5th Anniversary and the Zoo

On Tuesday Ammon had his check up and is staking on the weight nicely. I'm finding feeding him to be the most difficult part of having a new born. I get horribly nauseous each time I have to feed him. Apparently it should resolve by 8 weeks so I'm hoping that's true. The guilt from even considering giving him formula is already making me feel terrible.

On Friday I took the kids to the zoo by myself. 1 bus and 2 trains later we arrived. I'm not sure if I was brave or insane. In the end we all had a great day. I packed the kids lunches which they wanted to eat straight away. Lili got yoghurt all over herself, but that was only the start of it for her. By the end of the day she was covered in ice cream, yoghurt, dirt and chocolate cake. Why I thought a white top was a good idea for her I will never know. When we arrived at the zoo I could smell a stench that was that all familiar new born nappy smell. This was the foulest smelling nappy I have ever changed in my life. Both Auron and I were gagging. Some had leaked out onto his pants and being the organised person I am, I didn't bring a change of clothes. Luckily it was a nice hot day so I striped him down to his onesie and away we went. The kids loved the seals and penguins the most followed by the butterflies and elephants. Earlier in the week I had made them little booklets to fill in and little activities to do while we were there. Auron and I sat down on the grass to fill in his, while Lili freaked out about the seagulls getting too friendly. I think we need to work on Aurons drawing skills, he definitely inherited my lack of drawing ability. Lili is way more on to it in the drawing department. Soon enough Lili was asleep so Auron and I got another iceblock and headed back to the train. This time I rang Aarahi to come pick us up from a different station so we didn't have to change trains. An exhausted Auron fell asleep almost as soon as his bum hit the seat. Once we got home Aarahi took them for a swim to cool down.

Later on Friday night my cousin came over to look after our big kids while Aarahi and I went out for dinner to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. It was a the perfect night out, Ammon was well behaved and we managed to hold a conversation uninterrupted. There's not much more we could have asked for. We went all out for dinner ordering mocktails and dessert....because we are crazy like that haha.

Today was church as usual. I should mention how much I hate afternoon church! After church was done Lili screamed down the carpark because she was desperate for a sleep. I couldn't really blame her, she usually has a good 2 hour naps but had skipped it so we could get to church. Sigh...I'm going to have to figure out what to do about that one. If anyone has any great suggestions let me know.

A half captured smile?

We have a mouse which has been escaping Aarahi's traps...he was successful last night in capturing him though.

Lili's protest to come out of her room fell on deaf ears and she fell asleep by the door.

Getting Back to Normality

This week I finally feel like we have some normality back. I think most of that is due to Ammon sleeping a lot better during the night. He has had a lot of problems with an upset tummy which we have managed to find a cure for. Now that I look back I think that was probably the cause of Lili's terrible sleeping which we are still suffering the consequences of.

The kids and I made a trip into town by ourselves on the bus which was kinda of liberating. I've been going a bit crazy feeling stuck at home. All went well and Lili and Auron were pretty excited to get back to our normal shopping excursions.On Friday we are going to take a trip into the city on the train to go to the Zoo. Auron has been asking for a few months to go so I thought it was about time. 

On Tuesday Aarahi slept through his alarm so we declared it family day and went to the movies to see Big Hero 6. It's a pretty awesome movie. Lili was a bit of a pain during the movie but it was a cinema full of kids and babies so we weren't all that concerned about her annoying other people. Auron gave me his new Spiderman that he got for Christmas from Grand-Nana, to look after at the movies. I some how lost it. I felt terrible, to the point I was losing sleep over it at night. Everytime he would say prayers he would ask to bless Spidey, and how sad he was that he was lost. We tried to find  a replacement but it seems they are all sold out. We did settle on a black Iron Man which I have been told is called War Machine. Auron calls him Washing Machine though which Aarahi and I find entertaining. 

On Saturday we went out for dinner to a New Zealand fish n chip and burger place. It was preeeeety good. Tasted like home that's for sure, complete with L & P, Watties Tomato Sauce and K Bars.

Now I need to go clean my house which was perfectly tidy when I went to bed last night....sigh

We are back

....And we are back. Well hopefully, I hope to be better at writing this year but life is busy. I kind of lost momentum when I got pregnant with Ammon but now that, I am past that long exhausting pregnancy I should be better. Not that a newborn is much easier.

The Matthews family are in for a big year. After a year of watching our pennies (probably why you havent seen much of us over there) we have started the process of building our home. All going to plan we should start the actual building sometime mid year. We have a wedding on the cards for July but that will most likely just see Ammon and I head over for....unless my mum gets sooky and pays for the other kids. We have also booked in a holiday to somewhere warm and tropical for later in the year. Aarahi has worked his butt off the past year and deserves a relaxing holiday so that's what we are doing. I even let him pick the destination. But as with everything who knows what the year will really bring. Plans may change and we will just have to roll with it.

Our newest addition is fitting in well, I think it's been easier with 3 than when I only had one. Auron is completely smitten by him, Lili has taken a while to warm up to him. On the day we brought him home she declared to all that would listen that "baby is yuck!'' We are praying Ammon doesn't follow in his siblings sleeping habits, so far so good. We haven't had an all nighter yet (touch wood)

Summer is well and truly in full swing here with 40 degree days nothing out of the ordinary. We bought an aircon unit so its been a lot more tolerable but it still sucks. I really really hate summer. Yesterday was 38 today is 18 though so go figure.

Auron is enjoying taking advantage of my lack of time and energy to enjoy watching far too much tv and way too many youtube clips. I'm giving myself another week before we are back in to our normal routine of school work and activities. We will be continuing with the reading eggs program, which he has done really well with, When we tested last his reading age was 4.75 but I imagine that it would have slipped a bit over the past month or so. He's enjoying pointing out the letter and words he knows in books and out and about. We will also complete the Heart of Dakota preschool program again. It's more fun than anything else.

Liliana is our Miss Mischief. Out of all of them she  is the one that will send me to the loony bin. It must be the curls. She loves learning and will probably join Auron in his school work this year. She desperately wants to read but its a bit beyond her although she likes to think she can, At the moment she is quite concerned about possession and who's things belong to who. Heaven forbid anyone use something that doesn't belong to them.

Aarahi took a permanent position at his work so now he gets more money, paid holidays, sick leave and rostered days off. He still enjoys his work and the crazy hours. Personally I think anyone who wants to get up to go to work at 4am is a little bit insane. He is look forward to all his extra work paying off with a new house and dishwasher.

So that's it for now.

I shall leave you with a few photos of our cute little ones

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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