!?!?!?!

I have no idea what's going on - I can't seem to feel either tooth.... gawd I hope they haven't gone back under again..... she wont let me in her mouth anyway - so they could both be there....

lets just hope she's all good for the wedding... whatever happens

Last tooth for a while.....

Ok - so this morning I decided to check jade's mouth... and we have the final tooth poking out... only one tip - so there'll still be a few days where she'll be a bit sore while these two teeth break through fully...

But, on the bright side, she's happy for me to brush her teeth without cringing anymore... although the battery died on her tigger toothbrush - so now I have to work out whether I can replace the battery or if I have to buy a new toothbrush... she has a shrek toothbrush too - but that's the one she plays with while I brush her teeth with tigger....

although, shrek's batteries are dead too.... tooth brushing is a slow process.... and she seems to be addicted to the toothpaste.... I'm sure Colgate are putting drugs in their toothpaste to get little kids addicted... (this is the 1-6yr toothpaste... not full blown adult stuff....)

Anyway, now I need to recheck tonight if I can that it was her RIGHT tooth that cut through first - else I'm getting all excited about a tooth that has been out for three days..... will update more later.....

WE HAVE ANOTHER TOOTH!!

Oh, Yay!!! It's been a tough couple of weeks and with no sign of a tooth coming in I was starting to question whether she was going to be a horrible little monster....

But tonight, I got my finger in her mouth and can feel a point.... it's only one of three points - but it's all easy from here on that tooth....

Still one more to go - and hopefully that'll be within the week... he last two 2nd yr molars came within 2 days of each other.....

At least I have a reason for the grumpy baby syndrome... :)

(Feeling so much better about everything now!)

Leanne's 30th......

Tonight we had Leanne's 30th.... (tis the year for them)... it was fancy dress...

Originally we figured we'd go as the Wiggles as there would be Rob, Jade, Kate and myself there... so we'd be right... then we found out that it was a no-kids event - due to Leanne not wanting to chase other people's kids around... (I can understand that...)

Anyway, so we had to come up with another theme - and we were running out of time (we only had one week to work out a new costume and arrange it...) - so we decided to go Goth... figured this would be easy... I went and got us matching grey and black stripey socks.... black nail polish.... black eyeliner....

I didn't count on other things being harder to find - but over the week I managed to find a website that had black lipstick and white face paint..... so we're getting closer to the day - and haven't managed to track down black hair spray....

Leanne was heading to Rocky - so we asked her to get some at the costume shop... unfortunately when she returned - she realised it was gold glitter spray... so then we were panicking.... Anyway, long story short... we found it locally - so our costumes were complete....

Friday morning, I get up, I'm not feeling 100% flash...but I managed to get through a day at work.... Kate was going to come over so we could work out if we could actually spike out hair... but by 5pm on the Friday - I was feeling so crook...

I finally got Jade to bed by 8:10 and then headed to bed myself - being asleep by 8:30 at the latest.... Rob came to bed about 10:30 - and discovered that I had a fever... so drugged me up and I went straight back to sleep.... I woke up this morning feeling worse for wear... and was positive that I wouldn't make it out tonight...but I did.... we didn't stay too late though - home by 9:30.....

Anyway, here's pics.....

Not sure I'm good at this grumpy goth thing!

Kate on the other hand.....

I found it hard to pull the grumpy face because we were laughing so much....

Kate still had it down pat though!

Leanne has always felt inadequate - so for $17.99 she fixed it!

Rassy & Vicki

Yawn....

Ok, so Jade was up screaming at 1am... seems she may have just been a bit cold - I went in and covered her up and she went back to sleep... I stayed in there until 1:30 just to be sure- then snuck out...

She woke up in a reasonable mood this morning - until I had to take off her Dora PJ's and put her in clothes for school... then it was all downhill from there...

although - we managed to get breakfast into her this morning... Peaches in a Mango sauce... but it was better than her having nothing - and it was all "no sugar added" fruit... there are worse things I could give her I guess... :)

She didn't want to go to school either - and Miss Jill and Miss Dinh weren't there either... so that didn't make for a happy drop-off.....

*sigh* it's nearly the weekend.... and I get saturday night off - and Rob'll have to deal with Jade on his own... (I can see I'm going to be getting a call while I'm at the party on Saturday night asking me to come home)....

Yay!!!

she's given up!!!

about time too - I feel like crap - and I think that's me done for the day.....

