I really don't feel like Christmas is just around the corner. I say to myself every year that i will be ready for Christmas but just look at this. The tree needs to go up in 5 days and i have no idea where i stashed it last year. I have only purchased 1 present for Josh and nothing so far for Amy. I have got no idea what to get for Hubby. I have no idea what i want, heck i only had my birthday last week and got everything i wanted or needed then. I was hoping to get away with not getting anything but Josh is asking me what i am asking santa for.

Don't get me wrong i LOVE christmas but i just can't get into Christmas mode at the moment. We have our family Christmas party next weekend which to some people might not sound like it could be too much of a stress but i have 5 other brothers and sisters who all have partners and at least 2-3 kids each. Then add in 2 parents and a grandma and an aunty and uncle and you have a very full house. Up until last week everything was going well until we realised that no one had organised a present for my parents so i have taken on that role and so i have spent the last few days frantically trying to get money off everyone to go shopping for presents, that hasn't been too easy since we are all spread around Victoria. I think i'll be ok by next Sunday when it is all over and i can concentrate on just getting presents for our kids.

I will find my christmas spirit but right now it is just lost.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxox

Amy turned 2 less than a month ago and i can safely say Welcome to the terrible 2's. It's like there was a switch over night. She went from this beautiful little lady to the devils sporn over night. The tantrums she throws are almost funny to watch if they didn't happen so often. If she cracks when i say no to something she starts throwing her toys. Of couse she looks through the toybox first to find the heavist object then lets loose and tosses the thing. I can tell you she has an arm on her. If that doesn't relieve the frustration she then tries to pull her hair tie out to throw at me. Scary stuff.

Both the kids have decided that the day isn't complete unless they have fought over atleast 10 toys through out the day but other times they will sit there so beautifully that it makes me wonder why they were fighting in the first place. Amy's sleeping is a little crazy at the moment and she has taken to waking up at 1am every morning for a cry. I will go in there to give her one of the many dummies that are placed around her cot and she never wants it then she cries harder because i have walked out of the room. This usually goes on for atleast 1/2 an hour most nights. I am really hoping she gets out of this habit soon because after 4 years we have finally got Josh to sleep through the night and now Amy wakes up.

Josh is being a little so and so at the moment too. He has decided his favourite saying at the moment is no, i don't want to. I could be asking him anything from packing up toys to eating his lunch and all he comes back with is no i don't want to. It's very frustrating because when hubby gets home from work he will ask Josh once to pack up toys and he will do it straight away. Josh has this little friend at childcare who has older brothers and Josh just thinks the sun shines out of this childs behind but from what i am seeing and hearing this child is nothing but a bully and is getting Josh to do his dirty work for him so he doesn't get into trouble with the carers but Josh will. Josh came up to me on Tuesday morning before we went to childcare and he told me that he had to take one of his matchbox cars to childcare because this boy wants to take it home. The car Josh was going to give him was a expensive matchbox car that lights up and was a present for Josh from santa for giving up his dummies and bottles last year. I asked him why he had to give it to this boy and Josh came back with "mummy, N (the boy) told me i have to let him keep one of my cars because he let me use his car on thursday" so i said to Josh "did N let you keep his car?" Josh said "no, but he told me i had to give him this one" Josh has taken this car to childcare once for show and tell and i guess this kid liked it so much he wanted to keep it. Needless to say i didn't let Josh take the car to childcare and i did speak to his carer about what happened that morning. Luckly for me this carer knows what this boy is like and what sort of child Josh is so she sees right through what is going on. I'm not saying Josh is perfect but i willsay my son is not a bully. Oh well, Josh is only there for a few more weeks then he is off to Kinder and i know for a fact that this boy is staying in the centre so i don't need to worry about that.

Other than all of that Josh and I have been working very well on his math skills this week. We are learning addition and subtraction at the moment. Josh has been able to count unassisted to 30 for about a year now so we are also learning from 30 to 50. It is all going very well and he is really starting to understand adding numbers under 10. This is something i am not forcing him to do but it is something that he came to me about one day. I'm just hoping the way i am teaching him is ok and it's not going to confuse him once he gets to school. He is a smart little cookie so i am hoping i am just giving him a head start. He is also starting to notice words now. He can pick his name out of a whole group of words and he can pick small words like THE, WAY, SEE, THIS etc also big words like MC DONALDS, DISNEY, SUBWAY (i think he watches too much TV lol) He just loves learning. He will ask me all sorts of questions that have me heading to google most of the time. He is not interested in learing how to write but i'm not pushing that, after all he only turned 4 in September. He loves letters too and does know the alphabet and can pick any random letter and tell you a word that starts with that letter. He even has a word for X and it's not X ray.

Anyway i better finish here because i think you would all be sick of me bragging about my boy now.

Hope everyone is well and i hope Janice is resting up and getting ready to join minti again.

Love Juzzy xxoxoxox

The kids are in childcare today and i have finished my cleaning so i thought it was time for another blog even though i still have other stuff that i am ment to be doing.

