Moments to Treasure

I have moved

2010-06-19T22:21:00.002+12:00

from here to here

http://momentstotreasure.wordpress.com/

I have to have a play around and get things the way I like it but for now I have moved this blog over there. I wont delete this blog but wont update it anymore. I need tog et motivated to do a big up date, maybe that be tomorrows mission.

All sorted

2010-04-19T13:35:00.003+12:00

Its so nice to have a fresh clean space to work in. I got rid of loots of stuff and changed the storage of some things.

Love my paint rack, got it from trade me from person who makes spice racks and he made one to order with measurements i wanted.

Paper/cardstock another addiction maybe?

And the paper/cardstock that doesnt fit into my other paper carriers

I have been sorting

2010-04-18T20:08:00.002+12:00

After visiting Ali Edwards blog and all the talk of sorting for getting ready for doing the week in the life project it got me in the mood to get my scrapbooking space sorted and downsized. This is the mess half way through the sorting when I wondered why i started,lol. I will get a photo tomorrow of the finished and tidy scrapbooking space. I must say it does feel nice to get it all sorted and get rid of stuff that I'm not going to use.

This is my not so small collection of kaisercraft beyond the page and albums

And the over flowing container with all my other mini albums added to it

I'm trying to make gifts this year for Xmas and there were a few things in this box that I will use as gifts so that should free up some space.

PS. Thank you for the lovely comments everyone left in my last post, then mean alot to me.

Challenge for Scrappin' Patch

2010-04-17T19:57:00.003+12:00

Boyzone challenge over at Scrappin Patch was from Hannah to scrapbook a layout about a struggle/challenge you have with one of the boys you have in your life. Here is my take on the challenge.

The journalling reads:
Just over 6years ago Steven was diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay as well as being deaf in his left ear. It has been a very long and somewhat hard journey that we have travelled to get from there to where we are today. Endless appointments for hearing to make sure his good ear is still okay, speech-language therapist, Early Intervention Teachers(EIT) and Educational Support Workers(ESW). Less than a year after Steven was diagnosed my married ended and I felt very alone, but living with someone who does not accept that there is need for intervention and that Steven did have autism was too much to deal with. Routine was Steven's way of coping and knowing what was going to happen next. For many years visuals were my life saver in explaining/showing Steven what to expect. I have many boxes of visuals from over the years from toileting and bathing to haircuts and what’s for dinner. At one stage I even had them in the car to show him where we were going after school whether it was home or down the road to the dairy. Steven need for routines and to know what was happening made me become a very organised person but it in all honesty it drove me mad that we couldn’t just pop out or go and visit someone whenever we had some time. Over the years I learnt to deal with these struggles that I had but also remembered that Steven had the most struggles to deal with. At kindy Steven had full one on one support right through, once he was at school that all ended and he was pretty much left on his own just to cope the best he can. It frustrates me that there is not enough funding in school to support kids like Steven who with a few hours of one on one a week would make things so much easier for them. Holidays are hard work and I love both my boys to bits but I don’t enjoy holidays much at all. They are both so different and as they get older Liam doesn’t want to play by Steven rules and doesn’t want to spend lots of time with Steven, yet Steven still wants to spend lots of time with Liam. I struggle with the fact that academically Liam will be ahead of Steven by the end of this year if he’s not already. It frustrates Steven that Liam knows things that he doesn’t and I can see this will be another struggle to deal with as the years go on. Steven loves school because once again it has routine that he needs. He knows every day what is going to happen its written on the board when he gets to class, he knows what day he has maths which means going to another classroom he knows what day his teacher has release day and he has a different teacher, but when he doesn’t know or he is unable to tell me that there is something at school happening that he doesn’t like I have a hell of a job getting him to school. Most of these days start with me having to physically getting his dressed myself cause he wont do it by himself, followed by him not getting out of the car once we are at school leading to him screaming as he holds on for dare life to his booster seat which of course makes people turn to stare to see what on earth you are doing to that poor child. 90% of the time I can block out the stares and ignore the comments made but that other 10% of the time I break and end up in tears and I question the job that I’m doing am I doing the right thing for Steven, should I do something different? Many people have asked how I cope being a single mum with a special needs child, the honest truth is most of the time I don’t, behind closed doors I struggle and there are days where I feel like I’m drowning. I struggle with not knowing how Steven will come in the coming years with college and the forever changing routines that come as time goes by. I have guilt after getting annoyed and frustrated with him because of something he does or doesn’t do but when I calm down and think about it half the time I'm sure he is frustrated and confused about this world we live in. But most of all my heart breaks for him when he has to deal with change, its part of life and he is made to deal with it, he has to fit into what everyone else calls ‘typical’ or ‘normal’, he has to change who he is so that people like him or will be friends with him.

Work

2010-03-16T12:10:00.003+13:00

It has been many years since I was in paid work. For nearly 10 years now I have been a full time mum. When I was about 4 months pregnant with Steven I was working in a plant nursery and had to stop as i was fainting all the time from the heat in the glasshouses so was no use to them really. Then when Liam was little I went back there to work just on Saturdays for a little while. I totally love being a full time mum...full time single mum wasn't in the plan of things but turned out that way. Once Liam started school I really enjoyed having some 'me' time. While work was questioned at that time I was unable to cope with working and then coming home to be the best mum I could. Now that the boys are older and Steven especially is sleeping right through the night and alot easier to deal with, now is the right time for me to work. At the end of last year I got a call from the kindy that both the boys went to and got asked if I was keen to do some hours with a child. The following week I had an interview and everything was all go. At the start of this term I started working with 2 kids as an ESW(Education Support Worker). I have totally enjoyed my first term of working as an ESW and look forward to next term where I will have more hours with more kids. Both my boys had ESW's when they were at kindy. Steven because of his autism and global developmental delay. He needed lots of support to get him interacting with the other kids and help with his speech. Liam went to kindy a very shy boy who followed the teachers around not wanting anything to do with the kids. At home once Liam started moving he was picked on by Steven and I think this is why he didn't interact with the kids at kindy and he thought that all kids would hurt him, so he needed support to help him get over that and also with gross motor skills. For the most part they both had the same ESW, for a little while Liam had a different one to who Steven had had. With out this support the boys would have struggled through kindy(well Steven not so much I'm sure he would have been more than happy to have been left to play on his own). I believe kindy and the play that the kids do there is very important and if kids need extra support it does make a HUGE difference. Now that I'm an ESW and giving this support to kids I hope I can make a difference like what was made to Steven and Liam. I honestly dont know how parents work full time and then come home and be parents....I dint have alot of hours at the moment but there are some days where I'm so ready for bed come 7pm. The boys have had to get use to getting organised and leaving for school earlier and also for me to leave school earlier than I use to. I use to always go to each of their classrooms look at their work and talk with the teachers if there was anything needed talking about and leave at 9 when the bell went, now I need to leave at 8.35ish to be at work on time(which lucky is just on the other side of town) next term I'm going to try and drop them off in the mornings without me getting out of the car and going into the class rooms. While it seems easy enough to do Steven and change don't go together very well, so its all about baby steps. All in all working is great I love what I do and the kids that I'm working with each with their own little challenge and I love being back at the kindy the boys went to. Bring on term 2 with more work.

Liam turns 7....

2010-03-07T14:09:00.007+13:00

I know this post is way late but wanted to share some photos of my baby growing up. I really can not belive that he is 7 already. He is the baby in his classroom at school and was the last one to turn 7, most of them turned 7 at the end of last year. He is a very smart little boy but has attitude sometimes that is not wanted. He is caring and very adjusting to Stevens needs(most of the time) who has a big heart, fun and loving boy. Here are a some of my favourite random photos of Liam to celebrate another year, and I look forward to the next year to make more fun and happy memories.
Dont you just love that grin

Liam turns 3

This is such a Liam look

Clean up help for his 4th birthday cake

Liam turns 5.....icing muffins for kindy friends

Last day of kindy...wow it doesnt seem that long ago when he was 5

I just love this photo

Liam being his usual happy silly self

Must catch up

2010-02-28T09:33:00.002+13:00

I have so many things I want to blog about but whenever I come to sit and blog I just cant be bothered. I still haven't posted photos of my 365project finished from last year, or my Daily December album I did for the first time last year. Also this year I have started project life but this year I'm more relaxed about it and if i don't get a photo then no stressing about it. Liam has his 7th birthday last week, my baby is 7 I really don't know where the time/years have gone he is growing too fast. Also this year a change for all of us is that I have started work, its not a full on 8 hours per day job and i guess you can call it full time part time work. Its within school hours and school terms other than one week at the end of term 4 and a week at the start of term 1, but what more could I ask for. I must say I take my hat of to those mums who work a full day 5 days a week and then come home and be a mum as well. Right off to enjoy this lovely summers day and get some washing on the line and spray some weeds, the boys are out enjoying jumping on the tramp while its still shaded from the sun. I will be back again this week with catch ups

Prima.......Giveaway!!!

2010-02-28T09:14:00.003+13:00

Prima is having a fantastic Give away.. so just go check out their blog for Details..

Mini Album

2010-01-30T16:08:00.008+13:00

Liams tonsillitis mini album is now finished.....after talking to mum yesterday and how little motivation I have got to do scrapbooking at that moment decide its best to focus on one project at a time. So I thought I would start with this mini album which I have had made up for a few weeks now. So here is what ihave been doing in between playing with boys and cleaning and cooking today. Yesterday I printed off all the journalling so that was done and out of the way. I wanted this to be a simple album to just record the toulbe with Liam's tonsils that we had so its just a basic photo, journalling and some mini titles on most pages.
I dont really like the cover anymore but this was done awhile ago when I made the album up.

the rash from the first lot of antibiotics

The mini chemist of antibiotics liam had, which I forgot to put the ones after his op on thie list...bummer might have to pull that bit off and re do it.

The cost of all his doctors visits.

This lot of journalling was about the doctor who sent us home with no antibitoics for us to only come back later that day when liam got worse and then they tried to charge us for the doctors visit again.

The first page is about seeing the specialist and told she would have him done in about 4 weeks and then the more waiting is about getting the letter that we may have to wait 3 more month and about Liam getting tonsillitis while on antibiotics.

Finally is aobut getting Liams op date, that was a good day

Because I had so much I wanted to write about from his op day, I made a little pocket for about 6 journallling cards to slide into.

for the pre op post op and lure photos they are what liam wanted to have showing on the last couple of pages.

Journalling bout the day.

ON the back of the journalling cards I put some of the other photos from the week of his op on them so that they were still included in the album.

So there is one scrapbooking project finished and it feels nice ot have it done. Will be back again soon with another finished project to show.

Liams visit to hospital

2010-01-16T22:00:00.004+13:00

Warning this is very long post...again for my record of journalling for future pages.

The night before Liams op I thought it would take awhile for him to go to sleep as all day he had been asking me lots of questions about it. But he didnt fuss much at all when it came to bed time and went to sleep lying across his bed with Blue Piggy close by.

We had a early start with Liam not being allowed to eat after 7am, so i set 3 alarm clocks, one for 6am, 6.10 and 6.15am(yip you did read that right 3 one in Liams room and the one in mine and the one on my mobile phone in my room) jsut to make sure there was at least one that woke me up. As it turned out I didnt need any of them as I didnt have a very good night sleep and was awake on and off from 2am and by 5.30 i was wide awake so got up turned the computer on and did some interneting for a little bit before Liam woke up at 5.52am. Since we were up early I thought I would get a photo of the sun rise, it was a very bright yellow, although it doesnt show very well up on this photo...but proof that I can get up before the sun if i have to,lol.

Stevne went down to his dads at about 8.30 as Liam was getting hungry(already)and Stevne was wanting to eat, so we took him down there so that I could get liam to focus on somethign other than his hungry tummy. Before going to the hospital we went over to the warehouse to buy the dvd Up for the boys and get some up& go drinks for liam for after the op. Mum took us up to the hospital and we got there with lots of time to spare. Waited in the car for about 15 mintues before going up....LIam asked all his questions over while we waited. It didnt take to long from when we arrived in the waiting room till Liams name was called out by the nurse. We went into a small room of the next waiting area. The nurse checked that all the details were correct, weight Liam and then gave him some pamol. Put on his name bracelet and also an extra red one to say he is allergic to Augmentin.

Got him a gown to put on and then put cream to numb his skin with plaster over the top of it.

Then we had to wait for the anaesthetist and doctor to come and talk about the operationa nd what was going to happen. Between the nurse doing her bits and pieces and talking to the doctor Liam had me worried for a while. ONce the nurse had put the cream on he went very quiet, Im sure it was just his nerves getting the better of him but he curled up into me and almost went to sleep. He started to get the shakes in his hands and started to sweat, I said to mum he looks like how i feel jsut before im going to faint. We were told we could move out into the waitnig area so Liam could play with the toys, but he honestly wasnt in the mood for it and was still very cuddly with me. After about 15 mintues the anaesthetist and doctor talked with us and then another nurse came in and check Liams details once more before taking us to the operating theatre. By this stage Liam was chatty again and talking away to everyone. He was very brave and doing so well when we walked into the operation theatre, I was a little nervous when walking into a room with about 6 people in there. They were all very friendly and said hello to Liam. We lifted him up onto the bed and put the blanket onto him and then it was explained to him about the mask to help him go to sleep and he was fine with it all. I took his glasses off and they put the mask onto his face, he took one breath and then he started to scream. Right up to this point I had told myself I would not cry, well that jsut went out the window and he was not keen for this mask business at all. So they asked if it was okay with me for them to jsut hold it on and get it over with, to which i agreed to. I can tell you now its hard to see this happening and when he was looking up at me with those tears in his eyes I pretty much got tears in my eyes as well. I was told that this is for his own good and it needs to be done with having so much tonsillitis in such a short time and that once he woke up he wont remember this happening, and I know they are right I have told myself this over and over but it still hard to see your own child in that state. Once he was asleep I gave him a kiss and told him I loved him and got shown back to the waiting room. It was about an hour before a nurse came out and called me in, mum was able to come in also and wait in a different part of the recovery area. He was so anrgy looking when i saw him and in alot of pain. They had given him quite a bit of different pain relief and asked if I was happy for him to have morphine as he was still in a lot of pain. He does in and out of sleep while watching inspector gaget on a portable dvd player. After about half an hour he asked if he could have some food and then burst into tears. So off down to the wards we went so he could have an iceblock and some jelly. We were now here for 4 hours but with kidzone on the tv Liam was more than happy to lie in bed sipping away at his water. Mum went down tot he chemist and got liam lot of meds for him before it closed. At about 6pm the doctor came in and told us that the operation was straight forward, that Liam had small tonsils but they were very scared for his age. 6.30pm and we could go home, gave him some pamol before we left and then headed home.

Plaster where the lure was in

Once home Liam had his next lot of pain meds at 10.30pm then I headed of to bed with Liam in my bed so I could keep and eye on him we both slept very well but didnt wake at 2.30am wehn he needed more meds, so by 7.30 when we did wake he was quite sore. I felt quite bad about it but gave him meds and the difflam spray which helped alot. That morning he had a 2hr sleep on my bed.

I drew up a timetable so I knew which meds I was giving him and at what time. For the next couple of days it was meds every 4 hours and spray every couple of hours or when needed. This photo is Liam who fell asleep on his bed after not taking his meds and he was in pain I could tell but he wouldnt take it and went to sleep like this after crying...I just let him sleep for a couple of hours and then woke him at 9.30pm. He asked for the spray as well so he was hurting bad by this stage, I set alarm to make sure I woke in 4 hours.

Saturday night was Liams first night of no pain meds after 7.30pm which was great and we both had a very good sleep.

He has had a couple lots of meds today but not much and is starting to eat a bit more and drink lots more as well. I think his jaw is giving him more grief than his throat at the moment but we were told that was to be expected, but he is on the mend and is dealing with it alot better than I thought he would. Steven is a bit out of sorts with Liam having to keep quite for a few weeks and Steven missing his trampoline buddy but slowly accepting thats jsut the way things are at the moment. So now we look forward to a year with a healthier Liam.

Will be getting photos developed tomorrow to get a mini album made so watch this space. Also I will be back soon with a gerneal post about whats been happening around here, with photos of my project life kit some photos of my Daily December album and photos of 365 project that I did last year.

PS. Spell check isnt working and because its late im sure there is more than one mistake, I will come back tomorrow to see if i can get spell check to work...so sorry for all the mistakes

this little hippo

2010-01-15T15:56:00.006+13:00

or this little piggy as he is called, has gone missing. Before I get to much into this post I will warn you its long...mainly because it will be my journalling for a couple of layouts i want to do but don't know when I will do them so want to have the journalling recorded.

