Bugs, Babies & Life Stories

Thursday night, Dad, Barb & Verlie joined us as we went to Caitlyn's Presentation Night. It was a long night, but was lots of fun. The first half of the night was all the special awards and then all of Kindergarten got a book and certificate for graduating Kindy and the Year 6's for finishing Primary School. Then there was a short intermission to allow the kids to get changed for their class performance/dance. We were very proud that Caitlyn actually danced as you can see below, she has come so far this year from the shy scared little mouse to this beautiful confident school girl.

Today Andrew did his Scripture Christmas Concert at Millthorpe Public School. The kids all seemed to get involved and enjoy it and the teachers were really complimentary too. I think Caitie was a little chuffed that her Dad was there too :)

Good Morning Principal Jacket :)

Andrew, Neon Dion & the kids doing Twinkle Twinkle.

Roadie Pip wanted to get in the boot with all the gear....

As it was the 1st December, it was the day for the Christmas Tree to go up. So Grandma Werlie and Great Grandma Norma came up to help the girls decorate the tree. Once the tree was done, Verlie and the girls headed out to the garden and Norma stayed and helped Andrew and I decorate the rest of the house. We finished the night up with a yummy Roast Lamb dinner.

Caitie had her first school disco last night, after racing home from school at 3:30pm to do her homework, wash her hair and the plait it up while she munched on nuggets for dinner. We jumped in the car and dropped her off a school at 5:30pm. At 7pm we went back and picked her up and she had the best time.

We got up yesterday morning to find all of these slippery suckers all over the front yard...... The girls had a great time carefully walking around to try and find them all, but I had to pick them up as in Pip's words "ohh how gross".

I am physically and emotionally drained and anyone who has been following my facebook status would know this already.

I have no energy, hence no excerise and after 3 days last week of takeaway, I soooo need to do something. Andrew is really busy with Christmas Scripture and Carols prep, so has not been having an hour for lunch which means I can't get to the gym and with a week of high temperatures I haven't been able to go walking during the day, as its just not fair to take Pip out in the heat.

The wedding was lovely, it all went well and the girls were great considering, but I'm so glad its all over, it was a big stress and really wrung us all out.

Andrew chose this week to give up diet coke and start to exercise, which is fabulous and I;m so glad for his sake that he has got to this point as he has been miserable that he just hasn't had the motivation. But his withdrawal process has him less tolerable of things and short fused, so he also has spent alot of the week yelling!

I'm finding I have zero patience with the girls and they have just been little devils this last week, that I'm finding myself screaming way to much or saying things 5 times and just getting attitude in return. One morning this week, while I was doing lunches and eating my breakfast I sent the girls out to the toy room to play. Caitlyn came back inside trying to hide from me that she had climbing up to the shelf on the landing to open the black high gloss model paint that we used the night before on her shoes and had it all over her hands, arms and nightdress!!! Later that morning, I asked Caitie to brush her teeth while I hung out a load of washing before we left for school. While I was hanging the washing the girls came outside and started playing in the shed/dogs kennel. After asking Caitlyn to get out of the shed 3 times as she will get dirty and was ready for school, she came out and started playing on the dirty swings, it then took me 3 times for her to get off the swings. Ahhhh, she then came over to me, sporting the look of blue toothpaste all over her clean white shirt. Needless to say I was furious, I told her to get inside, wait for me to come in and don't touch anything else. Once the washing was all hung, I went to their bathroom to try and clean her shirt. I sat down on the bath and wiped both girls faces and Caitie shirt clean. I then stood up and Caitlyn told me that I had blue toothpaste all over the butt of my white shorts as Pip had wiped it all over the bath!! We are now running late for school and I had to try and find another pair of shorts.. This was all before 8:30am, you can understand why I just have had enough. Then Pip and I go to Bathurst to do the shopping and she fights me most of the time as she doesn't want to sit in the trolley or sit in her seat. the final straw was when I had my hands full leaving the servo and she has a hissy fit and will not walk out the door, so I grab her by the wrist to lead her across the drive way and she proceeds to scream at the top of her voice, "Ow, No!, Your hurting me, stop it your hurting me Owww" And of course the entire petrol station looked and me and watched to see if I 'was' hurting her, which I wasn't. I held were wrist really loose, just so I was not hurting her. Then when picking Caitie up from school, I got another tirade from both of them as they didn't want to get in their seats and wanted the lipstick I had taken off Caityn after she had snatched it off Pip!!!!! I spent the rest of the afternoon, fighting with them both and went to bed so exhausted and so not waiting to do it all again.

I just don't know what to do with them, they are constantly baiting each other and being so rude to me. Pip has started to copy Caitie in her temper tantrums and so its a double whammy.

The biggest problem is that Pip is so much more stubborn and so the fights are so much worse.

I don't know why things have got like this, its like someone has just flipped a switch and its horrible kids time... The worse thing is I don't know what to do to get my nice kids back...

I only have 2 pairs of shorts, that are good enough to leave the house in and I broke the zip on them too!!!!! Certainly has not been a good week.....

This coming week, Andrew is in Dubbo on Monday, Scripture seminars Tuesday & Wednesday, Ministers Association lunch on Tuesday, that I'm going to and need to take a plate, (Tuesday is the only day I can go to the gym without bothering Andrew as they provide baby sitting, yet again can't go!) Thursday I'm on Canteen, Friday night Alison & I are setting up for the Ladies Christmas Dinner, Saturday morning we are having breakfast with a young family from the AOG's and then Saturday night is the ladies dinner...... then we start all over again, with more scripture seminars, visitors and another wedding down the hill.......

Well the girls are screaming the toyroom down so better go and deal with it. Pray for us, that the girls settle down and that we can get back into a routine and survive the next few weeks.