I got all Josh's enrolement forms for Kinder next year and they have been screaming out for me to fill them out for a few days now so i need to tackle that but it just seems like a huge task. I don't think the allergy form is big enough for me to write everything in so i might just have to write smaller. Then for every allergy he has it brings another 10 questions with it so i think i am going to have to tackle that one another day.

I still need to update the kids books as well. When i found out i was pregnant with Josh i decided to start a diary like i was writing to the baby and when i had him i continued it with everything that happened month to month and if something big happened then i would also write that. So when i found out i was pregnant with Amy i did the same thing but the problem is i haven't really touched them for a few months so i have lots to do today on them.

Amy turned 2 last week and we had the MIL and hubby's brother come over for dinner. As usual Amy got completely spoilt by the MIL and when it came time for her Uncle to hand his present over he made a big deal about how he went and chose this present all by himself (after all he is 35 years old and he should do something for himself) and he thought it was a really good choice and she would love it. So i helped Amy open it and it turned out to be the present that my MIL brought on the weekend before Amy's birthday when i was shopping with her. So i said to the BIL that he didn't buy the present because i was there when his mum purchased it. He came back with the excuse that he chose it out of the catelogue and told his mum to buy that. He is a complete liar because we actually went to buy something completely different but when we got there we realised that it wasn't worth the money they were asking so we got the other thing instead. I am so over his lies, he is 35 years old and it's about time he started acting like it.

Josh lost his voice yesterday which was great for me but very frustrating for him. We are not even sure what was wrong because he said his throat didn't hurt or his chest but he had this horrible dry cough that almost sounded like he was putting on but i knew he wasn't. He woke up completely fine today so i sent him to childcare.

Last time i blogged i said that i had to take Amy to the doctors for a suspected ear infection and to get her asthma checked out. Well she had a double ear infection so she was on antibiotics for that then i spoke to the doctor about the asthma and he checked her over and said that her lungs sound good at the moment. So no ventolin for now but just to keep an eye on it. We also talked about the fact that when Amy cuts a tooth she always ends up with really high temperatures (i'm talking over 40 degrees) and usually vomits. I happened to tell him about the last tooth she cut when i was staying with my sister and i got her up and she was shaking and vomiting. He top lip was quite blue and i thought it was her asthma but now the doctor seems to think that she may have had a febrel convoulsion (sp?) that we didn't see. So now when she cuts the next tooth we have to take her straight to the hospital if her temperature gets above 39 degrees. Very scary but i'm glad i only live about 3 minutes away from a good hospital.

Anyway that's it from me, i must go and send some compliments to a certin member that keeps sending them to me and i don't seem to be returning the favour. (i'm a bad friend :-P)

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

While away i did realise how much minti does mean to me and all the lovely people i have met through this site really do mean alot to me. So as i sit here on my couch with my laptop warming my knees i sit here proudly and admit "My name is Juzzy and i'm addicted to Minti (and chocolate).

Thank you to all the lovely members that left messages in my last blog. I have finally realised i do belong here. I am planning on being more active from now on.

In other happenings we had a complete break through when it comes to my young man. As some of you know, we have been battling with Josh to do a poo in the toilet for the last year. After trying EVERYTHING and i mean EVERYTHING i finally spoke to his doctor and she simply told me that it wasn't a medical issue and to just ignore it for 3 months and try again. So we ignored it and just put a nappy on him everytime he needed to go. We would ask him if he wanted to try the toilet before we would put the nappy on but he would always say no so we didn't push the issue. Then last week he was in a really good mood and he asked for a nappy and i said to him did he want to try the toilet, he said no first and i said that if i came with him to the toilet and he could show mummy that he was trying and he still couldn't do it then i would give him a nappy. So off to the toilet we went and suprise, suprise he did it. He was so happy with himself that we called Daddy, then 2 of his aunties then grandma to tell them all. He even got a happy meal for dinner that night to show him how proud i was (this is a child that rarely gets takeaway). We had a few hiccups over the next few days as he thought he only had to do it once in the toilet and then he would go back to nappies. But mummy being so strong he now takes himself off to the toilet and calls me when he is done. He has a present coming to him tomorrow as it has been a week since he started and there was promise of a present after a week.

My baby girl turns 2 on Thursday. The last 2 years have flown by and i'm a little bit sad that she is growing up so quickly. We are actually celebrating her birthday tomorrow as Thursdays are very busy in this house and it is usually her childcare day and i would rather her be in childcare where she could play with all the kids than just being at hime with Josh and i doing the same thing that she does on a normal day. Plus daddy doesn't usually get to see the kids on a Thursday as he is at work all day then straight to cricket training after work and doesn't usually get home till after the kids are asleep. Some people don't agree with us doing it like that because they think hubby should just miss cricket but this is a man that has been playing cricket since he was about 8 years old so i would never stop him. I even sent him to cricket the day after i got home from Hospital with Amy (i did send Josh to the MIL's for the day so i got to rest anyway) 

Anyway i must finish here, Amy has a doctors appointment this afternoon for a suspected ear infection and a check up of her Asthma as we have had some breathing issues the last few days. So i must wake her and give her some lunch.

