find the email she sent with them. So if you could email them to me Diva, I would love to share them on here :D

Well that's it, yes I think it's my shortest post ever lol!!!

2008-08-24T15:57:00.009+10:00

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY LUKE!!

Can you believe that it has been a year since Luke was born?!?! It certainly went fast for us!

He turned one on Friday 15th August. Dave and I had the day off so that we could celebrate it as a family. After his morning sleep, we gave him his present from us, a Little Peoples car set. Kaytie and Luke had lots of fun unwrapping it and then Dave had even more fun setting it up, finally some cars for the 'boys' to play with lol.

Then Luke had Gymbaroo, so I took lots of photos and they made lots of fuss over him, singing happy birthday, taking photos and we got him up on the big horizontal ladder.

Liz met us back at home at lunchtime and brought him some more presents, including a bubble set each that Kaytie had a ball with :D

That night mum and Dad and Michelle E came over for a roast and we sang happy birthday to him and mum and dad gave him his present, with a special one also for Kaytie ~ she was so funny reading the instructions and then playing with it, like she knew what they said lol

Saturday, Dave and I spent all day cleaning up the place, for the little party for Luke on Sunday. We all had lots of fun...

playing pass the parcel, the kids seemed to have more fun playing with the newspaper than passing the parcel lol

Playing musical bob, that mum, Maryanne and Kate all joined in on with the kids, what a cak!!

Then the BBQ and opening presents and the kids had a ball playing outside on the seesaw, we were so lucky with the weather.

Oh yeh Kaytie decided to have a choking episode with her frankfurt hotdog that got the home room in silence and staring at her. Way to get some attention Kaytie lol. I will explain a little lower down why this happens. But my first reaction was a stricture.

Then it was time for the cake, which I think Luke couldn't believe his eyes, he just wanted to eat the whole thing!! He probably would have too, given half the chance lol. There are some more great photos that Andrea took on her blog, thanks for getting them too me too, can't wait to get scrapping :D

It was such a great day, thanks to everyone who celebrated it with us and for all the wonderful presents, Luke and Kaytie have been having lots of fun with them all :D Oh yeh and thanks Yve for making the salad and mum for the vanilla slices.

On Monday mum and I went to the OARA playgroup at the Docklands, it was a great day. We ended up going to IKEA in Richmond on the way home, to get a storage system for the kids' growing toy collection lol. I had also called the surgeon to find out if Kaytie could have a dilatation as she hadn't been eating very well and also since she had that choking episode.

Dave was home that night too on an RDO so that was nice.

On Tuesday, Luke had his one year old immunisations, poor little fella. But he coped quite well. Dave and Kaytie came aswell and Dave was going to hold him and then pulled out at the last minute. Kaytie didn't like it very much, she doesn't like to see other kids cry.

Kaytie went to wonderplay on wednesday, which she loves. Here's a photo I took on my phone, forgot the camera.

After that, we went to where she will be going for three year old Kinder next year. She didn't want to leave and kept asking to go in there with the kids. When we got outside, she just sat down in the garden and didn't want to go in the car. So I pretended to leave her and got in the car, boy did she run hehe.

Thursday was nothing exciting, I worked, Dave worked and mum babysat lol.

Friday Kaytie was booked in for a dilatation. Dave decided to come with me in a separate car and leave from the hospital to work later on. So mum came over to look after Luke and take him to gymbaroo. We both forgot to leave our house keys for her though, so she took him home afterwards and went visiting the shops etc. Thanks for babysitting luke for us mum :D

Kaytie was going to be first on the afternoon list which was great! She ended up going through at 1:30pm with Dave as she wanted her daddy, hehe so cute (I got shafted!). It all went well and it was a little bit narrow, but not majorly. The surgeon stretched it up to a "38" (last time they did it to "36") from about a "32". That all probably doesn't make sense, but basically it was a little bit narrow and they were able to stretch it bigger than last time.

In recovery, all she wanted was Daddy, which made it very hard for Dave when it came time for him to go to work and he came back once when he left and heard her crying, poor little thing. But she managed ok and was back on her feet in no time. We had to hang around a little longer than normal as she had had a breathing tube put in during the procedure. But by the end of it, she was walking up to anyone with a nurses tag around their neck, showing her bandaged hand and saying 'want it off' 'scissors please' LOL so cute.

We got home about 5pm and mum met us back there with Macca's chips for Kaytie to have for dinner, but she didn't really eat very well. But since then has been going really well.

OK some things about TOF/OA for your information:

When Kaytie has a 'choking' episode, its not the food getting into her airways, but it is getting stuck in her oesophagus. Sometimes this can make her breathe funny and get a 'TOF' cough as she has a floppy trahea and the stuck food will press on it (the oesophagus and trachea lie close to one another). The other thing is - It's a lot harder for Kaytie to get her food down, not only because of a narrowing where they joined her oesophagus up, but all because she doesn't have the same peristalsis (or muscle movement) as everyone else, so it takes longer for food to go down. That's why she needs to chew alot and drink with every bite - something that we are constantly teaching her and she will understand better as she gets older.

Another thing is these kids get bad reflux, because they have had their stomachs pulled in order to join the oesophagus up, but in Kaytie's case she had an operation to create a valve that will stop it, however, that might becoming looser over time and she may have to go back on reflux medication.

So there you go, a bit of a biology/TOF/OA lesson for you all LOL.

Yesterday once I got home from WW (put on 0.3kg btw, not happy), I got Kaytie ready to go to Nana's house for the day, so we could all have a break from feeding her etc, as it can get very tiring. She had a great day and even got to visit Diva and Marie (oh and Alex, she tells me lol). It was a very quiet house here until 3pm when Kaytie got home lol. She had a great day, so thank you mum for taking her for a few hours.

Today, I woke up with a bad cold, but am feeling better as the day goes on. Dave ended up taking the kids to Oma and Opa's house for lunch, which gave me a chance to get the housework done and have some time to myself. They had a nice soup for lunch and Liz had made chocolate mousse for Kaytie.

Well that's about it really. Thanks for hanging on til the end of our mid-month post.

Oh yeh in amongst all that I have finally got a dicussion board up and running for other TOF/OA mums, through google groups and we already have 19 members, so very happy with that. AND Mel and Steve's wedding invites are finally done, so just waiting for them to take them off my hands :D

2008-08-10T16:38:00.012+10:00

Is Winter over yet?

I'm so over the cold weather now, especially when I get given yard duty at school these days.I'm ready for the weather to warm up a bit so the kids can have a play outside more often.

Anyway enough of my whinge, what have we been up to?

I'm sorry I don't have too many photos, I just haven't been remembering to take many lately, ooops.

The rest of the school holidays were spent catching up with friends and just staying home really. On the tuesday though, I met up with Kylie at Chadstone, which was great as I don't think I had seen her since her wedding in Jan 8) I thought I would try Kaytie in the undies and see how we went, but when I took her to the toilets there, the little persons toilet was really grottie so I put her potty insert on the big toilet and when I walked away the automatic flush went and that was it she was so scared from then on ~ DAM IT!!~ she was going so well too. Instead of putting a nappy on her I thought I would see how we go again later, but to no avail and she ended up weeing in the dressing rooms of Laura Ashley LOL. Was a great day out though, but since then the toilet training hasn't been going so well. It's a little bit all over the place wearing undies sometimes, but mainly back into a nappy again. No biggie, will try again next holidays when I'm home more.

Dionne came over with the kids for a catch up the next day, which was great, they all played really well. Nothing much else happened that week I don't think?

On the monday that school went back, I thought I would go and have a check up day. So I went to the doctors in the morning, had some waxing and then went to the dentist in the afternoon and then realised why I don't go very often (6 years since the last check up!), it's going to cost over $500 to get 3 fillings and another wisdom tooth removed! So that is scheduled for September. Dave also went to the chiropractor for a 'crack' and came back with bruises, ouch!

Speaking of dentists, I took Kaytie to see the doctors to get a form filled out for her heart operation. Mel ended up meeting me down there as she was coming for a visit anyway, so she looked after Luke. I was dreading it, trying to get a toddler to open their mouth is hard enough without them having a slight oral aversion too. She did really well though, only bit the dentist once lol!!! And her report was good ~ Nice strong sharp teeth LOL~

Anyway, I worked from tuesday til friday on the first week back from term which made everyone exhausted; Dave, mum and me. On the friday Luke had his first gymbaroo session, which was great. Dave took him to that, while Liz and Tony took Kaytie to macca's for lunch, which was nice. Otherwise Kaytie would have thought the gymbaroo was for her.

The following week I only worked two days which was nice, but I worked the TOF playgroup day which meant we missed out on that.

NEWSFLASH

LUKE IS WALKING!!

Yes that's right. He started walking around the 12/13th of July, so right on 11 months. We video taped him walking between Dave and I and Kaytie and then from that weekend on he was off!

On the monday, Liz, Tony, Mum and Dad were over in the afternoon and after dinner and a bath we had him walking everywhere hehe.

On the thursday, the kids and I went to visit Tracey, Geoff and the kids. The kids had a ball playing together, we all had lunch together and Kaytie and Fisher were cracking each other up big time, it was hilarious! Geoff video taped it and Tracey took heaps of photos on her fancy new camera, so will have to put them up when I get a copy. Here's a dodgy pic that I took of the three boys.

On the friday, I got a phone call from the RCH to say that they had a cancellation and Kaytie could go into surgery for her heart on the tuesday. Unfortunately I had to say 'no', as that day she had just got a cold and it had gone straight to her chest, and they have to be completely well for an anesthetic. So she will probably be going in Sept or Oct now. I ended up taking her to the doctors and got her straight onto antibiotics for her cold, just in case.

That weekend on the saturday night we (all the Overdyks) took a mini bus (driven by Tony) up to Daylesford for Michelle T's birthday. We stopped on the way at Maccas for dinner, so by the time we got there it was 9:00pm. Boy was it a funny trip in and a long trip back with all the pitstops, six hours of driving in total, I felt for Yve being 31 weeks pregnant. Mum and Dad stayed the night at our place to babysit the kids and did a great job, all was well when we got in in the morning, thanks for babysitting. Here's some photos from the night. HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY MICHELLE.

On Sunday, Michelle and Derek had us all (McGough's) over for a roast lunch that Derek prepared for Michelle's birthday. Josh had just got rabbits that morning too, so that was all exciting for the kids, we all had a great afternoon.

I ended up working three days the following week, one of those going to Healesville Sanctuary on an excursion with year 12, so that was a great day of 'work' lol.

Tuesday had an appoinment to see Joe (her surgeon). He seems pretty happy with her, although she had just gone off her food, but that was because she had a sore throat. He said he will wait til after her surgery to do another dilatation, unless of course she seems to need it.

Friday was gymbaroo day again, and because I was at work, Dave was able to drop Kaytie off at Liz's work so he could take Luke on his own. Kaytie had fun out on the playground with the school kids too :D Then it was back home, for Dave to rush off to work and mum came to babysit again. Just want to say thanks to both our parents for being able to babysit when we need it. It makes things so much easier, so THANKS HEAPS!!

Last sunday we went to Harry's Christening, which was another great day. Here's a photo at the ceremony and one of Kaytie in the church.

Last week I worked all week besides Friday and we were stuffed! So from this moment on, I will only be doing 3 days max, as it's too much on Dave for a start and mum with all the babysitting. I've put Kaytie in wonderplay on a wednesday now and Luke has gymbaroo on a friday, so I won't be working those days. Good to know there is plenty of work though :D

Monday, Greg and I had an OARA meeting, so Paula came over to babysit the kids and get them into bed, so that was good, thanks again Paula.

And on friday, I felt like a mum again and had a day at home with the kids. We went to the MCHN in the morning. Kaytie is still hovering the 10kg mark and Luke is 11.4kg lol. Luke had his one year old check and all is well. I have put him onto cows milk now, with a formula bottle at night, but otherwise he is eating like a regular toddler. Kaytie on the other hand lol is still on full strength formula, although her eating has been really good, so I'll call her dietician soon and see what she thinks. I've also booked Kaytie into 3 year old kinder for next year, so that's exciting. Can't believe in a couple of years she will be in school!!
Then I went off with Luke to gymbaroo, he seems to be getting into it more, but he doesn't like to be held down for the little one on one activities, so will have to work on that.

Yesterday I went off to my weekly weigh in, up to 13.5kg now, slowly but surely...I didn't stay for the meeting because I had the kids as Dave was out concreting. So I took the kids to see Diva and Marie, kaytie had woke up saying Diva's house lol. We went out to the park and got Luke to have a quick nap and then went back for some lunch.

Dave went to a bucks night that night, so again we didn't see much of each other throughout the week, but today was nice. Although it was a day of house cleaning to catch up on the week out at work.
Sorry if I have missed anything, it's been a huge month and doing the blog monthly means I miss some things. I've actually been thinking of stopping the blog, but will see how I go.
I'll leave you with some more cute pics and a slideshow of my current scrapbooking. I ended up winning a prize for the scotcheepoo, hilarious and the gumboots ones.

These are her 'Bear boots' that Diva's Aunty gave Kaytie. Also almost everyday after I get home from work mum has styled Kaytie's hair differently and it always looks so cute. So I have been getting adventurous with her hair lately :D

2008-07-07T16:25:00.009+10:00

THE Latest!

Well since the last post, I guess there has been a lot going on, but most of it hanging around at home.

We had another TOF playgroup which was nice. There was three of us who came along and mum also came with Kaytie and I. We left Luke at home with Dave so he could have his sleep. I also got the OARA newsletter out, which was a pretty big job enveloping and stamping 415 of them, but managable when the kids had gone to bed of a night.

Kaytie had another appointment at the opthamologist. This time the specialist has told us she needs surgery...yes that's right more bloody surgery (excuse my french). She said the turn of her eye hasn't got any worse and she is convinced that she was born with it, but she said that if they don't fix it, it could actually cause problems with the growth of her neck. This is because Kaytie is compensating for the eye not turning out, so she has to turn her head to the right all the time and at such a young age it could cause damage in her neck bones and muscles...go figure!!! I'm not totally convinced and I told her I would like to wait atleast til she has had her heart surgery and in the meantime I may go for a second opinion. There has been a little bit I have read on the internet and that says that it could be fixed without surgery, such as an eye patch.

The next day Kaytie and I went for a walk to the park and also fed the ducks, so I thought I would share with you these photos...

Here is a cute photo of Luke and Kaytie enjoying their bottles together.

Luke seems to be growing up sooooo fast!! He is very independent with his eating now and doesn't like to be spoon fed much anymore. He wants to do it all like Kaytie and pick it up himself, and with 8 teeth and more on the way, who is stopping him LOL. He is almost walking too!! He walks around behind the trolley that Kaytie used to have, and he's been standing up on his own for about a minute til he realises that he's on his own, then he falls to the ground. He's been babbling HEAPS and says mum and mummy really clearly hehe, such a mamma's boy!

A couple of fridays ago, I went to Bec's house and Cristi also came, they are girls I used to work with at SFX. We all have kids around the same age, two each and Cristi with anotone on the way. So that was a great catch up and great for the kids to have a play too :D

That night Diva came around. Kaytie seems to always have phone conversations with Diva and Marie, she can chat for ages to them (imaginery) LOL its so funny! Here some pics with Diva and the kids...

On saturday, I went to WW in the morning (still going well...up to 12kg lost now) and then went off to Big W to get Kaytie some training pants for toilet training. Yes, I have finally worked up the courage to get Kaytie going on the toilet! Friends have told me, its easy, just put her on the toilet every couple of hours. Well in the first hour, she went her pants 3 times!!! She has been really good though. If and when I remember and put her on, she usually does something. She had a bit of poo anxiety for the first couple of days though and didn't do anything, so when she did finally go on the monday, it was like diarrhoea and thought 'oh no! she can't get gastro now, how can I toilet train her!!', but that was it, she didn't get it again...phewww! She pooed her pants for me the other day and did it for Dave today LOL, except today Luke got in on it too, and when Dave had left Kaytie on the toilet to finish and went to clean up her pants, he got back to a 'poo masacre' with Luke and Kaytie in the midst of it LOL. Needless to say the shower had a good run and I had to get off the phone to help :D Otherwise though, she has been pretty good at doing them in the toilet. Here's a pic of her on the toilet and in her 'designer' undies lol...

Oh yeh while I remember, I had to tell you a little while ago her favourite saying was...'oh goodness, what to do!' LOL it cracked me up everytime.

Since it's been school holidays we haven't been doing too much. Michelle and the boys and mum came around last tuesday for lunch, which Kaytie loved. Michelle brought round a few of Tom's old clothes and toys for Luke, thanks for that :)

Michelle O was supposed to come round on the thursday, but poor Kylah had the runs so they couldn't come.

