Harveys At Home

You can see it, can’t you?  This is the only picture I was able to take that actually showed the tooth!  Terrible photo, I know but the teething continues and Cranky Pants wouldn’t sit still any longer.  I had to feed her to take this shot (hence the food all over her face.  Attactive, isn’t it?!)…  Food is always the deal breaker :) 

After what seems like the last six months of teething, this little tiny baby tooth broke though on Monday morning.  So it’s old news, really.  To all those Milk Arrowroot biscuits that make it to our house, you had better be scared!

Nine years today…

Nine years ago Marc and I got married.
Nine years ago, August was a whole lot colder I’m sure!
Nine years ago I made my bridesmaids wear dresses with no sleeves (I went sleeveless too, so felt their pain)!
Nine years ago we had an awesome cocktail party on Mount Tamborine, after all the formalites were taken care of.
Nine years ago, Marc and I started our family.  It started of small, just two, but has grown a bit since then!

In those nine years, we have moved more times than I care to count, moved cities and states, changed careers and jobs, and best of all became parents, welcoming our three children into the Harvey fold.

Feels like those nine years have gone by in a flash.
Can’t wait to see what the next nine bring!

She’s sort of leaning on her fat rolls and using the pillows as back up.  Does it still count as ‘sitting up’?

It’s raining out, there is no chance of the boys being able to expend some energy by running around and playing outside.  This is normally my ‘go to’ thing to do with them.  They love being outdoors and get a little bit cabbin feverish if we have to spend even one full day trapped indoors. 

This is what the play room looks like right now, complete with cooped up, crazy kids.  Scary, isn’t it?!

Ella is OK, as long as she can see you.  But not your back.  As in, you cannot even think about walking away from her.  Even if it is just to get something for her.  High maintenance a little today?!

Reuben is being just Reuben (there have been a few tantrums but that’s nothing unusual!) and Owen is sneezing and coughing up a storm.  It hasn’t dampened his spirits though.  The boys are playing away the morning after watching Ice Age 3, I’m hoping it’s enough to make them tired and ready for an after lunch sleep…  My fingers are crossed!    

Ella is the official Car Eating Monster.  She also has a soft spot for dinosaurs and giraffes….

But I was going to talk about something other than what the kids are doing this morning, sort of. 

I read a post from Rachel at Small Notebook, called My Day is a Series of Five Minutes At a Time.  Fantastic.  Sums up any given day at our house to a tee.  Today just happens to be a prime example.  This morning was supposed to be swimming lesson for Owen at 9am and then an appointment for Ella at 10:45am.  That was it.  Nothing else at all.  It was going to be a quiet day, filled with mucking around at home and hopefully getting some (more) washing done. 

Here’s what actually happened… 

• It was raining.  It’s been raining most of the night.  It is supposed to rain all day. 
• Marc and I both woke up not feeling great after a night of interrupted sleep.  Usually this would be Ella waking up several times during the night, but for a change it was Reuben falling out of bed and our new plan for Owen - Project Wear Undies to Bed Accident Free.  Reuben was fine, just needed to be calmed down and put back in his bed.  Owen on the other hand…  Marc and I arne’t fans of bed stripping and remaking in the middle of the night, so we have been taking Owen to the toilet a couple of times a night, with hope that this will alleviate the need to be cursing that corner of his bed that will insist on biting my shin every time I make is bed, in the wee hours of the morning.  So far so good.
• I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a bus and Marc wasn’t feeling much better.  This made for a slow morning… 
• Did I mention it was raining? 
• Decided to be nice, and offered to drive Marc to work (bike in tow so he can ride home like normal) as we were already heading that way for Owen’s swimming lesson.  Consequently we had to leave much earlier than I’d planned.
• Didn’t leave home on time.  Ella and Reuben both needed their bottoms changed before we could pile into the car.  I should be used to this and allow extra time for it.  It happens all. the. time. 
• Traffic was surprisingly great and we were going to be early for swimming but decided that we were all too snotty to be anywhere near a pool, even one that’s heated and indoors.
• As a trade off, I offered a movie of Owen’s choice and popcorn if we went straight home.  It worked and he wasn’t too sad about missing swimming. 
• Cancelled Ella’s appointment and rescheduled for next week.  I couldn’t face taking all three kids in the doctor’s surgery to Ella’s six month injections today.  They can wait until Tuesday. 
• It’s still raining. 
• There is no chance of the kids going outside to play. 
• Reuben decided that ‘painting’ the lounge with his drink bottle would be a great thing to do while watching a movie.  Luckily it was only water.  It will dry.  Eventually.
• Ella is teething, is sooky and generally not well and is not happy about anyone leaving a room without her. 
• I haven’t even packed the dishwasher from breakfast, let alone look at the washing pile and it’s time for lunch…! 

On to lunch for the boys now that Ella has finally gone to sleep and I’m hoping she stays that way for a long while (the Nurofen might help!).  Then rest time for the boys and quiet time for me………  Bring on rest time!!!