Once again it is good to be back

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxox

I have decided to take a break from Minti for a while. I am not going to delete my account or anything like that but i feel i need to get away from here for a while.

I don't want to bag out minti at all as it has been a very helpful site to me but at the moment it just doesn't feel right. I can't even pin point what it is but i don't feel part of the 'minti community' at the moment.

I am so blessed to have ever come across this site and there are some very loving members on here who i will miss but for others i will catch you on facebook.

I will still check in from time to time but for now it is goodbye.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

We came home from Merimbula on Friday afternoon and let me tell you i was not happy to be home. We had such a lovely time, 1 whole week of not doing a hell of alot. The weather was beautiful and the kids had a ball. Josh usually gets car sick but we have had him on new motion sickness tablets and they are working a treat. It is a 6 hour drive from home so we were expecting to take at least 8 hours if we included stops in that, it took us 6.5 hours to get there because we had a good run and only stopped briefly for lunch and let the kids run around. Josh and Amy sat very quietly in the car with the aid of an in car DVD player and 5 new DVD's that their Nanny kindly gave them before we left.

We got there and unpacked, we stayed at the same place last year but this time we stayed in a different beach house because we needed more room for Amy to sleep in a bed and not a cot. Once we were unpacked the kids wanted to go in the pool so off we went to the pool and played for hours. Personally i thought the water was a little cold but the kids had a ball. From the pool we had to then get changed so the kids could go on the jumping pillow another hour on that and all mummy wanted was a coffee and a rest but the kids had other ideas so i snuck back to the house and left daddy to deal with 2 very happy young children.

Our house was right on short point beach which is a very popular whale watching point in Merimbula so i was constantly sitting there looking at any little ripple in the water (the surf was very flat) to see if i could see any tails coming up. I only had to wait till the Saturday before we got a show. 1 hours of sitting there watching about 4 whales playing. I had my camera and i thought that i was videoing it until it was all over and we went back to the house and i realised that i didn't get anything but 2 photos of it all so i was a little dissapointed. Over the rest of the time we saw atleast 1 whale a day so i was happy. We also saw a pod of dolphins the day we were going home.

We went to Eden and got some fresh fish to cook on the BBQ and it was beautiful and fresh, even Josh had a taste which suprised me. We also visited Bega and went to the cheese factory. (yum, yum) We thought we would take the kids to play some mini golf as hubby is a golf nut and we couldn't fit the club in the car so he had to settle for some mini golf. Hubby and I had a ball and the kids just enjoyed themselves just walking around doing what they liked. We had a little issue trying to get the golf ball off Amy when we had finished so the lady in charge just let her take it.

We packed up and came home on Friday, the trip home was a little harder as Amy just wasn't in the mood to sit in the car so i had to climb into the back and sit with the kids. I tell you, if i have to sit and watch Dora one more time i think i will scream. I jumped into the drivers seat when we stopped for lunch and the kids seemed settled after that. It took a little longer to get home because we had a little bit more traffic on the way home.

The day after we got home it was Josh's 4th birthday. He had been so excited about his birthday that he went to bed very early on Friday and i managed to wrap his presents and hid them in the lounge for him to find in the morning. He was more excited about the fact that he had a badge on his card that he could wear. He loved his presents so much he told me there was no reason to turn the telly on and he would just play. We headed to my mum's place to have a little party for him as i couldn't organise a party having just come back from holidays. He just had 2 of his cousin and we had some party pies, sausage rolls and some chips but the chips never made it onto the table as the kids didn't seem to want them. Then the mudcake came out. I will usually make him a cake but having no time i thought i would just purchase one and stick some lollies onto it. 1/2 an hour after eating the cake Josh came out in hives so i was a little angry at myself that i didn't make him one and i just made him uncomfortable on his birthday. This whole allergy thing is really hard....

He had another appointment with the allergist just before we left for the holiday and he was in the thinking that Josh was actually allergic to a few more things other than the eggs and nuts. After the allergist looked at his test results closer he decided that Josh was allergic to eggs, nuts, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, artifical colours and preservatives. So the poor thing can't eat anything at the moment. We are hoping that within the next few years he may grow out of a few of them but until then we are eating only natural foods. It is just really hard to give him foods he can have and i feel horrible when he gets hives because it is because i didn't read the packaging properly. I will get passed the guilty feelings soon.

Better finish here and get some housework done while Amy is sleeping.

Love to you all.

Juzzy xoxoxoxoxo

The kids are very excited and Josh has been counting down for the last few months. We went to Echuca last weekend which was a 3 hour drive from home and Josh coped very well with the help of an in car DVD player and he didn't get car sick at all. Amy who hates the car also was very quite for almost the whole 3 hours which made mummy and daddy very happy. We have got a funfill packed week ahead of us with lots of time put aside for some poolside fun. Hopefully we can keeps the kids entertained for the 6 hours drive to get there.

In other news.....

