The Blog is Back!!

To say its been a while would be a total understatement!  Between moving half way around the world, starting new jobs, new daycare and getting settled into our new home, I guess life just got in the way. It happens to everyone, I suppose.

As I took Kylie to her new class on the First Day of Kindergarten (agh!) I thought, "I hope I don't ever forget this moment. More importantly, I hope she doesn't".  As I got back in my car with tears slowing rolling down my cheeks I decided that I needed to start making time.  Several times since we've moved back I've talked about renewing the blog. Every time, something else managed to steal the time from me. Sadly enough, it really wasn't even important stuff. Cleaning the house, an extra shift at work because someone called in, catching up on a show because I had the house to myself, etc. I could go on and on.  I've decided that no longer am I going to let these sweet memories pass by only to be forgotten a few months down the road.

Yesterday I did something that I haven't done in forever. I picked up my camera and took photos. Now days you use your phone to document everything. It's become the norm. I've gotten into a really bad habit of this as well and because of it the camera has pretty much stayed in the cabinet for the better part of the last 2 1/2 years. But it was our last day of summer and I wanted to document everything. I took so many photos that Kylie asked me to stop so she could go to sleep!! I couldn't help it. She would be going to sleep my baby girl and waking up a kindergartener!  Not to sound so cliché, but seriously, where did the time go?

We spent the day in the pool and Daddy prepared one of Kylie's favorite meals on the grill (steak and corn). Afterwards, there was a bubble bath followed by picking out clothes, a bedtime story and a surprise from her soon to be teacher. Sweet dreams took over, and this sweet girl went to sleep a preschooler for the last time.

 

 

 

Morning came too soon. Daddy had early meetings, but we made time to give Kylie a special gift before he made his way out the door.

 

A few more photos to please mom and we were off. (Of course, its been so long since I've used any of my camera equipment the remote wasn't working and I couldn't get a proper photo of us together before we left : / ) We made it to class and this girl began her day!

 

 

I had every intention of ending this post with a sweet photo after school, but Kylie wouldn't allow me to take anymore : /  She did enter the car all smiles and insisted that she had an awesome day, which just makes my heart smile!



So, maybe I suck at this!

For all of you that are still reading (if anyone), I've got tons to catch you up on!  I know, slacker doesn't even seem to cover it.  I really do have lots to tell, photos to share, etc, etc, I just haven't had the time needed to get you all up to speed properly : (

Watch this space, I promise it will be updated soon!!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Hanukkah/ Kwanzaa/New Year (or is currently having) Chinese New Year!

Hello, December!

So, long time no post!  Time has just flown by and sadly, I can't even tell you what's been going on!

We had our trip to Fiji and it was awesome!  We pretty much laid out, ate, went swimming and ate some more.  Yeah, that's about it.  Oh, shopping, we did a fair bit of shopping.

Since we've been back things have just been crazy.  I blink and it's October, blink again and it's November.  Jamie has been slammed at work.  Lot's of late nights and even more travelling.  That means that I am on my own.  We were able to made time to head out and do a few things, most notably the Strawberry farm and most recently the Australia Zoo (which was fan-freaking-tastic by the way).  Now here we are in December, getting ready to leave for our trip to the US tomorrow.  And it's a much needed trip!

We'll be home for the next month and I can pretty much promise you that there will be no new post.  I will, however, be back in the swing of things come January.  A full update is promised, along with all the photos and stories that I've been slacking on for the last few months!

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year!!  Hopefully we'll get to see most of you during this trip to wish you well in person!

Take care and we'll see you in 2013!!

Too young to be a bully

One of my biggest fears as a parent is that Kylie will be a bully.  I could not imagine how a parent must feel knowing that their child is hurting another child.  It would just break my heart!  Another big fear I have is that Kylie is the child being bullied.  A situation that I have found myself in a few times already and I honestly couldn’t tell you if I am more hurt by seeing it or just plain pissed off about it!  I never know how to handle it and that just aggravates me even more!

For example, on Tuesdays Kylie has swimming lessons.  The aquatic center has a café and we usually sit and have lunch afterwards, since class ends at 11:30.  Two weeks ago a little boy and a little girl, both just older than Kylie (I would guess 3-4) were there with their moms enjoying lunch after their swim class.  They went to the play area afterwards and seemed quite pleasant.  Kylie noticed them playing and asked if she could go.  I told her that she needed to finish her lunch first and by the time she did so they had already left.  Fast forward to last Tuesday.  Same time, same place.  One slight difference, the little girl’s mom was not there.  She was instead with her dad.  Not sure that it really matters but thought I’d throw it out there.  Anyway, they ran off to play.  Kylie finished her lunch and asked if she could go.  Of course, I said yes.  She eagerly got off the chair and proceeded to run over to where the boy was playing.  They had a small interaction and then he went over to the actual play area and joined the girl.  This is where things get interesting.