Sigh...

Looks like we may be up for another night like last night..... she hasn't stopped screaming since we got home....

Teething still sucks........

Long night.......

Well, this teething thing isn't going away in a hurry...

Jade's not really 100% still, she's got pink cheeks and is heating up quite quickly... to the point that she's just in a t-shirt and her flanny jarmie pants to sleep tonight and she's still sweating...

she's had the panadol - so there's nothing else we can do for now - and she's FINALLY gone to sleep.... so Yay Jade!!! lets just hope she's so tired that she makes it through the night and I can get a good nights sleep...

I've currently got Rob stacking the dishwasher... I was going to be good and wash the dishes - but I really just don't have the energy - and with twice or nearly three times as many dishes per day (because the boys are here and have breakfast and lunch) the dishes stack up quite quickly by the end of the day.... (someone should teach kids to wash dishes! there's a theory!)

Anyway, the trip with the boys is going really well.. they've started doing their schoolwork and Rob's going through it with them.... I think he's probably harder on them than the school teachers... so they're probably going to go back to school with these A+++ assignments and their teachers are going to think that Rob did the work for them, rather than just getting them to try again....

and I must say, I'm very impressed with the boys.... They're both eating all of their vegetables (well - Greg's getting better.... Mat's always been a good boy with Vegies!)... It's good to see an empty plate at the end of their meal!!!

The boys seem happy to have their own space while they're here this time too - they've got their space downstairs - so they can go down there and play on their computers and we get to spend the evening with Jade screaming until she goes to sleep.. but at least she's not ruining the boys eardrums also!

Well, I'm tired... and need to be up early to get everything ready and not be late for work again...

Signing off!

Sandpit!!!

And now we get to see if Jade is really her mothers daughter....

Mom and Dad built Jade a sandpit (well Jade and all of their future Grandchildren... it isn't Jade specific - and it's big enough for Jade and all of her intended cousins to fit in!!! Mom has high hopes on having more than just one grandchild!)

As a kid, it was almost as hard to drag me out of my sandpit as it was to pull me out of someone's swimming pool..... (and yes, even if it was what other people would consider to be cold weather - it didn't usually stop me - it does these days though!)

So far so good.... We'll see how it goes over time.... but even if Jade doesn't want to play in it - I'm sure I can still make time to sit and make sandcastles.... I'll teach this kid a thing or two about having fun!! :)

Funny - yet not so funny.....

We've been giving Jade teething gel lately because she's cutting her 2nd year molars.... so everytime we gave it to her when she was at the stage where she wasn't interested in having the horrible stuff in her mouther we'd say "this will make you feel better..."

She's now taken to calling it "Feel Better" whenever we ask her if her mouth is hurting... she's never requested it without being asked about whether her mouth hurts or not...

Until....

4am!

I'm happily finally sleeping after she'd woken up earlier - and gone back to sleep... then I hear....

"Mommy... feel better.... Mommy.... please... feel better.... please mommy"

unfortunately that ruined any further sleep I was due to get - her temp was up slightly and she was very clingy.... I tried getting her back to sleep in her room... and then snuck out - and straight away "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"...

so I went and stayed in there for longer.... no luck... BB came in... so that's just never fun when you're trying to sleep and a cat wants to sleep right in your face...

I ended up taking jade into our room and stayed with her until she fell asleep on our bed... then it was time to get up for a shower... (Gotta love it when rob's out of town! NOT!)

Sea Urchins....

Jade and I went off to Sea Urchins this morning to meet up with Kate, Mitch and Lachlan again... we had a great morning - and I think we managed to wear out Jade more this morning than we did yesterday..... she's still not 100% sure of the Big Kids jumping castle and got bounced around a bit when we did go in there... (yes... I have to go in too else she wont go! there's a sight to see!)

Kate's kids love posing for the photos.... Jade's at the "ignore mommy" stage... so trying to get photos where she's smiling is getting harder and harder..... Where's Lachlan is right at the "take a picture of me" and then "show me!!!" stage....

Lachlan, Jade & Mitchell

Lachlan, Mitchell & Kate

I had to get a pic of Jade's bum... I got her the cutest little "Cheeky Monkey" combo from Best'n'less... geez they've got some good clothes and really cheap.... anyway. it says cheeky on her bum... and I guess it's quite literal.

Mitchell driving his car....

Lachlan playing Spiderman....

BBQ at the Marina.....

