Thursday was payday for me, and as it had been a few weeks since I had left the house (about 10 weeks) and it was a nice enough day, we decided to have an outing.

What a day it it was too!  I know now which shopping centre is truly family friendly!!!!  Yeah, the new one in Gympie called Centro!!!!  They have a parents room so I can feed Aralia sitting on a proper couch, not a chair a couch, and not have to worry that I am offending some ignorant fool (funny how the women baulk more at breastfeeding mothers than the men do).

It was just so stress free and the girls didn't have to wait for me to finish feeding Aralia before setting off to complete the shopping as Les took them with him to get the things he wanted to get (a new bbq!).

Oh bliss and happiness!!!!  I can go out as a nursing mum and not have all the hassles I have had in the past, which made outings highly stressful for me!!!  The best thing is, other mums were more than happy to have a quick chat while the dads (hehehehe) changed nappies! lol.  I felt apart of the real world for once.

I probably spent too much, as usual, but Ayla needs summer clothes and I had to get her swimming stuff for school as well.  Oh, and socks.  Her feet are huge and she wears socks that are supposed to fit a 10 year old!!!!

Naturally, everyone got something new, even if it was just a pair of shoes or some pj's for summer.  Forgot to get Les to hunt down some shorts for himself though, but that just means 'forcing' another outing in the next few days.

Yay!!!!!  Now all we need to do is get a bigger car that all the car seats will fit into (only 2 anchor points in the old bomb we have now and we need 3 ) and then we will be going out more often, even if just to the park for a play.

You want proof that Aralia was well and truly over due.  By our calculations she was even as much as 3 weeks over done!.

Well, here's more proof that I left her cooking for too long!

It seems that our sweet little 10 week old is starting on the teething journey!!!!!!! Nooooooooooooo!!!!!  Not yet please!!!!!!!!  At least let me get some local anaesthetic on hand first, and I'm talking like what they use at the dentist!  My breasts are not ready to be used as a needle tester!!!!!

The signs of teething are all there.  The dribbling, the grizzling (though still a happy bub at the same time) the restlessness, red cheeks and the desire to bite on anything hard.  I remember it well with the other four, though didn't breastfeed them while they were teething.  They'd 'quit' that 'habit' some time beforehand.

Please tell me that there is another explanation for it.  Make one up and make me laugh if you have to, but don't mention anything about sharp objects!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The new washing machine has been great!!!  I love it so much, I prefer to spend time in the laundry than in bed (not! lol).  The wash is much better, and I have not yet had to rewash anything!!!!!!  Yippeee!

I finally managed to figure out how to use the dryer part of it the other day, though I think that was more a fluke than anything else, but will just have to keep practicing!

Today, being rather wet and miserable outside, I thought I would go the whole hog with the machine and do the wash to dry cycle.  I think I got it right, but will have to check in about 30 mins when it should be finished.

I haven't flooded the laundry yet with this machine, so maybe there is a filter on the outlet pipe that is catching all the nasties, meaning no more overflowing tub!!!!  I just have to remember to clean that filter out or I will flood the laundry again,  but the machine will let me know when it needs doing.

While the machine takes longer to do the washing, I don't mind.  I just set it and walk away, no more having to go and readjust the load as it does it automatically, and it is soooooo much quieter.

My favourite function is the time delay setting.  I go down at a bout 4pm, load her up, set the chosen cycle and then set it to finish 19 hours later.  Don't worry, it doesn't take that long to do the washing, it waits for 17 1/2 hours before starting to wash, so when I go down at morning tea time, it is all ready to be hung up!!!!  I love it!

Now, best go and make sure it hasn't burnt all my clothes! lol.  Kidding!  It has auto shut off when it overheats!

It is that time of year again where we have to do a Housing eligibility review.  Our forms only arrived on Friday and have to be back tomorrow, so that's not going to happen, especially as they need all these documents that can take a week on their own to get.

It seems, according to the forms, that we are no longer going to be eligible for assistance from Housing any ways because we have not been looking for rental properties in the private market.  Um, the reason why we need housing assistance is because we can't get private rentals and have actually had 3 rentals in the past where we have had to just pack up and leave (long stories).

