Mum's birthday

Wow what an amazing day - my mum's birthday party.
Okay first we need a little history lesson. 8 years ago when Mum had breast cancer she said that if she made it to the age of 70 she was going to have a BIG party. Well last year, her 70th, for many reasons it got put off and put off until it ended up being Tony, the kids and I taking her out to dinner. This year her cancer has returned with a vengeance and she has bony metastases in numerous places and has had radiotherapy and chemotherapy but we have been told that we cannot stop this. Anyway to cut a long story short she commented how she really regreted not having a get together with her friends for her 70th. To which my response was "Well lets have a 71st!"
This may be the last birthday we get to celebrate with Mum so I wanted to make it special so the guest list included those that had been so important to her. We had a lunch time party at my house (Mum doesn't cope well by evening time) and we managed to gather most of her nearest and dearest.
* Noelene and Keith Larsen - They were at school with Mum and Noelene played basketball with Mum as teenagers/young adults for many years. They have always been great friends to Mum and we spent many a school holiday with the Larsens and the Riggs
* Dorothy and Tony Rigg - have known Mum for about 35 years since they moved in around the block from us in North Nowra.
The Larsens, the Riggs and our family spent holidays, christmases, birthdays, weddings etc together. They have always been a massive part of our families lives and great support to Mum.
* Gloria and Col Horn. Another couple who were neighbours of ours and who became in integral part of our lives. Gloria and Col moved to Sydney as part of Col's job in the police force.
We have many a funny story to tell growing up and 99% of them involve these above three families.
* Joy Herbert. Mum met Joy when both their boys wer einvolved in scouting and they became good friends who have supported each other through the tough years of raising teenage boys and through heartbreaks and good times.
* David and Tanya. Dave is my cousin and Uncle Les' oldest son. Mum's biggest regret was knowing that her brother would not be able to join us as he passed away recently. When I rang her to tell her Dave and Tanya were coming over from Cowra she was soooooooo excited.
* Michael, Rylee and Elijh. Uncle Les' other son. This one was a surprise - Mum's face just totally lit up when she saw him. He had worked a night shift in Goulburn and then travelled down just for Mum.
I am so grateful to these two boys for the effort they made and for being there for Mum.



It was a big undertaking and took a lot of organising and work and I really could not have done it without the help from people who assisted with the cooking and especially to Tony who not only spent time srubbing and cleaning during the week as I worked every day but who spent hours in the kitchen and cleaning up . I seriously don't think I could have managed this without him.

But the work was all worth it to see Mum so happy and she said she was so blessed to be surrounded by those dear to her.

Happy Birthday Mum

The twins turn 2!

Yeah, yeah I know I am a bad blogger! I am only about 2 weeks behind with this post - but hey I got there eventually.
Wow hasn't time flown. Isabella and Jackson Pignataro turned 2. You wonder how that could have happened so quickly but then you remember they have a little baby sister and you realise that yeah maybe time has past.
Tasha and her friend Kaysha sat down in my craft room to make birthday cards for the twins and they did a great job. The twins are growing up so much and developing their own personalities. Tasha did Bella's hair for the party - she loves doing it like this because it makes her look like Boo from Monsters Inc. (so cute)

Tash has a great relationship with her cousins. She just adores them and they love her. These are her favourite photos from the birthday - getting big squeezy hugs from her Bella-Boo.

Gifts and Giggles

Lots of fun and exciting things around here.
First has been my "Oktoberfest". Each morning I have had a little parcel to unwrap and they have been full of gorgeous goodies. Thank you so much Cass - you are such a sweetie. We have had school holidays this week and the kids have been at home with Tony. I had planned on having some time off work but actually ended up working extra this week instead. I did take some time out on Wednesday when I went into town before work to meet Miss Jane at Coffeelicious for a fresh cuppa before work. It was lovely and something we will definately have to do again.

Over the weekend Tasha had Kaysha over to stay and they had so much fun. It is amazing how you can combine two girls, an old tarp, some water and some detergent just how much fun can be had. There were squeals and giggles coming from the backyard for ages.

And exciting news! this time in 46 days I will be in Melbourne! Wooo hooo flights are booked and I can't wait. After a few knocks this week something to look forward was just what I needed so I sat down checked out flights - did some checking with SJ - and now the countdown is on.