We have been seeing a allergist for Josh for the last few months to try and work out why he keeps coming out in hives. After the allergy testing was done a few weeks back we found out he was allergic to eggs and nuts so we went back today to speak to the allergy specialist about it all and we have found out that yes he is allergic to egg and nuts but he is also allergic to tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, artifical colours and preservatives. I found it hard enough with the egg but add everything else in there and the poor kid is going to live on air and water. I think the thing i am going to find the hardest is getting him to eat without putting tomato sauce on everything. We will work it out without too much hassle because we haven't really been feeding him artifical colours and preservatives for the last year because it would send him nuts anyway but as i found out today it was actually because of the allergy. His specialist is pretty confident that he will grow out of the egg and nut allergies as they were not too sever. But for the next year at least we must carry his medication around everywhere we go.

Amy is going very well at the moment and she has found her voice in the last few months. She actually puts sentences together which makes life very easy for me, at least i know what she wants. She loves me singing to her which i don't understand why because i have no singing voice but she will come up and say "mummy juke box" which means i need to start singing anything and everything. This game can go on for hours if i didn't get up and do something.

Anyway i must finish here and go and pack these bags that have been sitting on the table for 2 days.

Hope everyone has a fantastic week.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxo

I finally nearly have my hearing back. Yes that's right, after 2 courses of very strong antibiotics my ear is finally feeling almost normal again. After i finished the first lot i had to go back to the doctors so he could check how the infection was going and he decided that the second course was needed and possibly a hearing test after that. Well halfway through the second course my ear started weeping which was so gross i will not go into detail with that, the hearing test is now not needed for at least 6 months but there is some hearing loss but it will take a few months for the ear drum to settle down properly to find out how much. .  The virus has also gone now too so i am just working on getting fully well again and to stop feeling so tired.

The kids have been so good lately apart from Josh and a few tantrums when he isn't getting his own way but we are working on some things that are working really well in combatting this behaviour. He is going through a stage at the moment where he asks for something and if i say he can have it the next thing he will say is Amy can't have that, only i can. We are not sure how to over come this but we are working on treating them completely equal.  Amy on the other hand is a complete dream at the moment. I love watching he learn new things which seem to be happening daily. She completely shocked me the other day when i was changing her nappy. She was lying on the floor and we were counting, i say 1 she says 2 and so on. Usually we get to 3 and thats it but after i said 3 she said 4 so this went on till we got to 10 then she clapped and said yay. I can't believe that at 21 months she can count with me. Josh was 2 before he said his first word and now i can almost have a conversation with Amy. She is much happier now that she can tell me what the problem is rather than just crying.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night when i finally get to go to the Pink concert. After getting tickets for my birthday last november i have had to wait till July to finally see her, i am very excited.

Anyway that is life in a nice square box. Hope everyone else is well.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxox

Thanks,

Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Well i had my weekend away from the kids and i have to say i enjoyed myself to no end. Had some very late nights but at least i didn't have to get up to any kids. On the Friday afternoon before i was to leave i had to go and pick up my dad as i was driving him to my sisters house. I put the kids in the car and Josh wanted to take the toy cataloge that we had got in the mailbox so i let him and for the 40 minutes we were in the car i had a very quite child. When we got back home with my dad Josh walked into the lounge and vomited everywhere. And like any child as soon as he vomited he wanted a cuddle from mummy so i went over to pick him up and he decided he hadn't finished vomiting so he completely covered my top in vomit as well. I didn't even think when i said he could read in the car. I have now learnt that Josh cannot read in the car because it makes him car sick. Luckily he was fine 15 minutes later and up running around trying to get his grandad's attention. So i went away and the kids and hubby coped very well. Hubby had a little trouble doing Amy's hair as it needs to be tied up everyday because she has never had a hair cut and her fringe is very long, but it looked ok by the Sunday when i got home. Josh coped very well, a lot better than we thought he would. I am planning another weekend without the kids at the start of September as i am going back up to my sister's to help with a town fundraiser that they are having. They suffered badly when they had a big bushfire at the start of the year and they need money to build a new CFA shed as they worked out that they need a bigger one if they were unlucky to have another huge fire. It should be fun!

I have been battling a virus for about a month now. It's this stupid cold, throat and dry cough thing. It sucks really bad. It has taken every ounce of strangth from me. Then yesterday morning i woke up with an extreamly sore ear, within an hour of waking up i was almost in tears as it hurt so badly. I called the doctors and managed to get in just before midday yesterday. As soon as i saw the doctor he knew it was something bad because i usually don't go to the doctors unless i am really sick. He took one look in my ear( while i was trying hard not to cry because it hurt like crazy) and said that i had a sever ear infection. He couldn't believe that it only came on that morning. He wanted to give me an injection of penicillen just to get on top of it before i started antibiotics but i managed to talk him out of that.  I now have very strong antibiotics to take that are making me very sleepy and making me feel sick but i know they are working because my ear isn't as bad a yesterday but it is still painful and VERY blocked but the doctor said that it wasn't blocked by wax but by the fact that it is so infected it has pus (sorry TMI) so i am expecting it to start weeping in the next few day. I have to go back on Monday and he will decide if i need more antibiotics and to see if i have any permanent damage. (ok, only a little scared) As a child i had heaps of ear infections in my right ear to the point where i had to have it cleaned out at the doctors every fortnight so they think because of this i may have permanent damage. I will keep everyone posted but i am hoping there is no permanent damage.