A couple of years ago at the special children Xmas party Steven got this big yellow hippo(those of you who follow my blog will know who i mean and have seen many photos of this big yellow hippo who is called Piggy). Liam had a small cute grey hippo which he adopted as his a couple of years ago before Piggy came along. Liam then started to call his hippo little piggy(of course cause what else would you call a hippo). Little Piggy has been with us since Steven was 9months old from his first visit to Auckland Zoo.

Little Piggy did lots of things with Liam and helped to get Liam to adjust when he had to have his eye patched not long after starting afternoon kindy and getting glasses. Every day before Liam got his patch Little Piggy would have his eye patched first and a couple of times went along with kindy to show the teachers that they both patched their eyes. There were a couple of days where Little Piggy was naughty at putting his patch on and Liam decided that he had to wear that patch for longer,lol.

There were days that Steven let Liam borrow Piggy for the day which Liam really enjoyed.

And Liam would also take some of his soft toy friends into my bed and line them up with his baby blanket i made him to tuck them in.

This is the last photo of Little Piggy, which was taken on Xmas day last year out side the boys dads house....Liam had gone to sleep in the car on the way home from our Xmas day at my mums holding onto Little Piggy.

The boys were at their dads for a week but Little Piggy never came home. Not sure what happened and where Little Piggy went but we had a few night of tears once Liam was home. He wanted to take Little Piggy to the hospital with him when he got his tonsils out...so we had two weeks to either find Little Piggy or buy a new Piggy. I started my search for a new Piggy......little did i know that not many shops have hippo toys. I thought that the warehouse was bound to have something suitable, but nope not a single hippo in site...so as last resort on the Friday before Liam's op we went into town and got a couple more books bout hospital out of the library and then went to Love to Learn to see what they had in the way of soft toys....we walked in and Liam saw a little blue hippo, he was muched loved and adopted by Liam straight away. So this is Liam new friend Blue Piggy....I personally liked Little Piggy better but Blue Piggy is cute and Liam loves him and that's what matters.

Tomorrow I will post about Liam and Blue Piggy's visit to the Hospital

Question and answer time.......

2010-01-03T22:55:00.004+13:00

from Rochelle's blog

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Put my trust in someone who isnt family to care for Steven after school once a week every week(this is a big thing for me to do)...after school care and he totally loved it.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I dont make any that way I dont get annoyed when I dont fillful them

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Friends had babies

4. Did anyone close to you die?
no

5. What countries did you visit?
Ummm....New Zealand

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Would love for the seperation settlement to be finalised and all over and done with. Also fingers crossed that 2010 will have work for me.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
lots of dates, birthdays and special events

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I really dont know, I guess maybe letting go of the boys a bit more, I find it very hard to do

9. What was your biggest failure?
Dont think I had any, nothing come to mind

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had swine flu, dont recommend it to anyone, was a very long hard week

11. What was the best thing you bought?
New camera

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
No one

14. Where did most of your money go?
Nothing new and big jsut the standard rent, car cost, food and bills

15. What did you get really excited about?
How well Liam is doing at school, he is above his level and does really well. Also Steven had a good year at school and in the last 6months the change in his mid year and end of year report was fantastic

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
Stay by Ronan Keating

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

– happier or sadder? happier

– thinner or fatter? bit fatter but im told thats not a bad thing as im to skinny,lol...just need to get rid of the little jelly belly I have

– richer or poorer? much the same

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
exercise

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Stressing bout the little stuff that doesnt really need stressing over

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Out at my parents place with my sister and brother and their kids and my aunty...was a lovely day and the kids had soooo much fun

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Love is SO OVERATED...lol but that just my opinion of course

22. What was your favourite TV program?
I watch too much tv but I do enjoy the masterchef and cooking programmes alot

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
nah

24. What was the best book you read?
DOnt really read books much and havent picked one up for a long time

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm.. pass

26. What did you want and get?
new camera

27. What did you want and not get?
Settlement...getting closer

28. What was your favourite film of this year?
pass

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
DInt do anything special, just another day, I was 31

30. What’s one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Settlement....lol

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Comfort all the way,lol....although I would liek to be able to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, maybe this year

32. What kept you sane?
Every second weekend and listening to music

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
oh there to many lol....I do fancy Robbie Williams and Ronan Keating

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I’m not a big political person

35. Who did you miss?
My gran.....she would be so proud of my boys but especially her special boy Steven and how far he has come and how well he is coping at school. Very much miss her phone calls and talk about autism and ways to get around what Steven does
...but I think she be watching down and could see that we are all well

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Havent met anyone new

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
LIfe is short and we need to make sure we make the most of it, every day is a good day. Gran always told me when things were tough to always remember that there is someone out there who has is tougher than you.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
not sure...might get back to you on that one

2009-12-27T23:36:00.007+13:00

Thought I would fit one more post in before we get to the end of 2009. It has been a busy few weeks. In my last post Liam was going to get his tonsils out within the month but on week four we got a letter saying it would be up to 3months before he gets them out. I was less than impressed about it and to top it off that same day he came home from school with a temp of 38. I got to school a bit earlier than normal and the teacher told me he had said he wasn't feeling very well. So i gave him some pamol and kept an eye on his temp, it did come down a bit but it wasn't until 7ish that night that he told me he had a sore throat. Sure enough he had a red throat but not too bad. During the night his temp got up to 38.4 so i got out cold cloths to cool him down and gave him pamol every 4hours. First thing the next morning made appointment with doctors as his throat was looking alot worse. The thing that annoyed me most about all of it was that he was on antibiotics and still got tonsillitis, makes you wonder what good the antibiotics are doing. Took the letter with me to ask if there was anything that could be done to speed things up as this endless tonsillitis isn't going away in any hurry. Doctor just gave 3months worth of antibiotics and said at least when he gets his op its done at a private hospital. So more antibiotics and pamol and off home we went, Liam had the rest of the week off school and we were backa t the doctors the next day as he was still get high temps and his throat was looking worse. Saw a different doctor this time who is really good she gave him a 10 day course of penicillin and sent another referral asking for Liam to be seen sooner rather than later. 21st December I get call form the hospital asking if Liam can make it on the 13th of January...YAY. Yes we will be there, it was so good to finally get a date. Liam of course and totally understandable is nervous and has lots of questions. I too am nervous but know its for the best to make him health. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the going to sleep bit. I have done this many of time with Steven when he has had to have CT scan, dental work done and have had to hold him down while they put the gas mask on him to make him sleep, and every time I have cried, more so the first time as they never told me he would fight it. I'm hoping Liam wont fight it. Mum is taking us up so that i can be in the back with Liam for the trip home, Steven will spend the day with his dad. We will have an early start as it is an afternoon appointment and Liam is not allowed to eat after 7am. So we will get up early and have breakfast and then Steven will go down to his dads so that he can eat and drink without Liam wanting to. I will fast with Liam and then we will head off to be at the hospital at 12.30.

With he good news of Liam's op happening in 2010 I also have some great news for myself and think 2010 is going to be a good year. I had a phone call for the local kindy that both boys went to, asking if i was keen on some work there. Of course I said yes and on the 22nd December I had interview with a couple of ladies so fingers crossed all went well and next year I will have some part time work as an ESW(Educational Support Worker). Both my boys had a ESW work with them while they were at kindy. Steven had one pretty much his whole time at kindy. Liam started kindy without one but after a couple of terms and not much interaction with anyone other than the teachers and any parent help adults, we pushed for a few hours for Liam to help him socialise with the kids. A few months after he moved to morning kindy he didn't need his ESW. Im very excited and hope it all goes well and that I can give back what my boys ESW gave to them. It will be different to be on the working side of it all rather than the parent but I'm up for the challenge. The best thing about this job it that its all within school hours and term time which is perfect.

Right if you still here and haven't been scared away by all the writing I have a few Xmas to share with you.
Santa has visited and the boys were up nice and early to see what he left

I love this photo of Steven clowning around trying to avoid getting his photo taken, he has such an amazing smile, hes so gorgeous.

After lunch, presents and then pudding the water slide was pulled out for the kids and there were all out there for some time and had so much fun. Does Liam look alot like Steven without his glasses on.

Its not often these days that either of the boys go to sleep in the car, I think if we had another 10minutes drive Steven would have been asleep too. But for Liam it was to much effort to not go to sleep.

PLease excuse any mistakes this was posted at 12.40am Monday...lol

Tonsils are coiming out

2009-11-24T10:20:00.004+13:00

Opps its been a while since posting on here so thought I would give an update on Liam's tonsils. He is now on the waiting list for a tonsillectomy. We saw the specialist ont he 9th of this month and she said she will put a rush on for him to be done in the next month, while I would not rather him not have the op and he is a bit nervous bout the whole going to sleep and pain he has had tonsillitis 6 times in 11 weeks so something more than just antibiotics needed to be done to get this sorted, in that time he has had nearly 3 weeks off school also so time to do more. Strep also showed on swabs taken the last few times he had tonsils. I was asked if Liam breathes through his mouth alot and while during the day I can honestly say I have never noticed it but at night I know he does as there if often a wet patch on his pillow where he has been lying with his mouth wide open, he also snores a bit but not too much. While he is under for his tonsillectomy they will look at his adenoids to see if they need to be removed as well. I have talked to Liam about what will happen to prepare him for the op and he seems okay bout it, although not to sure bout the mask to make him go to sleep. He did read through the pamhplet we were given and did like that he needs to have at least a week off school. So now Liam is on a 3 week course of antibiotics and I need to go to the doctors to get more if he has not been in for his op when he finishes this lot, he also has some alanase nasal spray which he has to have one spray into each nostril twice a day(much to his delight I can tell you that much)...there were a few tears for the first few days but he is really good about it now and will even remind me after school to do his spray. The specialist look up Liam's nose and said it was quite swollen which is why he is on the spray. For those of you who know Liam he often would climb into my bed at some stage during the night and I tried him with a night light to keep him in his room but still I would often wake and wonder how long he had been there for, since starting the spray a few days in he is now sleeping in his bed all night every night WITHOUT his night light on...so I'm guessing he was having a bit of trouble with his breathing at night before hand.He has also started on some Inner health probioticpowder for kids as he was getting some very upset tummy pains and I was told that this would help him. Due to all the antibiotics he has been on that has cause the tummy pains. So all in all we will be glad once the tonsils are gone and we can start 2010 with a healthy Liam.

I cant believe we are nearly at the end of November already, Christmas has come very quickly this year. Tanya and I are off to Manukau with mum on Friday for a day of Xmas shopping( I only have 3 more presents to buy then im all done), Cody has
his 2year old pixi photo. In the first couple of weeks of December a couple of friends and I will head out to mums to see her decorated house. We have done this every year for a few years now. On the 12th of December we have our big extended family Xmas out at mums this year. The 15th is prize giving at school for the boys and then the 16th is last day of school for 2009. Next year Steven has the same teacher, Mr White that he had this year and I'm over the moon about that. Steven has totally enjoyed his teacher this year and both his teacher and i talked with the Principal about Steven having him again next year. Every year it takes so long for Steven to adjust to a new teacher and for him and the teacher to understand each other so him having Mr White again next year comforting for me to know that he can get straight into teaching Steven. I was told who Liam is most likely to be having but it wasn't 100%, but if he does have who I was told then I will be very very happy with that as I know she is a great teacher and Liam will do well with her. There will be class room lists for next year going home with the kids before the end of term which will be good as last year the kids didn't know who there teacher was going to be till the last day of school. I cant believe Steven will be Year 5 and Liam will be Year 3 already next year...It doesn't seem that long ago that I was taking Liam to school for his 1st day.

The boys are off to their dads for dinner tonight and Liam is very excited that he will get to see Nana and poppa(on his dads side) for the first time in a few years. I actually cant remember if it was 2008 or 2007 when the boys last saw them as they have been living in America, but they are back in New Zealand to stay now and are staying with Kevin for a few weeks. Steven will be happy to see them again but I think for him its just a change in his routine that he cant cope with and I hope Nana and poppa don't take offence if Steven is not welcoming of them....Liam on the other hand is very excited that going to dads today means he gets to see Nana and Poppa.

Well I will go and carry on will some Xmas baking. I have pulled all my Xmas tree and decorations out and I'm so tempted to put them up now but will wait till the weekend. Do you all wait for the 1st of December to put your tree up or do you put it up whenever you want?

We have

2009-11-03T20:07:00.001+13:00

an appointment on Monday for Liam with the ENT specialist. Be interesting to see what she has to say and whether the tonsilis will come out and what sort of waiting list there is before he can get them out.

Liam

2009-10-24T17:15:00.005+13:00

is sick again...tonsillitis for the 5th time in 8 weeks...but as a bonus because the doctor wrote it down as a follow up visit because we have been so often for the same thing its now only $21 per visit instead of $25. We have had letter from the super clinic stating 'You have been referred to the CMDHB) Department of ENT for an outpatient assessment. In order to treat patients in a timely manner CMDHB(Counties-Manukau District Health Board) has engaged a number of specially trained general practitioners who have been approved by the ENT(Ear Nose and Throat) Department to provide this service in their own practices. Your referral has been allocated to a doctor in your local area. The GP will contact you with an appointment. There will be no charge for this service. Following treatment you will be returned to the care of your General Practitioner(family Doctor). We look forward to assisting you.' So now we just wait for that call for our appointment, hears hoping it wont be too far away. Other wise we are all doing well, Liam got a certificate at assembly for writing a detailed recount of his holiday. We are starting to walk up to school more often now that the weather is getting nicer. Steven has decided he doesn't want to continue to go to after school kids care, which I'm fine with as it was something different for him to do but to do for only as long as he enjoyed it. There have been a few things that have happened there and I think this is why he has decided not to go. I'm going to take the boys to athletics every Wednesday evening, it goes for an hour which is nice for them to get out and have some after school fun. I think(hope) they will enjoy it. Term 1 I want to get them doing swimming lessons to give them more confidence in the water. I don't expect them to be great swimmers but would like them to be able to enjoy the water. I have been working on a few Kaisercraft advent calendars for the boys, just waiting on paper to arrive so I can get the draws covered and decorated, have a few other Xmas gift ideas I need to get started on and sorted. Being the last term of the year there are teacher gifts to sort out also and I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do this year. Then there is sorting out teachers for next year and going in to let them know my thoughts for Steven mainly, I think Liam will cope with any teacher, I would like him to have the teacher Stevne had last year and for Steven to have his teacher he has this year again next year but you know how it goes we don't always get what we want. Right off to sort some dinner out.

Challenge from Mandys blog

2009-10-18T18:25:00.004+13:00

So I thought I would be brave and do this challenge from Mandys blog, so here is most not so good photo of me which i took when I had swine flu and was up for a little while to eat before falling back into bed again.

And one I'm happy with....new hair cut which I was really happy with the end result and love having shorter hair.

So there you go Mandy the good and the bad, lol

Steven turns 9

2009-10-06T22:34:00.004+13:00

wow where did that time go.....I cant believe he is 9 years old already. He is growing up so fast and growing in so many ways, not just physically but every day his speech and knowledge of language and how to use this grows. A smile that brightens the room and a boy who gives me so much joy day after day. Here are a few photos from his birthday last Monday(notice that where Steven goes piggy(yellow hippo) goes too).

Sick

2009-09-24T09:32:00.004+12:00

Last Friday Steven was home after going to the doctors on Thursday to find he has school sores, so hes was on meds and has cream to put on them. Because they were on his face they couldn't be covered. The boys were at their dads for the weekend and come Sunday afternoon when I picked them up Stevens sores had pretty much gone...nothing like some antibiotics to clear them up. Today I have Liam home from school sick. He woke up this morning with a temp of 38.4, sore throat and not looking all that great. Doctors at 11am for him, and I'm sure its tonsillitis again, 3rd time since the 26th August. On Saturday its the schools pet day, so Liam will miss out on finishing of his things for that tomorrow. So we shall see what the doctors say. Otherwise not alot new has been happening. I'm slowly getting back into scrapbooking again and did this 12x12 of Stevens cross country run. it has been ages since I last finished a 12x12, I have got lots that I have started but not any recent ones that I have finished. Steven said the layout is ugly and he didn't like it, but when did he become a scrapbook expert, right.

Both the boys are on count down for Stevens birthday on Monday. While at their dads Steven found some unwrapped presents under the bed and now knows hes getting a new monopoly that he wanted and wants it NOW. He also asked if he could have a little look at the presents I have got him, lol. He is taking a bag of lolly pops to school tomorrow to share with his class in the afternoon. Monday we will just get some DVDs out and have a small afternoon tea with cake. Then we will go to McDonald's for dinner. I have been working on getting Xmas shopping sorted and out of the way. I have been making as many presents as I can.

look who visited us today

2009-09-11T20:26:00.003+12:00

I was out hanging washing and then saw these guys walking across the front lawn....sooooo cute, by the time i had told Liam and got my camera(for today's photos in my 365 album) they were at the back of the house trying to find away under the fence. Liam thought it was very cool to see a mother duck and her babies up close.

