Injuries and Boxes

I was meant to blog yesterday, but I've had a bit of a busy time here.

On Sunday both the girls were playing outside. Suddenly Caitlyn screamed and I rushed outside to find her on the grass. She twisted her ankle. Took her inside, gave lots of cuddles, put an ice pack on her ankle and she settled down on the couch happily watching a DVD. Then it was bath time and we managed, even though it was pretty heavy trying to lift her up in such a way that I could take off her clothes without her putting any pressure on her foot. Bedtime came, we read stories, gave some pain medicines because by then she started complaining again and switched off the light. 9:30pm came and she screamed out in absolute agony. It's been a long time since I felt so helpless watching my child in pain, not sure what else I could do to make it better. So Terence took her to the one medical centre in Paraparaumu to get her checked out. They bandaged it all up and asked that we come back the following morning for an x-ray just to check if there might be a fracture. They came back and we put Caitlyn in our bed because it would be far easier for me to manage her there than at the top of her bunk bed where she normally sleeps. It was a long night. She woke up crying several times and each time all I could do was to let her know I was there and that we would go see the doctor again in the morning.

Yesterday we went for the x-ray. I had to haul out her old pram because there is no way I can carry her around everywhere. She thought it was pretty cool "driving in style" :-)

I'm so proud of Caitlyn, she wasn't scared when they took an image of her foot and she kept it nice and still. She loved seeing her foot (and bones) on the screen.

Thankfully the results came back showing no fractures. It is still sore when she tries to stand on her foot, but hopefully soon, she'll feel a lot better and we can get back to normal.

And then in between I've been very busy with this:


Read more here.

All about hair

Today was Caitlyn's rehearsal for her ballet show that is on the 11th of December. She'll be a ladybug. I panicked a bit because we are meant to put their hair into a bun and I'm absolutely useless with doing hair. I'm so useless that I prefer to keep mine short so I can just gel it into something that resembles an okay hairstyle. So armed with some tips from two friends, a you tube video (or 2), a bun net, some hair pins, hair gel and hair spray I set out this morning to get Caitlyn ready for her rehearsal.

And this is the result:

Isn't she just so pretty!

Bianca asked if I could do her hair as well and whilst her hair is not as long as Caitlyn's it was long enough to make a bun:


We've sure come a long way with Bianca's hair since she was on treatment:

And even when she finished treatment her hair was still very short and very thin:


And the one song that springs to mind is this one. Who knew that a simple thing like hair could mean so much, but for us it is a symbol of just how far we've come. We have so much to be thankful for!

Update on our kittens

This morning we were woken up around 5:50am by a loud screech. I jumped up shouting "bird" to Terence. Sigh! Prince Charming caught a bird and brought it inside. Not a nice way to wake up. So Terence had to get up to go and see what was happening. He got to the lounge and there was one of those black birds with the yellowish beaks sitting high up above the curtains and Prince Charming... sitting high up above the curtains trying to get to the bird. Terence opened all the windows and thankfully the bird managed to fly outside much to Prince Charming's disgust.

For those of you new to the blog we recently adopted these two kittens from the SPCA. Well not really recently, we got them when they were around 4 months old. They are now around 8 months old and not quite as little anymore. When we moved to Wellington we finally got permission from our landlord to have pets. No dogs, but cats would be fine. So we decided to adopt 2 kittens from the SPCA. We didn't tell Bianca because we wanted to keep it a surprise. For so long she's been wanting a pet of her own, but of course throughout her leukemia treatment she wasn't allowed to have a cat and it is hard getting permission for a dog. We then told her that we were going to visit the SPCA and she could donate some toys to the animals. We explained how some animals don't have any toys and they would be so happy. We got there and while the kids were busy looking at the kittens we chatted to the people there and made arrangements to adopt 2 kittens. We then told the kids that we were going to take 2 kittens home and so Bianca adopted Prince Charming and Caitlyn chose Looey.

The kittens are doing very well. Prince Charming is our little hunter, much to our frustration when he catches birds or rats and then proudly comes to show it off inside the house. We don't mind so much when it is bugs that he hunts and certainly it is so amusing when he catches leaves and proudly comes to show us :-). Looey is our little fly catcher which is great because we simply hate flies. So she is definitely earning her keep :-). Looey doesn't like to be picked up / sit on your lap unless she chose to. She loves being brushed and she loves to follow me around the house. When I work at the computer she will often come and sit on my lap.

