Hello again! :D

It's not you, it's me. I've been like this with everyone lately! :D I MEAN to write, I have lots to say, but I think it's going to take me too long to get it all down and I never feel I have enough time .... so I put it off. Meanwhile MORE stuff happens and I get behind .... ugh. So.. this is it! Time to put off putting off... ( in all honesty I have TONS of laundry I need to do so blogging is my way of putting THAT off instead!!! LOL!! )

Here goes!!

Firstly I know you'll be wondering about this, hubby still doesn't have a job BUT we are amazingly pretty positive about it all. I'm surprised how well we have adapted and how smoothly things are going so far.

We spent Easter weekend painting and decorating Jessie's bedroom, the old nursery. She and Jack had shared a room for years but we recently asked her if she would like her own room and she thought it was a great idea. We LOVE her new room... and we REALLY love the CLOSET best!!! Oh to be a kid again and have a room like this one! ;D LOL!!


Here are a couple of before and after pics! : D

This is the room after we had cleared out all the baby stuff that was in there...



The closet as it was...



Jack helping with the painting! Note the ingenious paint bucket! :D



Here Jessie and I are demonstrating the Bump hubby and I drew on the wall as I was pregnant. We drew around my belly every month or so...! It's pretty cute! ;D



Some more pics......



This gives you an idea of what the room looks like... I don't really have a wide enough angled lens to get a good shot of the whole thing!!



Here are some shelves in her closet....



Shelves above the desk we made for her....



Hanging space...!



We've since added a bead curtain in the closet doorway....!! I LOVE her room!! ;D LOVE it!! :D

Next... Jack's room...!! I still need to plan some more on that one though!! Jessie's was really easy!!

Ok so other than that, what else have we been up to?? Well, there's always laundry of course...and dog walking...!! We went for a walk yesterday and as we walked Jessie looked down and gasped **OH!!! An OWL PELLET!!** sure enough! It was!! We looked closely at it and saw lots of fur and bones. As we looked further we saw evidence of many more tiny bones scattered around. We didn't have anything to pick it up with and as I was walking three dogs in one hand and pulling leash attached to a bike upon which sat a very heavy boy in the other I didn't feel I could do much with it at the time. We went home and Jessie raved to her Daddy about it. Together they walked back to the footpath, this time armed with plastic bags. They gathered up what they could find and brought it all home. Jessie then spent the evening dissecting it and speculating upon which wee beastie may have been dinner for the owl. We had noticed a huge owl on a previous walk a few days prior to the pellet discovery so now we know where it likes to eat!!! I think it was a Horned Owl, but could have been a Barred Owl... either way, it was a biggie!!!

Let's see... what else.... oh yes... sadly Shadow, our gerbil died yesterday. She was remarkably old and so it wasn't a surprise, but it was still sad as we did love her so and she was such a funny little thing. I took her out of her tank and held her so that Jack could see her and pet her. He said she was so soft... He sighed and said "ok.." when I said I was going to bury her. Jessie cried when we put her in the ground, but was mostly alright about it. She HAD just been cutting up Owl pellets... it sort of puts a perspective on things I suppose!

Jack learned an important physics lesson last week! We went for a bike ride and he headed downhill at top speed with his legs splayed out either side and the pedals FLYING under him! He was doing fine until he hit the curb at full speed, FLEW off the top of the bike and landed on his chin and knuckles. Oops. Jessie and I had been yelling for him to stop for sometime before the accident so I suppose that's just what happens. I'm really glad I had insisted he wear his helmet before we left the house. He's a LOT more cautious when riding now...!!

We bought some math game books recently, Fraction Jugglers and Number Jugglers, both by Ruth Bell Alexander. We got them used from Amazon.com. PLEASE be sure and check that the book you order comes complete with the number cards you need to play. Took me two tries to figure that out. Ahem. Anyway, they have really fun math games that can be played at any level and that encourage children to think differently about numbers. There are no right or wrong answers so children don't worry about trying different things...!! (ugh! Enter note of frustration here.. I can NOT concentrate at the moment so I can tell my thoughts sound scattered but I can't focus enough to fix it!!! Forgive me..!! Moving on...!!) For instance in one of the games you are encouraged to "Make 10"... you are dealt some cards and you need to use as many of your cards as possible to make 10. You could say 8+2= 10 OR better you could say 2+4+2-3+5 = 10 !! the idea of course is to get rid of your cards first. Children who are just learning math can use simple addition or subtraction, but the more advanced child can also use multiplication, division and so on and STILL BE PLAYING THE SAME GAME!! :D The books are a hit and I'm very glad I got them! ;D I WILL be looking for another copy of Number Jugglers WITH THE CARDS as we ended up having to make our own!! ;D

We've also been playing lots of Scrambled States of America, Webkinz quizzes, Wii, War, Scrabble and so on. Jessie has been working in her "office" ( closet! ) and doing some schooly stuff. We watched an awesome DVD from Netflix called The Human Machine which was amazing and taught us everything we needed to know and then some about the human body. One sad fact that stuck with me is that if we were to eat just 15 extra calories a day ( which is the same as only three pistachio nuts ) in a year we would put on a pound and a half in weight. Oh. Oh dear. That explained a LOT to me!!!

Anyway, there ya have it!! I had a few minutes while the children were playing relatively quietly and happily together and I was able to put together this hodge podge of a blog post for you! Now the children are squabbling ( really!?!? Oh that NEVER happens....!!) and the laundry has beeped some time ago and I know it's just wrinkling up in the dryer as I sit here... I ought to go.

It's been lovely to catch up... let's not leave it so long next time eh?! :D