Lili Turns ONE!

Yesterday was Lili's birthday! I can hardly believe it. Lili is absolutely delicious sometimes we let her get up at 4am because she is just to cute to put back to sleep. Her adorableness means she gets away with way too much. Lili is very much a daddy's girl most of the time, especially now that I'm not nursing her any more. She certainly has him wrapped around her little finger, although he would say other wise. She is definitely a girl with an attitude, everything is when and how she wants or she will sulk. We love her so much and it is such a pleasure watching her grow.

She didn't get much for her birthday, a shape sorter, some new clothes a new book and a little knife and fork set. The utensils were the favourite by far. Tonight I made her favourite dinner of homemade chicken nuggets with chips and salad. Auron was pretty happy as this is his favourite too. Then we let her eat her cake that I ended up buying because I ran out of time today. I had big plans that just didn't happen....but I did get 6 loads of laundry done. Auron fell asleep at the table while eating dinner and missed out on cake. Since Auron was asleep by 630pm Lili got our undivided attention and best of all got to play with the toys that Auron is usually guarding with his life.

In other family news, we just came back from a quick trip back to NZ. Third time this year! We left Melbourne late Wednesday night and flew back in Sunday night. When we arrived home we noticed that our landlord, who had been doing some work on the house while we were away had "fixed" our screen door which was now jammed shut and resulting in us being locked out of our house at midnight. We managed to break in through one of the windows. Everyone then went promptly to bed. Aarahi woke up a few hours later and went to work, which turned out to be one of the longest days this year. Despite all crappy travelling and flights we missed it was honestly the best trip we have taken. We loved the time we spent with our family, we are so blessed to be a part of such a huge and wonderful family. It was nice and relaxing, since we were only there for a few days we didn't feel the pressure to try and see everyone as it obviously just wouldn't have happened. The reason for the trip back was to attend Aarahi's sisters baptism. It was a wonderful and spiritual event I am sure no one who was there will forget. We feel so blessed that we were able to attend.

This weekend is pretty busy for us. I have a relief society activity I need to help out at. Something to do with making Christmas cards. We also have a 21st, Melbourne Cup, and a farewell party. Melbourne cup day is a public holiday here in Melbourne. I think it's quite amusing to have a holiday to watch a horse race, not that we're complaining.

Aarahi with some of his crazy nieces and nephew Jaren

Lili having a good cuddle with her big cousin

JAren Auron and Izayah in the back of the helicopter

Aarahi dealing to a Troll outside of Weta Workshop (they did the lord of the rings stuff, because New Zealand is cool like that)

The face I got when we tried to have some of her cake

More crazy kids!

Auron's Hearing Test

Way back in April when we went to our health nurse for Auron's 2 year check up we were concerned with his speaking, more so the lack of it. The nurse referred us on to have speech therapy, which there is a 12 month waiting list for. She said it will more than likely sort itself out by then but better to be on the list now rather than waiting until he's three. In order to be accepted into speech therapy Auron needed a hearing test. That's where we went today.
Aarahi came home early from work so he could look after Lili. We arrived at the specialist at 9.55am and were seen at 10.02am! This is the same centre that I had my antenatal appointments for Lili where a wait of 90min plus was not unexpected, so this came as a rather pleasant surprise.
We were taken into a darkish room answered some questions and the lady had a look in his ears and played a game with him. She would distracted him with toys while she played a sound when Auron looked for the sound a light would turn on revealing a cool looking bird.
After this little exercise she put some wires in each ear and played the same game but the sound was only played in one ear at a time.
The results? His hearing is fine. Just a slow talker who may or may not need speech therapy. We will find that out when he has his first appointment sometime in the new year. She was also impressed that he has never had any kind of ear infection or been to the doctors (except when he went to A &E when we were on holiday, but I blame Palmys crappy weather for that)