We are currently living in community supported accommodations, but if we are no longer eligible for Gov. Housing, then we can't stay here either, which will mean we are out on the streets with no roof over our heads and not able to apply again for 2 years!!!!!!

Les is going to call them, but I think I had better start packing what we don't need immediately now because we will only have 14 days to leave here if things come to that. 

We are a low income family who can't afford to rent a 4 bedroom house privately, and neither can we afford to move to a lower rental area, like Tasmania or Antarctica!!!! How are we supposed to put a roof over our kids heads if we can't get assistance anymore just because we have been living where we are for almost 2 years and have not looked for a private rental, which, by the way, was not discussed when we moved here.  No roof over my kids heads will mean they are taken away by welfare.  So much for helping those families that need the help to put a stable roof over their kids heads!

Well,the white goods arrived and they work.  It is so good to be able to set a load of washing up in the afternoon for it to be ready for me to hang up in the morning.  My new washer/dryer has a time delay function on it to help with this, so no more getting out of bed and heading straight for the laundry.

Our fridge is a dream!  Every thing in there is actually cold!  Will have to check on the ice cream Les bought today to see if it stayed frozen or not.

Ayla is back at school after 2 weeks of holidays and happy to have her regular teacher back who spent 7 weeks in the UK (nice for some!).  Doing my happy dance that her voice is not shattering my (limited) peace and quiet during the week!

Willow got pepper in her eyes last night.  I left it sitting down by the couch (I have to eat dinner in the lounge room because our table isn't big enough and there aren't enough chairs, and the kitchen/dinning room won't fit a bigger table) and Laurel found it.  This meant a good shaking of the pepper sending it everywhere, including right into Willow's face.  The fight was on to get Willow to let me wash her eyes out, and I have never heard her cry like that before!  Still, doesn't seem to be any permanent damage done.

Laurel is Laurel.  Squawking away like the Budgie she is! lol.  Now, just need to put feathers on her and find a perch that will keep her out of mischief!  No, seriously, She is no longer sleeping in our bed, but has 2 beds of her own.  yeah, one is a mattress on the floor of the toy room for her to go to sleep on and the other is a proper bed in the room she shares with Willow for when she has gone to sleep.  Might be a while before we can ditch the mattress though.

Acacia is amazing!  She is 18 months old now and her language and comprehension skills are incredible!  She can talk in sentences, proper sentences, though it can still be hard to understand her sometimes!  I guess that's what happens when you have 3 older sisters to copy.  Could do without the tantrums though, I swear she's hit the terrible 2's already!

Aralia is my little fusser!  For a while, she wouldn't sleep at all at night, meaning neither did I.  I listened to the advice about how the more she goes on the boob for a feed, the more milk I will make.  Wrong!  The more she went on, the less I produced because she was on like every 15 minutes!  The solution?  The baby sling I put away after not being able to get the hang of it with Acacia.  yep, for 3 hours a day, Aralia is in it snuggled upto me.  She has a feed and then sleeps in there like a good baby should.  This has though meant she now sleeps at night (yippeee!) but only has about 15 mins every 2 hours during the day, which means I don't get much time to myself or to do anything for the household!!  Oh well, at least I get sleep!

Les, well, he'll be back in our bed soon due to the weather warming up and us not having to use the heater in the loungeroom overnight any more (long story).  Then I will have to get used to his snoring all over again! lol.

Me, um, let's just say, I'm not leaving puddles everywhere from crying all day, now they are due to the excess milk I have, especially first thing in the morning! lol.

Oh, we had to call Cooloola Community Housing again today (we rent through a community rent scheme) because our shower head died last night!!!!!  Arrrrgggghhhh!  I had to have a shallow bath instead and so did Les!  They are sending someone out asap, though I reckon the actual repairs might not happen as it is the owners responsibility and they aren't even interested in fixing the blasted stumps the house sits on!!!!  The theory being that the bath still works!