Sleepover Party

Mairead and Hamish came for a sleepover last night. Donna brought dinner, which was lovely, then I gave the kids a shower (Hamish couldn't believe that we don't have a bath!) - and they even cleaned the shower for me! :P It took them ages to go to sleep - we sat down here and listened to lots of giggling, thumping, etc, and got up several times to settle them down. I ended up having to sit in there with them (and nearly went to sleep myself!). So we woke up at 6am this morning (since they were sleeping in our room), and I brought them down to watch ABC Kids. Alastair isn't feeling great, so I'm being lovely and letting him sleep. :) It's 9am though... perhaps the kids want to jump on him... :)

Out of the mouths of babes

A conversation between Hamish and Alastair yesterday, prompted by Hamish cuddling the wooden toy lizard we gave him for Christmas... which has lost all its legs...

H: Look at my lizard!
A: He's got no legs! He's a snake now!
H: No, he's still a lizard.
A: Yes, he'll always be a lizard in his heart.
H: (all forlorn) But his heart is broken...
A: (laughing) What happened to his legs?
H: (looking around for inspiration) Um... he grew out of them.

:)

On being a mummy...

Donna has gone away for a week, so Alastair and I are part of the team taking shifts to look after Mairead and Hamish. We've taken the first (and longest) shift - 5:30AM Wednesday to 5:30PM Friday. It is currently 1:45pm Friday. Just under 4 hours to go. :) They are going to their grandparents' house tonight and tomorrow night, then we're doing Sunday afternoon to Monday morning. Then the other grandparents are doing Monday night to Tuesday night (when Donna gets home). My goodness it's full on being a stand-in parent! I wouldn't say it's hard, but it is full on and very constant. Mairead is a fiesty almost-7-year-old, and Hamish is an adorable almost-3, (we're talking in the next couple of weeks for both of them), and they play well together... most of the time. Hamish is also toilet training - part time. Which means he's toilet training when he feels like it. :P Ohmygoodness - I am fully in awe of people who have toilet trained children now! It's such hard work! Yesterday afternoon he went through FOUR sets of undies in an hour... and STILL no wee in the potty!!! Grrr!!! And Mairead crawled into bed with us at 2:30 this morning - what is WITH that?!?!?! She wriggled, and hogged my pillow until I decided she was going back to her bed... carried her in and lay with her until she stopped crying and fell back asleep.... then stumbled back to my bed.

And now I'm sick with a bad cold. My nose is blocked but won't stop running, and I have a headache. But life goes on. :( Meaghan came down and helped me with stuff this morning which was lovely. Anyhow, the fourth load of washing has just finished... I'd better go and hang it out so the kids have something to wear over the weekend... especially Hamish, seeing as he wee'd in practically every pair of trousers he owns yesterday...

(Have I remembered everything, Alastair? Please comment if I haven't... xoxo)

Random goings on...

This morning I babysat my little friend Hamish, at Alastair's house (while he was at work). Hamish was so disappointed that Alastair wasn't here. He kept asking "where's Al?"... and when I told him that he was at work, he said hopefully "but Al will be home soon?" He's so cute. :) He talks to the dog, Matty, too... "watch me, Matty, I can climb up here all by myself!" as he climbed all over the brick barbecue in the back yard. A real little climber, this little guy is - always has been, apparently. The poor thing took a tumble and fell off though, scraping skin of his nose - I felt like SUCH a bad babysitter!!! He was very good and didn't cry much... we washed all the dirt off and joked about how he looked like Rudolph. :)

Yesterday, I started setting up a database for my students. Well, Alastair set it up, I'm really just doing data entry. :P Anyhow, I'm going to use the laptop at lessons and not have to carry folders around. Yay! :)

I have had two enormous quilts sitting around for a million years... which have only needed the binding sewn on. I'd done about half of one. Last night, while Alastair and I watched Episode 6 of Star Wars (aren't I good?) :P I got quite a bit done on it, so I'm hoping to finish that this afternoon, then I'll only have one to go. It's good to get some big jobs out of the way.