Liam is on the mend again and feeling much better although come late afternoon he tends to loss most of his energy but much better so that's great. Tonight the boys as normal went of to bed and read for 30 minutes, when I went in to tuck Liam in and say good night this is what I found.....so cute and still very very tired at night.

Sick

2009-09-09T10:20:00.008+12:00

Liam is sick and home from school again this week, he has tonsillitis again. Went to the doctors yesterday morning as the night before he had high temp and was complaining of sore throat again. Doctors checked him over and said its not bad enough to give him any antibiotics, just give him pamol and honey in hot water to drink. By 4.20 he was very hot and had no energy and not himself, took his temp and it was 38.4 so rang the doctors and they said to bring him down. We saw the same doctor as this morning, again he took his temp and looked at his throat this time he said yes his temp is high and his throat is worse and has pus spots on it now so we will give him some antibiotics now. GRRRRRRR....poor Liam to have to get worse before given any meds. Sometimes I think doctors need to listen to mums because we do know our kids best don't we, and I knew Liam wasn't himself because when he is unwell he gets upset over the littlest things and just burst into tears which he was doing. Then they tried to charge me the second time I went and I said no way I was in here this morning for the same problem why should i have to pay again, so out of the 3 receptionist 1 said don't pay and the other 2 say pay...so i went with the one who said don't pay. But Liam has meds now and is on the mend but home from school for this week...here's hoping this will be the last of the sickness in this house hold for awhile, it gets so expensive and all this time off school isn't good.
And just so this post isn't a vent about the doctors here are a couple of photos, the first one is Liam this morning when I got up and he was wrapped up in his favourite blanket reading one of the books we got form the library yesterday.

Yesterday Liam and I had lunch on the deck and he wanted it to be a picnic so got the picnic blanket out of the car for lunch. After eating we got pillows, had a rest enjoying the sun.....lol notice the socks, slippers and jacket I have taken off cause it got so hot.

What a week......

2009-09-06T16:17:00.002+12:00

....it has been. While it has been a nice break from the boys this week even though most of it i have felt like crap it is really nice to have the boys home with me again this afternoon. I have also learnt this week what the hardest thing about being a parent is for me. When your pregnant people always say oh the hardest thing is the birth or the night feeds, cleaning diapers etc.... they tell you all the bad stuff but I think the hardest thing is letting go. This week I have had to learn to let go of being the boys full time parent. And in all honesty i have found it hard not know what they were doing at school, walking to school with them and seeing any new work in their books or/and around the classroom. I guess this is what single dads feel like when they only have their kids in the weekend? I missed not having cuddles and kisses from Liam who is such a cuddly boy, Steven not so much. i can give Steven a good night kiss and tell him I love him at bed time but that's all, he growls me and gets angry with me if i do it any other time. I have missed Steven placing his piggy(soft hippo toy) around the house during the week to keep me company during the day while he is at school. But there have been a couple of good things come from me being so sick, I have totally gone off coke and have not had any coke for nearly 2 weeks now, I use to drink way to much of the stuff and I have craved it a bit and when i did the food shopping yesterday they had it on special, but I was very good and didn't get any. Right up till about Thursday I was sleeping a good 18-20 hours per day.....now that I'm feeling better I have still being going to bed around 10.30pm and feeling much better for it. All in all its good to have things back to normal......whatever that may be.

Being sick is no fun

2009-09-01T10:58:00.005+12:00

Last week I had Liam home most of the week sick with tonsillitis, took him to the doctors on Wednesday which is $25 for him now that he is over the age of 6yrs(personally I think its a rip off) got his meds went home. Went to school and while waiting for Steven realised the was a rash all over Liam's feet and legs(not the best photo below but this rash went right up to his knees), went back to doctors and sure enough he had reacted to his meds, got new meds for him and hes all good to go.

Come Thursday afternoon I had a bit of a sore throat and was a bit tired and thought I was getting tonsillitis too, didn't think much of it again and had early night. Woke up about midnight or just after with a very sore achy body and thought poor Liam if this is what hes been feeling like. A friend took the boys to school for me on Friday morning I made an appointment for doctors(I don't usually go unless I'm really, really sick). The thought of having the flu or anything like that didn't even cross my mind I just needed to get some meds so I could feel better as it was my weekend to have the boys and knew I would be no good to them feeling like this. Waiting at the doctors and you know how you never get in on the time that you appointment is, after bout 10 minutes of waiting i went up to the front desk to ask if there was somewhere I could lie down as i feel like I'm going to faint............oops too late fainted already. Nurse helped me to bed and took my temp and asked how i was feeling. Doctor came in and checked me over and said you have swine flu. To be completely honest I didn't think anything of it I just wanted something to stop the pain, every part of me ached and my skin was sore to touch. So after that visit with the doctors costing $35, pain killers $6 and tamiflu $75....I was feeling some what broke after two visits to the doctors for Liam and myself in one week. So a friend came and picked me up and then had the boys after school for the night till Saturday afternoon. Mum came in on Saturday and stayed the night, the boys have been at their dads since Saturday afternoon and will be there for the rest of the week. He has the week of work so he can look after the boys for me, Steven now has sore throat and may be getting tonsillitis, Liam is back at school today. The school have said it is okay for the boys to be at school as long as they have no symptoms. Yesterday was my first day without painkillers and today is the last day of the tamiflu tablets. All in all I'm feeling human again and I'm alot better but I think it will take the rest of the week for me to get my energy back and I'm just taking things easy. Yesterday I thought I could do little bits on some scrapbooking projects I have lying around, in between my naps.

Today i just have sore legs and am tired. I would love to clean my house as the floors are screaming to be vacuumed/moped, bathroom needs to be cleaned, beds need the sheets changed and washing to be done....but it will all be there tomorrow right. I'm to stay away from crowds for 7 days from first symptoms or 24hrs after having no symptoms, so I should be good to get out of this place come Thursday. I'm a home person and love to be at home but I have seen enough of home at the moment and I miss the routines of going up to school and taking with the boys teachers to see who they are doing, seeing friends and just getting out of the house. I am very grateful for the great family and friends I have who have been around to help out and look after the boys for me....right of to do a bit more scrapbooking and then sleep I think, i will be back again soon.

Look.....

2009-08-27T22:12:00.003+12:00

....at what I treated myself to...I love the paper at the price i paid worked out to be 20cents per sheet, not thats better than the normal $1.80 per sheet....gotta love the warehouse.

Be back soon once we are all feeling better with longer post

Ive been busy.....

2009-08-16T20:54:00.005+12:00

since I last posted. I thought I would share some of the things I have been creating and a few random photos. First is a kaisercraft tic tac toe that I did for the boys. They really love it and I enjoyed creating something that is for them to use daily and to get use out of it.

I did this cupcake album for a friends little girls 1st birthday. This one I really enjoyed doing with all the pink and ribbon and glitter....so much fun.

And just a random photo of a tshirt I got Steven for his birthday

Okay short and sweet tonight, I will be back again soon.

2009-08-08T21:08:00.002+12:00

Too late to watch but go and check out her website.

Another post.....

2009-07-30T21:57:00.006+12:00

...before the month is over. A week ago I was asked if I was willing to have our story of autism published again, I said yes as the more word of autism out there the better and hopefully the more understood it will become. So here is the article that with the huge help from Alison Brown has been published in the Valley Voice Rural-August 09 along with this photo of the boys.

Autism: so common, yet so misunderstood

Alison Exelby’s elder son Steven was diagnosed with ‘moderate’ autism when he was three and a half.

Now, at almost nine, he’s mainstreamed and doing ‘okay’ at school, because his teachers, both last year and this, understand the condition, recognise Steven’s behavioural indicators, and value ‘visuals’ in accommodating his special learning needs.

Like many people with autism, Steven is intelligent, inquisitive and focuses intensely on what he’s doing. Unlike many, whose frustrations are reflected in their antisocial behaviour, Steven usually withdraws into himself when he’s confused or frustrated.

Alison and Steven’s teacher have learned that sometimes when given pen and paper he will draw a picture to explain what has upset him. “We use this to find out what’s troubling him when he’s unwilling to talk. Once he has drawn the picture he seems able to tell me more. It’s great that we have found another way for him to communicate so we can understand him better.”

Alison recalls her son’s first 18 months, before she knew there was anything ‘wrong’. “He was screaming a lot and seemed frustrated as though he knew what he wanted but couldn’t make himself understood.”

Her grandmother suggested autism might be the cause and Steven’s progress started when his pre-school also recognised his condition and referred him to an early education psychology service – with a long waiting list.

When eventually Steven’s turn came, a light went on for the family as they were introduced to concepts and ideas that changed their way of thinking.

“We learned that he was a visual learner. And early intervention ideas like visuals workshops were a breath of fresh air,” reckons Alison. “They showed Steven a picture of food – say a banana – and then took his hand to touch a real banana. Then they taught him that if he wanted a banana to eat he needed to take the picture to me.” Alison recalls pictures blue-tacked all round the kitchen. “And it worked: Steven could communicate! Eventually he learned to say the words and we stop needing to use the visuals.”

Steven loves pictures and especially photographs of people and events he’s part of.
“He needs to see pictures that look like the real thing,” Alison says. “I had to explain to the pre-school teachers that there was no point drawing stick people as they meant nothing to Steven. That’s when they got the visuals that Steven could understand.”

While he had one-on-one support at pre-school Steven and his family still had to cope with the real world, which seemed filled with judgmental people.

“Because children with autism are not ‘visually impaired’ there will always be people who assume their behaviour is naughtiness, or simply the result of poor parenting,” comments Alison, adding, “But some are willing to ask you if you need help.”

Nowadays Steven is considered too ‘normal’ to qualify for Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes (ORRS) funding. At first Alison was delighted to hear the description – until she realised Steven now gets little extra help just because his assessment level is too high.

“He can say the alphabet forwards and back, and count up to and down from 100 – but that doesn’t alter the fact it can be hard for his teacher to keep him on task,” she says. “Steven concentrates on what he likes doing to the point of blocking out everything else.”

Currently Steven gets a couple of hours of teacher aide time at school which is mainly used for story writing time as he finds that hard to do. Alison feels if there was more teacher aide time for him he would be able to cope better. “How can you expect a classroom teacher to coax the best out of children with special needs like Steven’s when he has 25 other children to teach too?” she asks with feeling.

Alison has to juggle Steven’s needs with those of her younger son. Last term Steven started ‘after school kids club’ so that she could share one-on-one 'normal' time with Liam. “Liam has had to grow up fast and cope with a lot. Most of the time he adjusts to playing games the way Steven wants to play them.”

That’s because, besides learning difficulties, Steven has limited social skills – and his own addictions.

“Anything tidily in its place seems to delight him,” Alison explains. She has many photos of Steven with items lined up, re-arranged in diverse shapes and blended colours – all evidence of Steven’s passion for orderliness and his love of numbers and letters. “He’s meticulous about re-arranging things, he makes repetitive noises which his teacher and classmates have learned to ignore, and he has a phobic hand action, a kind of lateral wave, which indicates he’s stressed.”

Anything that breaks into Steven’s routine can cause a change in his behaviour.

“We recently moved, which Steven found to be stressful, but in the week before I was able to take him over to the new house daily to help him see where we were going to live. We took paper over and drew his room and then he drew where he wanted his furniture to go. Knowing what was going to happen and when was very reassuring for him.”

Just as Alison’s learning new ways of assisting Steven, she suggests there’s much the general public could learn about autism too.

She applauds Steven’s school: “They ran a mufti day to raise money for autism awareness,” she says. “And the school office has a DVD that families can borrow to learn more about autism.”

But generally, she believes, people are scared of the situation and don’t know how to cope.

Her advice: “If you know of a child who has been diagnosed with autism, get books out of the library and search the internet for information, and spend time with the parent and child so you can watch and see. Don’t just label the child. And don’t condemn the parents. They need more help, not criticism.”

Change

2009-07-09T13:22:00.003+12:00

I'm not a great fan of change, I like to know what is happening and when its happening.....but i also think we need change to help us grow and adjust to things. At the moment we have lots of things changing here. This weekend we are moving(not far) for the last couple of weeks I have been busy sorting, packing and cleaning. I can tell you now I'm over it all and will be glad to be moved into the new house. The new house doesn't have a sleep out like this one does which was very handy to store stuff/junk, but has a garage which this place doesn't have. There are positive and negative for both the houses but at the end of the day I decide the move would be worth it and we will be better in the new house. Both the boys have been very excited about the move and Liam still is very excited, Steven not so much and because everything is pretty much packed now he is getting a bit stressed. And then i question if all this stress is worth this change for us all. But i know he will be fine once we are in the house and the boys are at their dad all this weekend so I will make sure i have their rooms sorted first. I took Steven over with some paper and pens so we could draw a plan of his room and where he wants everything to which has worked nicely( will add photo of it later on)I thought I will also use it as part of a layout too add to his album for him. Steven has lots of questions about when we are moving where everything is going and who will be moving into our old house. On the bright side its good that the move is over the holidays to give him time to settle in before going back to school. On top of packing and cleaning the boys have been sick, nothing to major just enough that they don't feel well and seem to be annoying easily by one another. I will be back again once we have moved and I have most things unpacked(hopefully not another 2mnthstime like it has been since my last posted before this one). Fingers crossed Saturday will be fine for the big move, have a nice weekend and make the most of this lovely sun.

Another layout

2009-04-23T17:23:00.004+12:00

A couple of close up since I enjoy these photos at the moment and the finished layout which I'm totally loving. A very different layout from what I normally do and for me its busy I know there are many of you who have layers and layers of papers and flowers and lots of embellishment, but I'm very simple and keep to the basic and while I know this is still very simple for me its also busy and I love it...lol....but a great layout starts with a great photo right and this photo if Liam is my favourite at the moment. I wish Steven was as willing for me to photograph him so I could get some great shots like this of him too.

2009-04-23T16:20:00.001+12:00

Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak. Sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.

Just a few layouts.....

2009-04-19T22:09:00.006+12:00

The Blue Ribbon Belle is my favourite layout...after reading Ali Edwards blog about organising all the stuff kids bring home from school this is what i created. I had the photo of Liam form the school production and he still had his mask which was on his bookcase collecting dust but he didn't want to throw it away. So I have lots of ideas for other layouts to use up those pictures and keepsakes that the boys bring home.

Very simple layout but all group photos in the boys preschool/school albums are very simple. Still love doing hand stitching and this circle took nearly an hour to do...I didn't think it would take long but it takes a while to do. When doing hand stitching i wait till I'm sitting down and watch TV and do it then.

I cant remember when Liam started collection the mail, I know there is a post about it on here somewhere and it was many months ago now and he still collects the mail every day.

bit and pieces

2009-04-18T19:12:00.004+12:00

I have been asked where I scrapbook now so thought I would show a couple of photos of my new scrapbooking area which is now in the lounge/dining area. I got the bookcase from the second hand shop. The plastic draws I have had for awhile which I got from the warehouse, I find them very handy as you can see with having so many of them. When having such a small area to work with I don't have that much stuff really and I think it looks quite tidy. I'm amazed when you at American scrapbooker's area/rooms and they have soooooo much stuff, like a mini shop really. I stand up when I scrapbook and this cupboard is the perfect height for me. When I need to sit down which I do every now and then I sit at the dining room table.

Because it is too late to get a nice photo of my layout I was working on today here is a small part of the layout....I love how these close up photos look so interesting showing the detail and texture of a layout....tomorrow I will share the whole layout.

A couple of photos that were taken when Steven was at kindy many years ago now. When I was changing rooms I found this frame so did this up for them. I LOVE black and white photos...look how little my guys were, Liam and his chubby little cheeks.

Liam's new room...look at all that space, I still have some sorting with the stuff on the shelves but he is happy to be in the biggest room of the house.

This is Stevens old room, not much room for a 8year old to play.

And his new room, he even keeps it pretty clean and is over the moon with the space.

And my new room,LOL I think I got ripped off. But at the end of the day I only sleep in my room so I don't need any space, the boys need space in their rooms. Its a shame the walls are so YELLOW and don't match my duvet cover at all, not to worry the landlord is back at the end of this year and I'm told he wants to paint so maybe I will have white walls.

Time for an update.......