Mel popped over a couple of the afternoons, we have been organising her invites for their wedding in November.
Kaytie and I also went to visit Diva at her work on friday and also to pick up a framed cross stitch that I had made for Joe and Zoe's wedding (I know I was a tad late with getting it done), and it looks fantastic and beautifully framed :D

Other than that, Dave has been renovating our front garden. Will take a photo of it when it's done, but here's some cute daddy/daughter shots...

...and he's some more daddy/daugher shots in the kitchen. One of dave's favourite pass-times ~ cooking scones~ so he gets Kaytie in there and helping with the flour lol.

Saturday just been, Steve came round to help Dave out with the garden, but while Dave was out picking up some bricks Steve and I and the kids went for a walk to the park. Steve took the dogs to the lake while I stayed at the playground with the kids. Luke is getting good on the slide and goes down it on his own now and was loving it. Kaytie was copying another kid going down backwards and she had heaps of fun. Then that night all the Overdyks came round, I couldn't believe we actually had EVERYONE together all at once!! It was great! Tony and Liz couldn't stay the whole time, so the rest of us watched the second movie of Jackass, once the kids had gone to bed.

Sunday, Luke slept til 8:45am the next morning!! So once we got ourselves organised we went to Fountain Gate and then off to Yve and Dame's house. I hadn't been there since their wedding and the place is looking fantastic! They have done so much to the place and it's so nice to see a nursery slowly starting to form, for the bubs on the way :D We had lunch there and then since the kids kept wetting through their clothes, when we had no more clothes left for them to wear, we thought we better go home LOL

That's about it really...I'll leave you with a few more layouts that I have been scrapping. Very happy to say too that I won a prize for the 'Heaven Sent' one over at the Scrapboutique cyber crop.

See ya next month :D

2008-06-22T14:10:00.003+10:00

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING?!?!

Well Murray has had a tree change to Daylesford and if you have had a read of the last comments of the last post you will see that Michelle T says he is doing really well. I spoke to Michelle T back and forth, the week that I wrote the last post and she said her next door neighbour would have him, but he was going to England for three months first. Then I got another call to say that Minnie and Gerry had spoken to a friend of theirs who was in need of a Jack Russell older dog. This sounded perfect, so I had a chat to him and it was agreed that he would take him for us. He lives on a big property in Daylesford, with already two older dogs and a cat called Kevin, which Murray has already had a run in with lol. His wife lives in Echuca so he goes there a fair bit on the weekends and they have a pomeranian puppy. He works on a back hoe and was planning on taking Murray along with him on some jobs....haha Murray the working dog, who used to spend all day here in my BED!!! LOL.

Anyway, so last sunday Minnie and Gerry were down here visiting Aunty Thea, so I organised to drop him off there so they could take him with them home, so that worked really well. Thanks for doing that Minnie and Gerry. Will try and get up to Daylesford in the next few months and organise a visit :D

Thanks to everyone who was on a look out for a new home for him. It was really hard as he had bitten Kaytie and couldn't be trusted around little kids, but I'm so happy about the outcome, 100 times better than doggy heaven! Thanks too to Joe and Zoe who offered to have him if we couldn't find a home for him.

Scotch hasn't been too bad without him, he sulked a little bit and he tends to want to be around us a lot more, but since Murray has gone, my bed is left in one piece, there is no barking at nothing (George likes a guard dog so that worked out well for him) and no tension around the kids.

What else has been happening?

We had the OARA brunch on the 14th June...It was a great day, Mum came along with us and helped look after the kids, as I was busy chatting to parents etc. Greg and Paula also came and were kept busy doing treasurery things. Here are some pics...

We then had an OARA meeting to go to monday night and Liz and Paula came round to look after the kids for us. Monday was also Steve's birthday...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! hope you had a great day Steve, will have to catch up soon.

Tuesday Kaytie had her scheduled dilatation. We got there at 12pm and was in and out with nurses and doctors, but most of the time was spent waiting and waiting! At one stage we had a guy come in to sing songs to the kids and play some games, so that was good. It was about 3:30pm that she went in. They got me to come in too and then sat her on my lap snuggled into me, while they tried distracting her as they gave her the gas and eventually (without a tear), she fell asleep. It then took a while to get a drip in her, the anaesthetist had commented on how she could be taken as a druggy with all her shot veins. So after 4 attempts they got one in, lucky she was under anaesthetic. The procedure itself didn't take long and the doctor said it wasn't that bad, which meant the last stretch had it under control. But (and there's always a BUT hehe) the lower half of her oesophagus was very red and irritated, which means that reflux is getting past the fundoplication. He is just going to keep an eye on it for now, but refer her to a gastroenterologist and next time she has a dilatation (in about 3 months) they will do a gastroscope to have a better look.

Kaytie woke fine from the anaesthetic, actually I think she just wanted to keep sleeping her normal two hour afternoon nap, so that's why she ended up cranky. She ate an icy pole straight after, had a little bit of her bottle and then on the way home she was able to have some macca's chips since she hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now 6pm.

Wednesday, she had her last gymbaroo session, still haven't booked her in for anything next term, but Luke will be going along to gymbaroo on a friday, that should be funny to watch lol.

This is a photo Dave took while I was at work. This is Kaytie dressed up with anything she could get her hands on including my undies!!! and then ran around the house like a mad man lol

Thursday and Friday I worked and mum looked after the kids when Dave went to work. On Friday afternoon, I also went to a memorial for an old work colleagued who had died last week. It was so sad as she was only 34 and had so much more life in her to live, but may she Rest in Peace!

Saturday morning mum and I went to WW, didn't do too badly only 0.3kg lost, but my aim for the next 3 weeks is to lose 5kg, so will see how that goes. Mum then took Kaytie out to the shops and bought her a toy - Dora Horse float (never know we may get kaytie into horse riding yet!) and she was wrapped in it. While they were out and Luke was in bed, Dave and I did some housecleaning, so it was a little easier without the kids under our feet
Last night I went to a crop at my friend's house from 4pm onwards and got a fair bit done. I've put another slideshow here for you to have a look at my latest.
So thanks for checking in and seeing what we are up to, please feel free to leave us a comment, it's not hard at all, just follow the links and I'll see you all back here soon :D

2008-06-10T20:23:00.005+10:00

MURRAY NEEDS A NEW HOME!!

Yep unfortunately Murray has outstayed his welcome in our home with the kids being at this age. On Sunday afternoon, I ducked out to the shops and while Dave was in the kitchen making Kaytie a bottle, she was in the loungeroom playing with Murray. I think what happened was that he was playing with a cardboard toilet roll and Kaytie must have tried to take it off him and he lashed out at her and made puncture wounds to her face under her left eye, with a couple of scratches. This is unfortunately the second time he has bitten her, the first was when she was not quite one. Despite all of this, Murray is a really good dog and I would hate to see him be put down, but I just can't trust him around little kids. He just doesn't have the tolerance that our other dog Scotch does. He would be great in a home with someone or their own or a couple with no kids at home, or a family with older kids, but certainly not pre-school aged kids. I thought I would post this on here to see if any family or friends have a place or know of someone that would like a dog that is house-trained and a generally good dog. Would love to be a lap dog if he could, but we don't let him on the couch LOL and he loves a good walk outside. It would be great if someone we knew took him so that we could still see him, otherwise I am contacting the Animal Welfare Association to see if they can place him and I guess if they don't place him, he will have to go to doggy heave, which is just awful!!!

Here's a photo of him to warm your hearts :D

On another note, I'll post up what's been happening lately while I'm here:

Mum and I took Kaytie to RCH on friday. She had to see respiratory at 9am, they checked her out and has diagnosed her with intermitten asthma and said that more than likely, give my history, she will get asthma too. But that doesn't concern me too much, as I grew up with it so I know lots about it. We only need to see them again annually, so that's good to hear.

We then had a cardiology appointment at 10:15am and Kaytie was such a good girl during the echocardiogram. She laid there watching HI FIVE and drank all of her bottle, while they took the pictures of her heart. The doctor then saw us and said she will need to have her duct (PDA) closed in the next few months. While there they will do a contrast and check out her aorta, but if it is too narrow they will abort the procedure and book her in for a more major operation where they would need to open her up, cut out the tight section of her aorta and stitch it back up. BUT this is very likely NOT to be the case, so we will just have to wait and see, won't jump the gun yet :)

We then we up to the new NNU and met a mum and bub who is in there for TOF/OA and had a chat with her and she got to see Kaytie running around and playing at full speed :)
Then it was off to Macca's for lunch (the usual when at RCH!), then home. Only to pick up Luke as Kaytie had a gymbaroo make up lesson at 2:05pm. However, I didn't stay there long in the end as there were way too many kids and they were all whinging and snotty etc and I couldn't see Kaytie getting anything out of the session except for a cold. So I took her home halfway through, and even the teacher said she didn't blame me, she wished she could come with me LOL.

Saturday mum and I went to Weight Watchers and we both had a good week, mum losing just over 2kg and I finally got to my 10% YAY!!! So I've lost a total of 11.5kg :D

We then came home and picked up the kids and I drove to see Diva and Marie for lunch and mum met us there later on with two Japanese students she was looking after for the weekend.
Diva took some great photos so will have to share, when she sends them to me.

Mum, Dad and and Japanese girls came for dinner that night and they had a great time watching Kaytie put on a show for them LOL.
I have a layout to share of Luke in a princess crown that mum was putting on him that night LOL.

Sunday I had a big housecleaning day while Dave took Kaytie to the shops for the groceries. Then we had the dog bite thing. Later in the afternoon Liz came over to see us and had some dinner with us. Dave went on a motorbike ride with the boys on the Monday and Kaytie woke up with a swollen and red eye where the dog bite was, so I took her to Casey hospital to get it checked out. Liz came over to babysat Luke for me so that I didn't have the both of them to control in the hospital, thanks for doing that Liz. We were seen relatively quickly (in emergency waiting times) and they gave us some antibiotics for her.
Mum came over just as we got back and we made some soup for lunch. I had a relaxing afternoon scrapbooking as Luke ended up sleeping over 3 hours!!

That's about it really... so I guess I will do another update at the end of the month.

I will show you the picture of Kaytie's face from the dog bite:

and another couple of layouts :D

2008-05-28T15:11:00.009+10:00

Six Years

Alright then, well I have just had the kick up the behind to get going on this, so thought I better do what I am told LOL!!! Thanks Yve :D

I actually started this one last week, but everything else got the better of me and so I got a tad behind.

Anyway, I will get on with it!!

YES, it's been 6 years on the 1st June, since Dave and I tied the knot and boy have they been a busy few years!! Dave ended up taking me out for a surprise night (even though it was my year to organise it!) and we ended up at the Docklands at the temporary ice skating rink there. It was lots of fun, especially since it is something that I can do better than Dave (believe me, there are not many of them!). We both started off a bit shaky, but by the end of it I was confident enough to be skating in the centre away from the sides! We then went to the James Squire Restaurant for dinner and then to Hot chocolate for dessert, YUM!! It was so nice to have a night out and be just the two of us, as the last month has been very busy and we haven't seen much of each other. Thanks to Tony and Liz, who babysat for us and the kids were both sound asleep and tucked up in bed when we got home :D

After the last post we had Mother's day. Dave let me sleep in til 8:45am LOL yes that is actually a sleep in for me atm!! But since it had just been my birthday and things are a bit tight, unfortunately there were no presents. I really didn't mind at all, it was just nice to all be together and healthy (hehe you can stop vomitting now LOL).

We then went round to see Liz and the family for a beautiful roast dinner, prepared by Tony. I forgot my camera, but we were able to get this photo before Liz's camera went flat.

After lunch we came home for the kids to have a sleep and then went to see mum and family for another beautiful roast cooked by mum. Here's a photo of all the mums and the kids :D

I worked a couple of days that week aswell and mum had to have the kids all day friday as Dave left for his annual boys bike weekend away on the thursday (15th May) and I worked. Dave seemed to have an ace weekend away, with lots of riding and lots of drinking lol ~ good on ya Steve lol.

Saturday of that weekend was Paula's birthday bbq, however, I wasn't able to stay long given the circumstances (sorry bout that Paula) but HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! and hopefully will be able to catch up saturday night for Greg's birthday :D
Talking birthdays, it was also Tony's HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! on the 14th... and Andrea's HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! on the 2nd June...

Dave ended up getting home on the saturday night very late, rather than staying another night and getting up early to go in the morning, so it was nice to have him home on the sunday.

On the 19th, we had our monthly TOF playgroup gathering at the Docklands and quite a few turned up which was great, including the president of OARA with her 11 year old son Nathan. It was great to see him there and constantly asking for food lol. I think the mums really get alot out of it and we all know what's its like to have a baby with feeding problems, although some more severe than others, its still a similar journey. So I really hope it continues and with another 9 babies in NNU at the moment, I really do hope that it can continue for years to come, as unfortunately they are still being born. But its nice to know that there is a parent support network. I've had a little bit of contact with NSW mum's lately too and we are hoping to get some OARA support up there aswell and I have my fingers crossed for an online forum up and running by the end of the year also. In other OARA news, I have finished the newsletter, so can't wait to share that with you and we have the annual hospital brunch for new families coming up next weekend.
I also offered to have an extra playgroup at my place this week and we were going to have quite a few but unfortunately there were a few that were sick and unable to come (comes with the territory :( )
Here's some piccies from the venue at the docklands and also at my place.

That week, I also took Kaytie to Wonderplay, which is an arts and crafts activity for toddlers. Kaytie has been doing Gymbaroo now for a year and she has got soooo much out of it, but I'm feeling now that it's becoming a little bit repetitive. So I am looking into some other things and Wonderplay was great. But going to check out Hedy Ho Music and see if she likes that better. In term 4 I want to get them both in swimming lessons, but will wait til summer. Luke is going to have his first sessions of Gymbaroo next term, so can't wait for that...how cute!!

Kaytie, on that day, also went to see the opthamologist for her eyes. Turns out that she is slightly long sighted which is consistent in her age group, so she doesn't need glasses. But her right eye doesn't turn all the way to the right, so sometimes she appears cross-eyed. There's not much they can do about this, but we are just going to keep an eye on it, to make sure it doesn't get worse.

After another two days working for me on the thursday and friday (22/23rd May), it was time for me to have a weekend with the girls away!! I went to the Manyung camp in Mt Eliza with the Artypants girls. I was the last to arrive, as I wanted to help with the kids and say goodnight after not being there all day, and when I got there, the girls were all full swing into scrapbooking :D We had an ace time scrapbooking, playing games, having meals cooked for us and just relaxing. Andrea, Tania and Mel Fox were also there and Andrea has heaps more about it on her blog if you are interested in seeing some more photos and her wonderful layouts. (I stole her flicker idea for my layouts below too). Here are some pics of the saturday morning when Judy, Tania and Mel went for a walk to the beach.

I worked another couple of days the next week and Kaytie had another weigh in at MCHN and is at 9.7kg!!! Her second best weight gain since she was born!! Must be all those Macca's chips when mummy's at work hey daddy?!?!? hehe just joking. Dave does a wonderful job when I'm at work, getting up early and making sure that the two of them stay in their routines. And then mum comes over to continue the great job of getting them to sleep in the arvo and keeping them occupied while I can get dinner organised. It all works really well :D So thanks mum for helping us out, especially when you come over nice and early, so that Dave can stay in bed and get some sleep.

In other news....

LUKE:
Luke had his first experience of getting a temperature this month. His temperature flew up to 39 degrees and was up and down like a yoyo for about 3 days. He had very stinky breath and was miserable. I took him to the doctors and it was as we suspected...tonsilitis. But after a day of antibiotics he was starting to get better and coped with it all really well. It's just lucky that he loves his food so much that nothing (including a sore throat) gets in his way of his tucker lol.

I've had to start remembering to clean his teeth also as he has 8 now!!!

AND he has starting clapping his hands hehe. He loves music and bobbing along to it and then if he's really excited he claps his hands. He also loves to wave when someone comes over, he just sticks his hands out stretched up to the ceiling hehe.
He is walking around confidently the furniture now, so we are predicting he'll be walking by the time he's one and my back will certainly be happy about that. I recon he's well and truly 11kg now! Lucky I've almost lost that much weight haha.

Here's some other pictures I took of him last night...

HAPPY

and NOT so HAPPY (tired bubba)

KAYTIE:
Kaytie has been doing really well with her eating still since her last dilatation. But we are still going ahead with another one on the 17th June. She also has cardiology and respiratory appointments tomorrow.
Just thought I'd show a very skinny photo of her during her last bout of gastro, when Diva came over. Diva didn't want me to have them cause she does look really sick, but I thought I would share, just to show how much better she looks now and also how scary it is when she does get sick.