Jobs, yes, but not really wedding-related ones, unfortunately. I re-wrote my list of things to do for the wedding last week, and there were only 41 things on it. I thought that was okay... but I only got one thing crossed off! I'll have to put some concentrated effort in this week and next, given that I'll be back to teaching and everything after that.

Only 8.5 weeks/60 days to go! :)

Tired out...

So just a quick update: All my students passed their exams on Saturday, so that was a relief. Sunday was spent doing a whole lot of little things that needed to be done as well as church, and yesterday I got to be a mummy for a day, babysitting Mairead and Hamish from 8:30am til 5:30pm. Wow... it was full-on. Two more days of work til it's Christmas Eve (which will be a big day) followed by Christmas Day (which will be even bigger). I'm looking forward to a rest on Boxing Day.

A bit of happy!

Okay, I am happy again now, and thoroughly looking forward to Christmas!

Here's a little of what our last few weeks have held:

~ The beautiful wedding of some dear friends, Garth and Rebecca ~

...where these delightful little people were:

(I love the loving head-lock embrace)

* * * * *

~ A fun weekend of Christmas cooking at Donna's house ~

(Donna and I stayed up til midnight mixing, rolling and baking)

The next day we assembled...

and decorated ...

Until we ended up with this:

and a few mini gingerbread houses...

and indeed a whole town of gingerbread houses, trees, and reindeer!

Little cupcakes I made:

This is adorable Hamish trying to eat a candy cane bigger than his head...

And here he is again, dressed up as Snow White. These poor little guys with big sisters - Lachlan was the same...

* * * * *

Then we farewelled Meaghan, Michael and Jono at the airport as they left to go and spend Christmas in New York with Lachlan! I miss Meaghan...

So that's a bit of what we've been up to in photo form... beside that there's been the usual busy-ness, all the work (since Meaghan is away), my teaching (which has just finished for the year - yay!), I have my students' exams coming up on Saturday (and I'll be so glad when they're over!), we have a fundraiser trivia night at Alastair's church on Saturday night, and then it's the week before Christmas - I'm shamelessly excited! On Monday I'm looking after Mairead and Hamish so Donna can have a day on her own, and we're going to have lots of fun! I am so blessed. :)

6 weeks flies by!

Wow, I knew it had been a while - but 6 weeks!?!? A little while ago I realised that I needed to get a lot of wedding stuff thought about during the school holidays, because Term 4 is always enormous with students' exams, Christmas/end-of year stuff, etc, then Christmas comes, and since some places shut from Christmas til halfway through January (and then it will be 8 weeks til the wedding) I really needed to get a few things definitely booked. :) So I spent a lot of time doing that sort of stuff. Actually, since so much has been going on, I think I'll update in point-form:

• I helped at Alastair's church fete and made a billion sausage sandwiches.
• I performed as part of the Fisher's Ghost Youth Orchestra at our Bowral concert.
• Alastair, Donna and I went to a Sons of Korah concert - they are AWESOME!
• Mum had an operation on one of her parathyroid glands. And she broke her hearing aid. :P
• We got my engagement ring repaired - a corner chipped off one of the clasps.
• Alastair and I did the Spring Cycle in Sydney with his Uncle Jonathan. 40km - North Sydney to Olympic Park. Woo - go me! (I was sore afterwards!)
• Lachlan came back from the US for two weeks and competed in the Southern Highlands International Piano Competition - he came 6th out of 18 or so people. :)
• I made a billion phone calls to bridal hair and make-up people, had trials, and booked two ladies in!
• I ordered my wedding shoes online - it took two goes, but I have them now, and they're sooo pretty!
• We attended my friend Ann's wedding. She married Mark, my friend Bek's brother. :)
• I helped out at a school holiday fun day run by Alastair's church - I got the pre-schoolers. Wow, I was tired after that. :)
• I met with a florist, booked her in, and paid a deposit. :)
• Alastair and I spent an afternoon making a list of all the stuff in my glory boxes, so we know what we have and what we don't have.
• I bought all the vases and candle holders for the table decorations for the wedding. And spent hours picking/soaking/scraping off all the price stickers. :P
• I made an album with the pictures from our engagment photo shoot by Bethany (she's an amazing photographer).