2009-04-17T23:11:00.005+12:00

dont know where to start its been so long since I have up dated my blog. I have been busy rearranging the hosue and have moved everyones bedrooms around to a different room. Steven is at the age where I thought he really needed more space and room to play, his old room(which is now my room) could fit his bed and set of draws and that was pretty much it...now it fits a queen size bed and tv at the foot of the bed and nothing else,LOL.....also Steven never had toys in his room and hasnt done since he was about 4years old. Since he has moved rooms and is now on the other side of the house(which is sunny in the afternoon so his room is alot warmer inthe evenings) which is Liams old room and I tell you I wish i moved him into this room years ago because he is now sleeping through the night(most nights anyway and its longer than his old usual 11pm-3am). So YAY for a good nights sleep. This photo is Steven and Piggy who goes everywhere with him, I have banned him from the toliet and bath, but other than that if you see steven piggy wont be far away.

Love this photo of Liam, the boys love to have a nice deep bubble bath and we had run out of bubbles and i always forgot to get them when i did the shopping. When I didnt remember Liam had soooooo much fun with them but was a bit surprised when i came into bathroom to get photo of his silly antics,LOL. A 21st photo for sure.

Look what I treated myself too, a friend does Stampin' Up and when I saw this i had to have it(as you do). the next punch i want to get is called Spiral which is one that i ahve been after for awhile that give you a note book spiral edge look, but for now im happy playing aorund wiht this one.

The last week of school was camp week. This year the years 1-4 went to Hamilton Zoo for their day trip. I was hoping to go but didnt in the end(but thats a whole other post) the boys enjoyed themself although a bit let down i wasnt going. The girl I look after in the mornings, her mum went and kept me up to date with txts about the boys for me(I know im mad worry wart mother) she txt when they were leaving Hamilton and told me that Liam had fallen over and grazed his knees but he was fine....poor wee man when i saw him he looked so sad and sore with plasters on his knees and his shorts rolled up so they didnt rub on the plasters and he was walking like an old grandad anyone would have thought he twisted his ankle or something. Once home I managed to convince him to take the palsters of so the air could get onto the sore and they can start to heal...i have been nice and not shown the photo of the raw knees.

ONe of Stevens favourite books....Steven doesnt like photos at the moment and runs and hids so this is the best I can get of him at the moment and while you cant see his face I think its nice photo showing what he enjoys doing, and best of all hes not a running away blurr,LOL.

I havent been very creative lately but here is one layout i did the other night which i quite like. i showed it to liam to see what he thinks and he told me it doesnt look finished but couldnt give any ideas of how to finish it...what sort of scrapbooker is he,LOL. Have a few more layouts but its too late to get photos of them tonight.

A random but favourite photo at the moment.

Lots more has been happening but nothing that I really want to blog about. Totally enjoying the holidays and the boys being at home and most mornings they climb into my bed and have lie in and watch Ben 10 on my bedroom tv and then we get up and start our day....we will all go into shock when school starts again. But also looking forward to school for Steven to get back into routine...he says he misses school because he likes to work and hates the holidays and yet when he is at school he pretty much refuses to do work. And then Liam says he loves the holidays and doesnt want to go back to school because he hates to work and yet he does very well at school,LOL....me i just want a bit of normal in my life(whatever normal is) but we are getting there, baby steps im told but then how long can we take baby steps for? Somewhere along the journey the steps have to get bigger and more effort and achievement have to be done? Right im not going to go into this Im going to finish of here with happy note that I have two nights without the kids this weekend so im off to get some sleep and then a day of creating tomorrow I think. Have a great weekend.

PS...its midnight and blogger spell check isnt working and Im lazy and cant be bothered going throught to spell check so sorry for all the mistakes that im sure there will be.

SALE! SALE! SALE!

2009-04-09T12:45:00.002+12:00

Scrappin' Patch are having a sale, go and check out there website and grab yourself a bargin with 30% of from Thursday 9th April until Tuesday 14th April. Offer applies to instock items only (not preorder products), excluding diecut machines.

Im going to head over there now and grab myself a bargin before everyone else gets there,LOL...I will try to make it back here again over the long weekend with some 365 project photos and catch up.

Autism Awareness Day

2009-04-01T23:39:00.003+13:00

Ask Questions
Understand
Tell a friend
Include
Show your Support
Make a Difference

Autism Awareness Day

2009-03-22T11:24:00.005+13:00

Did you know that one in every 100 New Zealand Children has an autism spectrum disorder?In order to raise awareness of this issue, Autism New Zealand is holding Multicoloured Mayhem Day on 2nd April this year.
When Steven started mainstream school there were 4 kids at his school that had ASD(Autism Spectrum Disorder). For a small country school of a couple of hundreds students that was more than enough ASD students for the school, now he is into his 4th year at school and there are two students with ASD. This year is the first year that the school has done anything for Autism awareness and I think its fantastic. Lets get the word of autism out there so that people understand that when a child is screaming in the middle of the supermarket it doesn't mean that that child is naughty or the parent has no control over their child, let us understand that that child may have ASD and cant cope with the flickering of the lights or the noise of the beep for every item being scanned, lets understand that these child find it VERY hard to cope and understand our world. Take time on this day to think about those affected by autism, the child and the families.

Thanks to the help from Louise Williams the Franklin ASD Support group now have a website. So if you have the time go and check it out, I have added link on the sidebar for the website.

Another layout

2009-03-20T21:02:00.005+13:00

using the Paper Pesto monthly kit, other than the butterfly and thread for stitching everything else is from the kit. I really like how this page has come together. The chipboard butterfly had crackle paint which I love the affect of once it has dried. I'm loving hand stitching at the moment and did a bit on the machine for this layout as well.

The boys are away with their dad for two nights again this weekend and while I do enjoy having that extra night I do miss them when they are not here and I miss our Sunday mornings at home not having to get up and go anywhere. But since he is off to America for a month I am making the most of the breaks I get before he goes away and they don't have their Friday nights with their dad......Steven finds the extra night a bit hard to deal with in that its a change from whats normal but he loves his time away and I love when they come home and give me big hugs and tell me they love and missed me.

Liam is doing REALLY, REALLY WELL at school and had a test yesterday(and if you know the name of the test let me know I was told but I cant for the life of me remember-it was maths reading and spelling all that sort of stuff to see what level he is at)and the teacher who took the test told me I should be very proud of Liam as hes a very smart young man. In many ways hes too smart for his own good,LOL.....His class teacher has also said to me in the past that he is very good at his maths and spelling. he is one of the youngest in his class and he does do really well for himself, he does however need to remember when he needs help to ask his teacher for help which he wont do and even at home if he is stuck with something he tends to sit and just wait for me to notice he needs help or he will continue and get him self annoyed and frustrated because he cant work it out himself instead of just asking for me to help him. I do think its good to a point that he wants to do things himself and work things out but he needs to learn that there is a point where he needs to ask for help and that its okay to need to ask for help. So I'm very proud of Liam and I think its great that he is doing so well and above his age level in most areas.

Steven is also doing really well at school and is now getting into doing most of his school work. After weeks of Steven not writing his homework into his book or even doing his homework I suggest to his teacher that letting Steven type it on computer and print it out might help and encourage him to do his work. So Monday he let Steven type his homework list out and print it off and glue it into his book and Steven did it no fuss, YAY....so through out the week Steven has had more computer time to do some of his work, like story writing which Steven totally hates but with the use of computer he is happy to type you a whole book, lol. And for years now I have asked the school for Steven to have more use of the computer to do his work because at the end of the day he is not a typical child and you need to try different things with him to encourage him to do his work. he is still doing story writing but he is typing instead of writing BUT to me its the same as he still needs to think about what he wants to type and hey at the end of the day if it means he will actually do his work instead of flat out refusing to do any work all day then let him use the computer I say. So YAY for his teacher willing to give this a try and see that it works for Steven. Looks like another great year for Steven at school.

Well thats all from me for now Im off to scrapbook my next few nights/day away,lol....have a good weekend everyone and hope we still have this lovely sunny weather for a few more days.

Another layout

2009-03-18T11:55:00.002+13:00

Another layout using the kit from Paper Pesto, not the best photos of Liam but I loved the big smile and had to scrapbook them even used a flower on a boys layout which I don't do unless I'm in the photo as well. Other than the chipboard that Liam's name is on all the rest is from the monthly kit.

Im Back......

2009-03-15T15:51:00.004+13:00

Not much to share that is worth share so will make this post a post of my layout i have been creating over the last couple of weeks. These first three photos are using the monthly kit I got from Paper Pesto this is the only the second kit i have ever bought and I challenged myself to doing at least one layout using only what was in the kit. The lettering I coloured to suit the layout with one of my pens the paper i screwed up then sanded and inked it, the thread through the buttons is the only thing that didn't come in the kit. Love the end result and love the cute papers that came in this kit. More creating with it to be done.

These are some other pages that I have done over the last few weeks. Most are scraplifts or from my page maps book. There are two that I still need to do the journalling for but other wise they are all my quick and easy simple style, and I have found no matter how hard i try to add more i always end up with simple so have decide that just the way i scrapbook no point in changing what works ah. Have also started having Monday as my scrapbooking day with a couple of friends who come over for the day and we scrapbook our day away

Will try and make it back here again in the next few days with some photos of my 365 project. hope your all having a great weekend and enjoying the warm sunny weather while its still here.

Happy 6th Birthday Liam

2009-02-19T20:12:00.001+13:00

I cant believe that we are at years 6 already, you are growing so fast changing from my little baby boy to a very handsome young man.....I love you lots and look forward to the years ahead of us.

Every Woman Should Have.......

2009-02-13T08:32:00.002+13:00

MAYA ANGELOU'S'

BEST POEM EVER

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
enough
money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own,
even if she never wants to or needs to..

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
something
perfect to wear if the employer,
or date of her dreams
wants to see her in an hour...

A WOMAN SHOULD
HAVE .
a youth she's content to leave behind....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
a past juicy
enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her
old age....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
one friend who
always makes her laugh.. and one who lets her cry...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE
a good piece
of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her
family...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .
eight
matching plates, wine glasses with stems,
and a recipe for
a meal,
that will make her guests feel honored...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE
a feeling of
control over her destiny..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD
KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to quit
a job,
break up with a lover,
and confront a friend
without;
ruining the friendship...

EVERY WOMAN
SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK
AWAY...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that her
childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over.....

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she
would and wouldn't do for love or more...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live
alone... even if she doesn't like it...

EVERY
WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't take it personally...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
where to
go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table..
or a
charming Inn in the woods....
when her soul needs
soothing...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
What she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a
month...and a year...

First layout

2009-02-02T13:40:00.004+13:00

I honestly cant remember if this was my very first layout but it was one of the first layouts I ever did. I remember Steven was at home with his dad and I spent the day around at Tanya's place with Liam-he was about 8-9 months old at the time. Tanya and I spent the day scrapbooking. When I started I taught myself then I held a creative memories class at my place. So that's why even thought my first page there is colour and its not the white background like what creative memories teaches.

Another earlier page of mine which is the white background of Liam's first xmas.

Now these are the pages I do. This one I love with all the cutting out and I went through a stage of cutting out swirls and vines etc.....*note to self to finish this layout off*

And this one is one that I finished last night.....loving this one too and I wish all my layouts I could look at them and say there is nothing I would change about them...but I guess they cant be perfect all the time. Might have to display this one in my scrapbooking room for a little while before it gets hidden in an album.

So school is back tomorrow and while Liam is sort of looking forward to it, Steven is trying everything to get out of it. Yesterday he had a little sore on his foot and said oh well looks like I cant go to school if I cant walk....nice try buddy but you are so going to school kicking and screaming if need be. I do feel for him because I know and understand that first day of school is very unsettling for him and there are lots of new changes he has to get use to, but sadly this is just the part of life he HAS to learn to live with and deal with. But I have talked to the school today and they have organised a teacher aid to be with him all day tomorrow, so at least I can drop him off and know that if he is too unsettle there is someone there to help him and calm him down(fingers crossed).

Goodies

2009-01-31T10:04:00.003+13:00

These goodies arrived yesterday from Kate at CraftyTart YAY...so I have put all the week of photos in and all the photos up to Wednesday are in there. Off to get some ink next week so I can print out the journalling cards I have done, but still not 100% sure how I'm doing the jounrlalling so no rush for that as long as I keep up to date with it. I feel like I'm getting somewhere with this now that its all in the pages and starting to look like something.

All about Steven

2009-01-28T00:10:00.003+13:00

Steven has been a bit funny today and very moody with moods changing without any warning at all. Had his bag packed for his over night stay at carer support house and his yellow hippo(who by the way is called piggy...and do you know how hard it is to remember to call a hippo piggy, I have been growled more than once by Steven). Anyway piggy was sitting on top of his bag as piggy has to go everywhere that Steven goes at the moment. Steven was piggy sitting there by himself and picked him up to take over to sofa to watch TV with him. A few minutes later Steven said that piggy said he wants to watch Steven jump on the tramp, so Steven got this chair for piggy so he could watch him,LOL too cute. So for those of you who have read the book A Friend Like Henry....well our book would be A Friend Like Piggy. For awhile Steven even stopped talking in the afternoons and would only talk to/with piggy it was quite frustrating and I was thinking i might have to get rid of piggy but he has started talking to me again so all is good as long as i remember his name is piggy and not hippo.

Stevens other focus at the moment is the caterpillars and how much they are eating and how big they are getting when they change and waiting for the butterflies to come. I just love this photo of him lying down on the deck watching the caterpillar eat, he said 'its eating lots of food cause he wants to be a beautiful butterfly'. I'm hoping when the butterfly does come out it will be when the boys are home and not at school, or when I'm home at least so I can get photos for them.

WARNING..nail less toe picture follows.....

2009-01-25T16:35:00.003+13:00

....LOL, just thought I would give you a warning in case you have sat down to check your blog lines with nice cuppa tea and cake, cause this picture probably put you off eating anything. Anyway while away at his dads Liam's toe nail has finally come of which is great. After months of taping his toe during school time and then at night its good to finally be rid of it. The look of the toe now isn't all that nice I must say but alt least now the new nail has room to grow.

Oh would you look at this mess.....this is the state of the sleep out at the moment. Not good is it although there is a small trail through the middle so you can(believe it or not) get in there. When we moved just over 3 years ago we moved from a big 4 bedroom house, large laundry area, lounge and separate dining area, double garage and nice size section into this small 3 bedroom(well I would say more 2 bedrooms plus an office because the bathroom is bigger than Steven's room, sad ah) house with lounge/kitchen/dining area in total the size of just the lounge at the old house but this place has a sleep out. So anything that didn't fit in the house went straight to the sleep out and there are still boxes there that haven't been unpacked. So how badly do we need all this stuff if it can be in a box for years on end and I don't miss it? Well I have decided that trade me is my friend,LOL and I have managed to have a good fun at the moment with selling stuff on there. So my mission(should I accept it.....LOL) is when the boys go back to school I'm going to get down into that sleep out and get it sorted. At the moment i have a box for trade me items that are listed and a huge box that I need to sort through what I will list and what I will just give away. I have now got some draws down there and I will move all the trade me stuff into these. There are extra toys for the boys that are just too big for the house like the play shopping kitchen you can see in the photo and this will stay in sleep out as the plan is to get the place sorted and set up as extra play area for the boys. I'm guessing this will take a good couple of days but in the long run it will be well worth it and I'm sure the boys will enjoy an extra play area.

Photos

2009-01-20T21:27:00.002+13:00

Liam told me he had made breakfast....thoughts of the kitchen being a bombsite went through my head. But what he really meant was that he got the breakfast stuff out ready for me to make the breakfast. It was very nice of him or it was his way of saying can you get out of bed I'm hungry,LOL.

And look what arrived in the post today. I decided that I would be cheaper (and easier) to get all the weeks of for the 365 project printed as photos rather than use my ink and paper. So now I have photos all ready, journalling is up to date on the computer waiting for me to get ink next week and then print them off. So once the pages arrive I will be all set to put everything into them. So tonight I sat down and corner rounded all my photos for the 365 project including the week of ones.......and I have decided there are far to many corners,LOL

Photo shoot at the Exelby's......

2009-01-17T01:05:00.002+13:00

......or circus I'm not sure which, lol. For this 365 project there is the front and back page which will just be the 6 photo slot and title page and end page so i thought I would get some nice photos of the boys and I....well easier said than done. Steven at the moment if you ask him to smile for a photo he runs and hides, so i thought oh well lets just make him look like he's happy and having fun. So i handed the camera over to Liam and managed to get hold of Steven and then counted to 3 and pulled his hands away form his face. But as you can see i have no control of his eyes which in most of the photos were closed but that's Steven and this is a record of who we are now ah so it will do. And then at the end of the year i will take more photos of us to add to the back page. I'm really looking forward to getting my pages and being able to put photos and journalling into them rather than having a pile of photos and notes. Anyway I'm off to bed, will be back tomorrow with some photos of a brown bag album I have made.