Mum actually took Kaytie to gymbaroo this week, however she didn't stay as "Gymbaroo was broken", or that's what she told Kaytie. Mum overheard some women talking about their son (at gymbaroo) who had been up the previous night with vomitting and diarrhoea, so she quickly took Kaytie away and to a playground near our house instead. Had I been in that situation I would have done the exact same thing, as she just can't afford to lose any weight and the last time was so very scary. Although I probably would have stayed to give the mother a serve about bringing her sick kid! LOL ~just being a protective mum :D

Here's some extra cute photos of Kaytie and one there of her and Tom playing on the computer.

Here's how she lines up all her toys to sleep with her at night LOL

BIKE RIDES:

On the sunday of my weekend away, Tony and Liz came over and went a ride on the bikes with Dave and the kids and did a playground crawl (like pubcrawl lol) around the estate. It was Lukes first time on the bike and here's a pic of how much he enjoyed it lol

Dave and I also took them for a bike ride on the sunday just been and this time I took my camera and snapped a few of these for ya.

Lastly, I thought I'd share our beautiful family pics that I got done at the start of the year. The Grazzini's (Diva's family) framed them beautifully for us and for my birthday ~ thank you so so much!! they are just wonderful!!

AND FINALLY here are all my latest layouts, including all 13 that I got done on the retreat :D ENJOY :D

2008-05-08T21:07:00.008+10:00

It's Official...

I've been meaning to do this blog since the start of the month, but as you know, with everything that went on I have been flat out!!

So what does that title mean? I hear you all saying!! Well on April 4th Kaytie and Luke had their update appointments with the health nurse and IT'S OFFICIAL ~ LUKE IS HEAVIER THAN KAYTIE!!!! I know this really isn't ground breaking news, given Kaytie's small frame, but I really couldn't believe how quickly Luke has grown!! Kaytie hit the 9kg mark and Luke was 10 kg (I'm sure Luke is a lot heavier now, but don't think I could say the same about Kaytie given her latest bout of gastro and stricture).

Here's a photo to show the small size difference!

Luke has been crawling like mad. He doesn't like the tiles though so he tends to do a bit of a crab walk on his hands and feet. He has been pulling himself up on everything and annoying the crap out of Kaytie hehe. From when Kaytie gets up in the morning til when Luke goes to bed, most of what we hear from Kaytie is "No Luke No!!" as he always wants to play with what Kaytie has hehe.

Kaytie wheeling Luke around in her doll's pram

On the weight topic, thought I'd add in here that I have so far lost almost 10kg!!! Have got heaps to go but I haven't been this weight since before Kaytie, so am wrapped about that :)

On the 6th April, our little family of four along with Mum and Dad and Michelle, Derek and the boys went on a day out to Arthur's Seat, to the Enchanted Garden Maze. We have been meaning to go since September last year! It was a beautiful day! We had a nice picnic lunch when we got there and then started our way around the maze. I'll let the photos speak for themselves :D

Greg and I have also been going to some OARA meetings and after last week have been nominated to be vice president. Don't have to do anything special, it's just a title really (I hope! hehe). We have a brunch for families coming up in June and I am currently working on the newsletter, so there is lots for me to do at the moment. I am also going to have playgroup at my house of the off fortnight that it's not at the docklands, just so that if people miss out there is not a whole month to wait for the next one.

OK, so THE STRIKE!!!On the 7th April, Dave rang me to tell me that work had stopped and he was coming home, however, because we had the OARA AGM he decided to stay in the city and join us for it. Liz was happy to stay at home and babysit the kids for us. He then went back to work on the tuesday and worked a full shift, but on wednesday he only just got there and the strike was full steam ahead. In brief, there were two guys sacked and another 5 or so suspended for things that I don't totally understand. But the Union took a stand and so the huge staff at Boeing went on strike. Dave then continued to go to work for the rest of the week to stand at the picket fence - mainly to see what was going on and what was going to happen. He told me not to answer the door to anyone I don't know as it would be a hand delivered fine of around $6000 a day for striking!! That night there was a knock at the door. Dave was home, and the dogs were barking, I had a brief look outside to see an old man standing at the door. Now that he had seen me, I felt I had no choice but to open the door. It wasn't a fine though, just a legal mumble jumble letter. A couple of nights later I was on the phone to Michelle and there was a knock at the door (dave wasn't home) and the dogs were going mental. I could see a car out the front, but I didn't want to open the door. Michelle told me to take the kids and sit in Kaytie's room as they stood there for what felt like forever. They ended up leaving the letter in the mail, but it still wasn't a fine. This went on for days!!! Eventually they stopped the special couriers and just did same day postage, which would have cost them a fortune!!
Because Dave wasn't working, I really had to go to work to bring in the money. So luckily at work there were a few staff that were doing things that took them away from the campus for a week at a time and I got their job in the meantime. This week I have worked 5 days which has been full on for everyone, Dave, mum (babysitting) and me. But when Dave was on strike, he was the 'stay at home dad' and I was the worker hehe. The role reversal was actually really good, to see how the other one lived. I can tell you, I much rather spend my days with the kids at home right now! Anyway back to the strike, Dave was getting quite stressed after two weeks and everyday we were wondering if he was going back to work or not. There were mass meetings in the city both held by the union and Boeing and the whole "he said" "she said" thing was happening and he didn't know whether to go to them or not etc etc. Eventually on the 27th April, after the Overdyk gathering at the Botanical Gardens. Dave and his mum and dad, went to his work to a big meeting where legal documents were going to and fro and finally an agreement was made and they all voted to go back to work. So that was that...

While all this was happening it was also Aedan's 11th birthday and we had a dinner/party on the 12th for him. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AEDAN!!!

Showing the boys how to read

On the 15th the kids and I had our flu injections, certainly wasn't taking any chances with Kaytie and thought Luke and I could get it at the same time (Luke didn't even cry, I was amazed!)
Tracey and I caught up at the start of the month (I forgot the camera though!!). We met at a playcentre in Coburg, about half way between us both. It was great to catch up and the playcentre was really quiet so the kids ran a muck playing with anything and everything

It was also Fisher's 2nd Birthday on the 16th!!!!!

As I wrote in the last post about Kaytie's adventures, it was Dave's birthday aswell. We went out for dinner at Costello's. Then we had the week and a half from hell LOL

Anyone for some Scotch and cake?

We were supposed to go and visit Joe and Zoe in Wondonga on ANZAC day, but with Kaytie being so sick we decided to stay home and close to RCH.

It was also my birthday on the weekend, so we had a few family and friends pop in on saturday night for pizza and during the day I went out to Picture to Page and snapped up some bargains and ran into Andrea and the girls from Artypants. Dave took me out to the Gold Class movies and we saw Gone Baby Gone ~ absolutely fantastic movie!!! And thanks Liz for babysitting the kids, sorry they caused you some grief :)

This week has been full on with work. Thanks heaps to mum who has been coming everyday to look after the kids in the couple of hours that both dave and I overlap our working hours. And for coming early today so that Dave could have a sleep in. Without you, I wouldn't have been able to work and catch up with our finances.

Also during this week, Dave took Kaytie to see the surgeon for an appointment. Thanks to Tony for coming down to look after Luke while they went to the doctors. He said that her scar tissue was very tight and hard to stretch last week so she now has another dilatation on 16th June and then will do it again about 3 months after that and will eventually try and get her having them 6 monthly.

Dave has also booked Kaytie into the optomertrist to see what her vision is like as she tends to look down her nose and things and also looks up while putting her head down. It's like she is wearing bifocals and she also likes to get very close to watch the tv.

Well that's about it, the rest are photos from throughout the month that explain themselves, so ENJOY!!

Bouncy Boy

Little Miss

Little Miss Desperate Housewife (playing with toys from Aunty Trace)

Big girl cup!

And some scrapbooking to share:

2008-04-30T21:10:00.002+10:00

BACK TO NORMALITY ~ kinda :)

Well it's been a trying few weeks in our household. So I'll start of by saying that Kaytie is back to her old self again and Thank God for that, I missed my little girl for what turned out to be a horrendous week and a bit.

Last Saturday night was Dave's birthday party at Costello's Bistro with a few family and friends. Kaytie had a ball in the playroom with her big cousins and all the other kids. Bailey didn't have quite as much fun and came out crying only after a little while with a bleeding head. So Andrea, Adrian and Bailey spent a few hours at Emergency, but he turned out ok with some glue to put him together again (sounds a bit like Humpty Dumpty hehe). At some stage another kid vomitted in the playroom so we didn't let Kaytie go back in there, well that was a feat in itself hehe. Everyone came back to our place afterwards for dessert and a chat.
On Sunday, Kaytie started with the runs....yep that's right - GASTRO, that's all she needs huh!! I had to work for the week, as Dave was on strike (will get to that later!), so Dave had his hands full all week with pooey nappies from Kaytie and then Luke got it a few days later, so he had double whammy with the nappies and whingy kids LOL!!! Kaytie went right off her food and drink and was moping around the house, so by thursday she was so dehydrated that she could hardly stand. Dave took her to the doctors, who told him that if she didn't drink in the next hour to take her to emergency. Tony had come over to look after Luke for us while Dave was at the doctors and taking Kaytie to Monash emergency. Mum came around lunchtime to help Tony out and then stay with Luke when I got home. I called Dave when I was leaving work at 3:45pm and he was STILL waiting to be seen!!! So needless to say I was a tad ropeable when I got home. So I jumped in the car and Tony drove me to the hospital. When I got there, they had JUST taken her through (lucky!) and were prepping her for a drip that didn't eventuate as they decided to put a nasogastric tube down instead.

Well that was extremely drammatic and Kaytie screamed and screamed for about and hour, kicking and bucking and trying to pull it out. Eventually we settled her down with a video and by that stage I think she was too exhaused to go on anymore anyway. She had also coughed up a bit of blood when they did it, which made our eyebrows raise a bit. She also continued to drool all the while the tube was down and refused to suck her dummy. All these things made Dave and I think that maybe not all was well with her oesophagus.

Anyway, they pumped continuous feeds of gastrolyte into her overnight and by the morning although she was still whingy and not herself, she was a lot brighter. They told me there was nothing more they could do for her and that I could take her home with the tube and see if she will eat and if she doesn't then bring her back for more fluids. But I said NO WAY, I'm not leaving til she is eating and drinking. I think it was more the fact that they had no beds on the ward (we spent the night in an emergency cubicle) and they need to be actively treating in emergency otherwise they either go to the ward or go home. But there was no way I was leaving only to come back and sit for hours in the wating room again. So they were going to do a urine test to rule out an infection there in the meantime to see if she would eat. Sure enough she manged to chew on some cornflakes and drink juice, so I was happy with that and took her home ~ although still miserable. She spent the rest of the weekend sleeping alot and not eating again and by Sunday afternoon I wanted to take her back to hospital, but this time to RCH. Dave had gone with Liz and Tony to the Overdyk gathering in the Gardens and then to his work for a strike rally (I will get to that lol). When they got home, Kaytie had hardly touched her dinner so I said if she didn't drink her bottle I would be going to hospital ~ well I managed to get 120mls into her with much effort and it took forever, but at least this way she would have a good sleep in her own bed and in the morning I would take her.

I called her surgeon in the morning and spoke to him just before lunch about our suspicions for an oesophageal stricture and he told us to come straight to emergency at RCH and we'll get her in for a dilatation. Emergency was PACKED and my whole day flashed before my eyes, waiting and waiting and waiting. But it was no sooner that I sat down to wait that they called us through (felt a tad guilty as I felt daggers from mother's eyes who had obviously been waiting for AGES).
Anyway, we waited a fair while in emergency, with nurses doing hourly obs, doctors continually asking why I thought she had a stricture (started to doubt myself) and trying to amuse Kaytie. Eventually things started to happen with a doctor trying to put a canula in her hand that didn't work because her veins are so scared from when she was a baby. Then I spoke with the anaethetist and the surgical registrar and then Kaytie's surgeon called by to say he wouldnt be able to do it, but another surgeon (who we knew) was on-call for it. They were just about to try and find another vein when they told us we were on our way to theatre and they would do it while she was asleep.

A nurse was waiting for us in theatre who looked after her when she was a baby and couldn't believe how much kaytie had grown haha. Then 3 anaethetists came to take us to the room where she would fall asleep. They tried to trick her into wearing the mask by getting me to do it first, but she was too knowing and was just screaming, knowing there was something not right. By this stage she would scream whenever a doctor or nurse (or anyone unfamiliar) would approach her. Eventually we just had to hold her down and do it, it was a little sad seeing her drift off to sleep, but all I could think was I wanted my baby to get better and this would provide a lot of answers ~ just call me a tough mum lol.

I went off to get some food (I had started fasting with Kaytie hehe) and made a few calls and after 20 minutes the surgeons came to tell me they had finished and her oesophagus was REALLY tight!! Poor little girl couldn't eat because it couldn't go down >:( But it was a huge relief that that was the cause and it was now fixed. It was another half hour before she was in recovery and waking up, and I went down to see her. They offered her an icy pole for her husky, coarse throat and she took it with two hands and didn't stop biting chunks from it til it was GONE!! LOL

Then we were taken to 4 main (our old home) and was looked after by nurses that knew Kaytie which was really nice! No one recognised her though as it had been such a long time. At one stage there was about three nurses crowding round her cot checking out how much older and bigger she was ~ just like proud mums hehe. Unfortunately when we got to the ward her oxygen levels went down and they had to put nasal prongs in her nose to give her oxygen, which she was not at all pleased about. Luckily it was late and it had been a very long day and she had just had an anesthetic, so she quickly fell asleep. They gave her IV fluids all night so by morning she was looking really good and bright and I knew she was back to her 'old self' when she thought the remote to the tv was a telephone and was saying "hello Dora hello" into the speakers haha. I made some toast for her, which she ate half of. She also drank a quarter cup of milk and a tub of yogurt. Later she had a big bottle and had a play in the playroom. At this stage they said we could go home, but Kaytie was so happy playing that she screamed all the way out haha. In the car on the way home she ate half a packet of french fries from Macca's! and when she walked through the front door, Dave had to take a double look as he could not believe the transformation.
So she is finally back to normal and had Dave and mum run off their feet today with going to Gymbaroo and not having a sleep LOL!! I was back at work again.

Was going to tell you about the strike, but its got late. Have also got some pictures to share from the weekend at the maze and some cute Luke news, so I'll get back on tomorrow night and type some more. Sorry for the novel, but couldn't stop writing as it was all so fresh in my memory.

Thanks to everyone who has called or SMSed or emailed to see how Kaytie was, it's so nice to have that support :) Thanks to Tony for helping out with Luke on thursday so Dave could concentrate on Kaytie AND thanks heaps to mum who took Luke on Monday night when Dave had to go back to work and I was in hospital with Kaytie. It was a huge relief to know that he was being looked after and in safe hands.

UNTIL TOMORROW NIGHT......

2008-03-31T15:24:00.004+11:00

RUN 4 KIDS

Ok so I said I wasn't going to do another post for a month, but I really wanted to share with you the fun from Run 4 the Kids.

Run 4 the kids has been going now for 3 years and Dave and his brothers (and Mel) have done it each year. I, along with mum, dad, tony (Paula last year) have done it the last two years.

Well it all started in drama with Dave's phone (and Steve and greg's) deciding that daylight savings had ended and put their phone clock's back an hour, which means that instead of going off at 6:15am it went off at 7:15am, although Kaytie had already woken us up at 7:10am haha. So we were very LATE and were still yet to get the kids ready and a few extra things packed for them!! We were going to park at Eureka towers but that was blocked off, so we found a carpark close by instead. Dave parked the car and ran to start his event, the 14km run and I got the kids out of the car ready to go for the 5.7km walk. When I got to the carpark ticket machine it would only take coins and I didn't have $8 of them. So I rang mum and dad who had parked a few blocks down to see if they could walk to me to give me some money. In the meantime I had spoken to Tony who was on his bike, coming from Flinders st and met me there. While I was waiting for the coins, I fed Luke and Kaytie their breakfast, sitting outside the SES building on the side of the road lol.

Anyway, Tony gave me some coins to use and we then met up with mum and dad and walked to the start line, which we got to JUST in time. We met up with Steve in the walk as he wasn't able to do the long run because of a corky he got from footy. It was a beautiful morning, contrary to what the forecast said and the walk was great. Heaps better having Luke in the pram to push, rather than being 5 months pregnant with him like last year.

Well we all made it round the course and they ended up having around 29,000 entrants which was a huge turnout!!

Afterwards, mum, dad, Dave and the kids and I walked to Federation Square and sat of the steps having McDonalds for lunch (I know, not part of my weight watchers hehe) and Kaytie had an absolute ball running up and down the stairs. Dave and I then took the kids home for a sleep and then we went for dinner at Tony and Liz's house. We managed to get Luke to sleep as he was absolutely knackered and Kaytie powered on while we had a game of cards.