Kylie walks over to the area.  She stops near them and just watches.  She doesn’t speak and she doesn’t try to join them.  She simply walked over and scanned the area.  I’m not sure if she was checking the two of them out, or if she was just checking out what toys were around.  I notice then that the girl sticks her tongue out at Kylie.  The boy laughs and starts to get up (he was sitting with his feet under his bottom and then got up on his knees, if that makes sense).  He then pointed at Kylie and I’m pretty sure that he made the motion with his hands like he was punching.  Knowing how the rest of the story goes, my mind could be exaggerating this.  Maybe he wasn’t making a punching motion, I really can’t say for sure.  Right after this took place, Kylie walked over to the toy basket.  I continued to watch, because as I said, at this time I wasn’t sure if what I thought I saw had actually taken place.  Kylie didn’t seem to be fazed by it so I just continued to observe.

While she was looking at the books and going through them her back was turned to the other 2.  It was at this point that the little girl started pointing at Kylie again and it seemed as though the 2 were having a private conversation.  Neither were speaking, just laughing and pointing at Kylie.  The girl then got up, walked over behind Kylie, leans in toward her and starts sticking her tongue out.  While doing this, she was shaking her head from side to side like she was saying “ha, ha”.  I almost lost it!  Right about the time I started to get up out of my chair to go over and say something the girl started looking toward me and noticed that I saw her.  The look I had on my face must have reflected exactly how I was feeling, because she stopped immediately, looked down at the floor and walked away.  I wanted to punch the little girl in the face!  Is it wrong to say that?  That I actually wanted to punch a 4 year old in the face??

All the while, Kylie had no clue what was going on.  She stood there, reading the books, playing politely on her own and my heart sank.   I sat back down and thought about what had just happened.  I replayed it over and over again in my head.  Had she done something that I didn’t see to upset the boy and girl? Did she say something to them that might have made them upset?  Was it possible that I missed something?  The answer was no.  I am positive that Kylie did nothing, but go over there and play on her own.  Yes, she did stop near them, but I did not hear her say anything nor did I see her make any motions toward them.  They simply did it because they thought it was funny.  They picked on my child to entertain themselves.  The entire time this was going on their parents had no clue.  They were having a conversation and aside from the occasional glance up, they didn’t have the slightest idea what their 2 kids had just done. 

I debated saying something, but decided not to for 2 reasons.  1 – What I had to say wouldn’t have been nice.  I was too upset and too hurt to not say what I wanted to say.  2 – Last time I said something to a parent about their child fighting with Kylie the parent got visibly upset (long story short Kylie had a toy the other girl wanted.  Kylie said no and the girl got physical.  Kylie walked away with red and purple scratches and marks all down her neck and chest.  The mom was too busy chatting with other people to even notice what happened.  I saw them fighting but the grabbing happened as I was walking over there to separate them.  I brought it up to the mom and we’ll just say we had a difference of opinion).  

A few minutes later the girl started playing with a basket.  She was putting it over her head and twirling around.  Kylie thought it was funny.  She walked over to them laughing.  When the girl started taking the basket off of her head Kylie tried to help get if off.  The girl screamed “no” so I stood up and asked Ky to come over to me.  By then it was too late.  Her feelings were hurt and she shut down.  When she gets embarrassed she shuts down.  She stops what she’s doing, looks at the ground, pulls her hands into her chest and doesn’t move.  For me, it’s heartbreaking to see.  She just stood there, completely embarrassed.  About this time the girl’s dad started paying attention.  He told her she needed to share.  I told him that Kylie didn’t want the basket.  That she was simply just trying to interact with them.  He told her again to share and I realized that he just didn’t get it.  Either he didn’t get it or he just didn’t care.  Either way, I was pissed and I walked over to get my daughter.  I tried to make it okay.  I picked her up gave her a big kiss and started to tickle and play with her.  She started laughing and we got our stuff and left. 