Its too hot

2009-01-12T12:10:00.006+13:00

I cant stand it being so hot. We have all the windows and doors open today just need a nice breeze to go through the house. We will definitely be going for a swim this afternoon.

For those of you doing the 365 project if you visit Becky's blog she has put a link for free download for some of the designs from the kit. So I have already download these and have been busy working on some journalling for the days that have gone by already. Really looking forward to getting the page protectors so I can get the photos and journalling cards put in, then I will feel like I'm getting somewhere with it. So hopefully by the start of next month I will have some layouts to show. A few questions for those of you who are doing this. On your journalling cards are you putting the date and the day of the week in this or just the date? If you are adding the day of the week what are you using for this? Or are you adding your journalling on the computer(like me cause i hate my handwriting and for some day there is a bit of writing I want to add but wont fit it all if I hand write it) and so just adding the date at the top or bottom of your journalling? I have also made a folder on the computer for 365 photos and journalling. And since I either get my photos developed at the chemist or online I will just once a week or fortnight get photos developed, so by having this folder it will be easier to find the photos. As I put the photos into the folder I also name them with the date and day so that when i get then back it will be printed on the back and easy to put them into the page protectors.

So yesterday I have took a couple of photos and not sure which one I will use, but might have to have a play around in photo shop and make two photos the size of one....might see what I can come up with.

Now there is nothing like starting the day with some happy mail....a big thank you to Mandy for the goodies that arrived in my letter box this morning. Liam went and checked the mail and he comes back with package saying "we get mail".....both boys were keen to see what was inside only to say "oh more scrapbooking stuff" once I had opened it,LOL.

And for today's photo I got this one of Steven giving Liam a hug, not often this happens. They were asking each other questions about their new numbers up computer game and Liam got all of his questions right and Steven was so happy with him and gave Liam a hug. Although by the look on Liam's face hes not too excited about this.

todays photo

2009-01-10T11:59:00.003+13:00

Okay so I know this is a very boring photo, but this challenge is about day to day life. So what is this photo of well this is 18months worth of legal aid and lawyer letters(plus there is probably just as many in email form which I like better as no trees have to die to get them,LOL....gotta see the funny side of things otherwise life becomes boring and too depressing). So I thought I would add this into this album because this is apart of my life at the moment...and maybe one day soon I will have a photo of the last letter from my lawyer(I cant wait for that day,LOL).

Todays photo

2009-01-09T17:32:00.003+13:00

Liam had an appointment at the super clinic for his 6 monthly eye test. His eye is still a bit lazy in that it wont focus on things as they get closer to his face, but as far as his sight goes its great so he has been discharged now. So now I only have to go up every 6 months for Stevens hearing test which is on the 22nd of this month. So i thought i would carry the cmera around with me just in case i wanted to snap a photo of something while im out. So I got a photo of the superclinic building and Liam in the back seat of the car, worried because every time we go they patch his eye again for testing the sight in each eye and he really hates the patching. I dont blame him really for a year he had to have his good eye patched for 4 hours per day to get the bad eye working, but all the effort paid of and his he has great vision in his eye again as before the patching he could hardly see a metre infront of him. I was quite shocked and felt really bad as for a few months before the eye testing they do at kindy he said his eyes were sick and i didnt believe him and thought he was just trying to get some pamol(he loves pamol and most nights he has a sore leg or sore something but it was always at bed time). So sure enough he really did have a sick eye and i felt soo bad for not thinking about his sight.

I love summer

2009-01-08T20:40:00.002+13:00

but it was so hot and muggy today and so now I'm looking forward to winter. Summer there is only so many clothes you can take off before you scare people, at least with winter you can always put on another layer,LOL. So after a long hot day the boys and i headed up to the school pool for a swim. I decide to get a key this year so that i can get Liam in the water without having a class full of kids in the pool with him. Already i can see he has gain alot of confidence and is walking around by himself and putting his face under a little bit at a time(I know alot of kids are way beyond these stages but for Liam they are HUGE). We were up at the pool for over an hour and it was so nice, lovely and warm might have to get myself some sunglasses though cause the sun on the water was not so nice. So here is today's picture for my 365 album....Liam crashes after long day big swim and then home for bath and then into bed over an hour after his normal bed time and within 5 minutes he was asleep.

Mum and Tanya

2009-01-07T21:04:00.006+13:00

Don't fall over in shock about me posting for the 3rd time in one week will you,LOL.

Well as normal every morning has a routine of getting up turning computer on while that starts up I get the boys and myself breakfast, after breakfast I check my emails. This morning there was a lovely surprise email there for me my old pen pal Jennifer. My first letter I got from her was in 1990 and I still have all the letters which i kept together in a box that I decorated. We wrote to each other for over ten years then started emailing. November 2003 was the last email I got from Jennifer until today. Its so wonderful to be in touch with her again and I look forward to catching up with her about the last few years.

So I have decided that I'm going to do the 365 album this year-thanks MandyB and I have been taking some photos that will fit into the first few days that ihave missed and have a journal to write down notes and bits and pieces so that things are ready for when my protector pages are ready-thanks Kate at CraftyTart so here is one of my photos for this. In the middle of term 4 at school Liam stubbed his toe. He showed me and told me it was sore but he didn't cry and that was that. A week later I noticed the nail was black and not looking that great so took him to the doctors and he had an infection and we were told that the nail would most likely fall off. So it went really black and then it seem to be fine and healing okay. A few days ago however the nail has started to come off and now our nightly routine includes putting this dressing on it so that the nail doesn't get hooked on his sheet and ripped off. Now I'm being nice and just showing the bandaged toe and not bare tow with nail coming off.

Right I'm off now to sit down with a plate of pudding and read through some of these letters from Jennifer. have a good night everyone

Photos

2009-01-05T21:08:00.009+13:00

Okay so i know Xmas has come and go and happened last year but here are a few photos from our Xmas day out at my mums place.

Once Steven got this book which is a bit like wheres wally and you have to search for things on each page he was happy to sit by himself for a while.

And Liam who is so good at posing for photos now, lol the joys of having a scrapbooking mum.

The the kids went of with grandad to the beach.

Then once back and with mud and wet clothes the kids all stripped off to their underwear and played under the sprinkler for a little while.

A few days after Xmas we were off to Tauranga for my Grandads 80th birthday. Was a long trip for the kids but they were really good and I took some words search and maze books for the boys to do on the way down and home which kept them happy.
So this is me(Im on the left with the black and white sleeve top) with my sister Tanya and younger brother Phillip and the birthday boy Grandad.

Grandad and his great grandchildren (minus his oldest granddaughter Courtney who was away on holiday).

Lovely photo of my two boys and their cousins Jacqueline and Lucy.

I just love this photo and the big smile Steven can give, he is such a happy boy.

And after a long day we went home and all the kids slept for a big part of the way home.

Still here.....

2009-01-03T12:43:00.001+13:00

...so it has been awhile and i was meaning to do one more post for 2008 but didn't get around to it. So not much reading this time just a few photos to share...
I really do love how this layout has come together. it is quite busy for me in that i have used two pattern papers but i think the eye still goes straight to the photos first so its not so busy that the main focus isn't the photos. I'm yet to do the journalling which will be done on tags that will slip behind the photos

At prize giving i got a nice surprise when Liam got a certificate. He has done so well last year at school and was very proud to go up and get his certificate. he also got a video ezy certificate with a voucher for gained water confidence.

This is the album I made for Liam's teacher, who has also left the school which was sad to see her go because she has been a great teacher for the 7months that Liam has had her.

This year we got tickets to go to the Auckland Special Kids Xmas Party form the school. It has been two years since Steven last went and last time he went with his dad so this was the first time i went. What a great day. Steven spend most of his time on the bouncy castles..and was on them for over an hour at one time. Then he got a photo with cookie monster had some lunch and a bit of a sit down watching the performances they had going, then back to the castles before his turn to line up and met Santa and pick some presents. Steven(in red t-shirt) had a ball and although it was very hard to get a good photo of him bouncing i think this one shows that he was enjoying himself.

2008-12-10T19:36:00.003+13:00

Well the cake went down a treat, Mrs Frizz no I don't know how old she really is, lol but one of the kids thought she was maybe 43 but i don't know that shes that old. But the good day ended on a bit of a low when Liam's teacher told the class that she was leaving and not teaching at his school next year and she might be moving to Hamilton.......I'm really sad, she is such a great teacher and gives the kids a push when they need it. So the class is having a shared lunch next Tuesday, parents welcome to come, so I might give her her album and lolly/chocolate tree that I have made then. Will see how the week goes.

Whoo hoot Wednesday

2008-12-10T10:02:00.002+13:00

Just a short list for me this week even though i know i have missed more than a couple of weeks of doing this.

YAY for getting a good night sleep....Steven was asleep by 9ish(which is great for him at the moment) so that meant i could have an early night and even though at some point in the night Liam climbed into my bed i still managed to get a good night sleep and both the boys slept in till 7.15 this morning....now that's a BIG plus.

Also YAY for the sun being out and there being blue sky today, I have got the sheets out on the line finally.

Liam and i baked a cake last night got his teachers birthday today...he decorated it with green icing and LOTS of 100's and 1000's and then pebbles around the edge and he wanted to put her age on it so I asked him how old he thought she was and he said 22....so 22 went onto the cake....his teacher was over the moon with the cake and the fact that she is only 22,LOL. And they funny thing was that all the kids in the class believed that she was 22 and they were all amazed that she was younger than their parents. Kids are so funny sometimes. So I stayed at school for a bit to get a photo of Liam's class for his teachers mini album that I'm doing so will get those photos developed and then that will be my weekend project. Also very sad that she wont be back next year so the class will be having a shared lunch next week.

photo time

2008-12-08T16:11:00.002+13:00

Each year the kids do art work to be made into a calendar (if you choose to) here are the boys artwork they did this year.
First is Stevens....I really think he was having a bad day when he did his as his first year at school and last years artwork had so much more detail than what he has done here. Also his class didn't use pastels and dye which i think looks alot better.

Here's is Liam's artwork.I love how much detail he put on this, when you see his sketch of the picture its just stick figures and some waves to show the water, but this he even put his glasses on him and did spiky hair for himself.

Okay here is the finished inside of Stevens teachers album, I just love the rub on i used on the left hand side, just finished that page of nicely I thought

And a close up on Stevens writing which i got copied and added to the album

And the back page....and i had to have a giggle at what Steven wrote because hes such a Wheres Wally fan and relates everything to that at the moment. So when I saw he added Where am I? to his writing i thought it was very funny.

Well thats all from me, off to get some dinner sorted and then early night for all tonight.

Its been awhile.....

2008-12-07T23:22:00.005+13:00

......since my last post and its now 11.25pm Sunday night and I cant sleep so here I am blogging listening to music on you tube. Okay this may turn into a really long boring post so feel free to stop reading now and just look at the photos instead,LOL....you have been warned. Things are so busy and rushed at the moment and yet some things seem to stand still with no change to them at all. I want to move forwards with my life and stop reliving the past and yet there are so many things that remind me of the last year. There were so many things that have happend many I dont often talk about some i dont want to talk about.I have had many weeks now with broken sleep(and yes i know the obys are both sleeping and i should be making the most of it, but its too hot and i have so much going on in my head at the moment)and i think if you lack sleep everything else seems to suffer. Steven has had a few bad days at school where he has been up at 2.30am and not gone back to sleep then tried to get out of going to school becasue he is tired. The teacher had noticed that he shakes his head alot more some days than others(Steven slowly shakes head as if saying no when he is tired or stressed..its like a stress reflief for him or stimming as its called)but most days he seems to cope with being up early a full on day at school and then going to sleep late. I guess it will all catch up with him at some stage.

A few weeks ago Liam got this cerficate in school assembly and hes so funny because the first time he got one he didnt waant to get up infront of the whole school but now he pretty mych runs up to get it and holds it up and then gives me the thumbs up and big smile. He also got antoher one last Friday for having water courage.....YAY for Liam. He is doing so well at school and im very proud of both him and Steven. So I hace been going up to school with Liam during his class swimming time and the water is so lovely, ashame they only have 20 minutes in the water I could stayin there all day which is saying something because Im not much of a water person.

Here is the finshed survival kit for Stevens teacher. I really do love how it looks and almost dont want to give it away. I showed Stevens old ESW(Educational Support Worker) the kit and she asked if Steven would like to go back to kindy for a term so that when he leaves I can make her one,LOL. But I thought what i might do is make her one next year as she is now our carer support person and Steven goes to her house every monday for the night after school.

One of the things on the teachers survival kit list was 'A girft- to remind you that your students are a gift to you and you are a gift to them'....so this is her gift that I have made. Just a fold out Kaisercraft album for her to remember Steven and the great year he had in her class.

So I went up to school and got a class photo and one of just Steven and his teacher and told her I need them for his school scrapbook album...and I have put them into this album to give to her in a weeks time. Also a week ago she showed me some wriiting Steven had done ast school when they were asked to write aobut their year at school he wrote the following (I tired to scan when he had written but blogger wouldnt let me up load it so i will jsut retype it as he has written it)...'In room 6 I like computer time, battleship, easy homework and numbers up. I love Mrs Carpenter because I like you. I get better at writing and handwriting. I play outside is tag with Evan.'
Again I just love that first he is expressing his feelings/emotions about and to someone, and it was funny she was telling me when he handed his book in he asked her not to read it till he was outside playing and i swear when she showed it to me i had tears in my eyes it was just he sweetest thing he has written. And I love Stevens honesty....Im am very sure he goes to school knowing he will get his computer time once he does his school work, he will only willingly do homework if it is easy, if there is any chance he feels he may get the work wrong then we have a fight on our hands with that homework. Numbers up is a computer game that he loves and gets to play when he gets his school work done. He has gotten so much better with his writing, he still struggles but at the start of the year he was hardly writing a sentence that made sense, but now on good days he will write a whole page and it makes sense too. His hand writing has also improved so much in the last 6 months..he is doing so welll and im somewhat scared of what next year will bring. I feel we will be back at square one if he has a different teacher. I will be finding out this week who his teacher is so I have time to say yes I think they will be fine or no way.....LOL i have become very good at voicing my opinion when it comes to Steven and the school and even Liam with the swimming.

Look what new brand the warehouse have got...and these stamp packs were only $5 each which I thought was a great price for clear stamps. The border set were from spotlight and I thought I could use them a bit on cards. The warehouse is getting in some really good scrapbooking stuff now.

A few weeks ago when shopping with mum and my sister tanya this little guy came home with me...I thought he was so cute and just had to bring him home to add to my growing collection of snowmen.

And here are just a few snowmen...I counted 62 here and there are a few more in the main xmas tree as well.....snowmen are my Christmas addiction,LOL.

The boys and I made these little gift bags for their friends. At first Steven said he doesnt have any friends(which made me sad) but then he was trying to write down the whole class so i told him he could have ten giftbags to give to his friends. So off he went with his list of names and cards and started writing. i really thoguht he would have given up after a couple of cards but he kept going and even put his teachers name down on the list. And he was so funny when he handed them out, his teacher had the class sit in a circle and he sat on chair next to her in fornt of the class. She asked him why he was giving something out to everyone and Steven replied with 'I have no idea'(and just imagine him with his hands up in the air when he said this,LOL) his teacher and I just started laughing it was so funny. And so he called out his friends names and they came adn got the bags and he said merry christmas to each of his friends and then he got to his teachers one and let out a little giggle and said there even one for you,LOL..........I tell you this boy makes me laugh so much. He is such a happy carefree child and does amazingly well with all the struggles he has to deal with in every day life.

I have been doing a little bit of creating and finsihed of my advent tree, not sure that I 100% like the brightness of the red numbers and may change them for next year but for now they will do.

PS when reading this remember that it was late at night so im sorry for the mistakes, blogger spell check sint working and im too lazy to go through and proof read.....I hope it all makes sense....nite nite of to be now to see if I can sleep.

Busy creating

2008-11-17T12:24:00.005+13:00

Well not really creating alot but have been finishing a few things of which is always nice. The main one i have been working on is this teachers survival kit for Stevens teacher. So here is photo of all the bits for the kit in their little bag with their tags that I made up(what a mission but i think it looks great)

This is the poem/list of items in the kit(if you click on photo it should make it big enough to be able to read it)

On Sunday i went to a friends house who was having a Paperbag album class. I have seen these albums but never tried making one myself...but once stared it was so easy to do and the end result is just stunning(maybe mine not as stunning as the ones that were shown for examples)so this is my one I made. if anyone knows where to get brown paper bags from please let me know. the need to be thick ones with the fold up bottom to them not the thin ones you can get for kids lunches. The S is tied to the string and moves. Other people at the class just stuck their letter to the front of the album but i wanted something different.