Oh that's right, Luke was hilarious at dinner. Tony had him sit on the table while we ate dinner and he kept trying to take food off his plate. He down a fair bit of meat, pumpkin and whatever else he could get his hands on lol and that was after I had already given him his dinner. Gotta love a kid that eats hey, well needless to say he wasn't up for his bottle and slept all night :D

Also wanted to share these cute pics of Luke getting into the "play" cupboards. He will be walking and talking sooner than we realise :D

Oh yeh and here's another story for you, but you may like to put down whatever you are eating cause it is likely to turn you off...

I have been having a bit of a problem lately trying to get Kaytie to sleep in the afternoons. It's not like she doesn't need it either, as when she does eventually go to sleep, she sleeps for 2.5-3hours. Today, we went to a play centre in Fountain Gate with a friend and her kids and when we do something like that, it usually makes her even more hyper. Well I put her to bed and sure enough she was not asleep when I went to check on her. Instead she was standing there butt naked and poo everywhere!!! She had taken her pants and nappy off and had sat everywhere in her cot with a pooie bum!! YUCK ~ the joys of motherhood LOL!! Anyway, in the end I had to sit in her room to get her to sleep, always she screams and squawks away and wakes Luke up too.

Anyway, there's a little snippet for you...more later on in April...

2008-03-27T20:55:00.011+11:00

MARCH

Well it seems the cooler weather is finally here! This is a photo of the kids on our walk yesterday afternoon, all rugged up :D Will have to think about getting the flu shot for the kids soon.

It's been an absolute crazy month, so I will try my best to remember it all :D

RCH and OARA news

We had our OARA meeting on the 3rd and lucky Greg and I turned up, because otherwise it would have just been the president and secretary hehe. Joe Crameri also came who is Kaytie's surgeon now and I had a chat to him about how good Kaytie has been going, so we are going to postpone the scope and dilatation and just see how she goes.

Among other things, we also discussed the AGM which is coming up on 7th April, this will be Greg's first big roll as treasurer to get up and speak. There is also a guest speaker talking about a breathing study that was done, so that should be interesting.

We also had playgroup on the 17th, but I think the hot weather turned people off, so hopefully we will get a better show next month.

Kaytie also had a cardiology check up on the 7th and they are happy with her steady weight gain, so they have put her on the elective list for surgery to get her PDA closed within the next 3-4 months and we will have another check up in June before that. After the appointment I went to visit my friend Janet who lives very close by, but because the appointment went for over 2 hours!! (mainly waiting in the waiting room!!!) I couldn't stay very long, and then got stuck in peek hour anyway :( But it was great to catch up with her and meet her new baby, Noah, who was born two months after Luke.

We are also doing Run for the kids on Sunday, which should be another great day. We were planning on catching the train in (first time for the kids), but the stupid Met has decided to cancel all trains that day and work on them!?!?!?

Work

I got a few days leading up to the holidays, which was great. I ended up taking a few of one of my old colleague's classes, so was able to get right into it and teach Science and Maths like I used to, including taking them for science experiments, so that was lots of fun. I also got a day out at the Melbourne Zoo with year 11 psychology and then did a day at the Junior campus at Berwick. That was a strange day as I have never taught there before and also haven't taught year 8 for 4 years!! It was different in that the kids are heaps more immature, I'd forgotten about that age group, the one where they say "he took my...." "she's got my......" etc etc lol too funny!
Dave's also been working hard and putting in some extra hours and extra days here and there and his work is also expanding the factory so they can make more plane wings, so will be always plenty of work which is good.

Socialising

Have done a little of this lately. On the 8th I went to a friend's place, Cristi, for a whole day of scrapbooking!! 10am til 4pm and absolutely loved it! I got three layouts done, some of which I can't share yet, as I'm going to go for a position on a blog called STUCK for their creative team. But will share some others later on in the post. Also went to Cristi's house on the following friday with the kids, to a kids books party. Kaytie was so funny. When we got there (she has never been there before) and we were waiting at the door, she was nosily looking through the side window at the door. As soon as Cristi opened the door, she made a bee line to the other kids and toys and did not look back LOL. I could have just dropped her off there and she wouldn't have even known I left LOL!!

On the 9th, Dave went for a bike ride on his motorbike, so I went into the city to meet up with mum and dad, who were staying in a friend's flat and it was just across the road from the Melbourne Swimming and Aquatic Centre. Luke had never been to a pool before and Kaytie couldn't wait to get into the water. Kaytie loved the wave pool that mum and dad took her in, but she kept trying to get away and swim on her own, will have to start her on swimming lessons I think. Luke loved the warmth of the water and nearly fell asleep on my arm in the big pool.

I also went to Michelle E's Tupperware Party, haven't been to one of them in AGES!

Michelle (my sister) came round Wednesday night to do some scrapping. There was a blind challenge on at Scrap Therapy, so we both did that one, will post the pic below.

Had a visit from Kate Jackson today, with Thomas and her new baby boy, Harry. He's only 2 months old and looks so little compared to my little heffer, Luke LOL. Kaytie on the other hand has been taken over by Thomas in size, who is 2 in November lol. I truly have a big one and a small one lol. Mum came over too and we had a great catch up, sorry no photos I forgot, too busy gas bagging!

The Big Event

Joe and Zoe's Wedding DAY!!!

Joe and Zoe got married on the 15th March at Marybrooke in the Dandenong's. It was a nice warm day, and I was able to get out in the morning to the hairdressers to get my hair done, while mum looked after the kids for me. I haven't been to the hairdressers since this time last year for Yvonne and Damien's Wedding lol!!

After the kids were fed, mum and I drove up to the Dandenongs to get ready for the ceremony, where Kaytie was also flower girl. The boys had been there all day getting ready and having photos etc and Zoe and then the girls arrived, stunning as ever. I had to keep Kaytie occupied by getting her to dance in the hallway before the ceremony as we waited to go down the isle. Kaytie was a star and walked down the isle looking for daddy waiting for her at the front. If I can get the video to work, hmmm nope not working, but will keep trying.

The ceremony was beautiful and before we knew it, Joe and Zoe were married. We then went outside for a butterfly ceremony and photos.

Mum then took the kids home for me, for dinner and bed until we got home after the reception. Thanks so much for babysitting mum, it was a huge load of my mind and I could enjoy myself for the night.
The reception was loads of fun, and I'm sure you will find out the goings on there in time ;) Dave did an awesome speech, very well read and funny too lol.

Easter

Happy Easter to everyone!!

We had dinner with Liz and Tony and family on friday night, Gerry and Dimphy were also there to catch up as they were unable to go to the wedding. Then we went away to Cape Patterson for the weekend, out first family holiday with the four of us. Mum and Dad were already up there with two Japanese students they are looking after atm. We got up there saturday lunch time as Dave worked on Good Friday. That afternoon, we took Kaytie to the beach (dad stayed with Luke while he was sleeping) and Kaytie was so funny. She saw the sandy path and got all excited wanting to stop and play in it. We told her there was more coming and then she saw the water and kept saying 'WOW water'. It was too cold to go in, so I didn't take her bathers, but had a towel and extra clothes for 'just in case' and sure enough a tinu wave hit her and bowled her over hehe. She was a little scared of the water after that, so she played in the sand while Dave went for a swim and mum and I played with her.

Sunday we had a little Easter hunt for Kaytie inside in the morning

Kaytie's attempt at eating an easter egg~looks like mummy and daddy will get fat this easter lol

and then Michelle and Derek and the kids got up there just before lunch to have a big Easter hunt outside. Greg and Paula with Meeka and Jimmy also came and visited and then after lunch and Kaytie had a sleep, we went down to the beach. We got called out of the ocean at one point for a lightning strike scare, but it was beautiful in the water. That night, my Oma and Aunty Lanie & partner came to visit for dinner and we had a bit of a game of charades.
Afterwards, we played a good round of cards and then mum and dad had Luke for the night in their room, so Michelle's kids had a room and Kaytie was in with us. The kids actually slept really well, must be the sea breeze. Monday, we went to the beach in the morning and had a great swim. I had a near death experience, when I got dunked BIG time in a wave and then the second one got me after that. Had images of the Bondi Rescue Team coming to get me lol. Kaytie had a great time running in and out of the waves with mum and Michelle. However, Luke wasn't as keen of the beach as Kaytie was lol Here are some photos.

Luke news

Over the last couple of weeks, Luke has been really struggling with his teeth and now I know why!!! He has cut the four top teeth ALL at once, poor little guy. He has also started crawling! On our Easter weekend away he started getting around a bit better and each day he is going further and further, especially when I make him crawl to his bottle lol mean mummy!! He is also saying 'Mum mum' hehe so cute, however, I do think his first word was 'Dad' a few weeks ago. He is still going really well with his sleep and going almost 12 hours at night and he is now eating more than Kaytie! He is loving solids, sometimes wanting that more than he's bottle and last night I even gave him bacon and mushroom risotto hehe little gourmet baby! Will have them both weighed again in the first week of April, so we'll see how much more he weighs than Kaytie!

The BIGGEST news of all

OKAY have been dying to put this up here for a little while now.

YVONNE and DAMIEN are having a BABY!!! It is sooooo exciting that Yve is pregnant. She is due in September and is already showing. So Kaytie and Luke will have a new little cousin to play with soon enough :D Congratulations guys and we pray for the healthy and safe arrival of the bubs. Hoping you have a smooth pregnancy and it goes quickly for you ;)

There are a few others that I have found out that are pregnant, but will have to see if they don't mind me sharing on here and will post it up next time :D You know who you are, so if you are reading this, email me to let me know if I can :D

Ok here is my scrapbooking share for the month.

This one was done for CIS, as they are teaching some techniques on using photoshop.

This one was an online class I did at CIS

This one was another blind scrap over at Scrap Therapy

AND this one is from a sketch I created for the cyber crop I'm running over at Artypants this weekend. Go over and check it out and if your into scrapping have a go, there are some great prizes to win!

That is it from me for another month. April seems to be a little lighter on the calender, although lots of birthdays with Dave's, Aedan's and Fisher's. There is also ANZAC day and the Overdyk get together at the Botanical Gardens. Have a great month and start of Autumn :D

2008-03-02T16:22:00.008+11:00

FEBRUARY

The months just keep getting busier and busier don't they? Think I will just be updating the blog once a month now. Will try to just put photos more than anything on here and any Kaytie/Luke milestones from now on.

So here's the news:

OARA

At the start of last month and tomorrow, we had a meeting with the committee, to plan what OARA has installed for the year. OARA have a database that is a world first, but its a bit hard to use atm, so hopefully this year that will be fixed. We have the playgroup up and running and we met this month on the 18th. Still mainly the regulars but next month should have a few new mums coming along. We are also going to send out a 1st birthday card to invite them along too. I have also put my hand up to organise the newsletter, there is only two a year, so shouldn't be too bad. Greg is the new treasurer and he seems to have fitted in nicely too :) Thanks to Liz for babysitting on those nights :)

Family Photo Shoot

During february I have had 3 appointments with a photographer to do a family photo shoot and to be honest I was really unhappy with the service and more importantly the price! For a mere 10x8 photo $175!!!!!!!! Anyway, we had the shoot on the 15th and the kids were really good, even after sitting in the car for two hours to get there (only Port Melbourne) as the freeway is certainly not FREE!!!!(don't get me started on that issue!!) I went back with mum the following week and nothing had been set up for us to look at the photos and he hadn't edited any of them...NOTHING!! So wasn't impressed with that either, but I have chosen two photos, 1 of the boys and 1 of the girls in a 11x11 size. Hopefully will have them by the end of this month.

Kaytie Health update

I can't believe our little girl is two already and boy has she grown up in the last couple of weeks! She had an appointment with the surgeon on her actual birthday (12/02) and he said he would prefer if she was eating better, so would get her in for a scope and dilatation to have a look at her oesophagus in March or April. We also had her weighed and her 2 year check at the Maternal and Child Health Nurse and she had only put on 275g in 2 months. It really hasn't helped that she has had gastro twice since December!!

BUT!!! since her birthday party (will get to that big day in a moment) she has come on in leaps and bounds!! She now does not have to eat anything pureed (except yogurt and custard) and she pretty much eats what we eat for dinner!! It started off by giving her alphabet spaghetti and the rest is history! She is eating more meat (well mince anyway), vegies, pasta etc and what's more she is doing it ALL ON HER OWN, very happy about that as it gives me more time to feed Luke who is now a garbage guts on his solids lol. So you would not believe how happy we are with her eating right now, so I am going to call the surgeon and tell him not to bother about the dilatation as there obviously is no stricture :D

She also had an Audiology appointment last week as the last two hearing tests have come back saying she has fluid on her ears. But the ENT specialists said that everything looks fine and her speech is really good, so she doesn't need grommets for now, but they will check her again in winter.
She has a cardiology appointment next week, so will have to see what they say about fixing her heart.

Kaytie's 2nd Birthday party
This year we had a theme of her much loved sesame street character ELMO!! Everything was Elmo based; the invites, the cake (which I made myself), the decorations, donuts, tablecloths etc. It was another hot day reaching 35 degrees (last year was 38), so we had the pool out for all the kids and that was a hit again. We also played pass the parcel and pin the nose on Elmo and Mel did the face painting for they day (thanks for that Mel) :D
There was heaps of food and everyone seemed to have a really good time. Thanks for everyone for coming and for all the wonderful gifts, she was VERY spoilt! I won't say anymore, just let the photos speak.

During the week on her actual birthday, Dave and I got her a pretend play kitchen that was a massive hit, I've been wanting to get one of these for ages. Mum and Dad came over bought her a new high chair that fits onto the table so she can eat with that, and we think that that has a lot to do with her eating so well now as she feels part of the family (not a baby anymore). Mel and Steve also came over that night to celebrate and gave her their present. They also brought some donuts, so after dinner I put some candles on one and we sang Happy Birthday. Unfortunately Liz and Tony could'nt pop in as Tony had gastro (poor thing!!). Thank you for setting up her bank account and contributing that too :)
Just wanted to add in here another 'GROWN UP MOMENT'. Diva bought Kaytie a HI-FIVE cd for her birthday and when we were driving in the car to the TOF/OA playgroup and I didn't have the music on as mum and I were talking. Kaytie says "mummy, mummy, five!" hehe, she is even telling me what to play in the car now LMAO.

Kaytie has also continued with her gymbaroo, which she absolutely loves and is getting so much better at being patient in the group sessions and heaps better on the equipment.

She has been talking heaps and heaps, nearly having full conversations with us. I am going to do a scrapbook page on how grown up she is now, so when I have finished I will put it up here and you see what other grown up things shes been doing.

Luke Update

Well he has pretty much caught up to Kaytie in the weight department and is now 8.5kg (although I think more since that weigh at the start of feb). He is eating and sleeping really well and we are trying to grade him over to Kaytie's bottles for a better teat and it seems to be working. Can't remember if I said this last time, but he is sitting up on his own now, but lately has been trying to get to his tummy to roll around on the floor. I will put him down and when I come back to him, he's half way across the room LMAO! He is almost getting up on his hands and knees so won't be far off crawling, which will be great as he is getting very frustrated and wants to play with Kaytie (they are so cute together). He had his 6 month immunisations, which affected him just a little and his teeth have been driving him mad, but still nothing more than 2 teeth to show for it :(

US
Dave and I have both been working. Dave has continued with his afternoon shifts and mum has been coming over in the afternoons to help me with the kids at dinner time, which is a big help. This also means that I have been able to work a few days emergency teaching. Dave is home with the kids til 1:45pm and then mum comes til I get home at the latest 3:45pm and stays to help me and a bit longer when I have also been tutoring on a monday night after 7pm. Thanks so much for all the babysitting during these times mum, and to dad who misses out on his wife cooking dinner for him lol!!!
Dave and I also had a big night out at Joe's Bucks day/night and Zoe's hens. We both had a great night out, although Dave lost Joe for a bit which turned out that he was in the lock up, yes that's right in Jail from about 10pm til nearly 4am lol. I spent the night with Mel and Paula at Mel's house and Dave stayed at his mum and dad's place. Mum and Liz decided to give us a whole night off and babysit for us, which also included staying the night at our place. Thanks so much for that MUMS, we had an awesome time and were able to sleep in too!! :D
Not long til the wedding now, Dave had his suit fitting and I have been working hard to lose weight so I can fit into a certain dress. So on the weight watchers front I have lost a total of 6.1kg and 13cm's, and the dress does up now, but very squishy so another couple of kilos would be great before then :D

I also ran the Artypants first cyber crop over last thursday, friday and saturday which was lots of fun. I had to put up scrapbooking challenges and games up on the internet and we did some chatting etc. I haven't done much scrapping this month, but the last couple of days I have scrapped up a storm, so here are some of my favourites.