I spent the rest of the day trying to make up for it.  Kylie seemed to be completely over it, but I was devastated.  What would make a 4 year old out right be mean to someone?  Where did she learn to do that?  Why would a 3-4 year old think that was funny?  I just don’t get it.  Even though I noticed the girls dad glance up as all the tongue sticking-out was going on I have no clue if he actually saw it.  I have to believe that he didn’t, because what kind of parent would ignore that type of behavior coming from their own child? Had it been Kylie acting like that I would have walked right over to her and made sure that she knew it was not acceptable behavior.  She would have apologized and play time would have been over with.  I’m sure he couldn’t have seen how his daughter was acting.  He couldn’t have, right?!

Later that night I told Jamie about the incident.  He was devastated as well.  After our talk I asked him, “At what age do you start considering a kid to be a bully?”  His answer, “However old those two were today”.  I have to say, I 100% agree with him.

A Christmas table for 5!

As many of you know, before Jamie and I moved overseas it was just the 2 of us.  Well, the 2 of us plus Punkin and Budder.  It’s so weird to sit and think back to 4 years ago and how different our lives were.  And yes, at the end of this month it will be 4 years since Jamie got on the flight for Singapore. Crazy that it’s been that long, right?  Anyway, I followed 2 weeks later.  We were living in the first house we ever owned, were members of a country club, had plans to put a back deck on the house and were starting to think about buying a new car.  We were enjoying the life of a successful couple in their mid – late twenties and kids were not even on the far ends of the radar.  My how things have changed!

For example, before we moved to Singapore we spent about $100-$120 every 2 weeks on groceries.  That also included any cleaning items, laundry detergent/dryer sheets, toiletries, dog items, etc.  On a very expensive month, we might have spent an average of $150 for 2 weeks.  That wasn’t very often!!  And it’s not like we spent loads of money eating out either.  I cooked as I do now.  Well, we’ll say I cooked a full meal 3-4 times a week and we had leftovers or ate out the rest of the week.   Now I cook 4-5 meals a week, so a slight difference.

So, let’s fast forward to present day.  Jamie recently told me that for the last several months we have been averaging $1200 a month on groceries.  Yes, let me repeat that so it sinks in…$1200!!  That’s like, a mortgage for some people!!  I am now spending over 3 times more in a 2 week period than what I was spending just 4 years ago!!  Now, when we look at our lives today versus 4 years ago there have been changes.  For instance, we now have a growing 2 year old that we didn’t have before.  The girl obviously gets her appetite from her Daddy, because she can eat for days!!  How many 2 yr. olds do you know of that can eat 2 sandwiches for lunch?  Without the crusts mind you, but still 2 whole sandwiches!  It does explain why as of a few weeks ago I have a 3ft tall 2 yr old!  Maybe this is normal?  I don’t have anything to compare it to so I guess I really don’t know.  What I do know is that I don’t eat two sandwiches for lunch, so to me it seems a bit excessive.  Okay, back to my grocery dilemma.

We have also been in different locations.  In Singapore I would spend about $300-$400 SGD every 2 weeks.  For this discussion we’ll just say $400, so $800 a month.  In US dollars that’s about $625, give or take a bit for the exchange rate.  When we moved to Perth we expected it to be cheaper.  It wasn’t.  It was about the same, maybe a bit more.  After Kylie grocery cost went up even more.  To be expected.  I breast fed for about 3 months and then had a frozen supply for a few weeks more but after adding formula, stuff to make baby food, yogurts, diapers, etc. things went up.

When Jamie made our ‘guide for estimated expenses’ for this year he looked back at last year’s cost and adjusted everything accordingly.  He increased groceries to $800 per month, taking that number from our monthly average for 2011. As you can see from above, I am blowing that out of the water!  Kylie is still in diapers, but formula and baby food has been off of the list since she was 1.  We can even assume that what I spent on formula and the baby food items have been 100% replaced by snacks and food items just for her. Not likely but let’s go with it.   Where in the hell is the other $400 a month coming from???  I just don’t get it.  We are a family of 3 with 2 dogs.  For the life of me I just can’t figure it out!  Shopping her is nothing like shopping in the US either.  There are no Pop Tarts, no chocolate caramel popcorn, NO PIZZA ROLLS or BAGEL BITES or CINNAMON ROLLS!!! Seriously, for goodness sakes there are no good snacks!  Okay, this has started going in a direction that I didn’t plan, so I’ll quickly get back to the point of this post.