The tabs pull out and there is another space to put either more photos or hidden journalling.

IM BACK

2008-11-11T09:47:00.003+13:00

I's been about 3 weeks since my computer decided to die...lucky it was just the motherboard that was fried and not the hard drive. I was stressing there for a bit that i had lost 3years worth of photos that have not been saved to disk.......but they were okay and i have got some Cd's to back them up and will get more tomorrow so over the next few days i will be busy sorting photos onto CD. My brother gave me the use of his computer over that time while mine was getting sorted and then he came in yesterday and got mine up and running for me. So here I am...i do have a few photos to share but want to get photos and journalling for some layouts i have done finished. I have been reading every ones blogs but while on my brothers computer it wouldn't let me post comments for some reason.

Anyway enjoying today's lovely weather and was up nice and early this morning and managed to get a couple loads of washing done through the dishes into dishwasher and got them done(didn't do them last night cause i had INTERNET lol which i have not had computer or Internet since last Thursday...yes the Internet is an addiction just like scrapbooking).

Liam got sent home about 5 worksheets of maths to do for home work over this week....he only has to do one pages per night, but once he started he didn't want to stop, he really enjoys his maths. He surprised me a bit with how well he can do it and alot of the problems he just writes the answer down no problem at all. So he ended up doing nearly 3 pages of the 5 last night....and then you have Steven who would never do more homework than he needs too,LOL. Steven is back to bringing his school work home to do as he is refusing to do it at school. Its just story writing which he hates doing. Mondays they have to write about what they did in the weekend...I personally think for Steven he hates doing story writing because he knows what he did in the weekend so why would he need to write about it. And he sits there and he says i don't know what to write and you give him ideas and he says he not want to write that. And then when he does write something he makes the sentence as short as he can. One sentence was 'I got a Ben 10 book'. I said to him to write i got a Ben 10 book because.....(he got it for doing good homework last week), he replies with i already know that. So i have tried to explain to him that who ever is reading his story doesn't know that and you need to write it down so they know why you got that book. He can be so frustrating because I know he can do it he has written a whole page about his weekend before, hes just soooooo stubborn sometimes and flat out refuses to do the work. But then i think how frustrating our world must seem to him and he does do his best and he is doing well in all other areas at school so that's great.

Not sure if there are any fans of the programme House of Tiny Tearaways out there but i really enjoy this programme as Tanya has some really good ideas on it. This week there is a autistic boy on it with a younger brother and I'm hoping it might have some good ideas. With Steven most games/toys are played with in a totally different way that they are meant to be used, and so Steven will often want to line things up or play his rules and then you have Liam who wants to play with cars and crash them not just line them up and then you have two boys angry at each other cause they both have different ideas about hoe to play with things. The family in the house this week seem to have the same problem so hopefully there will be some good ideas today. More often than not i will say to Liam just let Steven do it the way he wants, but that's hardly fair on Liam is it?

Anyway off to do some more scrapbooking, hope everyone has the lovely warm sunny weather like we have here today.

2008-10-23T13:05:00.002+13:00

This is from Hannah's blog

Where is your cell phone? On the dining room table

Where is your significant other? Waiting for me to find them...lol, no significant other at the moment

Your hair color? boring brown

Your mother? I appreciate and love very much

Your father? Great fun loving family man

Your favorite thing? lots of favorite things but i guess sleep-ins would be near the top of the list

Your dream last night? dream who has time to dream, my head hits the pillow and I'm out like a light till the boys wake up

Your dream/goal? to continue to live a life filled with happiness, creating endless memories for and with my family

The room you’re in? The lounge

Your hobby? Scrapbooking

Your fear? That something bad will happen to my boys

Where do you want to be in 6 years? Same place i am now but older

Where were you last night? home

What you’re not? I'm not messy

One of your wish-list items?A new camera

Where you grew up? Tuakau and Port Waikato

The last thing you did? Rearrange my bedroom to fit in scrapbooking counter/desk unit(fingers cross that it fits in the space i have made)

What are you wearing? Jeans, t-shirt and long sleeve top.

Your TV? is behind me on tv2 waiting for house of tiny tearaways to come on

Your pet? Had two cats summer and sass before i had kids but re homed them when we were expecting Steven. Then had kitten Tiny for Liam but sadly she had to be re homed as well because Steven just couldn't cope with her, frog called wormy

Your computer? Is in pieces at my brothers house till he can get a new motherboard for it

Your mood? Very tired at the moment, 4am wake ups for months on end is not good

Missing someone? Family and friends i don't see often

Your car? Nissan Pulsar and gets me from A to B and back again

Something you’re not wearing? Slippers...which means the days are getting warmer cause i get cold feet and wear slippers for over half the year.

Favorite store? I actually really like the warehouse at the moment they have everything there and great prices

Your summer? looking forward to some sun and warmer days

Love someone? Family and friends

Your favorite color? red

When is the last time you laughed? today

Last time you cried? yesterday when watching tiny house of tearaways, which has a special needs child on there at the moment and the mothers words of how he child is little now and people will accept her but as she gets older her behaviour will not be accepted as much, and how she didn't wish this life for her child....hit home a bit for me

As Hannah wrote... Passing this on...

To ALL the blogs I read - I wouldn’t read them if I didn’t love them!

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-10-22T16:17:00.002+13:00

Well my big plus this week was getting the use of my brothers computer for a bit till he gets my one sorted. On Saturday my computer just died, I was so annoyed as i use my computer all the time not just for the Internet but i use word alot for journalling for scrapbooking. But yesterday my brother stopped of with his hard drive so that i could have computer access...YAY for lovely kind younger brothers.

The boys school had pet day on Saturday and both got a certificate for one of the work they did. Will post some pictures when i get my computer back.

I have been and read every ones blogs and wow there were a few to read after four days without reading them...but for some reason I cant post a comments on every ones blogs on this computer...so just wanted to let you all know that I'm still around and reading what you are all up.

With this great weather the boys and i have been walking home from school everyday, although while playing tag after school with some friends Steven fell over so was a bit upset but otherwise the boys get 10minutes to play before we walk home and they both seem happy with that. When we are organised(which at the moment isn't often) we walk in the mornings too.

Whoo hoot Wednesday

2008-10-15T16:22:00.005+13:00

haven't done this for awhile so here is my list for this week
*The start of term 4.....YAY.

*Steven being extra happy this afternoon after school. he cam racing up to me with a certificate for taking part in the Dog "Do's" and "Don'ts" programme. Last year he didn't go anywhere near the dogs having a huge fear of them(or any animal that moves for that matter, he can get just as upset by a fly in his room as he can a dog...I believe its because he has no control over then and doesn't know what they are going to do next as with any living animal and he hates to not know whats going to happen next) anyway he was so happy and read out what was written on the certificate and showed mew the little booklet they good about the do's and don'ts of dogs...Well Done Steven.

*I have been getting back into scrapbooking and enjoying it again.

*Gotta be happy with this lovely weather we have been having and being able to put washing on the line instead of the airing rack.

*Steven might not be need to see his speech language therapist much longer, she sees him at school and I'm told is quite impressed with how well he is doing.

*Walking to school to save on the gas, and I have been enjoying the walks, this morning the kids pretty much ran to school, I don't know where they get all of their energy from.

*Sorting out Liam and his swimming problems at school. School start swimming this term and Liam is very stressed about it and has huge fear about getting in the pool. So have arrange for me to be there and get in the pool with him but if he not keen to get it then that is fine and I have been told they wont push him to get in, but he is still to get changed into his togs with the rest of the class which I'm happy for him to do so that when he is ready to get in he will be all set. Also will get a school pool key over the Xmas holidays and go up there everyday or second day and get him into the pool a bit.

More bits and pieces

2008-10-11T14:14:00.004+13:00

When I got out of the shower yesterday morning this is what the boys were up to, I'm not sure why but Steven is loving lying across the top of the sofa at the moment I'm sure he must think hes a cat,LOL.

I picked up my latest Creating Keepsakes September magazine yesterday and always I sit down at night while watching TV flipping through the pages looking for new inspiration. There are a few layouts I really liked and will have to scraplift at some stage and one that I did last night and this is my end result - I have since taken the star away as I decided I didn't really like it there.

A big thank you to the lovely Mrs Frizz...the boys checked the mail in the morning and just before lunch(its there addiction at the moment to keep checking the letterbox just in case the mail lady comes back to put stuff in our letterbox,LOL) anyway no mail then when I went out last night I noticed a bit of an envelope sticking out of the letter box, so I'm thinking the mail lady must have slept in,LOL...anyway this is what I got from Mrs Frizz so a huge thank you it was a very nice surprise.

So I have been rearranging my scrapbooking stuff again and sorting through getting rid of stuff when i came across one or two kaisercraft beyond the page items.....putting them together like this makes them look like a mini addiction on top of my scrapbooking addiction. But I'm sure its not just me who has this addiction.

When I saw the gingerbread men I fell in love with them and have got a few of them and I'm going to make(probably not this year but maybe for next Xmas)gift tags for my nieces and nephews and then every other year they can hang them on their Xmas tree.

Feeling Great......

2008-10-09T20:10:00.003+13:00

..and even managed to get a bit of scrapbooking done. The first two pages are for a me album I'm doing for Steven. Love the cosmo cricket get happy papers, they are so bright and fun. I haven't got much done on it but managed to get the second page with the photos done last night once the boys were in bed sleeping.

I just love all his funny faces he makes...such a happy boy full of character and sooo much energy.

Okay so i got this idea from Hannah's blog and I thought it was really cool so I thought since Stevens teacher this year has been his best teacher yet(and it will be very sad if he doesn't have her again next year)I would make her a survival kit. So this is what i have come up with so far. This box was from a breakfast set I got form the warehouse and i have just covered with paper and then put a coat of modge podge on it. Very simple but i really like the colours and end results.

this is on the inside of the lid......love this quote, used it in a mini album i made for Stevens kindy teacher when he left kindy

Well it was nice to see the sun out today although it was still cold and windy. Would have been good to get washing dried though but i couldnt be bothered have had so much washing this week i wanted a day off from it. Right im off to see if i can get motivated to get some more scrapbooking done, have a great evening all and keep warm....it seems to be cold tonight even though with each night we are getting closer to summer but it doesnt seem to be warming up any.

Catch up

2008-10-07T20:52:00.004+13:00

Most of my posts these days seem to have that title catch up.....Since Sunday afternoon i have been in bed sick. The boys have been fantastic and entertaining themselves with games and tv while letting me rest, I would get up to do meals and then go back to bed. Felling a bit better today but still not 100%. Hopefully tomorrow I will be feeling alot better and hopefully the boys wont get it.

Anyway with this horrible wet and windy weather its feeling a bit like winter again, but we had great weather for Stevens little birthday afternoon tea so that was great. So before school finished a letter from school saying the following came home

Dear Alison

Each year we get tickets given to the Annual Ten Pin Bowling Party, hosted by Epilepsy Foundation of N.Z.
We give these tickets to children and their families who may have faced adversity, or who need to go that extra mile to gain success in reaching their potential in learning.
I am pleased to select your child as a worthy recipient this year. We hope you and the family will enjoy celebrating with your child and that the date of the 4 October in the school holidays is convenient.

At first cause there was just 3 tickets i thought can i handle this by myself with both the boys and do i really want to go alone....party normally =balloons, lots of noise and people.....balloons, lots of noise and people = grumpy moody Steven,LOL. And the morning of the party i told Steven and Liam where we were going( I try not to tell new things to Steven too far ahead of time as it gives him too much time to get stressed about it) and we went online and I showed him some photos but he just kept saying I don't understand mum....so we went along and first thing was the clown standing at the door handing out balloons, but we manage to get in without too much fuss, they had sausages in bread and fizzy drinks for everyone and face painting and more clowns inside giving out lollies and more balloons but both the boys hid behind me when a clown got to close. BUT once Steven had his eyes set on the bowling balls he was happy with a smile going from ear to ear. And he had so much fun after waiting for nearly an hour for our turn he was so good and then he just wanted to get up there and roll the ball he not care too much if he hit the pins or not he just wanted the ball to be rolling,LOL. But in the end we all had a great day and I'm SO glad i braved the day by myself and had so much fun with my boys.

And just because I'm a mum and mums like to talk about when their kids do well I thoguth I would show the certificates both the boys got on the last day of school....well done boys I'm so proud of you both.

And I think I spy and wheres wally have moved in...this is all the goodies Steven got for his birthday and wow they just keep coming. he really loves the wheres wally stuff at the moment and we have found some great bargains on trade me...YAY for trade me.

Right I might go and crawl back into bed again...hopefully tomorrow I will have a bit of energy to do some scrapbooking.

My baby is 8 today

2008-09-28T19:35:00.003+13:00

Well I guess hes not really my baby anymore since hes 8. The years have gone by so fast and I have been through alot more than i ever thought I would have to get through, but I wouldn't change the last 8years for the world.

Today started at 5.30...yip that's right Steven was up at 5.30 asking if i had any presents for him,LOL. then once all the presents were opened he then played every game he got read every book he got and did a puzzle or word search in every book he got....he got lots of Wheres wally books and a Wheres Wally poster and lots of I Spy books which he has taken with him tonight to his dads house. So we had a very small afternoon tea to celebrate Stevens 8 years and now I'm about ready to fall into bed...but not before i do a bit of scrapbooking...so here are a few of my favourite photos of Steven.

Feel like shopping?

2008-09-23T17:58:00.002+12:00

So if anyone is interested in looking at a new website or/and spending some money go and have a look here at Artfullcrafts They have speicals on at the moment with the launch of their new website. Lots of great products at great prices.

IM on a creative roll....

2008-09-17T09:35:00.003+12:00

well a very simple layout creative roll but hey it gets those photos that have been arund for a while done and ones where you have lots of them done and out of the way ready for the next lot.
Sorry its not a very good photo of the rooster hunt layout.....this was a scraplift from one of my recent mags....I really likethe white paper as a background for a nice change.

Really love the way this one turned out.

there comes a point.......

2008-09-17T08:10:00.001+12:00

There come a point in your life when you realize
who matters,
who never did,
who won't anymore...
and who always will.
So don't worry about people from your past,
theres a reason why they didn't make it to your future.

Bits and pieces, catch up

2008-09-16T10:52:00.003+12:00

What a lovely day nice to finally get some fine weather...nearly warm enough to get the 3/4pants and skirts out but not quite yet.

So Steven had last Friday of school, his teacher was away Thursday and Friday and after Thursday with a reliever which he has never had before and a male teacher too he was so stressed out and unhappy so I decided to keep him at home. We did some of his reading and he did some writing as well. I also noticed that when he wears his hooded tops he loves wear the hoods(he went through a stage of not liking anything on his head at all) but notice his right ear sticking out...Steven is deaf in his left ear so i figure this is why that ear is covered up and his right ear sticking out so he can still hear things,lol. And the photo is Steven and his groupings of coloured jacks he calls them. They belong with a set of straws that you connect up and make different things and Steven loves the connectors.

Layout i have done just because...not a challenge or sketch just one that i did to get another page done. Quite like how it came out

Okay so the story behind farm fun is that I really do hate this layout, it needs something else but I'm not sure what. So this is how the layout started and then i didn't like it and ripped the photos of it to start over again, but then i didn't like where that was going so for now the photos are back on this layout but I really don't like it and will re do it again at some stage, but thought I would share anyway...maybe someone has some ideas of what i can do to it

Also I got this little bundle of goodies in the post the other day from Vicki....a just cos envelope so a big thank you Vicki its nice getting that sort of mail and im really loving the swirls well I love the whole lot might have to invest in a machine like yours and have a play around(oneday,LOL).

2008-09-15T21:52:00.002+12:00

We cannot live with broken hearts. In time we have to accept these things have happened to us. To stay with the past will only bring you into turmoil.

Day on the farm

2008-09-08T13:15:00.005+12:00

So not alot has been happening other than my sister keeps asking me to up date my blog it's been a week I have been told, so here are some photos of the boys when we went out to visit my parents on Saturday.
I just love this photo of Steven with the lovely background and love that Steven is waving.

Then he is on the move again and ready to jump and move onto the next great adventure on the farm.

This photo of grandad Steven took which I thought he did a pretty good job as all of grandad is in the photo and its not blurred.

So the guys went for a walk on the back of the farm to find the roosters that a friend let go out there...so they took water and food for them...Liam wasn't too sure about them.