We went to Kye's birthday party and Baptism on the 3rd Feb, which was a really great day. Kaytie was pooped by the end after playing with all the kids and she even won one of the pass the parcels ;)
It was also Zoe's birthday a day after Kaytie's and Yvonne's birthday yesterday, Happy birthday girls, another year older, but another year wiser :D Yvonne had a party last night for her birthday on their newly furbished deck and everyone had to come dressed in 70's attire. I wasn't able to go as I didn't want to wake the kids and it was a really cold night, so sorry Yve that I didn't make it, but it sounded like a great night :D

Well I think that is just about it PHEWWWWW!! at least I think anyway hehe

Oh hang on...we had a nice family day today :D The weather was beautiful and I thought we would take the opportunity of what could be the last of summer, to go to the botanical gardens. Tony and Liz popped in briefly to say hi and then we left for the Berwick gardens. We pulled up a bit of grass and had a picnic lunch and then a nice walk around the lake before a bit of a play on the adventure playground for Kaytie.

Luke checking out a bird
Kaytie's attempt at eating an apple :D

So until next time, have a great month in March :D

2008-02-06T15:21:00.000+11:00

Kids say the funniest things!

I just had to share this little moment we had with Kaytie the other day ~

Mum was talking to me about Kaytie being recently sick with the gastro and saying that "they recon that kids her age generally get sick every 4 weeks or so" and Kaytie right on cue said "OH GOD!" LMAO!!! Mum and I were cracking up for ages over that one.

It's so cool that she is talking heaps now and stringing sentences together, I just love the things that kids come up with :)

Anyway, that would have to be the shortest post on record! I have to go and feed Luke, so I will do a bigger post later on. Just thought I would share that little story to lighten your day :D

2008-02-01T13:34:00.000+11:00

February already!!

We've had a busy couple of weeks, so I'll try and fill you in on a little bit.

After my last post, I took the kids to go and Sharon & Chelsey at their place on the thursday. We stayed for lunch and the kids had a great play, outside on the sings and cubby house and inside with heaps of toys. Luke was a good boy and even slept a little bit too!

Friday was D-DAY!!! Sleep school for Luke! So Dave took the day off to be with Kaytie all day and I was up and out of the house with Luke by 7:30am. There were 4 other mums and babies at the session I went to ranging from 8 weeks to 7 months. The nurses there were terrific, very inviting and understanding of our frustrations. My fear was that Luke was going to be a little angel and I wouldn't learn anything, but he did a great job of being the little Luke he always is ;) The nurse took him with me to his room to sleep, it was a tiny room, just enough space for a cot and very very dark. The nurse told me to do what I normally do to put him down and I just turned and looked at her, to motion her to get out, because I don't do anything. I just generally put him in his cot and leave him to it lol!! I then was able to go back and listen to a seminar while she stayed to tend to him if and when he woke. Well he apparantely did his normal little trick of waking after 40 minutes and playing, but she eventually got him back to sleep for the full 2 hours. She said he was a very happy boy and very well adjusted, which was great to hear. Also they didn't pick up any other underlining causes of poor sleep like colic or reflux, which is also great!

In the afternoon, it was mine turn to put him down and resettled if I needed. He slept for an hour and then he put on a great show, screaming for about 20 minutes in protest about having to go back to sleep lol, but eventually he did and in the end we had to wake him so we could go home lol!!!

Anyway the things I learnt were "consistency and persistence" pay off. I need to stick to the feed, play sleep routine of up for 2 hours and sleep for 2 hours and it has worked!! So I don't get him out of bed for atleast 1.5hours whether he's awake or not. They also suggested that we try the roll over feed at 10pm and don't feed him any other times at night and that night he slept through! However it was short lived and he generally still gets up once or twice in the night, but that is heaps better than before. He is also HEAPS better to resettle and generally just needs a dummy.

I am sooooo much happier with his sleep and routine now, just have to tackle the solids next :D

Saturday I had my first weigh in at WW and lost 2kg's!! We were supposed to go to Amaya's first birthday but they had had gastro and I didn't want to take Kaytie, cause knowing her she would pick it up, so it was just a stay at home day for us.

Monday we had our first TOF playgroup session for the year and it was a great success. We had 6 families altogether with 2 of them new to the group. We are at our own venue at the Docklands now with heaps of things for the kids to play with from ages 3months to 3/4 years, so very happy about that. I didn't actually get a chance to take photos as halfway through I noticed Kaytie was extremely irritable and she was burning up, so I packed up my things asap to go home and not spread what ever she had. Before I left though, the girls presented me with a thank you card and a relaxation massage voucher at Endota Spa in Berwick for organising the playgroup. I was SO blown away, it is just awesome, can't wait to use it :D

When I got home Kaytie's temp was 38.5 degrees, so I just gave her a bottle and put her straight to bed. This went on for the next two days with no other symptoms and then wednesday she woke up fine???? Very strange!

As Kaytie was fine, we kept our date to go and visit the Thompson's in Daylesford. Yvonne came with me (just the thought of taking the kids on my own was exhausting lol! and she was going up there anyway as well) and kept the kids entertained and happy on the trip which was a bit over 1.5 hours each way. This was the longest drive Kaytie had been on and I wasn't sure how she'd go, but we got there and back and they were really good. Luke only fell asleep 20 minutes before we got there (typical!), so he woke up no long after.

The kids were all very excited to see each other and it was straight out the back for Kaytie once we got there, after the initial hugs and kisses with Michelle and Minnie.

Michelle teaching Kaytie how to drink from a straw cup

We had a tour of their house that they designed themselves, which is fantastic and then settled down for lunch. They still had the cot set up, so I tried to keep Luke in his routine and he did really well with sleeping through all the noise of the three girls playing lol.

Yvonne had her work cut out for her running around after Kaytie, especially watching her go up and down the ladder of the cubby house. It wasn't til the afternoon, just as Dave was walking in from work that Kaytie fell down the steps and landed on her head!! Dave was horrified, poor bloke, not what you want to see after a days work hehe. But she was alright and got right back up there again, that's my girl!!

how's the attitude on these two lol!!

I didn't want to be sitting in peak hour traffic with two screaming kids on the way home, so we thought it best to stay for dinner too ;) and left at 7:30pm. Kaytie ate her dinner so well, especially the pasta Michelle made for us....we were all very shocked, will have to come more often lol. With four grubby kids, it was then time for a bath, with poor little Luke in the middle of the girls lol. Then Aunty Yve sat them all down quietly for storytime :D

We had so much fun, it was a great adventure, lots of excitement for the kids and in the end quite a relaxing day :D

Friday we went for lunch at Lisa's house for Amaya's birthday as we didn't end up going to the party and the girls were so cute together. They were giving each other hugs and giggling at each other from across the table at lunch time, they had a great time playing together.

Saturday I had another weigh in and lost 0.5kg which I felt was still really good as I had such a big loss in the first week. Since I'm giving myself a year, I am quite happy to lose half a kilo a week.

Sunday I came down with gastro :( Dave had already left on his motorbike ride. I was so scared to pass it onto the kids, that mum came over for the day to look after the kids for me, which was a huge relief. But at the same time I was hoping I didn't pass it onto her and let the gastro bug keep infecting. Mum brought over gastrostop and gastrolyte to try and stop it in its track. I spent a lot of the day on the toilet or in bed and didn't eat a thing! I was fine in the morning, and spent Monday disinfecting the whole house. Mum even took Kaytie to her place and Luke while Luke was in bed, I scrubbed top to bottom. I just hate gastro so much, and Kaytie just can't afford to get it! But tuesday Kaytie came down with it and she is only just getting over it now! So she has spent the last 3 days retching and pooing and not eating, at one point I was ready to take her to hospital as she was very lerthagic and looking really skinny! But hopefully she is all good now.

Other than all of this, I have been doing a bit of scrapping with Michelle before she went back to school this week, and have got her onto some forums and been doing some cybercrops.

We have a busy month coming up with a family photo shoot, Kaytie's 2nd birthday, doctors appointments and getting back into gymbaroo. Have been pretty slack on the photos and just realised I havent taken any for the past two weeks!! So will have more to look at next time.

CONGRATULATIONS to Kate and Andy Coombs on the birth of their second baby Harry James!!!

Oh yeh had another weigh today and lost 1.2kg, so in three weeks have lost 3.7kg.

Well that's about it, thanks for checking in on us and don't be scared to leave a comment :D

2008-01-16T20:46:00.000+11:00

Boy Time Flies!!

Who could believe it is already the middle of January?!? And it's been another 2 weeks since my last post...oops!

Not much has been going on really, so I won't make it too long :)

New about the kids:

KAYTIE - Her eating seems to be back on track after having the gastro before Christmas and then the cold during Christmas, so that has been good. She is continuing to develop her speech and coming up with new words all the time, have to be careful what I say now as she is beginning to be a little parrot lol. She has been doing wees in the potty before her bath and sometimes in the morning when she wakes up. She now knows how to count to ten!!! Here she is counting the stones in her watering can and she says "one.......TEN!" LOL so cute!!

LUKE - has been getting a little better with his sleeps, but he's still a bit all over the place in terms of routine. There were a few frustrating nights over the weekend, where he would wake up two or three times in the night (early morning) with BIG smiles and would think it was play time for a couple of hours. Dave and I were needless to say very tired and grumpy after that. He has been wanting to feed himself already, so that was great the other night as I was spoon feeding Kaytie dinner, he was giving himself a bottle LOL. I have been giving him solids now once a day consistently for a week now and he seems to be enjoying that too.

Dave started back at work on thursday but then he was off friday for a wedding of a friend of mine, Kylie and Mick. Boy it was HOT! but Kylie finally made it to the church and a beautiful one at that in St Kilda. It was a beautiful ceremony and Kylie looked stunning! Aftwerwards they asked everyone to go down the street to the park for a group photo. After that and before the reception, Dave and I took a drive to the Eureka Towers to check out the view, WOW that is a tall building!
The reception was at a function centre in St Kilda and the place looked beautiful and the food was very yummy. Here is a photo of me, Kylie and Romi (also a friend from work):

The speeches were hilarious and every table had to write a love poem for the happy couple, very funny also hehe.
Liz and Yvonne came over to babysit that night, which was great and everything seemed to go smoothly there too, thanks so much for doing that :)

Saturday was a bit of a relax day and then later on Steve and Mel came over for a bbq, with Tony joining in later after work for some fun playing cards. Then Sunday we packed up the kids and some lunch and the bikes to go to Lysterfield Lake with Mel & Steve and Liz & Tony. It was a beautiful day, but Kaytie wasn't too happy about getting on the back of Dave's bike and apparently cried the whole bike ride :(. But Luke was a dream in the pram. I walked around with Liz and Tony and we didn't hear from him the whole 1.5hours, he pretty much just slept (haha if only he would do that in his cot!). We then all met back at the cars and walked down to the 'beach' area to have some lunch, here's some pics:

Skip to Wednesday and I took Kaytie to the hospital, while Dave stayed home with Luke. Kaytie had a routine audiology appointment. Last time she had the test, she got a bit upset with the puppets 'going off' in the boxes when she heard the sounds (bit hard to explain), but this time she was hysterical so it was quite hard to get proper results. As soon as she would calm down enough, the lady would put the quiet sound on and when Kaytie heard it, she would just scream because she didn't want to look at Bananas in Pjamas spinning round LOL. She did pass the test, however the next test she didn't where they stick the probes in her ears. It came up with having fluid on her ears, so she has been referred to ENT department for a second opinion and may require grommits :( Not going to think too much about it, as I think she has excellent hearing and her speech has come along in leaps and bounds!

Friday I made a committment to myself to lose weigh this year and so I joined Weight Watchers. I just need that kick start and support to really think hard about what I'm putting in my mouth, so I thought that was the place to go. I have 27.8kg's to lose to get to the top of the range of what I should be and I am determined to get there. I am giving myself the whole year, so I think that is achievable. Straight after that, I had my first test, Michelle E had kindly asked me to go out with her to brunch. We went out to the old Berwick primary school cafe, which is lovely. I ordered very sensibly and it was great to get out and talk without the kids interupting or having to think about their needs. Michelle came over later that day to see the kids and brought round some cool textas and crayons for Kaytie.

Saturday we had a barbie with Adrian, Andrea, Micayla, Bailey, Michelle and Steve for a New Year's catch up as its been soooo long since we did this. It was really nice and Kaytie loved staying up late playing with Micayla and Bailey. Once the kids were in bed though it was great to relax and sit around playing UNO hehe.

Not much else been happening, except for today I had my first tutoring session with a girl in year 9 needing help with her maths. So it was fun to do a little bit of planning and teaching and I'll be seeing her again twice next week and then probably weekly after that.

Luke is going to sleep school on friday which should be VERY interesting and I'll hopefully do an update on the weekend to let you know how he goes. Also mum and dad will be back from their big driving trip to Queensland so there will be lots of catching up with them too :)

Enjoy the rest of the holidays for those who are still on them and enjoy this beautiful weather we are having atm :)
I'll leave you with a few photos of our GIANT baby and pixi toddler :)

2008-01-01T15:40:00.000+11:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!
(Strap yourselves in, this is a long one!)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year, can't believe it is 2008!!.

Sorry I have been missing in action for a few weeks, just don't know where the time has gone. Although I have been doing a lot more scrapbooking and since Christmas have been playing The Simpson Game on the playstation, that I got for Dave lol. Didn't know I would be so addicted to it, as its usually not my thing! So that's taken up my blog writing time :D

Luke update...

Thought I would do a run down on Luke as he is just growing up so fast!! He now has two teeth (cut the second one over Christmas/Boxing day). He started reaching for his feet probably since the last post I did, which the MCHN said this was quite early. He has now just started putting them in his mouth too, yeh I know...nice! He has been rolling over HEAPS, and its great that he now knows how to get back onto his back as he gets extremely frustrated on his belly. Not sitting up yet, but I don't think that will be long as he can go for a few seconds before toppling over. He is gooing and gaaing heaps and has the best smile and giggle :D After the mild gastro he had, he was going really well with his feeding and sleeping, but then he got a cold around xmas/Boxing Day and has since been off his food, AND sleep...grrr. Dave and I are also wondering if he gets reflux and that would cause him to be a bad sleeper too. So we will hopefully find out when we go to sleep school on the 18th Jan. He has been getting really good at grabbing toys and pulling his dummy out of his mouth, but not quite getting it back in (only sometimes). I think that is about it for him. Here are some cute photos of him from the other day:

This is my favourite photo of Luke atm

Here are my two boys in their tanks yesterday on the 42degree day!!

Oh yeh I tried him with solids the other day as I thought this may help him sleep through the night better because he is still waking once or twice a night for a feed! He loved it and took about 4 or baby spoonfuls. But because he is still under the recommended age for solids I am a bit wary and haven't done it again. AND he was the most unsettled that night so probably not a good idea. Atleast I know I will have one good eater in the family hehe.
Here are some photos of him having his first solids, even cleaner than when Kaytie eats lol!!

And here he is at midnight one night giving himself a bottle haha!!

In the weeks leading up to Christmas I tended to mainly stay home with the kids especially as they were sick with gastro. We did have a visit to the MCHN and luke is all spot on with his milestones and I also had them both weighed...DRUM ROLL PLEASE... Kaytie is 8.5kg and 79.5cm tall YAY for Kaytie!!! and Luke is 7.5kg and 65cm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so the photos don't lie that he looks almost as big as Kaytie LMAO! Just to put things into perspective (and I know that there is no 'normal' when it comes to kids), but the average weight of a child Kaytie's age is just over 12kg and the average weight of a baby Luke's age is 6.8kg, so there ya go lol!! Kaytie has had a cold since Christmas too, but has dealt with it really well, just been off her food and bottles a bit, which is frustrating but to be expected.

Mum came and helped me pretty much every night of the week til Dave was off work. It is just so much easier when there are two people around, mainly to occupy Luke while I feed and bath Kaytie. So that was great to have that support and help, thanks Mum!

I also went to the Artypants Christmas party on thursday before Christmas, which was great fun and they had a surprise for all those who came...50% off, needless to say I had a field day lol. There are some photos from the night over at Crissy's blog. Liz and Tony had fun babysitting that night :D

That same week, I went to visit Diva, Angelo and Alex at their framing shop. That day was when it was bucketing down and their were floods everywhere (actually that was the same day as the artypants xmas party, its all coming back to me now lol). I had to go 60 on the monash!!! and most people pulled over, gosh it was bad. But it was short lived and so it was a nice drive to Hawthorn. It was great to see Diva and I surprised her a bit as I said I would leave Luke at home but I brought him with too. I was actually also there to pick up a surprise present (from all of the Overdyk family) for Tony on Christmas day aswell as having a hot drink with D next door. Here is a pic of kaytie eating a xmas biscuit or as Kaytie would say "bicet".