20 years on.....

Wow....... 20 years since we left high school (well to be honest it is 21 1/2 years for me - I left half way through year 11). I was sooo stressed and anxious about it and as I mentioned before catching up with Candy and Kylie earlier in the day was great. The three of us arranged to meet at the club about 1/2 an hour before things started to have a drink together and work up some dutch courage!
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It was actually a great night. Took lots of pics - did heaps of catching up with people - oh..... and got a dance or two in! There was lots of laughs - lots of fun. We had 98 people turn up which was amazing (we were missing a small group as the "cool" group from high school decided to hold their own seperate reunion and have a beach party at Huskisson. Gee pity it poured with rain hey!......hehe now we really sound like we are back at school). In true form for our year at school we got shut down by the club an hour early due to over intoxification (against RSA to continue to serve us alcohol) and behaviour not welcome at the club (although in our defence it was the husband of one our classmates that caused the trouble... not actually one of us!).

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Sorry about all the pics but this is seriously just a portion of them

This first pic is of Kelley and I. Kel was my friday/saturday night skating buddy, my smoking partner, and sharer of many a bottle of passionpop (and whatever else we could raid from our parents liquor cabinets). I don't know how she managed it but she hasn't changed a bit. Kel and Tracey. Tracey was the main organiser of our reunion and a member of our "group" at school.

Myself, Kathryn and Tina

My saviours of the night - couldn't have got through it without them! Kylie, Tracey and Candy

Kirsty, Candy, Kathryn and Tracey

Talk about flashback! When loking through the photos taken on the night this one brought back memories - there is a very similar one of the three of us at our year 10 formal!

Tracey, Aneta and I

Tracey and her wonderful husband Rod

Kel with her 2 Rods (Her hubby and Tracey's hubby)

Of course we did the nutbush!!!!!!!

More of the old gang. Tracey, Tina, Stephanie, Tracie and Raquel

Wow - this girl and I spent sooooo much time with each other - both at school and when we left school. We had our own special nicknames for each other and our own hieroglyphic code that we wrote many, many letters to each other in. We hadn't caught up for about 18 months so it was great to sit and chat (and yes we will make more of an effort)

Yeah not the best pic but more guys from our old gang. Mick, Matt and Mick.

Yep we have all grown up..... apparently! We shared lots of old stories..... including some which totally mortified Candy..... she couldn't remember getting up to some of the mischief we had in the past and spent a lot of the night saying "Are you sure" and "Did we really do that".

OktoberFest

You have to love happy mail. And happy mail that you are not expecting is wonderful.
This week has been another stressy one with doctors visits and the lead up to my school 20 year reunion so it was very exciting to get a parcel from the wonderful Cass (so wonderful it is part of her name ~L~) In it was my own special Oktoberfest, a special package with little parcels in it. One to open on each day. Will post pics later.

Now speaking of reunions..... is there anything in the world to provide more stress and self analysation than getting together with a group of people who knew me at my worst. I ummed and ahhed about whether to go or not and even this morning was still unsure. Then this afternoon I turned up at the club to help Tracey and Aneta with the setup and in walked Kylie and Candy. It was so great to see them and catch up on all the mad things we got up to together. The thing that it reminded me was that there was a period in my young teens when I was happy and life was good before everything went wrong. Now I just have this evening to get through!

Busy Weekend

Wow what a mad weekend. The boys headed up to Sydney to see Ben 10 Live show at the Entertainment Centre. It was good to see the boys doing something together (although with trains being replaced by buses and timetable muck ups etc they didn't get to spend much time in Sydney).
As for the girls... well... originally this weekend was supposed to be taken up with Tasha's dancing Medal and Scholarship day but due to all sorts of muck ups and politics at dancing we didn't end up dancing this weekend. So what does a girl do to cheer herself up? Of course we went shopping! It was going to be just Tasha and I but at the last minute Kaysha joined us too. The girls had heaps of fun - I think we looked at every pair of shoes in Westfield Warrawong! They had lots of laughs, took pictures together in the photo booth, climbed on kids rides and generally just had a fun day out.
And to top the day off we called into see the King family on the way home!