Steven seemed to enjoy them.

Next adventure was this slide that grandad created for them...Liam didn't go down it and to be honest i didn't blame him....Steven loved it.

Another Steven taken photo of grandad and Liam.

Scary...I recommend that mums not watch their kids go down home made slide on dirt hills.

But Steven had a great time and that's what matters.

And this is Master Liam who without me know climbed onto my bed with his blanket and went to sleep...Maybe I should give him my double bed and i have his single bed then he wont be able to climb into my bed,LOL.

Not alot of scrapbooking being done at the moment and i have decide that I'm going to give challenges a miss for a little while and get back into scrapbooking for me and not for challenges. i do enjoy the challenges and they are fun but im finding I just need to do scrapbooking when i want to with my own deadline, be it a day or a week to get a layout done...scrapbooking for fun.

Updated:I thoguth I would add that the photography is all done by Grandad and Steven....arent they great at taking scrapbooking photos for me lots of different angles and great shots, in total I think I have about 50 photos from our visit to the farm so lots of photos to scrapbook. I only took the terrible dark photo of liam sleeping in my bed,LOL.

My Boys

2008-09-01T18:37:00.002+12:00

I haven't really got much to say but wanted to share these photos of the boys that i got over the weekend...love the one of Steven on the lazy boy, this is his cheeky sort of smile he give at the moment when asked to smile for the camera. And the one of the boys was Steven being silly but it was nice to capture them together and happy.

WELL DONE STEVEN

2008-08-29T17:15:00.004+12:00

One very proud mum here and one proud boy of himself too....

YAY its Friday, boys have gone to their dads early today. We are getting back into the habit of walking to and from school which is good the boys enjoy walking as do but I need more motivation than what they do and it only has to be a bit cold to put me off walking. Have a friend coming over for a scrapbooking night tonight...will be good to have a scrapbook catch up as we haven't had one for some time now.

2008-08-28T10:30:00.004+12:00

Steven seems to be more on track again at school and doing his work with the help of the computer....love his teacher at the moment and she does such a great job with finding ways to get him to do his work when he is stubborn and doesnt want to do anything. I also think Steven was happy to have Liam back at school today, Liam not so happy to be back after having 3 days off already I'm sure he would have happily stayed home for the rest of the week. I gave Steven on of the Wheres wally books yesterday because he is doing well at school and doing his homework not just at home but at his dads house as well which is great. YAY for the sun to be shining, got some washing dried on the line which is always nice...goodbye winter, hello spring.

PS. Just to edit yesterdays post...being a mum i just automatically thing all females are mums which is not true...so I edit to all women need to treat themselves...thank you every one for all your lovely comments they mean alot to me.

Im Back.....

2008-08-27T13:36:00.004+12:00

So I haven't been around much....there has been alot happening and alot not that great and I don't want this blog to be negative so decided to just not post. But I'm feeling better today, had our monthly Autism meeting which was great. I get such a great feeling being in a room full of mothers\grandparents/support people who understand what its like living with autism as part of your daily life. Every time i go along with this list of things in my head that I want to talk about and mention the good and the bad just to get it of my chest and hopefully get some answers as to how to get help to get through the bad parts....but then i start talking and then next thing you know the tears come flowing out, LOL.....and i say hardly any of what i wanted to say...but its good to know I'm with others that are understanding....and when I'm tired and feeling down I'm more emotional and tears come more often, here's hoping for more talking at the next meeting. I found this book-Making Peace With Autism of trade me so have got stuck into reading this and really enjoying it.

With Stevens birthday just around the corner I have been on the hunt for some presents for him and found these Wheres Wally books.

Cant remember if i have posted about the wheres wally puzzle I got of trade me(I love trade me so much such a great place to find bargins) ski slopes wheres wally now lives on our coffee table. And I must say Steven is getter faster and faster at putting this together but doesn't want it put away completely.

And when i got back from my autism meeting nothing like a parcel sitting on the front door step to give me a lift and look what was inside.....

A treat for me from me...as mothers we are allowed to treat ourselves ah????LOL...good glad you all say YES.
And to finish off a couple of layout that I have done...this first one i did just for the sake of creating a layout for Stevens album...it wasn't a challenge or sketch it was done just because I wanted to,LOL. Since doing this layout Steven has lost another tooth, just last night he was mucking around at bed time and said to me'I just need to do something in the bathroom okay mum' so off he went and I could see him looking in the mirror wiggling his tooth madly trying to get it out....about 10 minutes later he comes our and says'look my tooth just popped out' followed with'im so glad I will get another $2'. So the tooth fairy did come but between Steven going to sleep and the tooth fairy going to get the tooth the tooth is yet to be found as Steven took it out of the bag and has misplaced it somewhere( I hope he didn't swallow it or anything like that).

This was a challenge for over at the Sketch Book...I really do love how this layout came together. The challenge was to use pattern paper with dots/circles and to use circle embellishments. And what better photos to use than the ones of Steven spinning the wheels on this bath toys, one of his many addictions.

Had good talk with Steven teacher and he is doing so well at school, and she did some maths worksheets with him the other day and is quite amazed at what he is doing. he loves his times tables but is also great at most maths and is adding BIG numbers together in his head and giving answers...he really does amaze me some days. Liam has been off school all of this week and today on the way to school Steven just started to cry and when i asked him what was wrong he said he missed playing with Liam at school...aww he so sweet. Liam will be back at school tomorrow so it will be interesting to see if they play together or not. So there we are all updated.....see you all again in a few weeks, just kidding I will try and get back into blogging more often again and also commenting on every ones blogs.

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-08-13T14:08:00.003+12:00

Another Wednesday rolls around.....the week seems to have gone quite fast and yet some days very slow. Thank you to everyone for their loving comments and thoughts for my friend and her family. Well my list is small this week and much the same as last week and I'm very very grateful for close friends who have endless support and of course for family.

Yesterday was not a good day and Steven ended up staying over night at his carer support persons place again. Not sure what is going on with him at the moment but things aren't good. He was good for her and we all got the time out we needed and today is another day....I didn't see him at school this morning as I normally will go and say hello to him when he stay away for the night, but I'm hoping he had a good day at school. He is back to his not doing any school work during school time and no homework and its so frustrating know that he is more than able to do it but he wont tell me or his teacher whats upsetting him and why he wont do it. on the plus side he is one of the top students for his times tables and that's great(he will be out smarting his mother in no time,LOL) and we have managed to get him to take care of all his belongings after school and pack away in his bag(as I type this I feel like I have typed it before so if I'm repeating myself I'm sorry...I may have already said this in an earlier post). As far as the school work goes i feel like we take one step forwards and then two steps back....very frustrating.

YAY for Liam who is happy for me to be leaving him at school by himself before the bell goes.....what a mission this has been and trying to encourage him to go and play with his friends. After a couple of weeks of tears most mornings when the bell went and i said i was going home now as long as he get to show me around his class, give me hug and kiss he's happy....YAY

Also big Congratulations to Janine and the birth of moo2 on the 8-8-08....now hows that for an easy birth date to remember. Big hugs to you and your family Janine

Creative weekend

2008-08-10T20:55:00.004+12:00

So I have had a very creative weekend and got two challenges done...and not just a 12x12 layout challenge these were both off the page creations that I must say I'm very happy with the end results. Both challenges are from The Sketch Book.....this first one was to do a layout or a mini album about your work. So I thought I would take up the challenge and did a mini album.......

For those of you that noticed I missed the word boys out of my phrase on this page but have since added it

This was the celebrity challenge for over at the sketch book, it was to do an off the page item....mum got me this Kaisercraft beyond the page xmastree hanger for my birthday so I thought I would get that done ready for this Xmas.

What a stunning day we had today once the frost had gone....i got 4 loads of washing done and hung on the line too which is great...so much easier drying sheets and towels on the line rather than the airing racks. Tomorrow the house work gets done as i didn't do much with having a creative weekend instead...but the house work isn't going anywhere is it,LOL.

YAY its Friday

2008-08-08T15:54:00.003+12:00

Nothing that is loved
Is ever lost
No one who has touched
a life, who has brought
beauty into the world
is ever truly gone.

YAY its Friday...what a long week it has been. The boys have gone to their dads...so i can start my mission of housework now and then a night of rest with a touch of scrapbooking i think. Nothing that new to talk about really the week has been a bit unsettling. Liam has been testing his boundaries with me which has been somewhat frustrating, Steven is slowly learning to take responsibility for his belongings and taking his bag to and from class and also collecting his clothing that seems to get spread across the school during the day. The last week Liam has cried when i have told him that I'm going to go home now but the last two days he hasn't so that has been really good.

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-08-06T12:21:00.002+12:00

This Wednesday Im thankful for family and friends....my boys can be hard work at times but i love them to bits and wouldnt have it any other way...they bring me so my joy and happiness

WHY?

2008-08-05T10:53:00.002+12:00

Sometimes its so hard to understand why things happen. People say all things happen for a reason...my friend lost her baby yesterday she was 38weeks and booked in for a c-section in just over a weeks time. I cant imagine what she is going through right now. How can life be so cruel and take such a little, sweet innocent life from such lovely people...No one should have to deal with the death of their child.....

Layouts

2008-08-03T12:12:00.003+12:00

A layout in 15minutes was the Friday night challenge over at the sketch book this week...so this is what i came up with...also you had to use pattern paper, doodling, die cut and your own hand journalling...i don't know that i like my journalling and may change it one day,LOL.

I got this happy mail on Saturday...I won a RAK from Niella's....so a big thank you to you Niella and I will be sure to post a photo of layouts that i use these on in the near future

These two layouts are for challenges over at Stampin Scrap and I have used my owl stamps that i got as a RAK from Lynda on this first layout...they are so cute the little owls and thought they looked good on a sleeping layout...but keep an eye out for more layouts with little owls..thank you Lynda this may just be my next addiction,LOL

Bits and pieces

2008-08-01T22:25:00.004+12:00

What a busy week it has been.....first with all this wet weather school was closed on Wednesday due to flooding....boys thought it was great and any other day i would have too but it was the day of our autism meeting and we had Jen Birch coming in to speck and I was really looking forward to that. But after talking to mum she offered to come in and look after the boys for me, so YAY thank you very much mum for that. The autism meeting had a great turn out and it was really interesting listening to Jen...to get the point of view from someone living with ASD them self. As a parent of an autistic child i find some days a lot more challenging than others...but imagine being that child, having to try and fit in to be 'normal'-whatever normal is....the amount of pressure put onto that child to fit into a world that they cant understand. Anyway it was great meeting and a big thank you to Mark and Shelley for all the work/time they put into getting everything organised for this day to run smoothly.

I have done a little bit of scrapbooking but not a great deal. This layout was done for a grils night in challenge over at Stampin Scrap....simple but love the end result.

I have lots of catching up to do which i plan to do tomrrow after a good nights sleep tonight. Also some scrapbooking to be done as well....have to keep up to date and get these things done straight away instead of delaying so what better day to start than tmorrow when Ihave a nice and quite house...hopefully the rain will have eased of a bit by then...but im guessing it will still be here tomorrow.

Published

2008-07-26T17:29:00.004+12:00

Okay so here is the article in the paper to give more awareness about autism....its long but worth the read.....But then I would say that ah,LOL.

“So common, yet so misunderstood.”

That’s autism for you.
Franklin’s Alison Exelby should know.
Her elder son Steven was diagnosed with ‘moderate’ autism when he was three and a half. Now, at almost eight, he’s mainstreamed and doing ‘okay’ at school, but only because his teacher this year understands the condition and can accommodate his special learning needs.
Recently Alison was delighted to hear from this teacher that Steven has actually started a conversation with her and is beginning to interact with his peers.
Like many people with autism, Steven is intelligent, inquisitive and focuses intensely on what he’s doing.
Unlike many children with autism whose frustrations are reflected in their antisocial behaviour, Steven withdraws into himself when he’s confused or frustrated.
But it wasn’t always so.
Alison recalls her son’s first 18 months, before she knew there was anything ‘wrong’. “He was screaming a lot and seemed frustrated as though he knew what he wanted but couldn’t make himself understood.”
Steven’s progress started when his Playcentre recognised his condition and referred him to an early education psychology service.
“We learned that he was a visual learner. And early intervention ideas like the visuals workshops were a breath of fresh air,” reckons Alison. They had to travel to Howick where the workshops were run but the effort was hugely rewarding.
“They showed Steven a picture of food – say a banana – and then took his hand to touch a real banana. Then they taught him that if he wanted a banana to eat he needed to take the picture to me.” Alison recalls pictures blue-tacked all round the kitchen. “And it worked: Steven could communicate! Eventually he learned to say the words and we stop needing to use the visuals.”
Steven loves pictures and especially photographs of people and events he’s part of.
Alison has scrapbooked the process of Steven’s development and he loves nothing better than looking through the photo albums. “He needs to see pictures that look like the real thing,” Alison says. “I had to explain to the kindergarten teachers that there was no point drawing stick people as they meant nothing to Steven, and so they got the visuals that Steven could understand.”
While he had one-on-one support in his days at kindy Steven and his family still had to cope with the real world which seemed filled with judgmental people.
Alison says because children with autism are not ‘visually impaired’ people tend to assume their behaviour is naughtiness, or simply the result of poor parenting.
Nowadays Steven is considered too ‘normal’ to qualify for Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes (ORRS) funding. At first Alison was delighted to hear the description – until she realised Steven now gets no extra help just because he’s so highly rated.
“The cut off point is if the child is toilet trained, can count from 1 to 100 and knows his alphabet.” Alison’s rueful: “Steven’s assessment level is too high. He can say the alphabet forwards and back, and the same, counting up to and down from 100 – but that doesn’t alter the fact it’s hard for his teacher to sometimes keep him on task; he concentrates on what he likes doing to the point of blocking out everything else (and so seems disobedient); he has limited social skills – and although he’s not naughty he has his own addictions.” Alison describes these: “He’s meticulous about re-arranging things, he makes repetitive noises which his teacher and classmates have learned to ignore, and he has a phobic hand action, a kind of lateral wave, which indicates he’s stressed.” She asks, “How can you expect a classroom teacher to coax the best out of children with special needs like Steven’s when she has 25 other children to teach too?”
Anything that breaks into Steven’s routine can cause him stress – like going to the supermarket, and even the start of school holidays heralds a change in his behaviour.
Conversely, anything tidily in its place seems to delight him. Alison has many photos of items lined up, re-arranged in diverse shapes and blended colours – all evidence of Steven’s passion for orderliness and his love of numbers and letters.
This creativity comes possibly from Alison whose scrapbooking hobby can absorb her for hours. “I’ve had so much pleasure in recording Steven’s progress,” she says, “and it gives me so much more pleasure to see how much the photos mean to him.”
These memories so lovingly recorded also serve as a reminder to Alison to value and appreciate every little thing. “They remind me that Steven’s a happy little boy most of the time and being able to watch him learning to speak has been interesting and rewarding. Steven’s taught me a lot,” she says simply.
And she suggests the general public could learn a lot too.
“Autism is so common – and so misunderstood. People who know of a child with autism are often scared of the situation and don’t know how to cope. They can so easily get books out of the library and search the internet for information, and even spend time with the parent and child to learn more.” Alison adds: “Please don’t just label the child. And don’t condemn the parents. They need more help, not criticism.”
Footnote:The Ministry of Education has a web-site resource at www.minedu.govt.nz which is designed to give an insight into some of the challenges faced by school students with autism spectrum disorder(ASD) and includes valuable links. Althought aimed at teachers this information is also useful for other people supporting children and young people with ASD, including parents. It introduces some of the characteristics of these disorders, and suggests practical strategies for support. The Ministry also provides this information at no charge in booklet form and this booklet is available from the Post newspaper at reception, 18 Bowen Street, Waiuku.

So there you have it my story...well our story. They had photos of Steven also with some of his many patterns and I was hoping they would use that photo but the used the one of me instead...never mind its not that bad a photo I guess.

With all this stormy weather this is what it has done to the little garden shed I have outside....its now in pieces with a couple of concrete blocks on it to hold it all down. Very scarey as when we were pulling it apart the wind nearly picked up a couple of the side piece and took them away but we manage to save them in time.

So lovely goodies from Scrappin patch, I just loved these little stickers when I first saw them on a layout of Hannahs and asked what they were called and then went on my search to find them...then when introduced to Scrappin Patch website I found them so they arrived along with a RAK...thank you very much lovely my goodies. If you have time pop over they have lots of great products.

And a couple of my now favourite cosmo cricket get happy goodies I got of the good old trade me

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-07-23T16:59:00.003+12:00

Well this week it would have to be that Steven wrote 14 sentences at school yesterday all by himself. For a not so keen writer this is great for Steven and he was so proud with himself telling me that he did it all by himself...WELL DONE STEVEN.