So, it's family fun day today... we headed to the Marina at 9am for a BBQ lunch (bbq lunch with a 22month old means eating around 11am-11:30 - so that we can be at home and back in bed by 12:30 at the latest.....)

Attendees:

• Jade, Rob & I
• Mat, Greg & Cheryl (Greg's gf)
• Kate, Mitchell & Lachlan
• Jess & Janae (3months old)

Soccer Jade...

Mat

Cheryl & Greg

Mitchell
Lachlan

Jess & Janae

Jade, Me & Janae

Peek-a-boo

Rob (sitting up on the kids play gym)

Down the Tunnel Slide....

Kate & Lachlan

Mitchell

Was a great morning... and the seagulls loved us (leftover sausages didn't last long when they turned up.....)

Back to getting things done at home (tis laundry day! so exciting!)

Gotta Love 'em.....

And she does, Jade loves her brothers to bits.... don't believe me? Check it out....

Greg got the honours of bathing her tonight... gave me time to prepare dinner... (with Rob out of town - every bit of help saves me a few more grey hairs...!)

Not sure if Jade thought Greg needed a shave!

Snuggle up for the Sibling photo....

Cuddles for Mat....

This cat will put up with anything!!!!

All in all it's been a busy busy week... the boys are entertaining themselves downstairs with their computers.... and i've been busy doing housework (how unusual) upstairs....

Mind you, I didn't have to do the boys laundry - I got home at lunchtime - and Mat had just brought their washing in... washed and hung out this morning.... these boys are getting good!!!

Bundaberg

Well, I'm in Bundaberg today. I've been here for most of the day, and I'm getting close to being finished. One of my customers down here had an important PC blow up, and I had to rush down here.

The Van has got over 4000km on it so far (Rocky and back a couple of times, Townsville once, and Bundaberg today) and it's traveling well. It's a significant bug magnet though, and I'm looking forward to having the Bullbar on it, as I'll be travelling back at night along country roads with potentially a lot of Kangaroos. I'll be careful.

The boys and I installed Quake3 last night, whilst I was building the PC up for here, and while it was installing XP, I had my arse soundly handed to me by Greg. Sigh. I used to be really good at FPS's, but I'm way out of practice.

On the subject of XP, does anyone like Vista? I installed it on Tharyn's parent's new PC, and on Frank's laptop when I gave it to them. They both want it off, and want to go back to XP. Yet another item on my Things-To-Do list.

One of the bad things about the van is that I just tend to chuck stuff in the back of it, treating it like a magic 'Bag of Holding' (those that used to MUD or Roleplay will get that 8), but it isn't infinite in size, and I'm going to have to organise it a bit better. Tharyn bought me some big plastic boxes (about 1m³) a year or so ago, but my 'carry around' stuff has significantly exceeded the carrying capacity of them. I think I might buy a couple more, and re-organise a bit.

I'm thinking out loud here, as the computer I'm working on is busy copying files across, but this is what I think I should have in the van:

• Some CardXpress Printers, as they're the most common 'breakables'
  
• Two reels of Cat5 cable
• My network toolbox, which has all the network terminators and terminating tools in it
• 2 Argent boxes (these are what EFTPOS machines use to talk to the bank, via ISDN)
• 1 Spare LCD Monitor
• 3 or 4 standard PC power supplies
• My 'Box of Components', which has RAM, HDD's, CDROM's, misc bits like that
• Maybe a cheap PC for impulse buys from customers?

That, I think is the important stuff that I should carry around. I think I should be able to pack that into 3 or 4 boxes, and if I can manage to keep it organised, it should give me some more room.

I've also got a new radio in the Van, too - but calling it just a Radio is doing it an injustice. It's a DVD Player, a TV Receiver, a MP3 player (via USB or MP3's burnt to CD) and a bluetooth hands free kit. It's also got a touch screen interface, and it seems to do everything I want it to. The best bit was that it was only $350.

It's astonishing how cheap this stuff is now. I bought it from eBay, and I also fired off an email to the Manufacturer, asking how much their newer and shiner one is - turns out it's only US$310 in bulk. I'm tempted to go into the 'selling car radios' market, as those things would be easily able to sell for AU$699, leaving a nice $200 profit margin there.

