3….2…1…

I’d normally wait and put photo’s up in order of when they happened but I’m pretty damned happy about these photo’s a friend took of my boys and I at my birthday party! These one’s will be put on the wall!!

You must watch this video. Show everyone you know. Promote it. Everyone needs to hear what this woman has to say after she was sent a terrible email by a total stranger.

Out for our nightly (ish) walk. Tim takes the boys on their bikes one way around the block and I walk Dougie the other. Then we meet up in the car park at the school around the corner and have a bit of a play.

Then we “walk” home…

Back up Blog.

My account for the people that host (store) discoverboo is coming to an end once again and in preparation for our inevitable fuck up and loss of blog, we are starting to take safety precautions.

I am letting you know in advance that discoverboo will probably go off line. And it will most likely be because I pushed the wrong button, clicked the wrong icon or forgot to press SAVE.

I hope to see you again.

The last two days have been just like any other. Get up, go to school. Come home. Go back to school. Come home. Fight with kids. Fight with kids. Put kids to bed. Sleep. Nothing unusual about that. Right??

Except that yesterday was ten years since we met each other and today was nine years of marriage.

Do you think we remembered?? Nope! So when I saw this photo I immediately thought…I’d be screwing us both over if I did this!!

This was Dexter the other night. He decided he was going to run away.

He has all of the essentials here. He has Gordy, his trusty Monkey. He has his Blankies. He has a power cord, and an empty red bag. The blue bag is probably to store food in when he’s living uner a bridge.

This was SO cute!

Here’s a couple photo’s from Grandma’s latest visit. It was her birthday so we got to celebrate it with her for the first time in six years.

Grandma will be pleased to know that Dexter is sitting with me while I blog and he is saying “MaMa”

I woke up this morning to a lot of giggling and carrying on coming from Dexter’s room. I LOVE that they do this sort of thing!!

Jaxon had put all of the bedding from his bed in to Dexter’s cot and they were having a right royal time mucking about in there!

Well beautiful readers, while I would love to sit here and painstakingly put up hundreds of photo’s of our two days with our South African friends…I’m too eager to get to bed because I’m heading out to spend two more days with them tomorrow!!

Tim can’t come because he can’t miss school. But the boys and I are sick and we’ve been instructed to stay home from school until Wednesday…so off to Healsville Sanctuary we go!

We had an AMAZING weekend. Words can not describe how much I wish we had known each other in person far longer than we have. Tim and George get along and have a bit of a bro-mance going on. Jeannette and I can sit and laugh for hours drawing stick figures and the boys truly adore each other!! James and Jaxon were moping around all morning until we finally had to say good bye to them on Sunday. James even cried for most of it. It was so sad.

They are, without a doubt, the most beautiful family (outside of my own!) I have ever met. I will miss them when they go, but look forward to doing it all again. Hopefully, in South Africa next time!!

(p.s…moooooooore photo’s to come!!)

How the hell did my ring get out here??

Well…I made these SILLY, TIME CONSUMING FLOWER BALLS after I saw someone making it look really easy and QUICK on Better Homes and Gardens.

It involves that spagnum moss stuff that you use inside of flower pots, some stocking legs and some flowers. You had to soak the spagnum moss in water before you could use it and my ring came off IN the bucket. Then, once I’d finished with it, I emptied it out right up the back of the yard.

The ONLY reason I found my ring is because my South African friends Jeannette, George, James and Harry are coming to visit us on Anzac day so I decided to tidy up the back yard a bit. Weeding.

I was just casually picking out weeds when I spotted it out of the corner of my eye and without a word of a lie I said “You’re fucking kidding me”

Talk about the luckiest wedding ring in the world right?? I have a nose ring, which I have had for nearly 12 years now. I have lost it so many times (in the house) and found it so many times that we always call it the luckiest nose ring in the world (I get so depressed when I lose it!) I have found it in the most bizaare places where you typically would not even think to look. But to find my wedding ring, which I honestly thought I had lost down the drain, laying in the back yard like that…makes it even luckier!

Maybe you need glasses??

Here’s a clue…

My loyal fan may have noticed recently that I stopped posting on the 5th of April. At the same time, I also deactivated my facebook account and turned my phone off.

Why?? Well, amoung other reasons, I lost my wedding ring. And this upset me a lot.

I first noticed it missing in the shower. So logic would have me think I lost it down the drain. I spent the last two weeks standing in the shower and getting all depressed about my SECOND wedding ring going missing.

Well…I found it. So here’s a photo of where I found it.

Let’s call my ring Wally for a moment…

So today Jaxon was out in the sandpit. He came over to me where I was doing some plant potting with his little digger.

He made the digger pick itself up with it’s bucket (or whatever technical term you’d use for the bit that picks up the dirt)

This is the conversation that followed.

