Life

What a busy couple of weeks it has been.

A lot of time has been spent at lawyers offices fixing up trusts & setting up our own family trust. There has been numerous trips to the other side of town to check the post office box & go to the gym or swimming, and then there is always the boys activities.

Brent especially, is very busy this term. I have kind of made it that way in hopes that maybe by doing more sporting activity he might burn off some of the energy he seems to have. he seems to have hit a phase of "silliness & show offness". It gets on my nerves after a while & then there is still the talking back. It just might be a phase but he seems to be enjoying the activity so that is nice. He's not going to be a great sportsman, he'll probably be a muddler like me, can turn his hand at any sport & have fun doing it. He still doesn't seem to have that competitive urge except if it is against James.

So what is Brent doing? On Monday's at 7:25am he has an hour long tennis lesson. He has really only just picked up a tennis racket this term & he really seems to be enjoying it. On Tuesday lunchtimes he has his football practice. On Wednesday mornings at 7:40 he has about 20-30 minutes of fitness at school. Thursday after school he has an hour long football practice. That's the one that Scott goes to & lends a hand at, because he is actually the team's manager. On Fridays at 5:00 both boys have swimming lessons, still out at QE2. Then on Saturday he plays his football game. The fitness that he is doing is starting to show in his football game now which is wonderful.

That's the activity & then on top of that there is the school work, the homework & a few extras that weren't on the list last term. One extra is that both boys have to learn the words to a particular hymn & a particular song (Somewhere over the Rainbow) for the music evening that is coming up on 1 July. Brent also has enrichment this term. Enrichment is when the boys pick a topic to research & do a presentation on. Brent has chosen Christchurch history. He has already found a couple of intersting links to his ancestors. One of them was finding out that the Manson side of the Criglington family arrived with William Deans before the first 4 ships. The other fact is that a Jackson relative (the Francis side of the family) built the first church in Christchurch.

James is also busy this term. I have kept his activity minimal but some of it is school enforced. He has Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) on Wednesday morning with the other year 1 & 2 boys. On Friday he has swimming lessons & on Saturdays he plays football within the Burnside Football Club. He is still struggling with his reading, spelling, writing & maths, so he is going to remedial reading. This means more homework than other boys & it has been a big workload, sometimes I don't think his teacher realises how much work he has. I have been limiting the amount he does to more than the minimum but nothing excessive & sometimes he still doesn't get the worksheets completed. He has had a success this term already in that in the last week he has been moved up a spelling group! I am really thrilled, because it has come about since I bought magnetic letters & got him to start off learning to spell his words by putting the letters on the fridge. I then also get him to write them down (he still has letter writing issues on B, D, P Q & his N & H can look a lot alike) & then he says it to me. This happens each night & it takes about 10 minutes but it really is starting to help him I think. Now on top of that he has to also learn those same two songs as Brent & he is also learning about 6 -8 dances for folk dancing night on 19 June.

So really it is not just me being busy ferrying boys to & from school & various times of day but they are full on too.

Mum had her third round of iv chemo go in last Thursday. It would seem that this time it has really knocked her about. She has not been feeling at all well & can't seem to be very far from the toilet. I have been ringing her up to check that she doesn't need any groceries or anything while I happened to be over that side of town clearing the post box. I also took up some fruit & veges on Friday so maybe she can just make herself some pumpkin soup when she has just a bit more energy. Jo seems to be worried about mum getting isolated up on the hill, & yes I think that could happen if we let it, but I will try not to let that happen. At the moment I think mum would just like to die peacefully in her own bed up on the hill. She is certainly not in the mental zone to buy a new house on the flat & then it really isn't a good time to be selling a house anyway. She should have sold last year when we suggested it but she didn't want to. Even now she says there is too much stuff that needs to be done around the house before it could be in a decent state to be sold. I really think a better option might be to see if we can't get a private nurse in, if needed, rather than put mum through so much upheaveal at this time in her life.

So after having the thought that she was dying compartmentalised away in my brain & not really thinking about it, trying to stay positive, all of a sudden I am faced with it again. I suppose this is going to happen more times & maybe each time it will get easier to face, but right now I want to bury my head back in the sand or in my case, in scrapbooking the living, the memories, however I can't seem to scrapbook anything to do with mum. It feels wrong to say that & rather stupid not to while she is still here, but it hurts already.

LO: Beach BBQ

Last year for our Christmas celebration with dad we went to Corsair Bay for a picnic dinner at the beach. We were very lucky with the weather & it was a lovely sultry afternoon & evening.

The layout uses a kit from Club Scrap digital. The sun like brads come from Lisa Minor.