Sunday was our hard work day. Mum and John had a large pile of crushed terracotta delivered for their new garden paths and needed it moved around the back! Kyle and I shovelled and Tasha and Tony did the carrying and we actually got the job done in just under an hour which was a lot less than we had expected (mind you we did all kind of collapse after as we just kept plowing through the work). The finished job looks really good.

Last weekend Jane and Cass came over for a catch up and I did get some scrapping done. Not overly happy with it as it seems very basic but it is the only scrapping I have done recently so I thought I had better share!

Aussie Gal

I had to put this photo up just for Miss Tash. She went to a lot of effort and was upset that no-one got to see her so I told her we could post it here! Today is the last Friday of the month which means monthly get-together with the Combers and the Hutchburys..... the theme this month was aussie bbq so Tasha went into OZ overload. I forgot to take full length pics but she had "beach hair", her aussie bandanna, a singlet top, boardshorts and thongs!

We raced around to get ready in time to drop Kyle off at youth group on the way to dinner. The problem was that when we got to Gail's we found out they had postponed dinner until next week :(
So we had grumpy old man here as he had gone down town today to spend money that we really didn't have on groceries to make something to take along to share. Hmmmm NOT HAPPY JAN!!! And a cranky Tony is not fun..... Anyway we got to come home and have some of the yummy seafood pasta that Tony had made and it was decided that it was so yummy it was good we didn't have to share ~L~ Oh and now we have enough for leftovers for tomorrow!

The birds and the bees.....

Well birds and the flowers really!
Just a couple of pics to share with you. The first one is a pic of our shed! Over the past month we have noticed two seperate nests show up - clever birds.... tucked away from the wind, roof over their heads etc etc. Both had eggs and we could see them from Tasha's room without going near to disturb them. This week we saw our first chick. Okay it looks a little scruffy and scrawny but we can't wait to see it grow. These flowers were a gift from my wonderful friend Jane. I love fresh flowers and I couldn't tell you when I last had a bunch in my home. They are beautiful, glorious colours and an amazing scent. Thank you so much Miss Jane.

Weekend part 2

Sunday was a really nice day and after taking the girls down to Nowra Fair for a spot of window shopping we headed off to Lyrebird Park for Kyle's soccer presentation. Tasha and Tegan headed straight to the trees and started climbing! I got a few pictures of the girls that I was really happy with but this would have to be one of my favs.

Kyle has been playing for Shoalhaven United Youth B team this year. They have been lucky to have tow great coaches in Dave and Jason who have supported and encouraged the boys. Under their coaching Kyle's game has improved dramatically and he was rewarded with the coaches trophy for best and fairest player. Well Done Kyle!!!!!! Can you tell I am a very proud mum?

Then we headed home and the girls headed off to the park to go visit their "secret place" which is actually a treehouse built beside a playground just near Tegan's old house. The girls then came home in a panic as there was a grass fire near her old house. The girls were in a bit of a flap so we went back to make sure her place was fine. By the time we got back the fire brigade had it under control (even though they had managed to get 1 of the 5 fire trucks there bogged!!! Good thing the fire didn't change direction!

Then I took the girls out to McDonalds for a final play together before Jason and Amanda came and picked Tegan up Sunday night. It was over way too quickly but I am sure Tasha loved the surprise and she is now counting down the days until January when Tegan will come down and spend a week or two with us!

Stunned.......

I have been reading through a series of books lately by an author named Lee Child and quite fittingly was reading this excerpt a couple of days ago
"Present somebody with an astonishing sight, and it takes about 3 seconds to develop. That was his experience. They look at it, they see it, their brain rejects it, their eyes bounce it back again and then it sinks in." Tripwire, Lee Child
We got to see that first hand on Friday night when Tasha got a massive surprise. Her best friend Tegan who moved to Qld 3 months ago walked in our front door! We had 3 -5 seconds of Tasha sitting totally still (luckily I had been pre-warned so I had the camera ready to go) Then she jumped up from the lounge and the squeals and the hugs began! She still claims we were trying to kill her by giving her a heart attack!
Tegan stayed with us from Friday night until Sunday night - way too short a period but it was great to see her. These girls have a great friendship and talk a couple of times a week via MSN. They tend to end up buying the same clothes and quite often come out looking like twins (although we did note that although they had bought matching jumpers Tasha's was in Black and Tegan's in pink.) Their t-shirts, however, were exact replicas.