Jaxon: Can real diggers do that?
Mum: Yeah, I suppose so.
Jaxon: Can we go and ask a worker to do it for me?
Mum: No Jaxon, I suspect it’s very dangerous.
Jaxon: It’s ok. He just has to make sure his boss doesn’t see.

WTF!? Where does he get this stuff from??

Then the other night he asked me if he could meet the Easter Bunny when he comes to visit. I told him probably not since the Easter Bunny is a very shy creature. He told me it was ok, he would cuddle him and it would be ok!!

Jaxon and I spent a lot of time making his Easter hat for the Easter Hat Parade put on by the prep classes at his school today. When I say “and I” I really just me…the AND I bit. Every step of the way I would say “Jaxon come and we’ll do this that or the other for your hat” and Jaxon would inevitably get bored after two minutes of doing it and leave me to it. He did glue most of the aluminum foil on to the hat and he did put a layer of gold gliter paint on it and he did glue three chickens on it. But he had nothing to do with the paper mache bit, or the construction. That was apparently below his interest levels!

I was so proud of him. The parade was AWESOME!! All of the kids came with the different hats and they all looked so pretty.

Jaxon got up and made a little speech about his hat and how HE MADE IT. I’m ever so proud of him! That’s going to have to wait for the next post though!

Dexter cheering on from the side linesThe little girl to Jaxon’s right is Em, his on again off again (five minute rotation) best friend. We meet in the morning and we hang back and play in the afternoons. There is a lot of “Em’s not my friend/Jaxon wont play with me” at the moment

To build Jaxon’s confidence up we found him a Karate class to go to on Thursday night. This was his first visit and he HATED IT!

He stayed for half an hour and participated but then he got a little overwhelmed by all of the running and screaming and he wanted to stop. We let him stop, but we made him stay for the entire class. Hoping that he would eventually join back in.

That didn’t happen. He sat with one or the other of us and kept saying “I want to go home. Are we going home now. But when are we going home? Is it five minutes yet? Oh it’s taking so long” I was ready to strangle him by the end of that half hour!!

So here is where I say…I’m SORRY MUM for…the ballet classes that I quit because the room was too cold. The piano lessons I quit because I couldn’t get my head around there being more than one set of scales and how will I know which ones to push. I’m sorry about the Judo classes I didn’t want to attend because the instructors nails were too long and dug in to my arms all the time. I’m sorry for the flute lessons that I stopped playing after 4 months. After you brought me an $800 flute. I’m sorry for everything and anything I ever started and wouldn’t finish and I’m sorry, because I probably bitched about it all the time too.

The funny thing is, we hadn’t even left the car park before he said to us “I miss Karate” Come hell or high water…he’s going next week!

I’d just like to correct my error from my last post. It would appear that Nanny and Poppy have been married for 39 years. Not 36 as previously stated.

I’d also like to clarify, for the record…that when I was writing that post I wondered in to Tim and asked “Have your parents been married 36 or 37 years?” and Tim’s response was “Something like that”

Tim’s currently reading the Lord of The Rings series for the first time, though he has seen all of the movies.

Tonight he tell’s me that the more he get’s in to the books the less he remember’s from the movies. I proceed to tell him that all I really remember from the second movie is the ending where they walk over the hill top and look down in to Sodor.

You didn’t see it did you? Or did you immediately recognize that Sodor is the Island that Thomas The Tank Engine lives on?? Tim’s says “I think you mean Mordor Dear”

What?? I think it would sound awesome if Gandolf turned around and said “Buff my Buffers – YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!”

Tell me you can’t see the similarities?

Yes, I need a life.

And look who else had a blast showing us around Jaxon’s classroom??

I’ve been a bit lazy about this! Jaxon starts school in two days and it’s all about closing doors and opening windows in this house. Even Dexter will be starting a half day of child care on Friday…this Mamma is not liking letting go of all her babies all at once!

Jaxon: Mum, are we going out for dinner tomorrow night?
Mum: Nope.
Jaxon: Are we going out for dinner the day after tomorrow night?
Mum: Nope.
Jaxon: Are we going out for dinner the day after the day after tomorrow night??

In the car, passing a new McDonalds that two days previously hadn’t even been half built.
Mum: Wow.
Dad: See, I told you. Shocked me when I saw it too.
Jaxon: Yeah…it shocked my head off too when I saw it. It shocked my whole body off!

And then, randomness from the boy at dinner tonight. I have no idea where this came from, or why it came to be either!
Jaxon: Mum, we have to make a great big meatball…and paint it blue.
Mum: Um, o-k…

Our landlords promised to frost over the open window at the front of our house so that people wouldn’t be able to see through at night time. It’s one of many lies they’ve told us to get us in to this house.