Everything else is going well. Josh is still being a handful but he has also been very helpful since i have been sick. He will take Amy into his room during the day and play with lego with her just to give me a rest. He even let me have a nap on the couch yesterday afternoon when Amy was having her sleep. He just sat on the end of the couch watching T.V so i was very happy. But then i got the phone call everyone dreads. The MIL called yesterday and said the Hubby's aunty had passed away. It was strange because it came as a shock to a point. She was sick in hospital with cancer but we were told she had a few months left and she would probably be able to come home in the next few weeks. But in the end it all happened very quickly. She actually had an infection and that in the end is what got her. I'm not sure how i feel at the moment, of course i am sad but i think i am still in shock. She was only 59.

Anyway i better finish here, the housework wont do it's self and the housecleaning fairy has gone on strike.

Take Care all

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

I haven't blogged for a while. So here i am!!!!!!

I am spending the weekend without a hubby. Yes the time has come again for the annual "boys weekend"! He left this afternoon and right on cue both the kids started crying. When he went last year Amy was still a baby so it was easy but Josh was the one that suprised me the most. The poor thing cried for 40 minutes after daddy left. The only thing that calmed him down was the fact that he could have one of mummy and daddy's ice creams after dinner. As a treat for him we have just water icy poles but he got a real ice cream tonight. I expected Amy to cry because she is such a daddy's girls that she follows him around every where when he gets home at night. All was well after dinner and i managed to get them both in bed without too many problems. Josh took a while tonight which was a bit frustrating. He had been awake since 5am as we had a very rough night with him last night. He has a virus, i took him to the doctors today as i had him very distressed at 1am crying because he was coughing and dry reaching so i spent most of the night sleeping on a couch with him sitting up. The doctor also told me his ears are very blocked. The poor thing has the same problem as i did as a child, he has too much ear wax. I have been told to use drops in his ear but try and get a 3 year old to agree to have drops put in his ear.

I also spoke to the doctor about his allergies today and have finally got a referral to see a specialist because we think he has an allergie to egg. The last few months he has been coming out in hives after eating random food, we finally narrowed it down to egg and the doctor seems to agree. The only problem is we now have to wait till August 12th for the appointment with the specialist. It is also going to cost a small fortune but money is no issue when it comes to the kids.

Amy is growing up way too fast. She is now 19 months old and far too independent for my liking. She is loving childcare and has now been attending for 5 weeks. Just one day a week but she has a little boyfriend that gets a little too close sometimes and she has come home with a scratch or two on her face since she started. They are so cute together but the young man needs his finger nails taken care of. I met his dad the other morning when we were both walking in together and he has heard all about Amy because he has had to sign forms when his little boy has scratched Amy. The kids were so cute when they saw each other they were just cuddling.Amy has started talking and her favourite one at the moment is "where is Josh?" Some others are Mumma, Daddy, Simba (the dog) and water. It is so strange because Josh didn't say his first word till he was 2 so we are very excited.

I have been pretty sick for the last few weeks. This virus that had been doing the rounds floored me for nearly 2 weeks, i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and i am now feeling alot better. I also cut my finger open quite badly on Tuesday after attempting a fancy dinner. Thankfully we have a nurse that live across the road and she happend to be coming home just as i was walking out to greet hubby covered in blood. It couldn't be stitched because it ran down along the nail. I could have gone to the hospital and they would have put a few stitches in the part that wasn't near the nail but the deepest part was along the nail, lucky we have a very extensive first aid kit and i have been able to close it together and is now healing just nicely if the kids remember not to knock it.

I am looking forward to spending a weekend without the kids in the first weekend in July. Yes, i finally get a girls weekend!!!!! I am looking forward to spending some quality time with 2 of my sister. One being Neets. I will spend one night at her house then spend the next night with my other sister. I'm sure both nights will be very late nights. I am just looking forward to not having to get up in the middle of the night to kids. The only time i have ever been away from Josh was when i was in hospital after having Amy and he didn't come in one of the day i was in there. I have never spent a night away from Amy. After tonight performance from Josh, i don't think we will be telling him i am going away for the weekend. I think we will just make it look like i am going out for the night.

Better finish here, this blog has gone on way too long. I hope you are still awake after reading it.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoxoox

We have been wanting to do it for a while but both mummy and Daddy were putting it off because she is our little baby but in the last few weeks she has really been doing my head in during the day and i just can't seem to get anything done. So i filled out all her forms and handed them in this morning so from next Thursday she will begin. It is going to be strange because for the first time in 18 months i will not have a child hanging off my leg but on the plus side i will have a very clean house.

Hubby decided on Saturday that he was going to have one of the kids for the day and take them to the footy. I think he was hoping to take Josh but Josh decided he wanted to come with me to my mum's because he had a car he needed to return to mum's house so he could borrow another car from her. So hubby ended up taking Amy to the footy with him. It was just the local footy but it was so nice just to spend the day with Josh by myself. It was the first time hubby had Amy by himself but he said they had a great day so i was happy, he just needs to remember that she is still in nappies so she needs to be changed occassionally. (yes i found the wet pants in the laundry).