Saturday also involved a catch up with Jane and Cass which was lovely. Unfortunately as per usual I forgot to get the camera out whilst they were here. :(

Family weekend away

Wow what a weekend - our annual family weekend away this year was a big one! what an emotional ride we have been on over the last few months so it was nice to get away and just have fun.
I drove to Sutherland and managed to park the car without collecting any random cyclists or adding any bumps or dings to the car (YAY ME) then we hopped on the train and headed into central.
After a slight detour when Tasha saw the Raben Footwear shop we went and checked into our motel. This seems to be the place to stay. Cass and I have been here a couple of times and we have come here as a family before as well. Convenient location... literally across the road from the doors of the Sydney Entertainment Centre... just across the road from Paddy's Markets.... a block from Capitol Theatre... and easy walking distance to Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay..... oh and Tony's favourite -- an amazing buffet breakfast. The other big plus for the Holiday Inn..... Just a couple of doors along is Cold Rock which (thanks to Haylee) is Tasha's FAV place to call in. If you haven't been there before basically you pick your favourite ice cream flavour, pick what extras you want ...... hmm lets see choices include smarties, flake, mars bar, strawberries, nuts, fudge brownies, sour worms, caramel, mars bar, raspberries etc. etc. etc..... then they mush it all together for you. Sounds kind of weird but tastes YUM

Then we headed to the Capitol Theatre to see the matinee show of Wicked. As usual just happened to bump into someone from Nowra. Hope you enjoyed the show Janelle!

It seriously was just as good the second time around. Interestingly this time the cast was quite different. We had Jemma Rix as Elphaba, Bert Newton as The Wizard and Tim Campbell as Fiyero. When Cass and I went these three parts were played by different people. Have to say Tim Campbell doesn't fill out the costume as well as Rob Mills but he does dance a lot better! Everyone loved it. Tony even stated afterwards he could understand why I wanted to see it a second time (which from him is HIGH praise). Kyle was mesmerised and Tasha thought it was "Brilliant but they kept talking about feelings - YUCK!"

Then we wandered over to Darling Harbour to get some dinner and have a look around. The kids were amazed by the buskers and the amount of people walking around (oh and the fashions - "Does their Mum let them out looking like that?" ~L~)

Then after we had some dinner we introduced the kids to the Lindt Cafe at Cockle Bay. Mmmmmmmmm Lindt.........................

Kyle had a caramel tart and I had a blueberry/chocolate mousse layer cake.

And this is the scary result when you introduce Tasha to a strawberry dipping platter! Talk about sugar high. this girl does not need alcohol when she gets older. Just give her a spoonful of sugar! After polishing this off she was singing and dancing and jumping around Darling Harbour.

Sunday we had a relaxed breakfast at the hotel before heading over to Paddy's Markets to do some shopping and then heading back up to the trian station as Tony had to be home by about 2pm to get ready for work.

We're off............

....... to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!

woo hoo - some slightly excited people here (oh and the kids too ~L~)

A week in review

Wow - so much has happened in the last week and my blog has been sadly neglected. I have posts in edit mode just not quite up to publication yet. So lets see if I can update:

* Tasha turned 12 and had a 5 day celebration starting with a party/sleepover on the Fri before her birthday, a special birthday party with Nana on the Sunday and then on her actual birthday (Tuesday) she had a cake at school (loooong story - will catch you up on that one when I get around to publishing her birthday post), then she had cake at dancing before racing home getting changed and having dinner out with the family .... which included her Dad which was a massive treat, it is not often we have dinner midweek with Tony.

* Wednesday was counselling appointments for Kyle and we are slowly getting there - working out programs for school etc.

* Saturday morning we had an early start as Tracy and Jacob moved out into a place of their own (well shared with her brother Ben) so the weekend involved lots of carrying, moving furniture and then some more unpacking

* Sunday was spent de-cluttering our lounge room and setting up the rumpus room for the kids (which has been Tracy's room for the past 12 months). I wish I had a pedometer to count the number of trips I did between the lounge room and the back room with armloads of books etc. We were also able to pull the boxes out of the shed that were filled and thrown in there in a hurry 12 months ago.