• Alastair and I took Donna to see U2 3D at the IMAX in Darling Harbour - they are both obsessed with U2. :) I fell asleep in it. :P
• Alastair and I went to Melbourne with a family from Alastair's church (Scott, Kerryn and their gorgeous kids Ben and Emily), so that Scott and Alastair could do the Around the Bay in a Day ride - 210km! It was a fun weekend... I love the Queen Victoria Markets! My dear fiance has spent the rest of the week there, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him tomorrow!
• Meaghan did her A.Mus exam - and passed! We are so proud of her!

This week, Term 4 started with a vengeance - it's Friday night, and I've only got half the things crossed off my to-do list this week! Before I finish though, just a quick note to my almost-sister-in-law Carly: of course I don't mind if you comment on my blog! :) (But that game in Canberra was miserable. :P )

Btw, this is my 99th post. I think that's cool. :)

Oh, and we're under five months til the wedding now. That is also cool. :)

In which Carla updates her blog only 3 days after her last post!

I'm back into the world of blogging - look at me: less than a week since I last posted! :)

This weekend has been pleasant. Since Alastair and I got engaged, I think we've only had one relatively quiet weekend, so we decided that this weekend, we were going to say 'no' to everyone and everything... and it's been hard! The only thing we really couldn't say no to, was seeing Lachlan off at the airport - at 6:30am yesterday. :P

From there though, we came straight down to Wollongong, and had a quiet morning at Alastair's place... just resting. Then we decided to go and look at beds (since we'll eventually need to buy one :P) ... so we drove to Warrawong where all the big shops are that sell beds. Our shopping expedition lasted about... um... maybe half an hour or so, because we were both too tired to be bothered. So we came home.

Alastair had a ride booked with Smoz for 3:30pm, so I was pleased that (with some gentle encouragement) he decided to keep that appointment. :) I spent an hour with Kerryn chatting over cups of tea, and that was really good. After the ride though, Alastair was even more exhausted, so he rested while I made dinner, and then after we washed up he went to bed. It was about 8:30pm and I was a little surprised... I made a cup of tea and we talked for a little while, but then he went to sleep. Poor boy.

I got my stuff together and went back around to Smorrie and Kerryn's to stay the night (Donna had family staying), and went straight to bed too (they're not night-owls), which was great, as I actually got a decent sleep. :) I woke at 6:15am and soon after that, Ben (5) and Emily (2) came and jumped on the bed... Emmie snuggled down with me for a while though, and that made my morning. :) Chatted for a little while with Smoz and Kerryn, then came back to Alastair's place, let myself in, and woke him up - he'd had a good long sleep, hey! :)

Over breakfast, we had a good chat about finances, diet, exercise and other things - all things that we've been wanting to talk about but haven't had a decent amount of time to tackle... so that was reassuring for both of us, and we ARE on the same wave-length afterall. :)

Two loads of washing later, we put the bikes in the car, drove down to Fairy Meadow, and rode from there up to Bulli and back, along the bike-path. It is SUCH a glorious day - practically Spring weather - and it was lovely to have the time to do that. At the cafe at Bulli, we got chocolate paddle-pops, then rode back, jumped in the car, and raced home to watch the Swans (most likely) get thrashed (A-man will kill me for saying that!) by the Magpies. So I thought I would update my blog, have a shower, get the washing in, and stuff like that.

This weekend has been a blessing; a good recharge of the batteries I think - last week, things were beginning to look a bit tough, but it's okay now. :)

Right now, I am very happy. I feel like I could burst with all the love I have inside me - that I've received, and to give. God is good. :)

For goodness sake: it's 3:30am?!?!?!

I'm awake and I shouldn't be. But I've been coming down with a cold for the last couple of days, so I went to bed at 5:30pm last night, and now that I've woken up, I can't sleep any more. I lay there trying for an hour, but alas, my nose is completely blocked and sleep just won't come. It's very sad, actually, because I'm quite tired....