Today we had the pleasure of congregating with the rest of the Harvey clan and old family friends to celebrate Grandma’s 90th birthday!  The Harvey’s consist of five children, ten grandchildren and three great grand kids…  Add in significant others and you’ve got a room full – a party in a box!  There we also many of Grandma’s dearest and oldest friends there to break up the family connection.      

After taking ony a few shots myself, I let Owen loose with the camera.  Here’s his view of the party…

And here’s a few pictures that I took…

Poor Reuben.  Poor, poor Harvey #2. 

It is so very terrible having your mother want to take your photo all. the. time.

Where oh where did July get to?  I seemed to have lost a whole month. 

I know we’ve done ‘stuff’ in July – it feels as though we haven’t had a weekend at home in a long while – but for the life of me I can’t really remember where 31 days went!  Here’s what I can remember:

The 5th July was Owen’s fifth birthday.  Five.  I can’t believe our little biggest boy is FIVE.  Yes, that does deserve capital letters!  And a blog post all on it’s own.  I have pictures, parties, dates and cake to share with you! 

My Mum’s 64th birthday was on the 6th.  She celebrated this by spending a week with two of her dearest friends, train tripping it to Longreach and back again.    

One of the days that Mum was away (Owen’s actual birthday), I looked after Cooper along with the Harvey Three while Jode went to work.  It was a whirlwind of a day!  We even had Zac and Emily over for morning tea and ‘happy birthday’ sung to Owen.  The best part?  Owen, Reuben and Cooper play together really well, so even though four children v one adult sounds absolutely shocking, it was a good day!  Honestly :D

I tried out several pikelet recipes in my quest to find the perfect (homemade) pikelet.  Prefferably a recipe that is freezable.  I’m still not entirely happy with my favourite recipe yet.  There has never been enough left over to test their freezability.  It’s been tough.  The kids find it really hard to be my guinea pigs sometimes! 

Sticking to the food theme…  We had our first Dessert Night with the Ostenfeld’s.  They all came to our house, complete with the ingredients for dessert and Nic cooked up a storm!  She made the most delicious chocolate pudding, with vanilla icecream and cream.  It was so rich and good!  It’s my turn next time so I’ve got to start thinking about what I’m going to try and wow them with.  I’m tempted to go safe and make individual lemon merrange pies, since Nic has never, ever had a lemon meringue pie.  Isn’t that just sad?!  It’s something that just needs to be rectified!   I can’t think of a better excuse to make a dessert!!!

It has also been a month of sickness for all of us.  Two days straight I was at our GP’s office with Reuben and then Ella.  We have all been suffering from what we all though was just a cold but turned out being much more, including a throat infection that won’t go away!  Everyone except Owen is still coughing…  I think it’s been going on for about six weeks now…  Hopefully we will be past it sooner rather than later! 

Reuben started swimming lessons this month.  The first lesson was just terrible.  Horrific, if you could ask him, I’m sure.  The thing is, Reuben can be very shy and is very much Owen’s opposite when it comes to trying new things.  Swimming is no exception.  Even though Marc is in the pool with him, Reuben clung to his Dad’s neck, screaming his way through his first half hour lesson.  The next week was a bit better, no screaming and only a few tears and in his third lesson he was smiling and letting go of Marc and singing songs with the other toddlers.  Hopefully he will become much more comfortable in the water as the weeks go by. 

Owen started his second block of Kindy Soccer at ACE this month.  The kids are learning a few more ball skills this term and having a short game at the end of the hour.  They play for an hour and it’s a full on run for the kids – Saturday nap time is a long one at our house! 

I went to a Chicks at the Flicks night in the Myer Centre.  We saw Killers after having survived devine mini cupcakes, brownie samples, champagne and for those who wanted, they could have their hair or make up done by some professionals.  It was a tough night.  Great company, the movie was better and funnier than I’d expected, we each got a goodie bag, and we raised some cash for charity.  See?  Hard work…!

So July went by in a blur, hopefully August won’t be quite so full on…!

This is just a snapshot of one of our ‘normal’ days here at the Harvey Household.  The kids were having a great time enjoying the sunshine, playing happily together, and allowing me to take lots and lots of photos of them all, even smiling nicely when I dared to ask!  Having their Auntie Jode over did help with the photo taking and the nicety of the playing - she always makes things more fun!  And can you believe Cooper slept through all of this fun?!  So no cheeky smiles captured of our favourite nephew – this time!   Next time, I’ll go and do one of those things only an auntie can do and poke him a few times so I don’t he doesn’t miss out!

It’s been a while since we have posted anything much at all.  Not to say we have been idle, but the days of having hours to muck around on the peweter (just imagine Owen saying that) are few and very far between at the moment.  Three children take up a whole lot of time!

Anyway, here are a few shots that Marc took of the boys on Sunday afternoon.  They are growing up and changing so much!