To rectify this problem…I paint!

It looks awesome at night time from the outside!

29th November 2011 – 10th December 2011

Grandma took Jaxon to see the Werribee Open Planes Zoo. This is about the only photo she took with the camera. Apparently…it was too hard to push the button so she took her photo’s with her phone. I don’t have those pictures

Dexter loves his Grandma!And finally, Tim and I learned that Grandma’s are excellent for flogging off the things you can’t be shagged doing to. Christmas tree’s are so annoying to put up!

Thank you Grandma for your visit. We look forward to seeing you again soon!

I’ve got some catching up to do…so forgive me if these posts are a little out dated

If I add these birds to the two mobiles I made with them, I think I may have made over 250 paper cranes!

I never want to see another bird again!

Have I told you how much Dexter can eat?

The boy can eat! And he’s so messy! We had no idea how lucky we got it with Jaxon not wanting to get his finger’s dirty in his food! Dexter on the other hand, if it’s within arms reach…it’s going in the mouth!

The other day I caught him wondering about the house with a soapy bit of steel wool in his mouth! When I took that off him, I also found the Rinse Aid for the dish washer hidden away behind him. That’s when we decided to baby proof the kitchen properly I’ve taken flies out of his mouth, three day old biscuit thats been hiding under the table. ANYTHING!

Well, this is what he did to his cake for his Birthday BBQ. He was totally unstoppable. If we hadn’t taken the cake off him I’m pretty sure he would have eaten until his belly exploded.

He actually tried to eat the NUMBER ONE candle!

Like all little boys, Jaxon and Tim ( ) LOVE fire engines. So when the local CFS held an open day over the weekend we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take him along.

Chick Magnet!!Jaxon took this last photo. I think it’s framed very well for a four year old who has had to figure out how to press the button with a hand/arm that barely reaches it!

I understand that it must be lot’s of fun for you to be hacking my site to impress your zit faced friends. But please stop. I do not have the time NOR the ability to be chasing my tail around trying to figure out what the fuck you have done to my documents!

As I said earlier, I’ve been working on a few projects lately. This is the crane mobile I made for Jaxon’s kinder teacher. There is still one more bird to add but it will need to be made in the morning because Jaxon is going to colour it in and it will go right in the middle at the bottom.

There is about 4 hours of bird folding there. Three hours to make the hoops and three hours to hook up and thread the birds to fishing line.

Now to figure out how to package it so she doesn’t have to spend three hours untangling the birds!!

At the moment I feel like I have TOO MANY projects going all at once. Most of them, I can’t do while the kids are awake.

I started this project a few weeks ago. I’m going to make hundreds (well, at least 50!) origami paper cranes to hang from the ceiling that joins all of our bedrooms together.

I started these but then scrapped them, because I was trying to make perfect squares out of A4 paper. Which, is actually very difficult. When the squares are off even just a tiny bit…the birds come out messy and I’m anal retentive so that’s just not good enough.

I’ve got some new squares, cut for the purpose and have started again. Only this time I’m making a mobile out of them for Jaxon’s kinder teacher who is sadly leaving for a new job next Friday. So the ceiling birds will have to wait.

Before I decided to scrap these birds I wouldn’t let Jaxon touch them. All he does is break them and then I have to make more. I don’t know if you’ve ever made an origami crane but they’re time consuming. And though I’ve been making them since I was 9, I don’t want to have to keep replacing the one’s I let him play with.

When I decided to get the right paper to do the job the one’s I had already made became Jaxon’s to play with.

I didn’t tell him to colour code them. He did that all by himself. When he’s naughty Nanny and Poppy joke that it’s MY side of the family in him (“That’s the (insert Surname here) in him”)

I’d have to say that a more accurate statement is that when he does things like this…that is MY side in him coming out. Tim will tell you it’s anal. I will tell you it’s just well organized!!

The window in the back ground is my handy work too. When we first moved in the land lord/real estate agent told us they would have the window glazed over “in a few weeks” so no one could see through. As per many other broken promises from them, it’s been months now and still it hasn’t been done. So I painted my design on there with acrylic paints which can be scrapped off and redone as I please. I actually like it that way. I’m thinking about changing it again soon. I get bored easily

A few weeks ago Tim and I had an appointment to attend at the hospital together. On the way, Tim ran out of petrol and had to push his bike a good kilometer to the nearest petrol station. While I waited for a parking spot, in the off street car park we frequent, I got this news via text. I pulled in to the empty space and got out of the car to call Tim. Then I was running late so I rushed to get both boys out of the car and off to the appointment we went.