* Sunday was also the day of the big winds were we spent the day without power. The power went out briefly about 9am. Came back on long enough for Tony to go around and reset all the clocks before it went out completely! We rang Integral and got a recorded message saying it would be back on the next morning. The kids took advantage of having the rumpus room back and the boxes out of the shed to play board games.

* We rang Integral back late afternoon and spoke to someone who told us the power would be off until Tues. So out came the candles, torches and camp stove (which didn't work). After a nudge from a friend we treated ourselves to takeaway dinner. Then as we headed home we noticed the streetlights starting to come on! YYYAAAYYY Power. We got home just in time to hear everything starting to turn on and warm up.

* Sunday night Tasha's runny nose suddenly escalated into a fever of 39 and 2 days off school (including her first day off dance classes in 2 years - thats when you know my girl is sick!)

So today is Wednesday - Tasha went back to school today - still has a runny nose but the fever has gone. Tomorrow is a trip to Wollongong for another specialist appointment. This weekend is our big family weekend away! We try and do something as a family once a year and this year it is a thank you to the kids for the way they have coped with the changes in the house. So we are heading up to see Wicked on saturday afternoon - can't wait!

Tasha Party (pt 2)

Well after our late night a sleep in would be in order right? Haha. I had warned the girls that they were not to emerge from the bedroom until 7am. However, we did hear voices coming from there way before this time!
Once everyone was up we sat down to a brekky of pancakes with lemon + sugar, jam, nutella, butter...... thankfully not all on the one pancake!

We then headed out in the sun for a game of charades (or sardines as Tasha kept calling it ?!?) This was the catalyst for lots of laughter and fun Next we played the chocolate game.... if you haven't seen this before it is heaps of fun. Bascially you need a block of chocolate, knife and fork (the blunter the better), a dice and a costume (we had an apron and funny glasses). You take it in turns to roll the dice. If you get a 6 you get to put on the costume and start cutting the chocolate. You cannot eat until you have cut a piece off smaller than one square and you cannot use your hands. The fun/frustration of this game is when you have just cut a piece off and someone else rolls a six so you have to put down the knife and fork. In some instances another 6 can be rolled before you even get the costume on.

And then because you never can have enough chocolate we had fondue for morning tea before taking the girls home.

All in all a great fun time with lots of laughs.

Tasha's party (pt 1)

Wow - where has the time gone? My little girl is ALMOST 12! Instead of having a big birthday party she just wanted to have a little sleepover and invited three friends over. They all came home on the bus from school on Friday. I did offer to pick them up but they chose the bus!
Of course first thing on the agenda was to check out her birthday cards and pressies. Then we played dress ups with a difference! The girls were each given a garbage bag, a roll of streamers and some sticky tape and they had to design a dress. They were really quite innovative and not only did they make their dresses but boy the accessories were amazing.... we had headbands and bracelets and Kaysha even made Tasha a pair of sandals out of streamers! Oh and we had a massive mess at the end of it!

Then for dinner we cheated! Tasha's dinner of choice was McDonalds so we all headed out to South Nowra. Tash took advantage of the fact that she isn't 12 for 4 days and the girls played in the kids playground for ages. They were having so much fun playing and running around.

Then we came home and watched the movie "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and then the girls had a game of murder in the dark before heading outside at 11:30 at night for a game of spotlight which didn't last long as the noise levels kept getting louder and louder!

About midnight the girls were told it was bedtime - this is how you fit 4 girls in Tasha's tiny bedroom for sleeping. Apparently Tasha and Courtney got to sleep about 12:30 and Maddie and Kaysha finally dropped off about 2:00!

to be continued.....................................

Goodbye

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to a much loved member of our family. She has only been with us for three years but she is such a part of our lives.
If the kids are outside you will find Maggie trailing along behind - she loved being near people and adored the kids. She made it to the amazing age of 17 and we had her with us for longer than we had first hoped for. It doesn't make it any easier to say goodbye though. We will all miss her terribly and there have been plenty of tears here this weekend (from all of us)

Love you Miss Maggie May