The Weekend

I don't know if its the weather (sunny and warm) or David nearly finishing the landscaping and down stairs entertaining area, or the kids being at a very "cruisy" age or me actually following instructions when it comes to managing my anxiety / stress or David and I making some great plans for next year... but life is really good at the moment.

Of course having just written that I am waiting for the universe to smite me and it all to come crashing down upon me, just in time for the Christmas palaver of course.

This weekend was brill - not that we did anything terribly exciting, but what we did do was good fun and I really tried to savoured it.

Friday night we had a dinner at our house with my sis and her family and it was great fun. The kids had a disco at the school and my gorgeous niece offered to do the drop off and pick up so I could have a glass of champers. Saturday I thought was going to be a bit of a drama as Bear is suffering the consequences of "not good choices" . He cant play sport because of his hand (he choose to get on a quadbike unsupervised etc) and he cant rent any DVD's for two weeks because he didn't take an overnighter back for 5 nights. Both these things are hurting me as much as him because sport is fantastic for boys to run out all their testosterone and activeness in a positive way. So he is a bit grumpy and crusty at times and his little sister is annoying him more than ever. Saturday was spent just hanging around home and lying by the pool. We went out to a birthday celebration for one of David's work colleague Saturday night and it was pleasant and I didn't have to cook (yay for me).
Sunday was hot so all four of us were in the pool for most of the day after we had a big cooked breaky. It was so relaxing (probably not so much for Dave who was wrestling with the kids) I took some pictures of the kids and Dave in the pool and I will add them later.
Sunday afternoon was so exciting because I had organised a photographer to come to the house to take our family pics . This usually would have been a huge deal with me stressing over what to wear buying 4 x new outfits, dragging everyone to the photo venue etc all to get a fairly ordinary picture. Well Ali(the photographer) and her husband Liam came to our house and it was so CASUAL! On Saturday I went through all our clothes and came up with nice coloured T shirts and shorts for the boys and a dress with nice colours for Lulu. I tried out a couple of outfits (just casual tops and 3/4 pants) and went with the one Dave liked most. Ali was great with the kids and didn't make a big deal of getting us to pose (worst part of getting a pic taken according to Dave and the kids). Ali asked if when we had done all the "normal" shots would we do a fun shot where we all jumped into the pool! The kids LOVED this idea. I did some deep breathing and then said "sure". Well in the end I layed in the floating lilo and David and the kids jumped in ... of course I end up in the water as well... IT WAS SUCH GOOD FUN!. I reckon it could be the shot of the day and I hope I get the pics back in time for me to send it out with my Christmas cards. It was so lovely to meet Ali and Liam and when I get the pics I will put up a link for her services. One of the biggest tips I could give is having your pics done at home much less stress (IMO).
To top the weekend off we ended up going out to our local thai restaurant for yummy laksa's and tom yum for tea. The kids were such good company at tea so chatty and interesting. I get a bit sad when I think they might/will turn into sullen silent teenagers... and part of the reason why I am just loving this time in our lives.

Wow this has been a super long post but its chock full of details I don't want to forget.

I have added these pics to illustrate why I wanted our family photos in our yard. David has done all our landscaping himself... and it has been a huge job and he has managed to turn this into this...