In other Matthews news... Well we are pretty boring, we have just completed a month of fun. We went to the Melbourne show last weekend which was heaps of fun. Auron went on the rollercoaster with aarahi and I it was a proper grown up one, he loved it.
Aarahi was just called at ward clerk and is enjoying it much more than being in youth. I wAs called as relief society enrichment leader, I haven't had to do anything yet but it should be fun. We have a awesome bunch of ladies.
Lili is turning one this month! We are having a combined birthday party with her little friend Isu who is also turning one. We're having it at an indoor play centre which is great because it means no
cooking or cleaning up or having to entertain kids. She is still not walking but can climb like a monkey. Her gymbaroo teacher is impressed by her climbing abilities. Oh and best of all she is finally sleeping through the night, it was hard working getting her there but everyone is sooooo much happier these days.
Auron is just as cute as ever and talking a whole lot. His favourite thing to say at the moment is "oh gosh" I'm excited he finally calls me mama now. It only took 2 years, shucks even Lili says mama! He is loving books! You can always find him with a big pile. We recently invested in a bunch of new ones because we were sick of reading the old ones over and over.
I have recently started a new blog www.justonedayatatime.com which is doing really well. Thanks to Zirsha who gave me the confidence and inspiration to do it.  I am enjoying writing and sharing ideas and our life and beliefs with others. I spoke at a recent community lunch which was a little awkward but a nice opportunity all the same. Aarahi was able to come too, I'm not sure if he was there for support or for the delicious food?!
Aarahis happy at work, they've had a few change ups with the company he organises the stock for so that messed up his days a bit but now they've managed to better organise it which is great. All in all
aarahi is just boring (his words). He has been pretty busy helping me out with our month of fun though. You can read more about that on my other blog if you want.
Well that's us, I'll try keep this blog updated once a week...ok I'll be realistic maybe twice a month!

We've Moved!

The Matthews family is now sharing their life over at One Day at a Time Come and join us too!

Another week done and dusted

This week I was struck down with a stomach bug of some kind. It came on fast! I spent 3 days vomiting and wallowing in self pity on the couch. Unfortunately since Aarahi is taking time off in a few weeks for his brother's wedding we could afford for him to take anymore time off to look after the kids for me. The kids however were incredibly well behaved! I got them up changed them and sometimes fed them breakfast. On one day I let Auron get his own breakfast and he was nice enough to make Lili a plate of fruit and a piece of toast. He made a huge mess but I didn't care. For the rest of the morning they usually played quietly, I put Lili down for her nap and not long after that Aarahi would be home. On one day I just put them both in Lili's cot with the ipad and some toys and then I got in bed and went to sleep. They were happy, and safe, well I didn't hear any complaining from them.
Along with the vomiting came a rash...and when I say rash I don't mean a small patch of red itchy skin I mean a bright ready bumpy itchy sore rash covering almost 80% of my body. It was crazy. That combined with the vomiting had me freaking out that I was pregnant, as both those things only ever happen if I am pregnant. So I send Aarahi off to the pharmacy for a test and some drugs to get rid of my burning skin. He protested about how he didn't want to buy a pregnancy test, but he's an awesome husband and came back with one anyway. Negative by the way.
I am feeling much better now, still not 100%  but better. We stayed home from church today as I wanted to keep the kids in as much of their routine as possible since we fly out this week. We have afternoon church and it messes with the kids sleeping and moods every week and it takes a few days for me to sort them out again. So hoping to avoid it this week.
Aarahi bought a Ps3 this week, too keep him company while we are away. I think he is going to relish the uninterrupted gaming time. He has been training Auron up on how to play Tekken. Not the most appropriate game for a 2 year old....or anyone for that matter but they are pretty cute playing together.
Today I have watched despicable me 3 times and its now playing for a FORTH time in a row. Aarahi was going to turn it off but....we're still watching. On Friday night we stayed up til 1am (big deal in our house) watching Person of Interest. We bought the first season on DVD and love it. Now we have to wait for the 2nd season to come out!!!!!!!!!!!! tempted to just download it though.