However, I'm going to be time-efficient, and update my blog. :P

Our enormous weekend (as mentioned in my last post) was just that: enormous. Which is probably why Alastair and I are both sick. :(

Alastair came up on Friday night, and we went to visit some of my friends for dessert, as they haven't had much chance to spend time with and get to know Alastair. It was lovely to see them and catch up - and they cooked really yummy individual sticky date puddings for everyone! When we got back, we watched a funny movie with Mum and Dad, and went to bed late. :P

Saturday morning we were up bright and early and down at the bike track early to meet my friend Bethany, so that she could do some engagement photos for us! It was lots of fun, and B got creative, enjoying the fact that neither of us mind being in front of the lens. :P Here's a sneak peek at a few of them: Engagement Photos!

From there, we rushed over to Woodbine McDonalds where we met up with Katherine and Joel, Mum, Megs, and Bek. We girls and mum (those three are my bridesmaids) went over to the bridal shop nearby, and I showed them the wedding dress I like. Or rather, the wedding dress I love. :) And I think we've pretty much decided that it's the one. Yay! :) Then we all went out to Gledswood Homestead, where we met Alastair and Joel, Dad, and Marelle (A and J's mum), as they were all set up and decorated for a wedding, and they said we could have a look to see what ours could look like. It was absolutely b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l, and everyone liked it very much. :)

And then we parted company. Sad times. :( hehehe :) Dad went home to mow the lawns, Alastair and Joel took their mum out for lunch, and the rest of us went bridesmaid dress shopping. I had mixed feelings about it, knowing that I'd seen a dress that Megs and I liked, but also realising that the three girls are all different shapes. We went to the shop, put the dresses on, and voila! They looked good on all three, and they all liked them! We even all agreed on the colour! Hooray! :) We went and found some lunch and talked about it, then went quickly to three other bridal shops nearby to check that they didn't have anything better, and then made our decision. It felt soooo good, and I was very pleased with our productive day! :)

Mum and Megs went home from there, as they had Lachlan's birthday get together to prepare for, and Bek dropped Katherine and I at Olympic Stadium where we met Alastair and Joel, and together we watched the Swans lose by only 5 points to... I forget which team. Oops. I'm such a bad footy fanatic. :P It was late by the time we got home, and we were very tired... which meant that we weren't disturbed by Lachlan and his friends watching movies until 4am like Megs was... 

Sunday morning we went to my church, and I got to play with Lachlan for the first time in over a year. It was lovely... except his 11 weeks here have flown by, and it was his last service before going back to the States. :(

After church, Alastair and I caught up with my friend Ann and her fiance Mark for coffee, which was lovely, and we swapped wedding planning drama stories. :P Alastair hadn't met them before, but he and Mark got on really well, so I was pleased. :)

We went back to my house and sorted out some wedding dramas for half the afternoon, then went down to Wollongong for evening church down there, which was good. Kerryn and Smorrie's 2-year-old Emily knows who I am and apparently when they say they're going to church now, she says "Carla?" :) How cute! They were sitting in front of us during the service, and Emmie called out "Car-laa", and Smorrie handed her over for a cuddle... she's adorable. :) After church we went out for dinner with Meg, Tim, and Mini-Meegs, and it was good to catch up with them.

After all that, it was no wonder that Alastair woke up sick on Monday morning, and couldn't go to work. I was glad I didn't have to teach until the afternoon, so I got to spend the morning looking after him. :)

Since then, I think I've caught what he had though. I guess that's what happens when you share the love. :P Yesterday I got all overwhelmed about a lot of things and cried myself silly, which I think didn't help my general state of well-being, as I was so tired out I just went to bed. And now here I am with this silly dilemma on my hands of not being able to sleep, but my eyes are so tired and sore and my nose is all blocked. :(

Later on today, we have a funeral to go to down in Shellharbour - dear Mrs. Powell unexpectedly went to heaven last Friday. Sad for all of us, but no doubt a relief for her, as she had struggled in the past with cancer and ill health. 

There you have it... my week. There's always something major going on at the moment... like Lachy leaves on Saturday morning....... :(

Awe and wonder...

