Instagram and being sane has wrecked my blog

I sort of stole that title off Brooke (I nick all her good ideas).

If you really want to know what I am doing ... follow me on instagram (bearlulu) I can't seem to find the motivation to blog ... or maybe I am no longer batshite crazy and need to constantly be poring out my inner most thoughts on this blog... hmmmm.



Anyhoo this is a snapshot of what we have been up too.

I did a development and leadership course for work... and it was held at Mooloolaba Beach. It was stunning!(and I learnt a lot and shock horror I put some of the learning into practice and guess what it works).

David and I took a road trip to help his Dad and Joy pack up and clean their Bay house as they are off overseas for six months. 6 hours alone with David, the BeeGees and Kenny Rogers was ace and sort of like a mini holiday.

I have picked out some paint to paint our dinning room chairs ... see below for inspiration.

David went on a boys fishing weekend and the kids and I hit the beach. We also had tea out. It was a relaxing and good day. The peeps behind us are having their wedding reception on top of a fish and chip shop... I have no words.

 

 

 



We went camping! It was so much fun (until I got a splinter... but even then it was good fun). We went with our neighbours who have baby twins and little boys. It was so good.

 

 

 

 

 

Lulu loves the babies and Selfies. She's great at both.








As we were clearing up the kids rooms, Lulu found some baby clothes. Time and humidity have not been kind to them :-)

 

 

 

Andrew came down from Cookers and we went celebrated by dropping a cash bomb on the Spirit House. 

 

Other things that are possibly only of interest to me (and my Dad lol). This is my work colleague Meegie... I love her so much ... she thinks I'm stalking her... and judging by our work clothes I am!

My gorgeous boy was out of his cast for a week and he hurt his arm at Rugby. This face sums it up. He is on the mend but David had to do the Dr and the hospital... I couldn't face the fracture clinic one more time (listen to me anyone would think I had the break!)

 

Riley also performed in the school Musical - the Seussical.  He devoted A LOT of time to practice and on the night we were so so so proud of our all singing all dancing monkey.

 

 

Hope all is great in your world :-)
Exxx

Riddle me this...

I have opinions and I have questions, this post is a bit of both because I need answers so:
Lets Go

Inception

I am the last person on earth to see this film, I put off borrowing it from the library because I thought I would be too dumb to understand it and thus confirm what I have always suspected. Huh turns out that I DID understand it and it WAS a great movie ... but the end was lame. Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was that I had to concentrate on it (and I was sort of smug that  half way through the DVD I wasn't completely  LOST)  but I thought that for all its cleverness, the ending was predictable and flaky. Do you agree?  

 

 

Sister Wives

 

 

 

I have just finished reading a book about the above pictured women all being married to the same bloke. What the?

They also have a reality tv show (that I haven't seen) so I guess its all above board but really ... why?

The book is a corker in that they are all pretty snarky with one another (the wives that is) and they don't actually even live together anymore. I wouldn't call that multiple marriage or polygamy, I would call that family dysfunction. I know some of you may actually have a bit more insight into these peeps (in that you live in Utah, not that you have 4 husbands lol) so what gives? Is there a lot of sister wives out there or is this family just making a motza out of being different?

 

 

Sibling Rivalry

   



Why do my kids fight like they are honestly cant stand one another? They are driving us batty right now. On Saturday afternoon Lucy was gone for 3 hours to her friends house and Riley was like a different person. He smiled and talked and was so amiable, but the minute I picked Lu up they both started  behaving like toddlers. We have since separated them at the dinner table ... like we did when he was 5 and she was 2, its ace.

Don't be fooled by their smiles... they are just thinking up ways to torment their parents.

 

 

 

 



The freight train called Christmas
Its coming for me and I am not ready ... I say this every year and I never learn to plan /stress more efficiently.


The commercialisation crassness called Christmas
There is a shop at the plaza that has a huge sign painted in its window that says


"Cant be stuffed??? Get a voucher"

Words fail me... Every year it seems we get further away from the tenets of what we are celebrating and it makes me feel sad (and old).




Blood noses (at 2am)
Lucy suffers from blood noses (she gets it from her mum)we have been to a few Dr's and a specialist because it can be full on and take her out of class etc.  The specialist told us it was going to get worse around puberty and yes that would be correct. Most nights for the past week she has come into our room because she cant stop the bleeding. Ice packs on her neck seem to help a little bit.  Last night she wandered into Riley's room looking for a bit of help/compassion/ an ice pack. He starts screaming and her -I'd say he was half asleep but still he carried on like a pork chop and then we are ALL awake at 2am. Plus I had blood to clean off both Lucy and Riley's carpet. It wasn't ace at all. 




Lastly I just finished reading this book

Still Alice  by Lisa Genova

and now I am petrified of getting Alzheimer's ... and  going batty and not knowing I am going batty ... you get the picture. Just one more thing to worry about!

Yeah, sorry about that

Just wanted to apologise to all the people who were in the general vicinity of Myers last night at the plaza.

Sorry if you walked past and witnessed me completely losing my shite with a 12 year old who will remain nameless (its Lucy ... I'm a dobber) in the perfume section. Sorry if you heard me screaming the following ... and I quote  "I am not buying you a strapless dress to wear to your YEAR SEVEN graduation. Your YEAR SEVEN graduation involves a liturgy at Church and the nice priest from Maroochydore giving you a blessing... At no time during any of that do you need to be dressed like a hooker ... I repeat I will not be buying you a dress that makes you look like one".

I also apologise to any one who hung around long enough to hear my 12 year old state the following:
"Mum you are so gay. Everyone will be wearing strapless dresses AND I will be wearing one too".

After that I have nothing to apologise for because I left the shopping centre and drove home (with a  silent and grumpy 12 year old).