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We've been BUSY

Third week in a row of groceries under $100, I'm feeling pretty awesome.
At this moment both my children are busy ripping up newspaper and junk mail in the middle of the living room floor. It's a mess but they are having the time of their lives and I couldn't possibly ruin their fun.
I'm not sure what happened last week. I'm sure we did stuff. Probably just more of the usual, playgroup, gymbaroo, libray, shopping etc.
Aarahi and I made a budget a few weeks ago. It was the first budget we have ever made. What pushed us to make this monumental step you may ask? It was the $200+ grocery bill that's what, and even after that we still would end up buying more food and we would still be eating out atleast 3 times a week. Sure we could afford to spend that much money on food, but was it really necessary? our revised budget was $110 per week. The last 2 weeks we have been well under that, and you know what? we haven't run out of food! A little planning goes a long way. I don't know what we were actually buying that was sky rocketing our grocery bill but probably my aimless walking down the aisles just dumping in things that took my fancy and Aarahi and Auron's love of the confectionery and chips aisle. Now I go armed with a list. The last 2 weeks I have done groceries by myself before Aarahi met us. That meant pushing and pram and hauling the trolley along behind, so I was pretty keen to get in and get out.
Let's see how long this budget will last. Ill just be happy if I can master the groceries.
I got a letter from IRD last week. It was showing a summery of my student loan. It was both impressive and depressing. I still have a long way to go, and have made a sizeable dent in it and that's what counts. It is on automatic payments so I pay some ungodly amount of money each fortnight that come directly out of my family tax benefit. Yup my student loan will be paid in full by the Australian government. I am still yet to use my actual degree, and probably never will.
We had date night on Saturday. It entailed a dessert pizza, hot chocolate and answering dumb questions about each other and ourselves.
Today we had our end of term party for Gymbaroo. Auron was in a strange mood this morning and I was in no mood to argue with him so I let him wear my shoes to Gymbaroo...and then into the shopping centre. He was happy, I was happy, Aarahi rolled his eyes and laughed. When Aarahi finished work we went to the movies and saw Despicable Me 2. It was hilarious just as good if not better than the first.

Museum and Ramen

What to do on a blustery winters day you ask? why not head to the museum! That is exactly what we did. On the weekends public transport is only $3 for the day (instead of $8), so we drove to the station near us and caught the train to the city. As we exited the lift from the station it had of course started to rain. Luckily the walk to the museum wasn't long. The museum is located on some beautiful parkland. It reminded me of the Auckland Domain, which is where the Auckland Museum is located. Fancy that. We ate our picnic lunch before we went in, it had stopped raining by this time. Auron fed the birds half of his bread roll, then when that was done tried to feed them glad wrap, they weren't the least bit impressed with that.
The museum was really neat. We hadn't really been there before. We went once when Auron was a week old or so. Aarahi hadn't been feeling well so went home and left mum and I there with Auron. Then we realised we had the house and car keys so we had to go home too otherwise poor sick Aarahi would have to walk home from the train in the rain (yes it was raining that day too, haha and all you people thinking we live in the land of sunshine!)
Anyway, before I get too distracted... They had a amazing kids area which I think older kids would find interesting as well. Auron was just happy to build with the blocks and play in the tunnels and look at himself in the funny mirrors. It was during this time that Lili decided to wet through her nappy, oh my gosh not just the nappy but all her clothes! of course we forgot to pack extra clothes, we aren't one of those super prepared families as you may have guessed. So I take her to the baby changing room and strip her down and wash her clothes and her in the sink with hand soap then dried her clothes with the hand dryer. I wish I had a photo of that, she happily played in the sink through out the ordeal. Lesson learnt, must bring changes of clothes, and more than one nappy each and definitely more than 4 wet wipes to last the day....yes incredibly unorganised.
We moved on to the more adult orientated exhibits and the kids fell asleep. We enjoyed some more intellectual conversation, and made ourselves feel a bit smarter. We have been feeling like our brain cells are dying lately so are making an effort to exercise our brains more.
When we left the museum we wanted to go to one of our favourite dessert places, it was of course raining again but we pressed forward with the promise of delicious hot chocolate and churros drizzled melted milk chocolate. Alas it was not meant to be. By the time we got there, it seemed like everyone else had had the same idea and the place was packed wall to wall.
We were back out in the rain, luckily the kids were still sleeping nice and toasty in the pram. We walked back towards the city, we walked we talked and found ourselves arriving at Melbourne Central, a train station and more. The train station is underground with a big shopping center and restaurant hub on the top. I looked in our voucher book to see if we had any vouchers for there. Ajsen Ramen it was, and it was delicious. I didn't think Auron would like it too much but eat ate half of mine and a good portion of Aarahi's ramen as well. Lili was happy with rice and teriyaki sauce. We ended our day off with a hot chocolate from Max Brenner.
Another perfect family day out.

