Who Me?

Just look at that sweet, little, innocent face. That face is the reason why she gets away with so much. How can you be angry with that face. The gorgeous blue eyes, the little button nose and those chubby little cheeks. No one can stay mad at that, especially when she turns on the charm. She knows exactly how to turn your frown into a smile.

When I get up in the morning she is always so happy to see me. She will stop whatever she is doing, usually eating breakfast and come running up calling "Mama, mama, mama", and give me a great big hug. I love it!! What better way to start the day.

She loves climbing up onto Daddy's chair to see what she can discover on his desk. Her favourite thing to find is a pen. And what does she do with these pens when, or if, she finds them, that's right she draws all over herself. Usually she starts with the legs, then the belly and if left long enough, the face!

But, that face, it will get you everytime!!

What's in a name?

As parents we thought long and hard about each of our children's names. Firstly I didn't want any names that started with M because I didn't want any M&M's! Also once I had used a letter to start someones name no-one else's name could start with the same letter. I also didn't want them to be really weird names that no-one had ever heard of, but I didn't want them to be so common that everyone had the same name.

Anyway, lately Amie has started to write her name AMY, instead of AMIE. When I asked her why she did that she said it was the short version of her name and she liked it better. Well it's only one letter shorter so that wasn't a good enough argument. I told her about when we choose her name and how we decided to spell it and that you can't just go around changing your name. I've still found her writing like that again but I think she is getting the right idea.

When I was choosing our children's names I also thought about what nicknames would likely go along with the name. Some names I didn't choose because I didn't like the nickname. For example for a boy we like the name Benjamin, but I really don't like the name Ben or Benny so we didn't choose it. It's funny though because Lachlan never really has used a nickname. We don't call him Loc or Lochie, it's always Lachlan. Ever since he was a baby though I have called him Buddy. I remember when my Mum was visiting us when Lachlan was born telling me that maybe I should have called him Buddy instead of Lachlan!

Amie's name can't really be shortened anymore, but I do remember when Grandma and Grandpa Montague came over to visit one time that Grandpa would call her Aim a few times! Buzz also used to call her Beans. I don't actually remember why he started doing this and it was only ever Buzz that said it. He still does it occasionally but not so much anymore.

When Caitlyn came along it took us a little while to actually give her a name. We had a few in mind but none of them really fit. In the end it was between Caitlyn and Rachael. She is definitely a Caitlyn though. There were many ways to spell her name as well. We both wanted it to start with 'C' and I wanted it to be 'y' in lyn. She does get called Cate, which she is fine with. The kids actually say 'cake' and not 'cate' which I think is so funny! Sometimes I play with her and call her 'Catie-weighty' or 'caitlyn-baitlyn' but she always firmly tells me that that is not her name!

Haylie was the hardest of all. We really didn't have a name for her at all. When we came home from the hospital she still didn't have a name. That afternoon we sat around with some friends going through all the baby name books trying to work out the perfect name. In the end Haylie was the one that stuck out to me. When we were still in the hospital she was nearly going to be called Jasmyn. We were even writing in down and working out how we wanted to spelt but it just didn't feel quite right. Again there were many ways to spell it and I love the way that we did. Haylie also has a nickname. Apart from her name being shortened to 'hay' she is often called midget. Again I think it was Buzz that started calling her that. She has always been small and when she started walking she looked really funny because she was so small. It was really funny because sometimes she wouldn't answer to 'Haylie' but you call her 'midget' and she would answer you!

I love all of my children's names and wouldn't change them at all!

Back to normal

So it's been awhile since I posted anything on here so i thought it was time that I got back into it. Christmas is past and so are the school holidays. Everything is getting back to normal. On the kids first day back at school I spent the whole day cleaning the house after it had been total chaos for weeks! It is so nice to be a routine again. As much as I don't like getting up early in the morning it is nice for the kids to go to school and learn and for me to have the time to do everything that needs to be done around the house and have a little bit of time to myself.

Housework is something that I constantly battle with. I hate doing it but I love to have a clean house. I can't win! I do need to come up with a better plan of attack though. I do try hard to do the dishes every night and tidy the lounge room and dinning room. I feel so much better getting up to a house that is clean and ready to start the day. Sometimes though by the end of the day I just want to put the kids in bed and sit in front of the tv for the rest of the night.

I must admit though that laundry is my nemisses. I really hate laundry. No matter how hard I try to keep up with it I just can't do it. I hate sorting it, washing it, hanging is out, bringing it in and folding it and putting it away. basically I hate the whole lot. If I could hire someone just to do all the washing I would!

Hopefully now I will also get some free time to do some craft projects. I have a few things that I'm working on at the moment, mostly for a baby shower that I am planning for a friend. I helps me to have a deadline. Things get done a lot quicker that way. Can't wait to show you.

And just because I don't want to blog without a picture. Here is one with Caitlyn, her cousin Zoe and her friend Monika feeding the ducks!