Living Upside Down - Down Under

Australia Day

Today is a Public Holiday for Australia Day and I'm taking tomorrow off work too - yay for loooong weekends.    It's still summer school holidays here so I am taking extra time off to spend with Ryan before his return to school on February 12th.  He'll be in Grade One.

I stayed up way too late last night downloading BookSmart software from Blurb.com and playing around with my blog entries to make a snazzy looking, professionally bound book.  I tried the automatic option where every blog entry, every photograph and every comment is included but of course it was far too big and I got a message along the lines of  'whoa! that's some blog you have there!'  I love the idea of making my blog into a book and I especially love the idea of having every one of my comments saved for eternity :) 

Does anyone have any experience with Blurb.com?   It looks like fun, easy too but probably quite expensive to ship to Australia, otherwise known as the End of the World.  How are you saving/archiving your blog entries? ?   Any suggestions welcome!

As I mentioned, we've been in holiday mode here with the occasional day of work thrown in.  I think Ryan has been kept reasonably busy with a mix of vacation care, days at home with mummy and Amelie, weekends with all of us, visits with friends and a sleep-over at Nanny's house.  I haven't overwhelmed him with scheduled activities; sometimes it's just fun to slob around and spend time at home just doing 'stuff'.  He's outside right now helping daddy set up a new trampoline.

Amelie has also been going to Nanny's  (not overnight though) and to her day carer when I've had to work.  She's still very much a mummy's girl and loves to know where I am at all times.  We've had some sleep issues with her daytime naps (i.e. she hasn't wanted to take them and I am going mad!) but still manages to get through the night without calling out.  In the mornings I'll often bring her into bed and she'll last maybe 10 minutes before crawling out of bed, sliding down to the floor and flicking through a pile of magazines kept beside the bed.  She barely looks at the pictures; it's just FLICK, FLICK, FLICK really quickly until one of the pages rips!  I don't mind, it buys me another 10-15 minutes in bed.

Success - a daytime nap!

Practicing brushing (mostly chewing!)

Loving bathtime

Amelie and Ryan love playing under her couch, don't ask me why ;)

Water Babes

Ryan - 6 years 2 months

Amelie - 21 months

It's rare that I can actually get Amelie to sit down in the bath - it's very stress inducing to have your slippery little toddler standing up in the bath and wanting to be washed that way!  So in this pic, she's probably thinking 'hurry up with the photo already, I have a bathtub to walk around' ;)

Despite the solemn looks in the pic, they do have a lot of fun together!

Wilting

Hot.  Hot.  Hot.    Urgh!  We went to the park this morning at 10am and it was already sweltering so after a quick slather of sunblock and a swing, it was back to the airconditioned car to go to the nearest shopping centre for ice-cream.    I've never been one to enjoy sitting outside in the sun (hence my lily white skin) so these sorts of days are a bit hard to take.  We have a reverse cycle air conditioner in the house and a ceiling fan in the main living area but not in the bedrooms so sleeping is pretty uncomfortable.

My first week back at work went quickly, mainly because I was on my own in the office so I was super busy.  Ryan went to a vacation care programme on the first day and got quite teary when I left but was fine when I picked him up at 5.30pm.  On Tue/Wed he was with my parents, getting spoiled rotten.  Nanna even took him to mini golf and played a round (is that what it's called?) with him on Tues. 

Tomorrow I am looking after two of Ryan's friends while their mum goes to work so it will be me and four kids all day.....I will need a nice bottle of white by 7pm I think.  I just hope it's not as hot as it is today or they will be inside all day - arrrghhh.

We are going to Melbourne again for 4 days just before Ryan's school year starts in February for a meet-up of some online friends.  We all had babies around the same time (March/Apr 06) and we've 'known' each other since our pregnancies in 2005.  We're going to meet at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens on the Saturday, go out for dinner on Sat night (minus husbands and kids!) and get together again on the Sunday.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Now if I could only organise a trip to the States to meet my other blog friends.  One day it will happen....can I stay with you?  LOL.

Uh-oh Amelie's awake, she's only been in bed for 25 mins or so.  She never sleeps very well when it's hot so I suspect she will be grouchy this afternoon.   Might go run a coolish bath for her and jump in too!

**Squeal!** So excited!

No I'm not pregnant (heaven forbid - I'm an old timer now).  Although Nicole Kidman most certainly is and that's good news. 

I'm reclining here on the couch in front of the telly typing a blog update on my LAPTOP!!!   Wireless internet!!  Beautiful, sexy, gorgeous laptop.  And I didn't even have to buy it myself.  My wonderful parents gave it to me for Christmas - you could have knocked me down with a feather when I unwrapped it.  Totally unexpected and incredibly appreciated.

I'm still finding my way around it and having lots of fun in the process.  Now if I could only keep chubby, grubby little fingers away from the keyboard.....of course little Miss Amelie Maya is fascinated by it.  All those pretty twinkling lights and colours!

I went back to work this week after 3 weeks off and it's been super busy.  My co-workers are both on leave so there's lots to do.  At least the days go by quickly.  Ryan is on summer holidays until 12 February (which seems SUCH a long way off right now!) so while I'm working he's either going to my mum's house or to a holiday care programme, which includes fun activities like mini golf, movies and the biggie for next week, a trip to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory :)   Yum.

I feel like skipping work and going with him on that one.

OK off to surf the net on my lovely new baby.