On return to the car park, it turned out that I’d actally parked in a NO PARKING space without even noticing. We got a $122 fine for doning that. Even though we technically PAID for the car to park in that particular parking lot. The last three spots in it are reserved as NO PARKING with a tiny little sign that no one takes notices of, because after all, you’re in a parking lot…which you pay to park in. Needless to say, we were pissed. It’s purely revenue raising bullshit that traps people in to parking in three spots that are not car parking spaces.

But I just found this interesting article and thought to share it with you because it made me giggle. I hope it makes you giggle too and wish I’d had just as many good excuses to get myself out of a parking fine!

This is the infringement notice this man recieved in 2004.

You can click on the image to get a clearer view.

This was his response to said notice.

New Zealand Police
Infringement Bureau
PO Box 9147
Wellington

Good morning,

INFRINGMENT NOTICE NS3735700

Yesterday, I was presented with the above infringement notice (copy attached for your records) while returning home from the Parachute music festival at Mystery Creek near Hamilton over the long Auckland Anniversary weekend. I had a most excellent weekend, but that is not why I’m writing to you at this time. Unfortunately, there are a couple of irregularities with the infringement notice that are causing me some consternation and hopefully you can clear them up or, preferably, forget about the whole thing entirely.

Firstly, the ‘date of offense’ is listed as the 23rd of June 1974 with the time being at or around half past six in the evening. This is of grave concern to me because I was not issued a drivers license until sometime in 1990 and I have no desire to be charged with driving while not legally licensed. I do not have a clear recollection of very much at all before I was three and a half years old, so I rang Mum to see if she remembered what I was doing that day. She said that – coincidentally – I was born that day!!

Mum mentioned that I was born at around five o’clock in the evening on that day in Porirua, which is not far from Wellington. She also said Porirua was a bustling suburb of young, low-income people who were trying to get ahead. Back in the 70′s, people were coming to terms with oil shocks, high-inflation and wage freezes, but that’s not important right now.

For me to have traveled from Porirua to the foot of the Bombay Hills just out of Auckland by six thirty, I would had to have crawled into the first car in the hospital parking lot and headed for Auckland at around 1,000 km/h. For this reason, it is entirely possible that the constable who clocked me back in 1974 was holding his laser equipment upside down and instead of doing 116 km/h as per the infringement notice, it is more likely that I was doing 911 km/h.

This is where it starts to get really strange. The car that I must have crawled into had the same license plate number as the one I have now – AEH924 (according to the infringement notice). However, my car is a dark gray Nissan Bluebird SSS, with dual cup holders, 1800cc’s of grunt, air-conditioning and electric windows.

You will notice that a time-travel option is not included on this model, so that rules out any ‘Back to the Future’ issues and the car I was driving back then could not have been the the one I drive today.

This is clarified by the infringement notice which states that the vehicle was a Honda saloon. How this relates to my Nissan Bluebird, I cannot fathom. I can only hypothesize that, back in 1974, the first range of proto-type Hondas had an automated number plate changing mechanism (like on the A-Team) which were used to avoid parking tickets and facilitate safer getaways from burglaries, armed hold-ups and the like.

So to recap, it appears that on my birthday on June 23rd 1974, I crawled out of the maternity ward, hijacked a seriously high powered Honda saloon with an automated number plate changing mechanism, drove to Auckland at close to Mach 1, was pulled over approaching the Bombay Hills and unwittingly changed the automated number plate changing mechanism to show the same number as a car I would own almost thirty years later!! (The chance of selecting the same number plate is a mere 1 in 308,915,776 – so quite conceivable)

I am currently residing at the address listed at the top of this letter. I expect you will want to apprehend me fairly shortly now that we’ve established that I may have committed the following offenses:

- Grand theft auto (I probably stole the Honda as my parents drove a white Ford Cortina at that stage)
- Driving without a license
- Driving at a ludicrous speed using a motor vehicle
- Evading the law using an automated number plate changing mechanism.

If you could provide a clearer indication as to why the ‘date of offence’ is the same as my birthday, and why the vehicle make and type bears no resemblance to the number plate listed on the infringement notice, it would be appreciated. Mind you, I wouldn’t be too disappointed if we agreed to let this one go. I could really use the $120 dollars as I’m lowering my Nissan, installing excessively noisy waste-gate and boring it out for better performance in the street drags down Te Irirangi drive and around Weymouth.

Thank you for considering my submission, I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

(Signed)

Justin Lee

This was the response he recieved.

Lucky Git!

Dexter is taking after his big brother and forming the cutest ever mohawk. The only thing is it only sticks up when it’s wet!!

Jaxon’s Mow disappeared as soon as he had his first hair cut…so Dexter is never getting a hair cut!

(I have to dig out pictures of Jaxon’s one, his was super cute and stuck up without being wet or needing gel!)

This was floating about on facebook a few weeks ago.

One of my girls is a teacher and wanted something a little more exciting to put up on her classroom wall so I turned it in to this…