The journalling reads:

To celebrate Christmas with Grandad we all went to a BBQ at Corsair Bay. It was a wonderful warm afternoon & evening spent at the beach playing in the water & the sand.

Winning Day layout

This layout was completed at ScrapCamp. It is about the day last year when Brent's team won the soccer game & Brent got awarded "Player of the Day".

The journalling reads:

14 July 2007

What a day!

You were playing Celtic & it was the only game you won all season. Not only did your team win but you won player of the day!

Macaroni

Blog Prompt: On May 7, 1660, Isaack B. Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patents macaroni. What is your favorite macaroni dish?

Mum used to make us macaroni cheese a lot when we were young, somehow it seemed to be so often that I started to hate it. I am really not sure if it was all that often but it just seemed like it to me at the time.

Now James just loves macaroni cheese, it has become quite a regular fixture during the winter months on a Sunday for lunch. I still don't like regular macaroni cheese but if tuna gets stirred into that mixture, wow that's a whole different story! I just love my macaroni cheese & tuna!

Independence!

Blog prompt: May 5 is Cinco de Mayo. How would you celebrate Independence Day if it was today?

Haha! New Zealand doesn't have Independence Day but why I am laughing is that today is the first day that the boys are back at school after a 3 week school holiday.

How am I going to celebrate my independence from the boys for the day?
Firstly I went for a jog. I really didn't do well & found out that I am so unfit that I couldn't even run for 10minutes non stop. Never mind I walked for at least 30minutes & that has to count as exercise.

Next I am going to enjoy the silence of my house. No, I am not going to turn on my music up loud & dance to it, because really I just love the silence at the moment. No moaing, no whining, no "when is it (insert correct food time) time?" questions & no fighting. Have to love that silence!

After this post I am off to enjoy a hot shower with NO interruptions or children talking through the door at me.

I will do minimal housework today, Scott was warned of this fact last night, & instead do some scrapping or sitting in the sun & reading a book.

That is how I am going to celebrate this day, my first day with the boys back at school. My first day of independence.

Layouts!

This layout was done at ScrapCamp using paper from Club Scrap. Swimming like a stingray refers to the swimming class he was in at the time (Stingray).

This layout, also made at ScrapCamp uses a kit from http://scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz/ This is Brent with his great granny, who we all knew as Granny.

This last layout was created using a Club Scrap digital kit & using a sketch provided for the Pro Scrapbooking League competition.

The journalling reads:

Your 8th birthday
It was a hot Tuesday.
We had had the school prizegiving in the morning & then we all went to lunch at Sevanti.
We invited granddad, aunty Jo, Amy & Andrew to have afternoon tea with us.
We had presents, mum & dad gave you a camera.
The small photos of Phyllis, nana & granddad are some of the photos you took.
Then it was cake time.
Looking at the photos now I can see you only had 6 candles but you didn't seem to notice on the day.

Back again

Wow I haven't blogged for a whole month! April seemed to rush past in a blink of an eye.

Here's a quick update about what happened in April.

April 1-11 the boys were at school. They are still on holiday as I type this & I am really looking forward to them going back to school on Tuesday. I managed to catch a UTI which quickly moved into my kidneys to become a kidney infection. I had to spend an afternoon at the hospital getting iv'd antibiotics & saline into me. I think it was a bit of a shock to all 3 of the males in my house!

April 10 mum started chemo.

April 12 -19 we were on the Gold Coast staying with Dad & Janet. We got a ride on the boat & went to Dreamworld for a day. The boys did some fishing off the jetty but only Scott caught a fish which we threw back. James did get something on his line though, but we don't know what because he didn't wind his line in.

April 24 -27 I was at http://scrapcampwlg.blogspot.com for my yearly scrap camp. I loved every moment of it & it is the one scrapbooking event that I look forward to each year & try to give Scott as much notice of it as possible so he can take a day off work. I completed a few layouts (I've scanned a couple so I will put them in another post) & also a birthday calendar book.

On the Monday mum took the boys & had them for Monday through to Wednesday, which was nice as it gave me a chance to really recover from all the triping about on top of the infection that I had.

Thursday mum had iv chemo again & this time she had a bit more of a reaction. She suddenly felt dizzy & was really feeling the cold so after we picked her up we stayed with her until her sister arrived. We went up again on Friday with a crockpot full of chicken to have dinner with her. I think the episode rather scared her so I really hope that she is starting to feel better today.

Soccer (sorry football for those in any country other than the USA) was cancelled on Saturday. We were very thankful because it was bitterly cold & there was snow on the Cashmere hills. Luckily there was none at our place.

Well I think that catches everyone up on what we did in April. Hopefully I'll become a more regular blogger again once the boys get back to school.