Josh has croup again at the moment. He seems pretty happy except for when he starts barking at me. It's scary to hear him start barking then watching him trying to catch his breath to start coughing again. His little eyes get so big and you can just see the fear in his eyes. I have noticed that if i quietly start talking to him when he is doing it he calms down pretty quickly.

As most of you would know, Josh has never slept through the night and most nights he will try to get into our bed. Well we have finally come to the conclusion that he will not spend the whole night in his bed so we have set up a mattress in our room that he can sleep on if he gets up during the night. I have to say in the last week since we started it he is sleeping a lot better and i am now sleeping all night. His behaviour is fantastic during the day because he is not so tired that he has a break down every 2 minutes. There has been a few people that haven't agreed with what we are doing but after 3.5 years of broken sleep after trying everything else under the sun we have completely run out of options so i figure we are going to do what works for us.

 After my younger brother giving us the biggest scare of our lives, he is home from hospital and spending some time getting well again. He ended up in a coma last week after complications from his epilepsy.(sp) My parents decided that they would sugar coat the whole thing and make it not sound so scary until he was well again but they did eventually tell us how close we came to loosing him. But everything is well again and it is good to have our brother back now and he loves making Jokes about how many holes he has in him now because of all the needles he had in.

Hope everyone has a fantastic week......

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxox

Just some background before i begin. Joshua is allergic to green food colouring. At 3.5 years old we thought it was a great age to teach him what he can and can't eat. He was going really well making decisions at a party we went to one the weekend, telling people what he couldn't eat. So i thought everything would be ok and was very proud that he had caught on so quickly. How wrong could i be............

I went to pick Josh up from Childcare on Thursday and as usual i went up to his teacher to find out how he went and what he ate, any problems for the day. I was expecting the usual answer of, everything went fine he ate this and that. Well i got a completely different answer to what i was expecting. Here is what happened when lunch was served:

Tacher: Everyone come to the table. Lunch is ready.

All children come to the table and lunch is served. Josh gets his and looks at it. (fried rice, one of Josh's favourite meals)

Josh: I can't eat this V (teacher's name)

Teacher: What's the matter with it Joshie?

Josh: It has green things in it and i can't have green things. Mummy told me it makes me sick

Teacher: They are peas Joshie and mummy told me you are allowed to eat peas.

Josh: NO!!! They make me sick.

At this stage, Josh starts crying and the teacher realises that Josh isn't going to eat it while there was peas in it. So she sits there and removes the peas out of his lunch for him and just gets mummy to deal with it later.

I am happy that he realises that he can't eat green food and it is going to make it easier when we go to parties but in it all i forgot to tell him that vegetables are an ok food. It's because we hide all vegies in the kids food. Maybe i should start to introduce vegies now.

I am so glad that Josh's tacher has a real soft spot for him because i don't think any other carer would have sat there and removed peas out of his lunch for him. In the end he didn't eat it anyway (i think he thought there was still peas stashed in there) She didn't force him to eat it as she knew they were having bread after it and she went to the kitchen at the centre and got the vegemite just so he didn't have to eat plain bread and butter for lunch. (she is such a beautiful teacher)

When we got home from childcare after all this i tried to explain to Josh that peas are ok. All he gave me was peas are squishy and stinky. How can i argue with that????

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!!!!!

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxox

Hope everyone had a fantastic Easter and a nice relaxing break.

As some of you know we have been on a struggle with Josh and his love of the dummy. On Christmas Eve, santa was coming to take Josh's bottles and dummies and giving them to a little boy that needed them. Santa got all the bottles but forgot one dummy so the dummy war continued.

So as Easter was coming fast we started talking about how the Easter bunny was going to take Josh's dummies. This time i planned to do a complete dummy clean out while he was at Childcare on Thursday and so by Saturday night they would all be in the one place. So he gets home on Thursday and goes straight to the bench where his dummies are (he isn't allowed to take then to Childcare) and by Saturday they were all missing again. Hubby and I were going out for our 12 year anniversary and the MIL was looking after the kids so i had to do a really quick run around the house looking for all the dummies again then we left hoping we had got them all. We got home very late Saturday night and the kids were in bed so i went in to Josh's room and stole the last dummy from his bed and hid them all in a very high cupboard. About 3am Sunday morning we had a little visit from Josh into our room and in his cutest voice he asked for a dummy, i explained to him that Santa had been already and has taken them. Well, the poor thing broke into the most heartbreaking cry and asked for his dummy just one last time. Me being the mummy that just doesn't function at that hour snuck into the kitchen into the very high cupboard and got the dummy for him. He promply fell alseep in our bed. The next morning we got up and Josh left the dummy in our bed and got up. Hubby grabbed the dummy and stashed it in a drawer and since then there has been no dummy!!! YAY THE WAR HAS BEEN WON. It is only Tuesday and going to bed at night has become a bit of a hassle but to us it is worth it.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxo

I got a text message from my best friend this morning who we used to go camping with just to let me know that we should be at the camp site by now. She has 10 month old twin girls so they are not camping this year either. We went to the same place for 10 years and now this is the second Easter we have missed out on. Oh well maybe next year or the year after we will start going again. I can't wait to take my kids and they can grow up going to the same place every year.