I can come up with no other logical explanation except that maybe we just eat a lot!  So, if you plan on inviting us over when we’re home for the holidays just consider this your fair warning.  Even though we are only a family of 3, you should plan all meals and food related get-together's like we are a family of 5!

They're Here!!!

Our family photos have finally arrived, whoo hoo!!  We were told the holdup was with the framer, but I guess that's not really important now.  What is important is how adorable my little girl looks in these photos!!  Well, I guess she's not so little anymore : (

Anyway, most of them are up on facebook, but here are a few of my fave's!

Aside from being super excited that our photos have finally arrived we haven't been terribly busy, until this weekend.  Friday night Jamie went to the footy game and had a 'guys' night, so Kylie and I hung out with a few other ladies and had a 'girls' night.  I think the girls had way more fun than the guys did, but I'm basing this purely on how bad all the girls felt the next day!  I couldn't even go to the gym since it would have been a safety hazard for me to be on the cross trainer with all the pounding and spinning going on in my head!

Jamie and I also had a date night this past weekend, which we were equally excited about!  After spending Friday night apart, we were able to spent Saturday night hanging out; just the two of us.  We went out to Southbank, had a nice, relaxed dinner and then headed over to the Convention Center to watch Carrie Underwood!  We had awesome seats and the show was great.  My only complaint was that I didn't bring my camera and had to use my crappy cell phone to take photos.  I only have myself to blame since I assumed that it would be like it is back home and that they wouldn't allow you to have proper cameras inside.  I was totally wrong, and had to watch the people in front of us take amazing photos.  Such a bummer, especially since I *love* to take photos (as if you couldn't tell that about me already!).  Still, I managed to get a few good ones with my borderline average Nokia phone.

On Sunday, Jamie had to spend the day up at work and Kylie and I spend the afternoon with our beautiful neighbors and their equally beautiful daughter, Tayla.  We were fortunate enough to celebrate her 14th birthday with her and had a lovely time at her 'Hunger Games High Tea' party.  Kylie just loves her to death as do Jamie and I!  Here are a few photos of Kylie from the party.

Kylie with the birthday girl

Kylie and her 2 sitter's from Saturday night!

Tonight Jamie gets to entertain some clients at the State of Origin game and I'm at home chatting to all of you!  He's busy with school, but at the moment there isn't much travelling on the radar.  We all know that can change at any moment, so for now we're just enjoying having him home!

I've started looking into jobs, but so far nothing that meets our requirements has popped up. Of course, I'll keep you all posted! 

Hope everyone has/had a wonderful 4th of July, can't wait until we're home to celebrate it with Kylie and all of you!!

The trip of a lifetime!

So last time I was on here Jamie was travelling like mad, we had family photos scheduled to be taken, I had another IPL appointment scheduled and Jamie’s parents were set to arrive May 7^th.  All of Jamie’s travelling went off without any issues, my IPL appointments still hurt like hell, and our photo shoot went really well, actually a little too well according to our credit card statement for that month : )  We’re still waiting for our prints/disk to come in but hopefully that will be soon.  I’ll be sure to post a few as soon as they do!

Jamie’s parents arrived on time, without any issues as well.  It was so cute to see Kylie’s reaction to them, seeing as though she hasn’t seen them in person since September.  I know that 6 months isn’t really too long in the grand scheme of things for adults, but to Kylie that’s like a ¼ of her life!  Thanks to the wonderful invention of Skype she completely recognized them and even went right up to them and gave each a hug and kiss.  Totally cute!

Hanging with Pops and MiMi, fresh off the plane!

We spent the first few days with the parents hanging out around Brisbane.  I’ll start off by saying that I am a total organizer.  Spreadsheets, calendars, lists, you name it, I do it!  If you haven’t guessed by now I also absolutely love to plan vacations as well.  One of the things I enjoy most about moving is finding out what’s around the area to see/do/travel too.  With that being said, I already had a list of things to see/do around Brisbane but we’ve been holding back on doing a few of them until they arrived.  The 2 big things in Brisbane were the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and Mount Coot-tha.  Both were nice, but Lone Pine was amazing!  There are only 8 places in the world that allow you to ‘cuddle’ a koala and this is one of them.  You can also feed the kangaroos, pet emus and have your photo taken with crocodiles (if you really want to!).  Kylie absolutely loved feeding the kangaroos.  I had no clue she would be that into it, but really the kid couldn’t get enough of it.  I actually felt bad making her leave; because I knew she was having such a good time!

