Heat, Homesickness, Dentists and a Birthday

As Christmas time approaches I tend to get a little homesick. It has been 6 years since I have spent Christmas with my family. For years we had spent Christmas with the same families. I remember the last Christmas pretty well as it was the day Aarahi proposed properly (we were actually getting married 4 weeks later). Shane and Teri arrived on Christmas eve and Aarahi got to meet my special little girls Teuila and Mei. Before Aarahi came along and I had my own kids those 2 girls were my whole world so him meeting them and them actually liking him was a pretty big deal for me. I remember when I dated someone else and Mei was not impressed at all and ended up sleeping with me for a few weeks and following me around like a little puppy dog.

As much as I miss those Christmases the reality of it is that it was probably the last one for all of us. We are all growing up and getting married having kids of our own. We have in-laws to worry about now too. I'm not even sure if Mum's house would be able to hold every one in a few years time once more grand babies start arriving (hint hint Tearai and Arpege). Hopefully we can do it all again one day. Teuila can make the pancakes.

Ammon turned ONE today. This year has gone by so fast I really can't believe it. I only had one goal for Ammon and that was that he would be sleeping through the night by his first birthday. I am happy to report that he is indeed sleeping through the night. He is the happiest little man around. I think if I let him he would eat watermelon until he turned into one. He hates eating bread (Aunty Kristen will be happy about that one), but he will happily sit under the table and eat what even scraps that end up being dropped or he will rummage through Aunty Sarah's bin to find some delicious rubbish. We like to keep the immune system working hard around here. Ammon is much more of a Daddy's boy than any of the other kids ever were. He will choose Daddy over anyone else. Ammon love swimming. He is not happy to just splash around in the paddling pool, he wants to be in the big pool and diving under the water. We love having Ammon around, Heavenly Father knew just what we needed when he sent Ammon to us.

Melbourne just had it's first heatwave of the season. 3 days over 40 degrees. It wasn't pleasant but I think you just get used to it. We ended up staying at  my cousins on Saturday as we only have one room with air conditioning. Our new house has aircon in every room thank goodness. I took Auron and Lili to the dentist on Saturday. I have $2k to spend on each of them for dental care each year so thought I better get on to spending it. Both kids were cavity free!

We have Progress!

I kept stopping at starting the blog from last week and now a whole week has gone by. Oops. Lets just say Aarahi had a good birthday. He got a game he has been wanting for awhile and I let him play all day long with minimal disruptions. Then it was Sunday and life was back to normal fitting in a spare 15-20 mins to play after work if he's lucky. Speaking of work he is still working like a crazy man. He is training for something so he needs to be there an hour earlier to do that.

We got good new about our house. After a huge 8 month delay (they had to redo all the pipelines along the huge main road our estate is off as the were too old) we finally have work started on the land building the roads and driveways etc. I was doubtful that they had really started but we went for a drive out there last weekend and they were well and truly under way. Hurrah for progress. I went out there again today when I was in the area and they have already dug out the roads and curbs. There is a tonne of huge boulders and rocks waiting for removal. It made me super happy we paid the $500 excess fee otherwise we would probably be expecting a 20k bill in the mail like some others who decided to take the risk. So the deal is construction of the roads/underground plumbing gas etc is due to be finished in March, Titles should be release within a couple of weeks of that then house construction the following week. I took some photos so you can all follow a long with us.

Unfortunately the delay means our mortgage needs to be resubmitted in February but we got the all clear from our mortgage broker that we will be fine but not to go do anything crazy like rack up a huge debt or something.

We paid the final payment for our Cruise and booked our hotel for Sydney. I had previously booked at another hotel but found a better place for $100 less a night so switched. I am the Queen of holiday bargain shopping.

On Friday we went to do Christmas shopping. The kids each had $20 each to spend on their not so secret Santa. Auron had picked Lili and got annoyed after roaming the isles of Target that he couldn't what he wanted to buy her or whatever he thought she would want cost to much money. He was also grumpy and a little tearful because he was up at 5am! We had lunch which made him cry when his drink was all gone and I only offered him water when he was still thirsty....OH THE HORROR!!! I was about ready to give up, especially when Lili needed to go toilet (yes we went toilet before we left home and when we first got to the shops!) She then proceeded to take 40mins sitting there saying "nope not finished yet, there might be more" By then I had REALLY had enough and picked her up and told her that her poo would just have to stay inside until we got home. We shop for another 20mins before my nephew Izayah needs to go toilet AGAIN this time he demands he gets a nappy put on him or he's going to pee in his pants (he is 5 1/2 and hasnt worn a nappy in years) So he does, manaage to push out a bit of pee enough to wet his pants a little. UGHHHHH can you see why I might possible be crazy??? But WAIT it gets better. As we are walking to the the bathroom AGAIN Ammon throws up all over himself and the pram. Being the organised mother that I am I am only armed with wet wipes no spare clothes. We head to the family bathroom 5 kids in tow. (I should mention here how thankful I am my cousin was with me). I clean Ammon up and take his clothes off, he graciously missed gettting anything on his pants. Sarah dries Izayah's pants under the hand dryer and then we carefully take some clothes off a sleeping Hale so I have something to put on Ammon.

Then I ring Aarahi and admit defeat and he comes to rescue me.

Later that night after recovering Lili and I went shopping. (Auron went to be early because he didn't want to eat his dinner) It reminded me of sweet childhood memories when I used to go late night shopping with my mum. We got separated in Kmart and then all I could hear was Lili calling out "beautiful Mummy, Where are you my beautiful Mummy"I totally made my day and made me remember that even though some days are hard and you feel like you are failing, you really aren't, you are just having a bad day.

Note the land photos will have to wait as I can't find my phone. Probably in the fridge or something like that. For now I thought we could have a look as some old photos.