A couple of things about this trip to the plaza:

It was miserable

Lucy will not be wearing a strapless dress to her graduation and I will win because I am the parent (and I have the money)

and lastly

It was miserable.

Wherever we were going, well we're here

I am determined to do a post before July ends!

Winter school holidays came and went without too much activity. We are going away for the whole of the September school hols so the kids  had to stay put and amuse themselves this time around. They did a few sleep overs and we had their friends to visit. We also did one trip to Mooloolaba Beach.

Poor Dave fell asleep watching tele ... so I took a pic of him for Instagram :-)

Whilst Riley was in Northern NSW for his Rugby trip, we took Lucy out to Breakfast. The food was to die for and I am still dreaming about the maple Cinnamon butter they put on the pancakes. 

 The other (stupid) thing that consumed July was our couch purchase. We were always going to buy a decent leather lounge as part of our renos. In fact the catalyst for starting the renos was having a decent size lounge room to the fit the couch in!

 Of course parting with a small fortune for a dead animal covered piece of foam nearly did me in. I stressed so much about it... it wasn't until the day before the 25% off Sale (just had to sell one kidney not both) finished that I rang Annie to ask her to tell me what to do. "Do it" she said so we did. Now we just have to wait 5 months yes that would be 5 months for the Italians to finish their Summer vacation and make our lounges.

This is the colour we went for. I am so over mocha and chocolate and navy and this lighter colour was not cream or beige or yellow if that make sense. Now can everyone please find me cushions, throws and a rug to match it all... thanks.

My beautiful neighbour (who has 3 month old twins!) started selling free range eggs, now if she would just start selling milk, bread, veggies and meat my life would be ace (and I would never have to go to Woolies again). 

Lucy and David went to the cinema to see Man in Black.

and Dave continued the demo for the new bathroom, toilet and entry.

Lucy helped by painting the walls before they were demoed.

Well that was a few things that happened in the first half of July. The second half we had both the children's birthdays and a trip to Movie World. At this rate I will be blogging about Christmas in the blink of an eye.

Take Care 

EX

The March (Summation) Madness

March started with David and Lucy watching KONY2012. I have not yet seen the video but I did once write a 5000 word essay about the impotence of the International Criminal Court in trying African Dictators accused of war crimes... that was depressing enough.

The Kangaroos are out at work. I hate them and when I have to walk between our office and the rest of campus I avoid them like the plague. These pics were taken miles away from the actual hoppers.

For the first time since we bought our property (9 years ago) our backyard flooded. We have had so much rain that the ground is waterlogged and it didn't take much for it to flood. Lucy and I got stranded in Pwoods as our road was flooded.  

 The March weather was wet, violent and unpredictable. Dad and Jan are still cleaning up their property after a huge storm in early March. This is some of the damage and Dad's favourite child (Sammie) supervising the cleanup.

Bear cleaned up  and David and I went to tea (and I bought a new tent  dress).

The background to David and I escaping together for tea. Bear is training and playing Rugby 4 nights a week and one day a weekend. The driving and logistics are killing us. Remember how we were going to make Bear choose club OR school rugby? Well he came to us with a proposal. If he received a fantastic school report (A's and B+'s) then could he continue with both teams? Sure we said (thinking he would have at least C in his report 'cos we are supportive like that). Yeah the jokes on us (and our fuel bill). I mean well done Bear on our fabulous school report.

So back to ditch the children  Date-night. Minding his sister is just one of he things Riley is doing to show how much he appreciates us flogging all over the coast for him. 

Of course Bear was far from impressed at being ditched with Lu so like all good parents we sent him pics of the food to annoy him.

The following may be a text convo that occurred after the food pics were sent. 

David: Yum

Bear: So foul don't talk to us my pie got burnt from Riley :-(

Mum and Brian came for lunch. Mum made apple and walnut cake. This cake is my favourite ever. Mum made it for me when  was I pregnant with Lucy and I am not ashamed to tell you over the course of two days I ate the whole thing. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I put on about 25kegs each time I was pregnant. Yet each baby only weight about 3 kegs ... weird.

I sent this pic to Dave and asked him if he thought I should have Sushi for lunch. He didn't reply.

  I also sent him these pics to get his input on home furnishes.

His response to this rug was "are you taking the piss?" So rude. I think I preferred the no response.

 This is my desk at the uni. I am about to be moved upstairs (and given a full time job and a promotion - yay me) so I thought I would take a pic of my cute office before I lose it.

 These pics make me happy. My new take away cup and my flowering hydrangeas.

David and Riley started landscaping downstairs. David is transforming this area with a rock wall and pavers.  David and Riley if you ever read this ... you are amazing.

Queensland had an election. The conservatives swept to power with a 17% swing and now we have no Opposition. It's ace if you are a property developer or a mining magnate. For the rest of us, lets hope a government with no accual history of governing can do OK.

Lulu and David made Sushi. Obviously we have very loose food safety standards in this house as that is the actual Sushi being manhandled.

 Lucy loves the iphone (sounds like an OPI nail colour).

 More landscaping and digging.

Riley with the whackapacker (not to be confused with the whippersnipper Lauren ;-) getting the pad ready for the pavers.

So that was March according to my iphone.


On behalf of Riley and I, I wanted to say thanks to everyone for their kind words, comments, texts and emails about Riley's mate Matt. Matt was farewelled on Thursday in the church he was baptised in. He parents and sister were so brave and a bloody inspiration to us all. Bear decided he didn't want to attend the funeral as he felt he had said his goodbyes at a beach prayer service on Sunday. Instead he and his Surf Lifesaving Patrol mates got together went for a surf at Marcoola Beach in honour of Matt. Thank you again or those who prayed and thought about Matt's fam. Ex