The only bad thing about the hands-free, and it's not the radio's fault, is that the van is so noisy. Behind the drivers seat is basically a huge echo chamber for any road or engine noise, and it's quite hard for the other person to hear me. This happened with the Sudio Halo as well, but the Halo was very quiet, and I ended up using it like a mobile phone - putting it against my ear to hear what the other person was saying, which does kind of defeat the purpose of hands-free 8)
I think I may need to put a bulkhead behind the seats, to block out the noise, and to stop stuff flying forwards in an accident

Time to get back to work.

Mom's birthday....

We had the family over tonight, was Mom's birthday - I won't discuss her age else she'll be telling me where to go for babysitting in future... but she definitely doesn't look her age! (hows that for sucking up? maybe I can build up to going away for a whole weekend!!!)
Anyway, pics as follows:

Mat

Greg

Rob doing the cooking

Dad got sprung eating the salad before we were ready to eat...

Reflecty Frank and his shiney new workshirts!

I think Jade has had enough of everyone wiping her nose whenever she's teething, well tonight she got her own back:

Shayne first...

then GG

then Grandpa

then Gran

Not sure I would have wanted that hanky on my head after all that nose blowing, but Jade thought it was funny, GG was blowing it upwards (not sure how that is funny - maybe Jade can explain one day!)

Edit by Rob: OK, that last photo is my FAVOURITE photo of Jade so far! She was laughing her head off when that photo was taken. She's so cute!

The boys are back in town......

So, Rob's boys are up for 4 weeks.. was time to get some new pics of Jade with her big brothers....

I'm sure they love arriving in town and having less than 24hrs to settle in before they get a camera shoved in their face.... :)

They'll get used to it though... it's not about to stop....

Jade and Greg

Greg

Mat

Oooh - look who's home!

Apparently I was making too much noise trying to get Jade's attention to get a photo.

I got told to "shhh mommy!"

Yay!!!!

Ok, I do realise that this is post #4 for today... but I had to do it....

Since Jade was a baby.... I'm talking... pre-6 months.... she has NOT fallen asleep at bed time before being put in the cot (or in the last week - her big girl bed)......

Now, she didn't sleep today at all - apart from dozing off for 10mins of the trip home from the trials event....

I put her on our bed - put baby einstein on (Wiggles just gets her wanting to jump around too much.... so she can watch that during the day if she has to!).... I was on the phone to Mom and said "I'll have to go so that I can watch Einstein with Jade for a bit....... umm..... umm.... I think she's asleep"

and she was.... I turned off Einstein... and had to carry jade to her room and try not to wake her... Yay for a peaceful night... no screaming!

Sunday events.....

So, due to the boys coming up, we weren't able to compete in the trials event... which probably worked out for the best as it meant that Rob didn't hurry home from Townsville and stopped to have a sleep on the way home....

So I decided to go out and have a look at the start of the trials event this morning to waste some time until it was time for Jade to come home for lunch and to have her sleep (although the sleep thing didn't happen..... ARGH! I'm going nuts!!!)

Anyway, so we went out - got dirty - came home... and kept trying to ready the house for the boys visit...



We also put on Jade's second Doona setting (need two so that she's always got something on there... makes sense when you think about it.... when I bought the first set - I hadn't even thought about the second set - so I had to go out and buy them this week! - Yay Carebears!)

Then Jade decided to help with the washing of the dishes.... it took her as long to wash one bottle as it took me to finish the dishes - but it's the thought that counts!

Downstairs Renovations.....

Due to some unforeseen issues with Rob's Ex's husband in the States, she had to fly out early - so the boys had to come up a week earlier than planned...

It's all good... but it meant that yesterday I was having to run around like a chook with my head cut off to setup the guest room (which still hasn't been finished... it has no door - and there's no door where the hot water system is in that room... as well as the window sills haven't been painted... and the bathroom hasn't been completed either... (it still needs a new external door as well as a door on the internal side - and we need to get the sink plumbed in and mirror up - etc etc.....)

Guest Room - Qn & Single Beds.. Won't usually have painting gear or a desk with 2 new 17" LCD monitors (ready for the boys to do their school work for the month they're here).

This room will usually be set up with the two beds and a TV and DVD player and maybe an armchair or small couch (although that'll have to wait).

Bathroom/Laundry - new Towel Rails!!

Tiles on Floor!

Shower painted white - which beats the lovely floral design that was in there... We're still in need of new doors - but finances aren't allowing that at the moment.. That'll be in a few months time..

Shower from the other angle - all nice white and shiny! Such an improvement in just a coat of paint...