Lone Pine - Kylie with her 'roos

Koalas too!

View from Mount Coot-tha lookout

After a few days here we headed up north to Port Douglas for 7 days.  It’s a small, tourist town a 2 ½ hour flight from us with tons of stuff to do.  We could have easily spent another week up there and had plenty of stuff to do.  We rented a house and car for the week and pretty much just relaxed.  We took walks on 4 Mile Beach, visited the oldest rainforest in the world, went on a tour of Paronella Park and checked out a few other sites as we went along.  The main reason for us going up there though was to take a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. 

Breakfast with the Birds - Wildlife Habitat

Mossman Gorge

Babinda Boulders

Paronella Park

4 Mile Beach



For me, I think it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done!  At the last minute Jamie and I decided that we would just snorkel and not do a dive, but if we ever go again a dive will be a ‘must do’.  The reef was beautiful and just the experience itself was amazing.  I know that we live in Australia, so some might not understand why I’ve called it the “trip of a lifetime”.   You would think that living here it’s a no brainer to go and see it.  I am actually amazed to hear how many people are from Australia though and have never done it.  When Jamie and I were dating one of the conversations we had was what places we’d like to visit one day and the reef was at the top of both of our lists.  For us it was a given that we would do it before we moved out of Oz.  Thinking about it though, I guess it’s really no different than the US.  I’ve met loads of people who have never left the state they were born in, haven’t you?  Hell, I’m from the US and I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls so who am I to judge anyone? Both are on my list though!

Anyway, I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it!  The photos below don’t even do it justice!  I wish I could put all of the photos on here but there just isn’t enough room!  Even what I put up on facebook is just a small sample of the photos we took and an even smaller sample of what we actually got to see!  My only disappointment is that Kylie wasn’t old enough to go with us.  Hopefully we’ll get a chance to take her back up there before we move back home!

Photos from the reef

When we got back to Brisbane Jamie’s parents only had another week before heading back to the states.  We spent that time going down to Manly boat harbour, Southbank and just hanging around in general.  It was so nice to have that time to just relax, especially since we’re not used to having Jamie home for that long all at one time!  Since the folks have headed back to the states it’s pretty much been right back into the daily grind but we’ve still managed to squeeze out some ‘adult’ time too.

Last day of parents visit - Manly boat harbour

The first weekend that our holiday was officially over, we had an ‘adults’ day/night out.  We went to the Doomben 10,000 (horse races) to celebrate our neighbors birthday and then from there went to a bar in the valley for dinner and drinks. It was the first time either of us had ever been to the races and we had a pretty good time.  We won a few and lost 1 big one but overall had a pretty good time.  Unfortunately, Jamie had to fly to Tokyo that same night on the midnight flight so it wasn’t the big night out that we hoped it would be : (  Since his return from Japan, we’ve celebrated  my birthday, Jamie’s had 2 trips to Melbourne and next week he’ll be off to Sydney. I’m sure July won’t be much better in the travel department either.  To keep myself busy during the nights that he’s gone I’ve started planning the rest of our vacations for the year. 

Earlier this year we decided that Thailand would be our big holiday for the year.  Since then we’ve decided to go to Fiji instead.  The reason for this was solely based on the travel time, about 12 hours to Thailand versus 3 ½ to Fiji.  Either way I’m excited.  I’ve always wanted to visit Fiji and if we didn’t go this year we would have gone next year so it works out either way. 

We’re also planning a big home trip this year.  We plan on heading out around mid-December, stopping off in Houston for a week or so and then heading over to Florida for a few weeks.  It’s a good bit longer than we usually go home for, but Jamie decided that we need a trip away (just the adults) and the only way that’s going to happen now that we have Kylie is to do it  when we’re in the US.  At this point we’re not exactly sure what we’re doing, but it’s looking like it’ll either be a cruise or North Carolina (to hang out in the mountains).  We’ve briefly talked about Vegas as well, but neither of us wants to deal with the 6-7 hour flight to get over there.  It’s pretty safe to say that this is a trip we are both really looking forward to!  If anyone else is interested in leaving the kiddos behind for an adult’s only long weekend away, consider this your invite and feel free to come join us!

Well, that’s about it from here.  Hopefully I’ll have some updated family photos to post soon but until then here’s a few recent ones to get you by, lol!

Our best race of the day, 2nd and 3rd place winners : )

My little Tiger

Kylie heading out to tell Mr. Charles happy birthday