Lili tipped the water jug over and decided to eat the lemons out of it....she thought they were great,  not even the  slightest hint of a sour face. 

Auron's favourite part of the museum was the lego wall. If you look closely you can see his attempt with my mascara.....Daddy was not too impressed. 

Ahhh nice and clean after her little nappy incident

Lili is getting pretty strong, and is now pulling herself up on things. 

These kids love bath time. It's a far cry from the torment bath time used to be with Auron

In their matching fluffy pj's, This photos was incredibly hard to get Auron was is no mood to cooperate.

The Zoo and a birthday date at the Immigration office

It was my birthday this week, it was great although I am feeling kind of old. 26 to be exact. It's been 8 years since I was in High School, I thought I was old then but now teenagers annoy me, well certain ones do. The ones on the train were definitely in need of a slap. We didn't do anything on my actual birthday. I made dinner and a cake. Aarahi looked after the kids while I cooked and baked in peace. It was bliss. I kind of missed my little kitchen side kick though so let him in to help chop some veges, a task he does well with little guidance.
Aarahi had to take the day before my birthday off so we could go into the city to the Immigration offices.  He was sick the night before too so a day off was nice. By the time we got to the immigration department and waited in the loooooong line of people wanting visas both the kids were asleep. Aarahi and i found ourselves sitting together in a waiting room with sleeping kids and nothing but time (our ticket said C34, they were only up to C20) So we sat and talked, and laughed, made plans, talked some more, we laughed at the lady who had see through pants/tights....was not attractive, her husband was with her, we wondered why he didn't say anything to her before they left the house. Finally after 2 hours or so, probably more we were finally seen. Our appointment only took 20mins if that.
We had skipped lunch, foolishly thinking we would just get something after our appointment. It was not close to 330pm and we were famished. We had some indian then got back on the tram to our car. We had hopes of having churros for dessert but the place was closed by the time we got there.
We made a trip to the Zoo whilst our car was getting serviced. Auron loved it, Lili slept for the most part. The elephants are always our favourite. By the time we had finished at the zoo our car still wasn't finished so we carried on to the city for an early dinner. I had a voucher for a restaurant close to the central train station which was convient, we were in no mood for walking around the city. We ordered too much food and had to take some home, we hadn't even touched one of our desserts.
Once we finally made it back to the Holden centre where or car was being fixed we went to drive home but......our car no longer went. Ironic right. The man came over like 3 times and each time he drove it it went fine. Aarahi thought he was going crazy or something. It finally did play up for the man, the mechanic came over and had a look and readjusted the new switch they had installed and all was well, its still going strong. Good little car. It ended up costing $670 but at least now its fixed. I was expecting it to cost more so that was a nice surprise.
Tomorrow is a public holiday, we have no plans.

He was obsessed with these random toilets at the zoo, think  they had something to do with pollution

Stuffing his face with pancakes and berries

Sticky date pudding we didnt even eat. We brought it home and had it later though

Cooking...Some kind of concoction with mustard powder and other assorted herbs from the pantry

First taste of cake

Lili during free time at Gymbaroo

Aurons favourite activity is the parachute and balloons 

Our weekly noodle date after Gymbaroo