Prince Charming is so gentle (both kittens actually are and tolerate it well when Bianca carries them around). He is quite vocal and will often chat away "telling us all about his day". Unlike Looey he enjoys walking around outside. Looey also enjoys the outside, but is happier staying inside more often.

Here are two photos I took of them today:

Counting down the days

Can you believe that Christmas is only 1 month away? Wow, I can't believe it. This year has gone so incredibly fast. It feels like every month just goes faster and faster. And it doesn't help that the stores start decorating for Christmas pretty much from October. I must say that I'm feeling a bit flustered at the moment. There is just so much going on that at times I'm really worried we are forgetting something. I can't wait for schools to close 15 December when hopefully things will finally start slowing down a bit.

This year I have decided I want a bit more of an exciting build-up for the kids that will focus on not only the whole countdown to Christmas day, but incorporate things that will focus on quality and fun family time and even (if all my plans go as I'm hoping) give them an opportunity to truly experience "giving". So this is what I want to do. I'm busy making small little cardboard boxes that will resemble little presents. I will be making 48 so the kids can each have 24 to help them count down. I will then put them into a Christmas Tree shape like this image which I saw on this website:


I considered making the boxes look like little drawers as in the picture, but if we do little boxes with lids, then not only is it exciting to open, but you can put the lid underneath the box after you opened it and this way easily see how many more is left. Especially for Caitlyn who doesn't really have a concept of time just yet.

Then just as a usual advent calendar we'll put something sweet in, but then I'll also be putting some notes with fun activities we can do together in each of the boxes. Some activities will be fairly quick, because until the 15th the kids are still in school and they have their after-school activities and so on (Caitlyn goes to daycare actually until the 23rd). Other activities will be much longer like baking cookies and making salt dough Christmas Tree decorations and so on. So now if my plans go as I'm hoping, then I want the kids to make biscuits and paint / draw pictures that we can then go and deliver at one of the retirement villages. The kids love baking and I know they'll feel so proud to share their creations and this way they'll truly experience "giving". That it is not about getting something in return, but simply to do something to brighten another person's day.

My goal is to give the kids their advent calendars on the 1st of December so fingers crossed I manage to finish it in time! I'll post pictures once I'm done.

What will you be doing this Christmas time?

Golden Nuggets and Bloody Butchers and some others too...

A while back (when we were still in Auckland) I discovered a pretty cool show - Get Growing. Basically it is a show where they take a couple and teach them from scratch how to set up a proper veggie garden to be as self-sufficient as possible. They talk about organic ways to reduce pests, crop rotation, what works well when planted together, how to save seeds and so on. So then I got all inspired and wanting to get stuck in, which of course I couldn't because we didn't have any garden except this tiny little courtyard in shade pretty much all day long.

When we got here I thought that the time has come to look at my options. We love this rental home. It is nice and spacious, is all on one level (so no stairs inside), plenty of space for the kids to play outside and in a really quiet and peaceful area. The only downside unfortunately is that we don't have gardens, we have grass and then this big concrete slab in the front which is great for the kids to ride their bikes or scooters on and then a deck at the back. So my only option was to look at planting things in containers. I considered building raised beds on the concrete, but unfortunately for now it is a cost issue. We have permission to dig up some of the grass, but then when we move out we have to replace the grass which will once again be a cost issue (especially since this is not our house). So I managed to get some polystyrene containers from New World and some planter bags from Warehouse. Maybe next year I might re-look building raised beds, but this year it is more about learning when the right time is for our climate to plant things, what works well, what didn't and so on. So for now there is no real planning that went into deciding where to "plonk down" the planter bags and containers other than trying to give them as much sun as possible for most of the day.

Before we came back to Wellington I started saving tomato seeds. I love tomatoes and so growing my own would be just so cool. Right now I have 3 plants (had 4 but 1 unfortunately died) that I bought from New World and they are heritage type tomatoes - 1 golden nugget and 2 bloody butcher. I'm especially excited about the golden nugget because I have never seen yellow / orange tomatoes and can't wait to taste it. One thing I will have to remember though is that the Bloody Butcher one grows really tall and needs quite a bit of space. The Golden nugget has a lot of fruit.

One of my little Golden Nugget tomatoes are nearly ripe - can't wait:

And then I have several plants that I grew from seeds I saved at times when we bought tomatoes to eat at home. So I'm very excited. Look how nice they are doing:

One of my Bloody Butcher tomatoes were so close to getting ripe when some stupid bird came to help itself. It was not even fully ripe and was then left half eaten. Sigh! So now I have bought some nets and will need to buy a few more. One more thing to remember when I do veggie gardening again next year - plan it with nets from the word go.