Nothing much else is happening at the moment, the kids are all healthy. I did catch up with some old school friends on the weekend. Thanks to facebook we got back in contact and one of the girls was celebrating her 30th so Anita (Neets) and I went. When we went to School Anita and I were in the same year level from grade 3 on wards. I don't know how many times i have said in my life, "No we are not twins, yes we share the same parents" Anita had to repeat grade 3 due to having operations on her feet and missed alot of school. There is 17.5 months between us so we ended up in the same year level sharing alot of friends. The party was great and Anita drove but i just couldn't get drunk no matter how hard i tried i just kept thinking about how i would have to deal with the kids in the morning. It was great catching up with the girls and talking about our kids. Hoping to have another catch up soon with the kids this time.

I'm not really looking forward to Easter Sunday. As some of you know Josh can't have chocolate because it sends his nuts but because he understands that the Easter Bunny brings chocolate we had to get him something. I ended up just getting a small rabbit that i can break some off and give it to him slowly over a few days. I just hope he understands he can't eat it all at once. Also the Easter Bunny is taking his dummies to give to Santa so i'm guessing there will be some tears as well. At Christmas Santa was ment to take his dummies and bottles to give to another baby that needed them but "Santa" forgot one of his dummies so now the Easter bunny is taking them and he will pass them to santa. I hope it will be as easy as the bottles were.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Easter.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxox

This month i celebrate being on Minti for a year!!! YAY for me!!!!

I remember reading about Minti in a magazine when i was just about to give birth to Amy. Not having any time on my hands i decided to write down the website and come back to it when i had a moment. 5 months later, Amy was here and i was having a really bad day with the kids. Amy hadn't stopped crying all day and Josh was completely off the wall. I was cleaning out my handbag (because that's what you do when the kids are driving you nuts). I came across the piece of paper that i had written the website down on. So i decided to check it out and haven't left!!!! I have been on other parenting websites before so i wasn't expecting too much but Minti is completely different to any other site i have been on. I can post a question here and have an answer within 5 minutes. I have made many wonderful friends and can't wait to meet a few of them in the next few weeks.

If i am having a bad day i can minti mail a few people and know that i will have someone there to talk me through what i am feeling. I have come to know that everything my kids are doing is normal and someone elses kids have done worse. I love the fact that i get really excited when one of my minti friends falls pregnant or has just had a baby. I get really sad when one of my friends is having a bad day. I wont say Minti is my life but Minti is a big part of my life and i find that when one of my kids reaches a milestone or does something really funny i need to get on minti to tell everyone.

Sure Minti is a lot like life where not everyone gets along but a lot of the time you don't know when there has been a friendship fall out because most people will keep it private but when it does spill out into the public eye it is dealt with pretty quickly. Admin on Minti is fantastic and they do a great job keeping everyone in line.

I introduced Minti to my sisters when i had found my feet but only one (Neets) decided to take me up on the offer and she hasn't left and loves minti as much as i do.

So this is the first year of many and hopefully one day i will be on here announcing that i have grandkids (hopefully not for many years to come)

All i want to say is a HUGE Thank You to all my Minti friends. Thank You to all the support you have given me over the last year, some of you just don't know how much support you have given me. Finally a big Hello to the friends i just don't know yet.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxo

Last week we were sitting in the house with the air conditioner on, today i am sitting here in pants and a jumper and the temperature is 18 degrees in the house..... I will not turn the heater on!!!! I love the cold weather but this is crazy. I got Joshua ready for childcare this morning and i had told him yesterday that he would have to wear pants and a jumper today as it was going to be cold. So we got up and went to choose what he was going to wear today.  I have to say after trying on 3 pairs of pants i have sent him off with the longest pair he had but you can still see his ankles in them.lol Me thinks it's time to go shopping for some more clothes. I didn't see my young man get taller but his pants are telling me sometime in the last 3 months he has shot up a few cm. So pants outta the way it was time for a jumper, after trying 4 jumpers on we finally found one that kinda fit so it was better than nothing. Don't get me wrong i don't send Josh in his best clothes but today he looks like i picked his clothes outta Amy's drawer. I guess on the upside, if he has a flood at childcare today, at least his pants will stay dry...... 

I'm off to stay with Anita again this weekend, we are going to the Boolarra folk festival on Saturday which will be alot of fun. Not sure if i am taking both the kids at the moment. Hubby is doing some cricket umpiring this weekend so he can't have the kids, i was hoping to go by myself and just having some time away but that's not going to happen. I am hoping the MIL can have Josh on Saturday so then i just take Amy with me. Will find out this afternoon so fingers crossed people. The folk festival will be alot different this year as they had the fire go through there a few weeks ago and they lost 30 houses. Because this poor town had the fire a week before February 7th they don't fall under the banner of ' Black Saturday' so they don't get the same support as Marysville and Kinglake. Don't get me wrong it was all devestating but Boolarra have to do their own fund raising just to get the town back on it's feet. My other sister and her husband who live in Boolarra are in the CFA and they will be doing lots of fund raising, they have even organised to get some CFA gear for their 4 year old boy to dress up in and collect donations. I will be taking the camera to gets lots of photos of him because it will be very cute. 