Here is Tony opening his present on Christmas day, it was a special moment and a fantastic job from the Grazzini's!

On the saturday before Christmas, Dave and I went to a wedding for one of his friends, Ian Patterson. The weather was awful, cold and raining, but it didn't seem to faze the bride and groom one bit! It was a huge wedding with over 200 guests attending. It was held at the Iona Church and reception in a hall in Nar Nar Goon. Mum and Dad babysat the kids that night, we left at 3pm and didn't get back til around midnight so it was a great night.

Well best I get to Christmas day...We almost had to wake Kaytie up, so that we had enough time to feed her, open her presents, get dressed and ready to go to mum and dad's for Breaky. She thought it was pretty cool as she had spent the last couple of weeks saying "santa coming" and when asked what does santa say she says "ho ho", so cute. She got sooooo much stuff, from us a sand & water table, puzzles, books, vacuum cleaner (play), dora camp chair, bath toys and heaps more. Luke got a F&P blocks train and books and puzzles, but Kaytie had lots of fun playing with his toys too. He just too little to understand so it was almost like Kaytie got twice as many toys, lucky girl!

Then it was off to mum and dad's house, where we ate breaky first before the kids had to find baby Jesus before they could open any presents. There were sooooo many presents under the tree and with the kids dishing them out it was hard to keep up, especially with taking photos. Here are some of them...she got a see saw from the Bruitzman's and a very cool bike from mum and dad.

Luke got lots of clothes and some cute toys to play with when he gets a bit older. Here we all are after opening the pressies:

Then it was time to crack open the gingerbread house that mum made:

After giving Kaytie some lunch and Luke a bottle, it was time to go home so the kids could have a sleep before heading off to Tony & Liz's house for dinner. When I got home I arranged all the presents so far, how lucky is Kaytie and Luke.

We got to Liz and Tony's around 5pm and there was lots more food to eat and presents to open. Once everyone was there we sat in the loungeroom and did the presents... Kaytie got so many more presents including books, a 3in1 chalk board, bath toys, some block toys, little people toys, dora puzzle and Tony and Liz opened a bank account for both Luke and Kaytie. Luke got a big dinosaur toy and more clothes.

She also got some beautiful books that she and Aunty Yve read together after a bath :)

Here's a photo after dinner, so not everyone was in it :(

And Luke on the swing...

After dinner and a bath for the kids and Liz got Luke to sleep, we all had a game of Getaway that Tony got from his KK. We left there around 9:30pm....what a day!

Boxing Day we got ready and drove to Nerena, which is just past Leongatha. The kids were really good on the drive and both of them actually fell asleep for a bit. There we met up with all mum's family (Verboon's), it was great to catch up with all my Aunties & uncles and cousins that I don't get to see very often. We all sat down for a big lunch and then the kids went outside to play on the oval. After a while they played apple bobbing, limbo and some other games. Dave and I spent some time outside trying to settle Luke and when we went back into the hall everyone was sitting around in a circle and mum had Kaytie dancing in the middle hehe such a show pony!
We then drove back to Narre Warren for the Nieuwesteeg Boxing Day party. There santa came to give the kids each a present and Kaytie and Luke got some blocks to go in the toys they got on xmas day. Then we had some dinner and the boys went and played some backyard cricket. By the time it was 7pm luke was beyond it so we had to go home and we were pretty tired too.

The last couple of days feel like a bit of a blur, we have just being staying at home getting a few things done around the house. I went out with Zoe and her mum Glenys on monday to get Kaytie her flower girl dress. We had lots of fun dressing her up and found the most gorgeous dress, but I won't tell you anymore, it will be a surprise on the day.
Dave made me a shelving system for my scrapbooking desk so I'll be a little more organised. On the subject of scrapbooking, I entered a competition for an online store and I won! The store is called Forever Memories and is own by an old work colleague and here is the LO I did for it...

And here are some other layouts I have been doing. The first two for CIS and the other one for a sketch challenge on scrapbooking memories.

Michelle came over the night before New Year's Eve and we did some scrapbooking, its always more fun scrapping with others so I can't wait to go to Arty pants crop nights and especially looking forward to their retreat in May, a whole weekend away YAY!

New Year's Eve was spent at our place. We had Greg & Paula, Joe & Zoe, Yve and Damien, Liz & Tony and Lisa & Amaya dropped in too, earlier. We had a nice relaxing bbq and a dip in the kiddy pool, before Kaytie went off to bed and sleep around 10pm (its only the end of 2007 once!). Luke was a good boy and in bed and asleep by 8pm. We all then sat around the pool with our feet in chatting until midnight. There were some great fireworks going off at the street behind us and yet again the radio station let us down and didn't do a count down so we missed the welcome into 2008 (this is the third year in a row this has happened to us!). Everyone except Joe and Zoe (they stayed the night) left and I went to bed as I knew I would regret it in the morning when Luke would be up with the birds!

That's pretty much it, what a novel! Sorry for the long winded post, but that's what happens when its been 3 weeks. New Year's resolution: to do a weekly post and try to keep them short lol!! I'll leave you with some cute pics of Kaytie playing in the sand and the pool and a cute one of Scotch (yes we still have dogs and love em lol)...

Here's to a happy and healthy 2008!!!

2007-12-10T20:49:00.000+11:00

A Little Bit of Everything!

A little bit of visiting, a little bit of going out, a little bit of singing, a little bit of meetings, a little bit of Christmas, a little bit of help and a BIG bit of going crazy!!!!

What a crazy time of year this is!!! You just have to mention the word 'Christmas' and the calendar is full! Bare with me, I have two weeks worth to catch up on here, but I will try to be brief :)

Two weeks ago, I took a trip up north to visit my friend Tracey at Roxburgh park. It was great to catch up with her and Fisher and little Coby, it's nice to be able to keep our kids familiar with each other :) The drive home though was an absolute nightmare! Ok...so Luke had hardly slept all day which meant he was fussy with the bottle and wouldn't drink too much either. Tracey got him to sleep just as I was packing things into the car which was GREAT. I thought, "Ok, Luke is asleep. It's 3pm so Kaytie should fall asleep and I should miss peak hour"...right? wrong! I went a slightly different way back and it took forever to get back on the fwy. Kaytie was being nutty and wouldn't be quiet, so by the time I did hit the fwy Luke woke up crying and he cried and cried and cried and cried (I could go on!!) I kept trying to put his dummy in but it wasn't working, so then Kaytie started crying cause she was tired and didn't want to listen to Luke crying! I ended up stopping on the monash, jumped in the back seat and gave Luke his bottle (well half of it anyway). I could see the traffic start banking up so I took the bottle out, he gave me a big smile and got in the front and started driving again. About 2 minutes later he started again. So in peak hour traffic, Luke was screaming, Kaytie was whinging, I had the music up to the highest volume and I just started singing. What else could I do! Luckily when I got home they were angels for the rest of the day. AND people wonder why I don't like to go out...well there's your reason!!! Atleast I can laugh about it now lol. HAHA so much for being brief lmao!

Thursday of that week, Kate Jackson (now Coombs) came for a visit with her little boy Thomas. She has been living in England, so it was great to catch up. Tony popped in to pick up the trailer and stayed for some lunch and mum came over to see Kate too. The kids had a ball playing together and we dressed Thomas up beautifully hehe. It was quite hot that day, so I managed to pull Kaytie's hair back into a ponytail! It was a beautiful lunch, when I actually was able to sit down to eat it. It was flat out with Tint-a-car picking up the car to tint the windows, phone calls coming from everywhere and trying to feed Kaytie. Anway it was a great day, although Kaytie didn't get much sleep and neither did Luke (but what's new). Mum stayed on to help in the afternoon and by 6:30pm the kids were pretty much right. Luke was in bed and Kaytie just needed a bottle and then bed. So mum left to go to her line dancing and I got Kaytie ready. Halfway through her bottle Luke started up. I got Kaytie finished and put her to bed, but she started crying because Luke was. I just ignored her because usually she falls asleep within minutes. I gave Luke some more bottle but he just wouldn't stop crying and I had no idea why. I ended up going to see what was wrong with Kaytie, as by this stage she was hysterical and upon entering her room there was vomit EVERYWHERE in her cot, and all over her. I paniced slightly, as she is not supposed to be able to vomit after having the fundoplication and cleaned her up and changed her bedding. All the whilst Luke was screaming in the loungeroom. Kaytie then wouldn't stop crying either so I managed to call Michelle E and get her to come over to help. When she got there, it was finally calm (haha always the way) Luke was finally feeding and Kaytie was reading a book. Eventually Michelle helped me get them off to bed and cleaned the kitchen up (from dinner) and by the time she left it was after 9pm and I was poooped! I called the surgeon the next day to let him know she had vomited and he said she will probably need a gastroscope before Christmas which means an anesthetic :(

Saturday Dave and I had a family day (doesn't happen often) and did some Christmas shopping. We had lunch at Fountain Gate also, I just thought the kids can eat out for once too. It's just usually easier to feed Kaytie at home in the high chair.

Sunday we met up with another 5 TOF families at Princes Park for a Christmas party that I organised. It was a great day, sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the kids had a ball on the adventure playgroup. Although when we got there, Kaytie started walking back to the car but didn't realise there was a fence (just a steel poll about the height up to her neck) and she walked straight into it and it knocked her down like a sack of potatoes. Poor little thing, not a good way to start! We had a new family come down which was great and we did a little KK.

Monday night Greg and I went to the Christmas OARA dinner and mum looked after the kids. I asked Greg to be the treasurer, as the last lady did it for 15 years and needed a break, so he cam along to be 'sworn in' hehe. They were all very appreciative that he could help out. When we got there, the committee didn't look too happy as they had been put out into the bar. Too cut a long story short, the guy at the bar started having a go at as for complaining about not being put in the dining area (where we had booked) and so we walked out. As we were walking out he started yelling at us to 'get out'!!. What an idiot! So we just went down the road to The Castle and had a beautiful meal. We spoke about a few things, but one thing I was very happy with, was the go ahead to register our playgroup with Playgroup Australia and OARA will fund the membership! So we start officially in 2008! Can't wait!

When I got back, mum just said to me "Boy you have a naughty boy on your hands!" lol, she finally realised what a bugger he is with his sleep.

Wednesday, Dave and I went out for dinner and the Missy Higgins concert. He bought that for me as a present for carrying and delivering Luke :) We had a beautiful dinner at WHO HA in South Yarra and the concert was at Rod Laver Arena. She was absolutely FANTASTIC!! I love her cd's but she is even better live and omg soooo talented! We got home about 11:45pm, Liz and Tony babysat for the night and I think things went well for them, although Luke was up bright eyed and bushytailed ready for a feed. I fed him and put him to bed, but he didn't settle so Dave got up to him and he didn't end up sleeping til nearly 1am. The previous night he had done the same thing, but I was up to him at 4, 5, and 6 also!

Friday, my friend Lisa and I played at a Christmas luncheon for U3A, a group mum is part of, at the Amstel Gold club in Cranbourne. We had a practice in the morning which was almost flawless and then I drove us down there. When we got there, we looked for the keyboard. There is was, not even a metre long sitting in the corner at the back of the room lol. Poor Lisa had to try and play this thing, that afterwards we were told it was there sons play keyboard. Anyway it was just a bit of fun and a day out being able to eat a beautiful Christmas lunch without the kids interupting. Dave brought Kaytie and Luke down but we were finished so I left them in the car and drove home and Dave went to work. Mum came round that afternoon too to help me with the kids and just as well as Kaytie had had the runs since wednesday night and she decided to poo in the bath. Luckily mum had already bathed Luke and was occupying him while I had the fun job of cleaning it up! That explained the vomitting too, she must have picked up a gastro virus. That was one of my worst nightmares, but she proved to be quite the little trooper, battling through it really well and hardly went off her food too!! So I called the surgeon back to say don't worry about the gastroscope as there's nothing wrong mechanically, she was just sick.

Saturday was my BIG day out with the girls, my friend Kylie's hen's day/night. I jumped on the train at 11am (Dave stayed with the kids) and I actually met up with Dave's mates that were also going to the Caufield races for their mates buck's day (different wedding). It was a great day, with the sun shining, great food, great company and I even won a few bets. At one stage there were some cops looking at our group (NONE of us were drunk, I'm not kidding lol) and I said hey Kylie there's your strippers lol. The actually ended up and hand cuffed her lol There were a few bucks days on too, one streaked with a mankini on and another had races with just their jocks, although one of them ended up with no jocks on and that wasn't a pretty sight!!!

We then caught a tram back to Kylie's house for a freshen up and met up with Dave. He gave me the car and I gave him my train ticket so he could meet up with the boys for his mates bucks and I could drive home after dinner to relieve Liz who was babysitting for us.

Sunday, the kids actually slept til 8am which was nice (although Luke was up at 5:30am for a feed, but went straight back down). Dave went to look at a concrete job in Cranbourne and I packed the kids up in the pram and walked down to the Lake to see the Berwick Springs Residents Christmas party. Liz and Tony also popped by to join us and Dave stopped on his way home too. Kaytie got to pat the animals at the petting zoo, which she wasn't too sure about. This kid was keen on pink and kept trying to eat her shirt! She loved watching the kids going round on this horse ride (a bit too fast for her unfortunately). She had her face painted, or tried to anyway. It's hard painting a moving target lol.AND she ate her first soft serve ice cream. She was buggered by the end of it, so it was home, lunch and bed time for her.

That night we put her in the Jolly Jumper as Dave said it was funny when he and his mum put her in it saturday. She is like a little ballerina. I video taped it so when I figure out how to, I will share that with you on here too.

Luke has been loving the jolly jumper too. It's great for him to be upright to relieve his wind etc and 'run' off a bit of steam before his naps. The past week, he has finally been really good with his sleeps and although he still naps for 45 minutes, he does actually have atleast one big sleep which is such a big help. The week before last I was at my wits and sleep deprived, so I called the sleep lady back and she said to call the sleep centre at Kooweerup. So I am booked in there for 18th January. Let's hope we don't need it and he is a little angel, like he has been for the last couple of days :)

PHEW!! That's about it!!! Oh, Kaytie just woke before. She had her skinny little legs stuck down the side of the cot, poor little thing!! All the more reason to put some more weight on!! Oh yeh and I think Luke has conjunctivitis! I just had Liz come past with some saline for me to clean it, so hopefully that works, otherwise it will be a trip to the doctors for him tomorrow :(

Thanks so much to Mum, Tony & Liz for the babysitting, its been great to get out and about! And thanks to Mum, Liz and Michelle E for coming the rescue when I need it!!

2007-12-03T16:24:00.000+11:00

ONLY 22 DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS!!

Can't believe its only 22 days to go! I've had an extremely hectic and frustating week last week, so I need some time to write about it lol. But wanted to share some cute pics of Luke I just took. I'm in the Christmas Spirit atm with my Christmas tree up and the kids have their santa sacks up.

Also took Kaytie to see Santa on Saturday at Fountain Gate. I told them not to worry about the photo cause I didn't think Kaytie would like santa...and as always Mother's instinct is correct. Kaytie was petrified!!! She was fine watching the other kids go up to him and there was two cute little boys who read out their list in front of Santa...so cute. Anyway, Kaytie was literally trembling in my arms and if I had of let go, she would have ran a mile!!

Anyway must go, have an OARA Christmas dinner to go to tonight so I need to get things organised for mum to babysit for me. I will post the latest up soon :)

2007-11-26T08:19:00.000+11:00

LUKE'S CHRISTENING

Luke was baptised last Sunday (18.11.07). It was so ironic in the morning, as I have been spending so much time getting Luke to sleep during the day. When he finally did get to sleep I had to wake him up half an hour later to go to Church lol!! Anyway, it was a good mass, Kaytie was fairly well behaved, just a bit hyperactive and Luke got grumpy towards the end. There were lots of family and friends that made it to the Church for the Christening and there were another 9 children being baptised that day! Luke was awake for most of it, but crashed at the end as he started to get hot and tired. We all then met back at our place for some lunch that heaps of people helped get ready. Thanks to mum for making the sandwiches, sausage rolls and vanilla slices and Yve for making more sandwiches and mum & Liz for helping (taking orders lol) on the saturday before. Thanks to everyone for coming and for the beautiful gifts, it was a lovely day!

There is another photo that we took at the Church with a whole heap of us in it, will have to get it off Tony's camera.
Michelle did a fantastic job on the cake again. I mad the mud cake and put a layer of icing on it and realised that I really shouldn't go into cake decorating lol!!! it was all lop sided and the icing was a mess, so Michelle picked it up on saturday and fixed it up to look like this:

Such a great job, thanks Michelle!