The boys have both settled back into the school routine, although Stevens sleep routine could do with a bit of work. Not much to catch up on will post some photos of my cards that I have been making tomorrow as the light is no good anymore today.

And the 2 RAK'S go to.......

2008-07-20T19:10:00.005+12:00

I was going to get the boys to do this lucky dip for names tomorrow but being first day of school and a busy day I thought i would do it tonight.
So Liam went first and the name he pulled out of the hat was.........

....Vicki. I will PM you Vicki over at Stampin Scrap.

Then it was Stevens turn and the name he pulled out of the hat was......

...Kelly. Kelly I will leave a comment on your blog for you to email me as I see you are with wordpress.

A few photos of some of my latest creations, first is a layout I have done for the sketch book for the fortnightly challenge

A few cards that I have made over the last couple of days

Just love this butterfly one...not sure if i can part from it,LOL. I put some beads onto wire for the feelers and butterfly body.

These are the stunning cards i got back from last months card swap over at the sketch book. Great cards ladies looking forward to see what i get back this month.

And these stamps are a RAK from Lynda she did a draw and I was the lucky one who's name got drawn, so I'm going to have a play and make some cards with them...thank you very much Lynda

Bits and Pieces

2008-07-19T11:48:00.006+12:00

Well I must say I'm glad the holidays are nearly over, I will however miss my sleep ins but with school back I'm hoping Steven will start sleeping through the night again and not get up at 3am ready to start his day. The boys have been really good these holidays and the 2 weeks have gone by quite fast.

Thank you to Roo for the happy mail you send to my boys.....Liam's face glowed when he saw there was an envelope there with his name on it. They love the stickers and have used them all already. Sorry its not the best photo, its really hard to get Steven to stand still long enough for a photo these days and the light reflection on Liam's glasses is very annoying...but its a photo of two sticker happy boys.

Over at The Sketch book it was announced that Scrappin Patch will be sponsoring the Friday night challenges for the next few months...how cool is that, thanks Scrappin Patch, what a great thing to be doing.

I have been right into card making at the moment so i have made a few cards to add to my little pile that i get form the card swap. I got my June cards swaps back from the sketch book swap and also got some cool owl stamps as a RAK prize...I will post photos later on today or tomorrow.

Well that's all from me for now off to enjoy some quite scrapbooking time, have an nice weekend before school is back on Monday.

PS...can anyone on blogspot help me out and give me a few instructions on how to add a link by typing a name or word and you click on that and it goes tot he blog or website? Janine(aka mummy moo) tried to help me out but she is with wordpress and i think its different to blogspot.....but then im just not very good with computer so it may be done the same way

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-07-16T16:30:00.002+12:00

YAY its Wednesday again...my list for this week is
Internet friends....love sending and receiving emails from all the wonderful people I have met online through blogging. hopefully one day i will get to met a few of you in person.
The holidays are nearly over(although i will miss my sleep ins when school starts again).
It has been another not too colder day today.
My story has been sent to the newspaper but not sure if it will be in this weeks or next weeks paper....anyone living in Waiuku? Its in their small local paper called the Post. Once its published I will also put the story on my blog for you all to read.
YAY for happy mail
Also gotta love that trade me for both selling and buying, got a few bargains for my self this week and sold some stuff that i have had listed forever,LOL.

Also I took up Megs challenge of sending a card via snail mail, so last week i sent a couple of cards and this week i will send a couple more. So nice to send something just because you can and to know that you have made someone smile when they receive the card(hopefully,LOL)

More calendar pages

2008-07-14T20:26:00.004+12:00

Just a few more calendar pages that I did last night and today. Really enjoying doing these pages and they are a nice change to the standard 12x12 layouts. Loving the Cosmo Cricket-Get Happy papers and stickers too. Sorry the photos look yellow its the bad light will up load some better photos tomrrow.

Very cold today with thick fog this morning and it stayed around for some time, so have had the fire on since 12ish which has kept the house lovely and warm. Steven is away tonight so Liam and I got fish'n'chips for dinner and watched a DVD. Going to try and get another one or two calendar pages done tonight or some of the challenges I have sitting on my desk waiting for me to be inspired.

2008-07-13T13:13:00.002+12:00

I have made a start on a my calendar for next year. normally i just print of the calendar on the computer and then do a layout for each month but this year mum got me for my birthday a KaiserCraft calendar, so i made a start on this last night since I found on trade me a calendar stamp. So here are the two i did last night. This was a photo from last Xmas out at mums on Xmas day. The other is Steven on one of our many visits to his granny grans house where she would get out this red bucket and fill it with water then with the couple of bottle caps he would fill them and water the plants....he did this till every last drop of water was gone, and then he would want another bucket full of water. But i just love this photo of him and shows his lovely curls he had and just a happy wee boy.

Liam being silly this morning with the crocodiles,LOL

What a lovely day we are having here today, the sun is out the sky is blue and its warm too. The boys and I went for a walk down the road and got some dvds out, so they are watching them at the moment. Liam wanted me to carry him home, but i told him big 5 year old have to use their own legs to walk and are to big to be carried around by their mums..to which he replied with I'm not a big boys I'm just a baby can you carry me now. Nice try Liam but its not going to happen. Hopefully the weather will stay nice and we can get some more walking in. Steven counted the crack in the path from half way up the hill to home and counted 222 cracks. It was great as it kept his mind of having to walk and it was great for his counting too he did well.
Right off to do a bit of housework and then some creating.

Your got mail.....

2008-07-10T19:59:00.006+12:00

....for this week Liam has been out to the letterbox every morning to check what mail we had. So off he would go with the little bathroom stool and then he would coming running back in and tell me how much mail there is, and i would ask him where it was and he say oh its in the letter box should i bring it in,LOL...umm yes please Liam. So off he would go running out to get the mail. This morning i followed him out and got these photos...so watch this space for a layout to happen.

Even with a stool he needs to be on tip-toes,LOL so cute

Walking down the drive with the mail

Then he asked if i could take a photo of him holding the mail

So i took up Megs challenge and have made a couple of cards and will be posting those out to a few people tomorrow and I have really enjoyed making card.

RAK.....

2008-07-09T17:50:00.002+12:00

...forgot to add that since I have had few little raks sent to me I thought I would pass on the kind thought to others, so to all you NZ bloggers leave a comment before the 21st of this month to go into a draw for a rak, there will be two RAK to be sent out....I will get Steven and Liam to pull a name out each from a hat.

Whoo Hoot Wednesday

2008-07-09T16:36:00.002+12:00

So I thought I would join in on this Whoo Hoot Wednesday that I see on alot of blogs every Wednesday.
-The boys have gone to their dads till 7pm for dinner and he picked them up just after 4 which is earlier than normal, so the house is nice and peaceful-I love my boys to bits but holiday time I love the break too.
-Trade Me happy mail bargains arrived today, and I must follow Liam out to the letter box one day as its his thing at the moment to check the mail and he goes out there with the little bathroom step we have so he can reach the letter box...lol its so cute.
-Steven had his hair cut and he was HAPPY(until bout the last minute)but wow this is such a huge thing for Steven and I was just amazed at how well he did.
-The sun was out again for the second day in the row and it was nicer outside than it was inside.
-I had a nice sleep in this morning which was lovely.
-I rearrange the lounge and the boys found some videos that had their names on them so wanted to watch them and see what they were. So we all snuggled on the sofa and watched their home videos...was funny seeing my niece Jacqueline at about 18 months old walking around with a dummy in her mouth compared to her now at 9years old and even to see Steven so little and such a happy baby till he was about 18months and watch these videos now I see so many little things that say autism. But what funny the boys had seeing them self on TV as babies.

More Autism Awareness

2008-07-08T22:07:00.006+12:00

I got the first draft copy of my article for the paper tonight, so I will go through that tomorrow and then send it off again. At the moment its over a thousand words so needs to be shortened, but she is also interested in sending the full length article to a magazine, if I was keen. So once its published I will post a copy here for you to read. And I guess the more people see and read about autism the more awareness of it there will be. I would also like to say thank you for all the comment in my last autism awareness post. So on that note I have posted a picture of a flyer from my autism support group, our next meeting we have Jen Birch coming along to share her story with us, she has Asperger Syndrome and is author of 'Congratulations! It's Asperger Syndrome". If anyone is local and interested in coming along let me know as number are limited, but I thought I would post here and if you know anyone who may be interested then you could let them know, but if you are keen you need to let me know by the 15th of July.

A big thank you for these lovely RAK's from a couple of online friends and bloggers. These lovely snowman stamps from Trace...watch this spot for the making of snowmen cards for Xmas this year...and these papers from Janine(aka Angelgurl) from a RAK from her blog. So a big thank you to you tow ladies, and I will be sure to post photos of my creations with these lovely bits.

On Sunday night while watching The Lion Man the boys were on the sofa and Steven had been wiggling his bottom tooth pretty much all day and then said 'look it just popped out' and there he was with his tooth in his hand. He was very excited and started jumping around saying Im going to get $2 from the tooth fairy,LOL. Lucky the tooth fairy actually had some change in her wallet..I must say she was a bit worried there for a moment.

So i have been doing a bit more sorting with my scrapbooking stuff and when I sorted the shelving out found these container so thought they would be perfect for my grungeboard letters and numbers, the bigger ones are put together in one of the plastic draws.

It was a lovely day today and warmer outside than it was inside, so Liam and i got outside and mowed lawns, did some weeding and washed the car since it was well over due for a wash, even though I'm sure the neighbours cat will have left more dirty foot prints on it again by tomorrow morning.

And a layout that I got done today, very simple but its another layout for Stevens album.

And here is my last weeks Friday night challenge for over at Stampin' Scrap. The word search idea came for the Mays Creating Keepsakes magazine. Took awhile to get the word search typed up but i love the affect of it and i have printed off a few extras because if Steven gets his hands on this layout with no one looking I'm sure he is going to get a open and start searching for some more words,LOL.

Celebrity Challenge

2008-07-04T12:41:00.010+12:00

Since there were a few photos for this I thought I would make it into a slide show. So this is for the celebrity challenge over at The Sketch Book, and the challenge was to make a simple mini album...so you know that mini album of Liam's sleeping photos, well I thought here is my motivation for me to get that done.

And here is a piece of Liam's art work that he did a few weeks ago at school recycling rubbish, we have for the last term been saving rubbish form chip bags and twist bars etc... for school and the whole class made a picture each, very stunning considering its made form rubbish

Okay I cant seem to get the slide show up not sure why its not working will have another look tonight and see if i can get it up

Autism Awareness

2008-07-03T20:07:00.002+12:00

I don't often talk much about autism on here, but tonight I will share. A few weeks ago an old friend got hold of me telling me of her story and how she had been interviewed and her story put in the paper and the publisher wanted someone local with an autistic child to interview. So she contacted me to see if I was interested.....so on Tuesday I had the lady over here to interview me. I was a bit nervous being a very shy, keep to myself kind of person, but once I started talking it was all good. So we started at the start when Steven was diagnosed and worked our way through the start of using visuals with him and then how at the age of 4 he was finally saying single words and then putting two words together. Then off to kindy where we had great support from and ESW and the kindy teachers the joys of Steven starting conversations with the teachers and starting to interact with his peers...and we talked about the lows, the high percentage of families with special needs kids that end in divorce, the lack of routine of good sleeping habits and Steven was shocking for this. He would go to bed at 7pm be awake again at 10pm and then not go to sleep again till about 1am then he would sleep till bout 4am, 5am if i was lucky and then that was him till bedtime that night he was ready to start the day. And even now his sleep pattern isn't great and he was up at 3am this morning ready to start the day. And then we moved onto school, school was a where you move form kindy where you get all the support in the world and then school its like they get you into mainstream school and then everyone runs away and says to you okay your child doesn't get ORRS funding and because he is toilet trained, can say the alphabet forwards and backwards- saying it backwards is something i cant do unless I think about it, he can count to 100 so he doesn't need support in the classroom. School was hard and is hard but this year has been so much better. Steven has a teacher that wants to understand not just what works for him but she wants to understand and know about autism and its great. So the interview was great and she will do a draft copy and email it to me to go over and delete anything i don't want in there, she also took a couple of photos from a mini album I have made of Steven and all his lines. I dont know how much everyone knows about autism and for me when i heard the word for the first time i thought what on earth is that...there is loads of information out there on the Internet.....Autism is a developmental disorder affecting social and communication skills. Individuals with autism often have accompanying learning disabilities but whatever their general level of intelligence, they will share a common difficulty in making sense of the world in the way others do. In most individuals with autism, certain skills will be better than others so that their development will not only be slower than usual, but be uneven and different from most individuals with other learning disabilities.
One of the things that Steven did alot of when he was younger was making lines with everything, this is a common thing for kids with autism to do. I will post some photos tomorrow..some of his lines/patterns are very interesting.
We have become very use to routines in this house as without them there would be alot more stress for Steven. When he was younger I remember there were certain toy cars that were used in one room but not another and if he couldn't find that car look out, so for that reason the boys have so many toy cars cause you can imagine if i gave one away that he used for a certain routine of his there would be hell to pay if he couldn't find it. but as he has gotten older hes not so fixed on some of his routines. he knows on Monday nights he goes to a friends house and Wednesday its dads house for dinner and home at 7pm and then Friday to dads house for the night and then i pick them up on Saturday at 4pm...those routines he likes to stay the same. he has been getting a bit stressed with school holidays coming up, he enjoys the holidays and not going to school but its a change that he has to adjust to first, school gives so much structure and routine to his days which he loves.

Well it seems since my last post with all the comments that I have got a lot of stuff.....the shelving that is in the first picture is pretty much the only storage for the boys games and my scrapbooking stuff. Liam has a few games and puzzles in his room, Steven doesn't have any in his room because at night he plays with anything that is in his room. So that's where they all go.. i do have a cupboard for all the games but since moving form a big 4 bedroom house to a small 3 bedroom place(well i reckon more 2 bedrooms and a office as Steven's room is smaller than the bathroom so I'm sure its more an office than bedroom)so there is no room to put a storage cupboard. but the plus to a small house is less housework, and less room for the boys to spread their toys. As for scrapbooking stuff, I don't have that much stuff do I ladies? And on that note I'm off here be sure to look back tomorrow at some stage and I will hopefully have some photos of the mini album I have done for the celebrity challenge over at the sketch book.

2008-06-29T17:28:00.005+12:00

So I was checking every one blogs out and saw that Janine W has given me a You Inspire Me award, thank you Janine and for your kind words too. I will think about who I want to pass this award onto over the next few days.

So I have over the last week been busy in my room sorting out my scrapbooking area. So here are the shelves before photo.

and the after photo...I know there is still lots of stuff on them but it is actually more sorted and everything has a place rather than just thrown in there somewhere.

My scrapbook desk which i don't use as much as I use to as i have become a standing up scrapbooker. But when i do journalling or use my stamps i sit down at this desk.

My desk that I stand at to scrapbook...with my draws with all my scrap bits of paper and rubons chipboard and lots of other bits and pieces.

The other side of my desk with a few more bits and pieces

And here is my layout for the celebrity challenge over at The Sketch Book....we had to use some embossing in the layout. Not sure if i like the 5 and may add a bit more blue on it not sure yet.

2008-06-27T14:05:00.002+12:00

I thought since yesterday I have some younger photos of Liam that today I would share some of Steven. This first one is to carry on with the Liam sleeping on the floor photos and some of the comments I have had about how kids sleep in weird places,LOL well this is Steven I think he was about 9months old and fast asleep. i really don't know how he managed to go to sleep like this...must have been very tired is all I can say.

The highchair sleeping beauty is Liam and the sofa and monkey sleeping beauty is Steven. This is the last photo of Steven before he became a big brother.

Look at all the hair Steven had and curls too...so cute

And check out that smile/giggle.....what was he laughing at? He found Liams little baby cry very amusing

An this is Liam's last night photo...lol he took a blanket this time

Bits and pieces

2008-06-26T14:31:00.003+12:00

I didn't realise just how many clear stamps I had. So now to find room somewhere to put them, but they look great and I'm sure now that they are all sorted and where I can see them I will use them alot more.

With the photos of Liam sleeping on the floor I decided to go through the other photos I have of liam and found this one of him when he moved from a cot to a bed, and for the first week he went to sleep on the floor in his room or hallway and this one which I thought is so cute of him asleep on the sofa that was next to his bed.

And this one that I love also of him and his giraffe. He use to bum shuffle around the house carrying him with him where ever he went and then when he started walking he would drag giraffe behind him but the tail.