The last time I was at the Kiama blowhole, was on Saturday 24th January... one of my stand-in brothers and I went for a drive and ended up down there. We stood at opposite sides of the lookout, watching the powerful waves crash against the rocks, each absorbed in our own thoughts... him pondering forbidden romance, and me the lack of romance in my life. I stood there, and basically felt as lonely as I've ever felt.... and I wished that I was there with someone who loved me - Michael does, but only in a fraternal sense, thankfully. :) As I stood there, tears came to my eyes... and I said a quiet prayer.

Yesterday I was there again... but this time with my fiance standing close behind me, as we gazed from the lookout and marvelled at God's creation. The wonder of God's love is amazing and so undeserved... He has planned out the intricate design of our relationship, in ways that we can never understand.

Our weekend was big and busy... minding the boys on Saturday was oodles of fun! In the middle of the morning, we took them out to the shopping centre for donuts, battling car seats, prams, trollies and rain, which I found enormously amusing. Then when we were eating lunch, Keegan (3) sneezed three times into his hand then said "yucky" as he wiped it all over the table. That was gross, but Alastair's reaction of shock had me laughing uncontrollably for several minutes. Both boys were up from their sleeps when their Dad arrived home, and I think we did pretty well for ourselves. :) In the evening we went up to Sydney for the footy - the Swans played the Magpies, and Katherine and Joel came down from Gil for it. We picked them up from Kat's parents' place in Campbelltown, and had a hilarious trip in... Joel played his ukelele in the front seat with Alastair on kazoo and U2 on the iPod. :) Ashley and Carly met us in there, so the three Wilson boys were there with girlfriend, fiancee and wife, on a triple date! Hehe :) The game ended up disappointing, but we're good sports. It was a late night, then we got up and went in to Sydney again to meet Alastair's mum and Michael, Uncle Jonathan and Esme, and Nan for brunch. Nan was up from Benalla and I hadn't met her, and Jonathan and Esme were off to Italy/France for 6 weeks, so we caught up with them all and it was pleasant. Once back home, my family wanted to go down to Kiama, so off we all went and had a lovely afternoon (even though I was feeling *sick* :P), then we came home and watched movies. I'm tired, but happy. :)

A couple of pictures from yesterday......

I am still sick...

I took my first "sick day" for the year today... I cancelled 17 students. I hate having to do that sort of thing and muck so many people around, but it just had to be that way today - this morning when I woke up I felt disgusting. I ended up sleeping until lunchtime, and feel a bit better now... I will be glad when I'm better!

Megs is sick too... we don't even have half a voice between us. Mum found it most amusing when she overheard a coversation between the two of us... I couldn't see the funny side, myself. It's actually highly annoying. :P

The only other thing of interest is that Mum and I did a lot of planning for our engagement party today, so it's good that that's underway. I need to sort out two things asap: colour scheme, and cake.

Oh, there's one other thing. On Sunday after church, Alastair was talking to Gav and Liana, and ended up offering for us to mind their little boys all day on Saturday..... hehe! What fun! Keegan (3) and Ronan (1) are gorgeous kids and lots of fun... I'm sure we'll be kept on our toes!

A week to a view...

Oh my goodness, it's been a week since I posted and so much has happened! I'm on the go all the time these days, and when I do have a spare minute, I have to prioritise and use it for more important things... not that keeping up with you isn't important...... I hope you know what I mean.

I've loved being busy, but I'm really looking forward to next weekend (13th/14th) when we don't have ANYthing on... yet. :P This weekend is shaping up to be as busy as ever - I'm sure it'll be lots of fun though. :)

Since I blogged... on Friday night Alastair picked me up from orchestra and we chilled here... then on Saturday we left early and went down to Canberra for a Swans game. Joel and Katherine came down from Gilgandra for it too - it was SO good to see Katherine again! I'd post a link to Alastair's blog here because it has a photo of him and I with Joel and Kat, but there's a really hideous photo on there of me which is ewwy, so I'm not linking it. :P We came back via the Axelbys', and it was just lovely to spend time with them - and be able to introduce Alastair to them! Their home is always open to us, and I love visiting them... was so pleased when my fiance came away feeling like he'd just made 12 new friends. :) He even managed to cuddle Michael... 