The rest of the week, I have just being trying to focus on getting to know Luke a little better, so I can read his tired signs etc. and it's working, he is such a happier baby by the end of the day as he is having about 5 hours of sleep during the day. AND he is starting to sleep through the night. So it's true what they say about 'sleep promotes sleep'!! He is generally having an hour in the morning (sometimes two naps in the morning) and then I try and get him down while I feed Kaytie lunch and then Kaytie goes to sleep, so I get about an hour with them both asleep. Then he has another nap around the time I prepare dinner and feed Kaytie, before bath time. He is WAY too big for the baby bath now, so he has been having bath time with Kaytie. He absolutely loves it, don't know if Kaytie feels the same about it though, although she is starting to warm to the idea lol!! He splashes around so much that he drinks half the bath water lol. Here is a cute pic of him:

I learnt a heap from that sleep seminar, just simple things like; tired signs and a biggie was after he had shown a tired sign, I would go to him and he would give me the biggest smile, so I thought he's not tired and leave him up. But they explained that they do that even if they're tired and to look at the clock, if it's been 1.5-2 hours put them to bed. AND it works!! Other things I learnt when the lady came out last wednesday was when I go to resettle him. I just give him the dummy, position him again, give him the teddy, maybe a little pat on the bum but not to overdo it and just let him resettle himself and this tends to work a lot better too. Sometimes I would try and restrain him with his arms flapping about, but at times this was his way of getting comfortable again I guess. Another thing was changing sides, as I put him on his side to sleep, so just moving him to the other side, does wonders. Isn't it amazing how much you can know about a baby's sleep haha. I feel I am heaps more relaxed about it too. The lady told me, if he does wake after 45 minutes and I'm finding it tough to get him back to sleep, then get him up and I'll find after half an hour he will want to go back to sleep anyway, so that was a good one to learn too.

Anyway enough about sleep, what else have we been doing?

Tuesday last week I had the TOF playgroup at a playcentre near the Children's Hospital. Mum and Tom also came along which is always good, as it gives me a chance to chat with the other mums while mum gets fit running around after Kaytie lol. The kids are all looking really good and its so nice to see them growing up. We had a new mum come along also who's baby is the same age as Luke, and I think she enjoyed the time to chat to us too and ask questions.

We went to the hospital after that so the kids had some Macca's and I could go up to meet new TOF parents. I introduced them to Kaytie, which I think was a huge relief to see that being a TOF child doesn't affect them too much. Kaytie was being a little show off, dancing and running around in the corridors :) Then I found some of the neonatal nurses that looked after her and they were so happy to see how far she had come. She went straight up to one of them and gave her a BIG hug, it was so sweet, the nurse was nearly in tears!

Then it was back home, by this stage it was 3pm, WAY past Kaytie's bedtime, but it wasn't long before all 3 kids were fast asleep in the car.

Wednesday, Dave took Kaytie to Gymbaroo so I could be here for the sleep lady.

Thursday we had our new couches delivered, so we have put our old ones down the back of the house which is so much nicer now that we have somewhere to sit while the kids play in the play area.

Hmm can't really remember what happened friday. I think Dave had to go to set up the concrete for Lanie. I just stayed home, I think. Man the days are going so quick, its all becoming a bit of a blur.

Saturday, Dave was up early to do the concrete for Lanie. I packed the kids up into the pram and walked to the shops to get Kaytie some more dummies and teats as she is biting holes in them all. Then we walked to the park and while Kaytie had a play I feed Luke and then it was off to the voting line at the school. By the time I got home it was lunchtime, kids to bed and then I managed to have a bit of a snooze too. Diva came to visit in the afternoon and we were in fits of laughter with Kaytie throwing the ball for Scotch. Think it was one of those 'had to be there' moments, here are some photos Diva took.

Sunday was a very busy day. It started off slow, but then from 12 it was full steam ahead. Mum and Dad had Michelle & Derek & the boys and us come round for lunch. The kids all had a run around out in the fresh air, it was beautiful weather. It's Derek's birthday on wednesday, so it was a bit of a gathering for that occasion. We left there about 3pm to go to an old work friend of Dave's, Kylie who lives in Templestowe. She was having a Christmas party with some friends and invited us along as we hadn't seen them since Kaytie's 1st birthday !!! Kaytie had hardly any sleep that day and was a big grump by the end of the day, but Luke did ok.

AND today Mel came over this morning at 6:30am (can't believe she was on time lol!!) and we went for our own fitness workout as the YMCA fitness camp is now over until feb 08. She is going to train me twice a week and hopefully I can lose some of the baby flab plus more!! Dave left before lunch to go and do some last things for the concrete at Lanie's. Mum came over for lunch and ended up staying till after dinner to stay with Luke while I took Kaytie to the doctors and help me get the kids through dinner time and ready for bed. Liz also popped in for a visit inbetween visiting people for work. That's about it really lol!!

Some developmental things with Kaytie....She is really taking off in her speech and is coming up with 1 or 2 new words a day. Her eating is also getting a bit better with swallowing bigger lumps and even eating whole cherry tomatoes!!

Luke is yabbering on ALL the time and still smiling heaps!! He has rolled over a couple of times from his belly to his back and is really starting to lift his head well. He is constantly trying to sit up, so it shouldn't be long before he can do that on his own. He is also reaching and playing with his toys, sometimes getting quite mad and screaming at them lol.

I'll leave you with the photo of Kaytie in her fairy dress from Josh's birthday a couple of weeks ago :) Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment!

2007-11-15T14:34:00.000+11:00

LOOK ALIKES!!!

Was just checking out a box of old photos and came across an old Overdyk family photo and OMG Luke does look like Joe (your right Andrea). I just took a photo of the photo cause I'm too lazy to scan it in, but here is a comparison.

Will have to see if I can get one of Dave. I did actually come across the newspaper clipping of Liz and Dave when he was born and Luke was 1 oz lighter but the same length and he does look almost identical. But the print is of poor quality so I can't share it. Just goes to show, Luke is certainly an Overdyk and I didn't get a look in lol!! Hmmm then again, maybe the personality ~ he loves to chat and doesn't ever want to go to sleep, does that sound like me mum?!?!?

2007-11-14T13:40:00.000+11:00

SLEEP!!

Well remember last post that I was saying Luke's not too bad cause he sleeps at night, well scrub all that, I had a shocker last night!! I stayed up til 10pm to give him a roll over in the hope he would sleep til the morning as he has done before HUH!! He was up at 2am, I tried to get him back to sleep but it didn't work, so I gave him a feed and put him back to bed, but it then took at hour to go back to sleep and was up again at 4:30am and again at 6:30am. On top of that, Kaytie was up at 11pm and 1am and Dave was snoring because he has a bit of a cold so I ended up on the couch :(. My alarm went off at 5:30am to get up for the gym, but I just thought if I went I would have been too exhausted, so as much as I am loving the exercise at the moment I messaged Mel to say I wouldn't be going :(

I took Luke to the sleep seminar today, which turned out to be quite reassuring as all but one of the mums were there to see if we could get our babies to sleep during the day. It reinforced to me that if I didn't get him to sleep well during the day, it would end up making his night sleeps bad too (which is what's starting to happen now). One thing I didn't know too much about were sleep associations and Luke's is the dummy. So when he goes into his light sleep and he's lost his dummy he wakes up crying looking for it ~ so may have to get rid of it. If he is unwraped he also brings his hands to his mouth and that knocks the dummy out. So right as we speak he is asleep cuddling a little teddy blanky so that his hands don't knock the dummy out...whoops that's him spoke to soon :(

Ok....they are both asleep :) I learnt that if re-settling him in the bed isn't working then get him out for a tiny cuddle, but make sure you put him back when he is still awake and it worked!! (for now anyway :) ......Ok had to go back and do it again, but atleast his settling quicker than before I went to the seminar......... Hmm maybe not lol just been in there again, see what I mean about being a human yoyo!! Well just thought I'd let you know how it went. You are probably getting very confused with this post as it is a running commentary of putting Luke to sleep lol. Here are some pictures from yesterday and today with his tedding in bed :)

2007-11-08T13:39:00.000+11:00

Play times and parties!

It's been a big birthday week again this week (all these valentine babies I recon lol). It was Mel and Damien's towards the end of October and my friend Diva on 31st, Happy Birthday guys!! Then Liz had her birthday last thursday and the kids and I popped round for dinner and caught up with a few of the aunties and uncles while we were there. Saturday, was mum's birthday and the kids and I went to her place and met up with my aunties who were on their way to take mum and dad bike riding for the day.

from top left, Thea, Jenny, Lanie, Mum, Kaytie and Luke and Serena (Lanie's new dog)

Sunday, I had a bit of a shopping day without the kids while Dave was at home with them, the rain was constant all day so I was dragging the kids out with me. Then in the afternoon we had the baptism program for Luke and then went to Michelle and Derek's house for dinner to celebrate mum's birthday. Luke was a bit of a bugger that night and has totally put the Bruitzman family (including the boys) off having anymore babies lol. He cried during dinner time AGAIN and then took ages to get to sleep. That night I gave him a feed when we got home (around 9pm) and he slept through to the morning. He's been a real bugger with his daytime sleeps though. They say babies sleep well for 45 minutes and then have a light sleep before drifting back into a heavy sleep again. Well we can't seem to get him past the 45 minutes smoothly and wakes up entirely, which means he then wants a feed that he's not really ready for and then doesnt take much and he is grumpy so I put him back to bed and he only sleeps 45 minutes AND so the cycle starts again. By dinner time he is not the most favourable to be around!! and it also means that I spend most the day feeding him and putting him to bed, I'm up and down like a yoyo and its very exhausting. I'm getting a sleep lady coming next wednesday to help and going to a seminar tomorrow. I know it sounds pathetic as he does generally sleep at night (mostly), but its awful having a grumpy baby to contend with all day. This is the reason it has taken me so long to get this blog out, this is my fifth attempt to write it lol.

Monday, was another day at home for me and Dave went out to play golf with Steve and Tony, but monday night was my time at Artypants to scrapbook. Michelle came with me and I got heaps done, it was a great night!

Cup Day, I spent at home with the kids while Dave and Steve went for a dirt bike ride, so Mel came over in the afternoon to keep me company. That afternoon, Tony and Liz also dropped by and we ended up having a game of Balderdash. That night Lisa and I went to Liz and Tony's house to practice our music again, which is coming along quite nicely - we had another practice last night too.

Dionne came over with her two kids, Tyler and Ella, on thursday. The kids had a great time playing outside in the nice weather. Michelle gave passed on some play equipment that the boys had and didn't use anymore and its just perfect for her age at the moment. Here are some great photos of her playing on it:

Kaytie didn't sleep at all on thursday or friday, so I didn't think I would be able to take her to Mel and Steve's engagment as if she didn't sleep on saturday she would be WAY too tired to go, but she must have heard me talking and she did end up sleeping lol. Saturday morning, Mel and I had the battle of the boot camps with YMCA at Wilson Botanic Gardens, my team lost...surprise surprise!! I told her I shouldn't have gone lol. It was very gruling for me, lots of running, stairs and push ups...did I mention stairs lol!! Dave had concrete to do for a friend of a friend, so mum came over bright and early at 6:30am to babysit and would you believe it, when I got back at 8:30am, Kaytie was only just getting up and Luke was still in bed!!! If only I had of slept in too...it never happens when you want it too >:(

That night we all went to Mel and Steve's engagment. It was a great night!! Kaytie and Luke came for a little while and Kaytie loved dancing and playing with the balloons, it was her first grown up party! We took them home at about 9pm and Michelle met us there to babysit for a couple of hours. It was great to catch up with all the family and friends again.

Sunday was Josh's birthday and he had a dress up party, so Kaytie went as a fairy with the dress that Liz bought her when she was in hospital (I had to take it in though, but it fit her length). I didn't get a photo of her in the outfit but Michelle will email me one soon. I did get this one though with a bit of face paint that I did. I painted a few faces that day for the boys, it was good fun!

I have also got around to filling in the frame that Diva made for Kaytie's room. The letters of her name have photos of her in it...I just love it!!

That's about all my news I think, every day kinda just moulds into the next these days haha. Here are a few cute pics of Luke that I took last week :) ENJOY!

2007-11-01T14:27:00.000+11:00

THE LATEST

Sorry for the delay in updating and thank you Michelle for the kick up the bum to get going on it lmao!! Feels like there isn't much to report, but I have been flat out! I guess it's just a WHOLE HEAP of feeding, changing bums and putting kids to sleep, really lol. Dave and I have also been busy taking it in turns to take Kaytie out. And with Luke only sleeping a maximum of 45-60 minutes at a time during the day, its been a full time job trying to keep him happy inbetween!!

I have been taking Kaytie to Gymbaroo on a wednesday while Dave stays at home with Luke and Dave takes her to Little Acrobats in Endeavour Hills on a thursday and I stay home with Luke. Here's some photos of their first Little Acrobats session:

Think she was a tad tired in that photo, looks like she is storming off in a huff lol

Then in the afternoon, once Kaytie wakes up from her sleep, it's full steam ahead in getting dinner ready and the kids fed, bathed, bottled and in bed for the night, generally on my own too whilst Dave has been at work. Thanks to Michelle and Liz popping in and helping me with the dinner routine when you have been able too :)

Luke had his 2 month immunisation injections and an oral one for the gastro bug rotavirus. Should have seen his face lol (sorry shouldn't laugh, but I guess after all the painful things Kaytie had to go through, this is nothing lol). He was so happy after waking up from his sleep, eyes a little drowsy and then jab....his eyes nearly popped out of his head and boy did he scream, his face looked like it was going to explode from how red he went :) So glad I get them immunised though and very happy they have medicine for gastro too now, will look into getting kaytie done for that one.
My Oma was down in Melbourne staying with Auntie Lanie couple of weeks ago, so Dave and I made a short trip to her place for a visit. This was the first time Oma got to see Luke.

We have had another TOF playgroup this month, which turned out to be a great turn out with 6 of us getting together. This time we met up at Rare Bears in Camberwell, and it wasn't too bad actually, but very busy at one stage. We are looking at getting our group registered with Playgroups Australia and meeting at a Hall somewhere near the hospital so that new mums can also come along.

Here are some fun time photos of Kaytie and Luke together and the gap between them is slowly starting to get smaller, with Luke catching up to Kaytie's size lol!

Last saturday, Micayla and Bailey had their birthday parties, turning 7 and 4 respectively. I got there once Kaytie had woken from her sleep and it was full steam ahead with kids having a disco in the garage. kaytie loved being around all the kids and played almost continuously til we left around 9:30pm, she was pooped!! I did some kids face painting which was a bit of fun, while Dave took care of Luke and I also had to leave him to look after the both of them while I went and practice some singing with my friend Lisa. We are playing at a Christmas Luncheon for the University of the 3rd Age, that mum is involved in. Dave had quite a hard time juggling the both of them at the party and it was right on dinner time so he also had to feed Kaytie AND look after Luke. Atleast there were plenty of mums there to help if he needed and afterall they were still alive when I got back lmao!

It was a great practive run to see how Kaytie would cope with a late night at a party before Mel and Steve's engagement next week.

Sunday night we had dinner at Liz and Tony's and Tuesday we visited mum and dad for lunch.

Tuesday Kaytie also had an appointment with her paeditrician and my number one pet hate is doctors running late! I had to wake Kaytie up to go there in the first place and when I got there I had to wait 40 minutes and I was the only one in the waiting room?!?!? I said to the secretary if he is going to much longer I am leaving, as Luke was getting quite cranky and hadn't slept much either and Kaytie would'nt drink her bottle so my stress levels were sky high!! Anyway, they called through to him and he finished up his last appointment quick smart (man, I'm a pushy mother lmao!!). He is a little concerned with her weight as it is quite a bit off the graph, but it is still going up so that's ok. I asked about her feet, cause one of them turns out quite a bit when she is walking which means she scuffs her big toe and she is getting a calous on it. He said it was normal at this age and she should grow out of it. She also has very brittle toenails, which he said could be a result of a lack of iron which would make sense as it is a huge battle to get meat into her, she gets most of her iron from the formula, but all in all, he is happy and won't see her again until June next year :)

That's about it really. I have been doing a little bit of scrapping here and there and am looking forward to a crop night on monday as I haven't been for ages!!

Here's a page I scrapped last week, all about how Kaytie still has such a great smile even after everything she has gone through.

Jodie from Artypants gave me Creative Blogger Award on her website so here is my trophy,

thanks Jodie. AND I also won a competition on Artypants website for their "chat up a storm" competition. I got the title of Artypants chatterbox,

a page scrapped by Julie and the November scrap kit from Artypants, I'm soooo excited that I won something lol!!!!

2007-10-15T11:55:00.000+10:00

SUNNY DAY

What a beautiful day today, so I thought I would share another blog with you, starting with some sunny photos of Kaytie playing outside.