We are all finally over our colds in this house. Amy still has a bit of a runny nose but thankfully her Asthma has settled down again and we only had a few days when it was bad. Amy has stated saying a few words now which is very cute. SHe is 16 months old now and it is very strange to hear her talk becuase we never had any of this with Josh. As most of you know Josh didn't say his first word until he was 2. So when Amy started saying water it was a huge shock. She now says water, what's that, Josh-Josh (which comes out more like Dosh-Dosh), Mumma, Daddy. She just amazes us with everything she does.  She still only has 6 teeth but i am not so worried about it any more, she will get teeth when she is ready.

Anyway i must finish here as this has become a huge blog. Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend.

LOve Juzzy xoxoxoxo

As some of you know the kids and i went and stayed with Anita (Neets) last Wednesday for a few days. We had the best time! Anita moved into a bigger house a few weeks ago so now she can have people stay with her.

Anita and I stayed up way too late everynight and drunk far too much alcohol while i was there. We would put the kids to bed at night then crack open a bottle of wine or cans of burbon and just enjoyed the time together. Josh and Amy were fantastic the whole time and Anita was a very big help. On the first morning we were there she got up to my kids while Katelyn was still sleeping just so i could have a sleep in. I got up 1/2 an hour later because i just couldn't go back to sleep.

We went out to see my other sister and her family that had the fires go through their town a few weeks ago. It was very sad to see what the fires had done to a beautiful town. My BIL is the CFA captain in their town so he took Anita and I in the CFA ute to go and have a look around. It just worked out that he had to go and do a drive around the town so we just jumped in. While we were driving around we had to stop a few time to put out spot fires. They haven't actually had any fires in almost 2 weeks but there was some roots from a tree still on fire under ground so he had to put them out. We did take some photos for a photo board that they are making up but i will not post them because it isn't my town and i don't feel right doing it.

Melbourne has been covered in a smoke fog for the last 2 days so we have stayed in doors. It is so bad that i was outside yesterday hanging some washing on the line and i actually go a sore throat and my eyes were watering. We had to drop Josh off at childcare this morning and was only out of the house for 10 minutes but by the time we got home poor Amy was wheezing to the point that i had to give her ventolin. Josh will be picked up later tonight once hubby gets home to stay with Amy because i wont take her out in that again. My throat was sore again today so i will have to be careful as well.

Hopefully things will get better soon,

Hope everyone has a fantastic week

xoxoxoxox

This is a photo of Amy in hospital day 2. Doing something that i have found she really loves, sleeping!

Now i tag...... Neets, Dannii17, Cathbusymum, alishas-mummy.

Ever since having Facebook i have found so many old school friends that i had lost contact with. Last week i got a friends request from my old best friend. When we were in year 11 she got pregnant. Coming from a very strict Jewish family she was made to marry the father of her unborn child. He was very possessive so we lost contact. I was so excited to see the friends request as i had been thinking about this friend and wondering what her life had turned out like. I did know she wasn't with her husband anymore as their relationship only lasted a couple of years. So we decided to catch up last night. We went out and had some dinner and talked non stop for over 3 hours. She has had a very hard life since her daughter was born and she also got married again only to have the second husband walk out when her second baby was just over a year old because my friend was suffering PND and he though if he left she would just snap out of it.

We have promised each other that we will keep in contact and get our friendship back on track. I just love facebook it is a great way of keeping in contact with so many people.

In other news, it is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hot in Melbourne the last few days that i am at my wits end. Amy hates the heat and just cries. I wish i could explain to her that the more she cries the hotter she will get. But at 14 months old i don't think she will get it. Both Amy and Josh have had colds this week so i am just waiting for Amy's asthma to flare up again. She only gets it when she gets sick but she has started sounding wheezy today so it looks like the ventolin is going to make a come back.

Amy is up and walking around everywhere and getting into everything. We never had a problem with Josh getting into cupboards when he was a baby but Amy will just get into everything and she pulls EVERYTHING out of the cupboards which is very frustrating. I seems to spend my whole day cleaning up after the mini tornado.

Josh has once again started behaving himself at childcare. Over the holidays we gave him 2 weeks off from childcare while daddy was on holidays. He only attends 2 days a week but we thought he could have some family time. The first week back when i picked him up i got told by his room leader that they saw the real Josh today. I was horrifide, he is usually so well behaved there that they never believed the stories i used to come in with about his tantrums. So i was glad when i picked him up on Tuesday for them to tell me that Josh is back to his usual loving self.

Anyway must finish here and clean this house because they don't clean themselves.

Love Juzzy xoxoxoxoxoox