Photo courtesy of Rachael

On Sunday morning, Alastair got up early and went for a ride with Jonathan. We all got up early too, and went in with stand-in brothers Michael and Jono to meet Lachlan who was arriving home from the US! It was a loooooong wait, but so good to see him again. (Of course, I cried). We went in to Circular Quay and had brunch there all together... it had been too long. Alastair dropped in on his way back down to Wollongong in the afternoon, so my brother was finally able to meet my fiance in person. :) Lachlan brought us a beautiful hand-blown, hand-painted vase as an engagement present... he carried it all the way from PA in his hand-luggage. :)

At Circular Quay...

It's so hard to get a picture with everyone being normal with these guys!

A random pose Michael had the brainwave of and I made everyone do. :)

Btw, Alastair gets on so well with all my family. I really love that. :)

So this week we've been working hard of course with all the usual things... work and teaching and organising and all the rest. I've got an hard-back A4 book with lined pages and on the front I've written "Engagement/Wedding Stuff"... it's a place where Alastair and I can write anything we like... from guest lists to gift lists... and other things... like random stuff we're thinking about that we don't want to forget, just so we don't have to have a whole bunch of random papers lying around that will get lost. All our engagement invitations are out, and I've had 29 'yes' RSVP's already, so that's exciting! Nanna is taking me shopping in the city next week for a dress to wear to the 'party', which is really lovely of her. 

Besides all that, I've been down to Wollongong and stayed the night at Donna's twice already this week - and tomorrow will make thrice! On Monday I went down to watch the church netball game, and afterwards Alastair and I had a bit of 'us' time... we don't often get it! So that was lovely - we went to a little Italian place in Figtree before I drove to Donna's and slept like a log. Tuesday I taught all day and Bek came for dinner afterwards, which was great - life has changed for both of us in the last little while, and we don't get a lot of time for that sort of thing. She's also one of my bridesmaids, so she, Megs and I discussed colours for a little while. Still undecided. :P

I was in Wollongong last night too, as Dale and Cass (there's a gorgeous photo of her baby on there!) invited us for dinner. Alastair went to school with Dale - so they go back a loooooong way, as they're both old. :) I felt amazingly comfortable with them, and their kids, Callum and Annabelle are just gorgeous! Call me clucky, but man! I'm in my element down there with all the babies and toddlers that Alastair's friends have! :) I got to give Annie her bottle after tea and she went to sleep and snored in my lap. :) Back to Donna's for the night, and I came home this morning to have a day of doing normal stuff, sorting through boxes of wool/spinning supplies, making FGYO flyers/programmes/etc for our next concert, and working for Dad. Tonight two of my youngest students made their debut at their school solo night, so I went an accompanied them on piano. They did so well and I was so proud of them. :) When I got back, there was still a heap of work to do with Dad, and being tired, I didn't handle it brilliantly. The highlight of tonight was, of course, talking to Alastair before he went to bed ages ago.... and since then I've been finishing work off, replying to emails, and stuff like that.

Tomorrow I'm off down to Donna's for the night again, as I'm helping out at a working bee on Saturday morning at Alastair's church..... and there are lots of other things planned for the rest of the weekend too.... but for now, BED! I need to get there ASAP! I hope I haven't forgotten anything I should've written! Anyhow... right now I am feeling very blessed. God is good to me.

Love you all! xo

A couple more photos, just cos they're there... :)

Lachlan and I outside the Opera House looking over the harbour...

Daddy and his girls...

Last Sunday we went on a picnic...

On Sunday we went for a picnic with some of the people from Alastair's church... in honour of Mick and Clare's youngest daughter Ingrid's first birthday. I love Alastair's church family, and there are lots of babies and toddlers to cuddle! It was a lovely day, and here are a few pictures...

* * * * *

Kerryn with her daughter Emily, and me with Donna and Dave's son Hamish. He's absolutely adorable, and I love him to bits. :)

Me with Hamish... he usually smiles.... 

Alastair and I with Hamish and his sister Mairead. Gorgeous kids. I stay with them if I need to stay in Wollongong overnight, and they've become like extra family. :)

Across the duckpond...