It was a huge weekend at home looking after the kids for me. Diva came round on friday night to stay the night and help out with the kids. Before she got there, all hell had broke loose!! I tried to get Luke to sleep so I could feed Kaytie but of course that didnt work and he screamed for the whole hour >:( grrrr. So I tried to calm him down and bathed him when Kaytie was having a bath and then feed him while Kaytie still had a play in the bath. Then Diva arrived so I palmed him off and finished off Kaytie. Really need to work on a night time routine so that Luke is not crying always when we eat dinner, they just know don't they?!?! Kaytie caught a bit of a cold again :( so she woke at around 9:30pm, so I dosed her up on panadol and demazin and didn't hear from her again. And Luke was a good boy and was up just once for a feed. Here is a photo of the vest and mockies that Diva's aunty Jenny bought for her...Thanks Jenny if you are reading this :)

Friday I bought Kaytie her own Dora couch and made her lay it out in front of the tv to have her bottle. Generally she needs sesame street or Dora or something to watch when she has a bottle otherwise she doesn't drink, and we have to hold the bottle for her. But I am trying to make her do it on her own so that is one less thing I need to do, especially since it always seems they are both due a bottle at the same time and I only have two hands lmao!! It has worked! she still needs a little encouragement throughout, but generally she does ok...we will work on that :)

Saturday night was more chaos that Michelle E got to see lol. I tried the same thing with them and it was just crazy, so Michelle was more than happy to hold Luke for me and give him a bottle :) She brought over some cute summer clothes for both of them too, can't wait to see Luke in his little shirt and short outfits and Kaytie in her baby doll dresses!! We watched 'Knocked Up' that night (what a great movie!) and ate pizza mmmm yumm!!

I then tried to give Luke a roll over feed after Michelle left, so that he would sleep til a reasonable hour in the morning. That didn't work though as he only took about 50mls and woke again at 3:30am for more >:(. Then Kaytie woke up playing in her cot at 5am and I couldn't sleep through it so after half an hour I tried to get her back to sleep. Just when she went to sleep, Luke woke up gooing and gaaing in his cradle, by the time he fell back to sleep Kaytie was up for the day!!!!!!!! OMG!!!! LMAO (if all else fails, all you can do it laugh right?!?!)

Dave got home just after the whole dinner thing again, so again more chaos for me lol!! and here are some photos of his weekend away...

He had a great time as you can see and a well deserved trip out with the boys. I'm now looking forward to my weekend away LOL!!!

I was up at 5:30am this morning, not to the kids, but to the start of my health kick. I have started the 6 week challenge camp at Cardinia Life and today have found out that I am soooooo unfit and I have absolutely NO stomach muscles!! We had to do a fitness test that will be repeated at the end, so atleast I have ALOT to improve on lol

LUKE IS 2 MONTHS TODAY!!! boy how time flies .....

I'll leave you with a typical Luke face

HEHE drunk on milk!!!

2007-10-11T14:27:00.000+10:00

SLEEP and ROUTINES

Last week wasn't anything special. I had a check up with the obstetrician and everything is all good there, so I am starting to exercise now, getting ready for summer!! Kaytie had a check up with the GP and he was happy that she is well again. I also got the results back from the allergist and she is not allergic to egg (thank God), but she has a mild allergy to dust mite, just like me. This means she may be more prone to asthma and given I have it, she might too.

Friday night I went to Artypants for a crop night, it was great to get out of the house and be creative. I'll share with you what I have been up to with my scrapbooking, I'm absolutely having a ball with it!

On the weekend, Dave and I stayed home with the kids to try our best to get Luke into a routine (as such lol). Well we didn't quite accomplish that, but I did learn his tired signs and also that if he acts hungry but stuffs around with the bottle, he is actually tired. So now I am just trying to work on getting him to sleep for longer periods of time. Went to the health nurse today and she said even though he "sleeps through the night", he still needs to be having a few decent sleeps during the day and she said to aim for 2 hours awake, 2 hours asleep. So I'll see how I go with that, he is getting better and I'm starting to get to know him a bit better too.

Kaytie has been a good little helper with sticking the dummy in Luke's mouth when he's crying. The other morning he was crying, Kaytie walked towards his room and then there was quiet. So I ran to see what she had done, when I got there she was walking out quite smug. Luke had his dummy again and was asleep :)

Saturday night, Greg & Paula and Steve & Mel came round for a game of poker and I had a few glasses of wine for a change, it was a nice relaxing night.

Monday I went out to try and buy sneakers with the two kids with me. Remind me not to do that again! So afterwards I went to mum and dads for lunch and ended up leaving the kids there for an hour while I went to buy some gym clothes.

Tuesday I went and visited Dionne in Monbulk. Kaytie had fun playing with Tyler and Ella and we were able to have a great catch up chat and we talked about her new business Naturally Slim. We left there at 2:30pm and Kaytie did not fall asleep in the car and screamed blue murder when I put her in bed at home, so she decided not to have her sleep that day. Granted, she has been sleeping til 8:30am lately.

Yesterday I took Kaytie to her first Gymbaroo session. Mum and Tony came along to watch and Kaytie had a ball. She just oozes with confidence and doesn't look back for me unless she is showing off or saying 'WOW' or 'COOL' (new word)...so cute! In the classroom bit where all the other kids sat on their mums lap in a circle, Kaytie found a spot next to another mum and sat on her own lol. Then they brought out a green rug for them to sit on in front of the teacher and Kaytie got centre position, sat down with a tud right in front of the leader, put her hands in her lap and looked at the leader just like a little school girl lol!!

As I said, we went to the Maternal and Child Health nurse today and they both go weighed. Kaytie has hit the 8kg mark at 8.14kg!!!!! PARTY TIME!!! and Luke weighed in at a whopping 5.9kg!!! just over 2kg difference!! And you can tell the little size difference in these photos:

On the way home, Kaytie fell asleep in the toddler seat on the pram. I couldn't believe it! She does not normally do that, but I think this morning after she woke at 5:30am she stayed in her cot playing til 7am, so that would probably do it!!

I've also tried out Bikram Yoga this week. It is Yoga done in 39 degree heat! Mum, Dad and Aunty Lanie have been doing it for weeks now and rave about it so I gave it a go. When you first walk into the room it feels like you will suffocate, but once you get used to the heat its the poses that are hard. Except last night it was hotter than ever and hit 45degrees at one stage, with a humidity of 42%, I can tell ya, I did more laying down than posing and I still managed to get a sweat up LMAO!! I will give it a go again, but I am doing a 6 week challenge camp with Mel starting monday, three mornings a week, so hopefully I'll get nice and fit after that and cope better at the Yoga.

I'm having a much needed massage tonight and am really looking forward to it. Dave bought it for me, for being a good mum :) How nice is that !! then he's off for his bike ride for the weekend (for being a good dad lol).

So its party time for the girls back at my place :D and that's about it for my update, thanks for checking in and leave a comment if you get a chance. If you don't have a blog, you need to click on anonymous and write you name in the comment so I know who you are :) BYE

2007-10-02T14:52:00.000+10:00

FUN TIMES!!

Hey all :)

Well that temperature spike that Kaytie had never eventuated into anything, thank God. It seems she was just putting on a show for the doctor, Kaytie? never!! lol.

Here some photos of when my Aunty Lanie came to visit on thursday. She past on a baby sling that she had, for Luke to use and judging by the way he fell asleep in seconds, he loved it!!

This is mum and Lanie trying to convince me that Yoga is a winner lmao, I will try and give it a go after I get the all clear from the obstertrician tomorrow.

Here is Michelle, having her cuddles with Luke at long last. He loved it as much as her and fell asleep beautifully :)

Saturday, we had Grand Final day at Greg and Paula's house. Firstly, Dave and I braved it in the morning to take both kids out to the shops to get a few things. We came across a stage show with the crocmen from Bindi Irwin's new tv show. Kaytie was wide-eyed and seemed to be paying more attention to the kids dancing than the actual show. After a while she ventured out on her own and didn't look back for mummy or daddy lol, lil miss independent. She looked so cute and tiny out there, but was full of confidence trying to talk to the other kids who were too engrossed in the show to even notice her :)

It was a great grand final, with the Cats winning a well-deserved premiership. Thanks to Greg and Paula for hosting a great day. Although I didn't get to watch much of the game, it was nice to get out of the house and socialise :)

Yesterday, marked the day that enough is enough! Luke seems to not be sleeping enough during the day, like a normal new born and I think that is why he gets so upset in the evenings as he is overtired. So from this day on, I am on a mission to get him into a little bit of a routine and it's worked. Today he has had two daytime naps and seems to be happier already, although he is normally a very happy boy anyway. Check out these photos from today (7 weeks):

WHAT A CUTIE HUH!!

And here are some of Kaytie today when she found Dave's beanie. I was trying to put Luke to sleep and was just about to tell her to get out of the room when I looked around to find her like this lmao!! What a crack up!!

2007-09-27T10:27:00.000+10:00

LOTS HAPPENING...

Sorry I been a bit slack with the blog thing, been a bit busy (lol Michelle). I have lots of cute pics to share though as we have been busy having play dates this week.

Last week Kaytie had bronchioloitis which put a spanner in the works. I took her to the 24 hour superclinic in Berwick (very dodgy place lol, but I won't go into it) on the sunday night and got her some antibiotics to fend off any secondary infection like pneumonia as the virus made her have a very bad cough and she was very wheezy. She had a shocking fever, so we also dosed her up with panadol and nurofen and actually had a pretty good night with her. The next day I had a follow up appointment at our normal clinic with a new doctor and he is very good. It was just a matter of keeping a close eye on her and giving her some ventolin. She ended up coping with it really well except for some wakeful hours during the night, which got her a place in our bed for two nights. Today though (almost two weeks later) she woke with another temperature :( Luckily I had a follow up appointment at the doctors this morning so he checked her out and it seems she has picked up something new, again I just have to keep an eye on things.

Thursday last week we finally picked up our new car, YAY!!!! I can get out of the house now. Thanks to mum who has been lending Dave her car to go to work when I have needed our car with the seats to go to appointments.

Friday mum and I went to the OARA Golf Classic, this was to raised much needed money to research the cause of oesophageal atresia. It was a nice lunch and we got to see Kaytie's surgeon again as he was the guest speaker for the day. Kaytie kept mum on her toes running around everywhere, whilst I attended to Luke and got to talk to other parents with TOF children.

Saturday afternoon, we had the footy tipping party at Adrian and Andrea's (thanks for hosting it this year). Dave went earlier, whilst I stayed back at home so Kaytie could have a sleep before the big afternoon. Turns out I was pretty much third nearly the whole time, except with only tipping a 3 on the last round, I came fourth (dam it!! lol). It was a great party and there are some photos on Andrea's blog to have at how the night ended up. I must add here too, Congratulations to Mel and her team at Roc for winning their netball grand final!!!

ALSO, I forgot to mention in the last post ~ CONGRATULATIONS~ to Steve and Mel on their engagement YAY!!! Looking forward to the party in November and now two weddings in the Overdyk family next year (what about you Greg?!? lol JK)

Sunday we had a nice roast dinner at the oma and opa's house with the family. We got to play Tony's new game that he picked up at Jim's garage sale. It's one of those Dutch slot games, I don't know the real name of it, but it can get quite loud and addictive lol.

On Monday, mum and I took the kids into Dandenong for Kaytie to see the allergist. Remember a while back Kaytie had what I thought was a reaction to egg and came out in a rash. Well we finally had out appointment. He was such a pompus so-and-so and questioned me heaps about why she had egg all over her arms etc. After I proceded to tell him Kaytie's history and her eating habits he actually apoligised with the way he was talking to me and explained why he thought it weird. Anyway cut a long story short, we had to go down the road for a blood test (and kaytie was a very good girl for this) and I'm waiting to hear back about the results this afternoon.

Tuesday my friend Sharon and her boy, Kye came around. They had lots of fun playing together and at one point when I was playing with Luke, Sharon called me to have a look at the kids just as they were giving each other a big sloppy kiss, it was soooo cute. So we got them to do it again for the photo lol.

Yesterday my friend Tracey and her boys, Fisher and Coby came around for a play date. While Kaytie and Fisher played happily (well mostly lol) together, Trace and I got Luke and Coby posing for photos together :) They were such good boys, they are only one week different so they cooperated well together. Kaytie and Fisher on the other hand were a little hard to get a 'posed' photo of lol.

BOTH DESTINED TO BE FOOTY PLAYERS AND ESSENDON SUPPORTERS IF THEIR DADS HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT :)Today we are having more visitors coming. My Aunty Lanie is popping in and a friend, Michelle is going to finally have her cuddles of Luke :) Then I am off to dinner with my TOF mum friends, to have a nice chinwag and break from the kids. Hopefully Kaytie doesn't get worse with this fever she is having today, I just hate it when she is sick and she's actually looking really skinny atm as she has gone off her food with being ill.

Some words on Luke....

He is growing up sooooo fast. He had his first smiles this week and is starting to goo and gaa. He is losing that newborn tendacy to just fall asleep anywhere at anytime and needs to be put to bed. But he is still sleeping at night really well and only waking once (most of the time) for a feed. He has done really well to stay nice and healthy despite having his big sister sick around him, although at times he has had a bit of a runny nose but has dealt with it really well. It's amazing the difference of having a well baby that gets a bit of a cold as compared to what it did/does to Kaytie.

ALL in ALL, I am loving being a mum to my beautiful babies, Kaytie and Luke.

2007-09-13T14:06:00.000+10:00

TWO EXTREMES!!

Just got back from the Maternal and Child Health nurse, where I spent an hour for Kaytie's 18month check and Luke's 4 week check. Lucky it was a beautiful day as I walked down to the centre this time. Kaytie got weighed at 7.95kg (only 50g away from 8kg!!!!!) which means she is still under the 3rd perentile and Luke got weighed at 4.8kg (800g in 2 weeks!!!!) which puts him just under the 90th percentile LMAO!!! So it seems Luke going to literally be Kaytie's BIG brother hahaha. Everything else is going well with their development, so there are no complaints. Kaytie's eating has gotten better atm with eating biscuits and sandwiches etc, as she doesn't tend to spit as much out anymore unless the piece she chews off is too big. And she has been actually running up to the cupboard wanting food lately, so its starting to be almost normal (fingers crossed it stays this way).

Also went to the Children's Hospital on tuesday for a surgical check up and boy was that hectic. I was running late so lucky mum was able to drop me off at the lift and then go park the car. Turns out the doctor was 45 minutes late anyway, oh well when I got up there Luke had wet through to his clothes, so he needed a nappy change (and change of clothes) and boy that was hard in a little changing room with our big pram and Kaytie whinging to get out lol!! Then it was back to waiting room, where mum was on bended knee in front of the television trying to get Kaytie to drink her bottle and I was feeding Luke his. Anyway, we saw a new surgeon this time as Mr Keith Stokes has retired. However, he does remember Kaytie from the neonatal unit as a bit of a drama queen and was thinking she would still have lots of problems. He was most surprised to hear that she had not had another stricture since the fundoplication, however, he thinks that at some stage when she starts eating bigger and lumpier foods she may find it more difficult and therefore need a stretch, but for now we don't need to go back for 6 months!! We also went to visit the neonatal ward which were very happy to see how good she looks and our friend Donna at the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation, that helps raise money for neonates and the hospital.

Mum and I actually went to 'The celebration of Life" Gala ball last week to raise money and awareness of the work they do at the neonatal unit at the hospital. It was a great night with a big auction and a silent auction where I won a photography package. There was also Kate Cerbrano singing and Paul Mercurio was the MC. It was held at the Crown Palladium room, which was very fancy. It was nice for me to have a night out even though we didn't get home til 1:30am and then I had to feed Luke etc so didn't have much sleep but it was well worth it. Dave got a bit worried when I asked him if I could go, as he hadn't looked after the two kids on his own yet, so Liz who came to the rescue to stay for a few hours while dinner and baths were done.

After we got back from the hospital, Michelle, Macey and Kylah came to visit. Kaytie woke to find 2 play mates, although kids at that age generally don't play together - Kaytie was loving watching them lol. She also began a love for chocolate as she had to have what Macey and Kylah were having lol. Here is a photo of her later in the day after more chocolate lmao!Michelle also brought down some great hand-me-down clothes for Kaytie, so thanks so much for that :) Here are some photos of the girls playing in the cot together, although Kylah was too interested in the birdie tv to look at the camera lol!!

And here they are having cuddles of Luke...

Here are some photos of Luke so you can see how much he has grown in the last couple of weeks!!

Kaytie having cuddles with her baby (but BIG lol) brother. She was giving him kisses awww so sweet. She has got used to him being around and always runs to see what has happened to him when he cries, and after cuddles she just seems to think she can push him aside like one of her toys lol.