655 + 551 Weeks

We've just made it through another busy week.  Arley didn't get his Invisalign appliance because since he had the tooth pulled and his mouth scanned for the appliance, his teeth have moved, and it didn't fit!  The good news is that his teeth have moved in the right direction, which means that his tongue is finally doing what it is supposed to be doing.  I have since found out that the first ten days of Invisalign aren't very fun, so I am a little happy that it is postponed for two weeks, as we are taking a small vacation this coming Thursday.  We are taking the kids down to the Gold Coast for three nights, with a day spent at Wet 'n' Wild.  The kids can't wait.  I'm a little stressed about it as I have to figure out how to feed us, and where we can eat out.  We are staying in a cabin that has a kitchen, so at the very least, we will be cooking like at home.

On Tuesday morning we went up for our private Taekwon Do lesson, and Arley had his best lesson yet.  We were shocked, and when Mr Kelly asked him what had changed, Arley told him that I said I would beat him if he didn't try his best, and then he turned to me and said totally deadpan, "Your secret is out."  Thank God Mr Kelly knows me better than that!  But Arley really did have a great lesson.  Carmie got nauseous halfway through  and had to go back to the car.  

Carmie has been nauseous like this a lot for the last few months.  She also gets really light-headed and gets tummy aches.  I took the kids to the paediatrician on Thursday, and she is getting a bunch of tests done on Carmie to figure out what is going on.  She is getting more blood drawn next week, as well as an ultrasound on her belly.  I'm hoping they find out what it is, because she doesn't have much energy these days, and it often stops her from enjoying her activities.  By the same token, though, I hope it's as simple as dehydration!  Carmie has enough on her plate, and I don't need another thing to worry about!

Arley went out with Chayse to the local swimming pool yesterday, and had a blast.  At the same time, Carmie and I were swimming together in our pool at home, because we don't get to spend one on one time together doing fun things much anymore, as Arley always needs to join in.  I don't blame him, but sometimes it's nice to do things just with my girl.  I get one on one time with Arley all the time, he loves hanging out with his mum :) 

The weather has been very oppressive lately, but we are getting through it with lots of pool swims.  We still haven't gone out much, which means I don't have any photos again, except for one of Carmie on one of our many car trips.  There will be many more photos after our mini vacation next week!

654 + 560 Weeks

So, I have zero photos for this week, and practicaly nothing to say either!  It has been so hot - too hot to do much of anything at all except for stay indoors or zip in and out of the pool.  Right now Carmie is at her D&D group and I’m sitting at the local library, because it’s too hot to sit at a cafe on the Esplanade.  School holidays are still on, so it is really crowded here, but thankfully school starts up again next week and leaving the house will become more desirable!  We all prefer to be home, as we are completely set up for everything we need, as far as entertainment, exercise, space from each other, creativity…I don’t see much point in going out anymore!  Haha.  Even Clint has given up taking Arley out and is instead coming to our house to play with him.  Arley did get out today though.  My friend Andrea took him and her son Chayse to a waterslide this morning and Arley had a blast.  We had OT at home on Monday, we skipped Taekwon Do and Lolo and Dida’s on Tuesday because neither kid had slept well - poor Carmie forgot to take her sleep meds, and by the time she realised, she thought it was too late to take them, so she didn’t fall asleep until 5am.  Both Jeff and I have been exercising on our new rowing machine (loving it!), and we are working on his business because we are rolling out a new class schedule in February, like a proper school.  We are very excited about the changes coming, but it’s a lot of work!  The kids have had a cruisy week because of the deal I made with Arley at the dentist’s last week.  He drives a hard bargain!!  And that’s it for this week!

653 + 559 Weeks

So, activities started back up this week, and I’m currently sitting outside a closed cafe on the esplanade in Caloundra, watching the people swimming at the beach, and waiting for Carmie’s Dungeons & Dragons session to end.  It is quite lovely down here - there’s live music next door, nice ocean breezes…this is easily the most relaxing part of my day!

We were supposed to start back with doing school work this week too, and having set bedtimes…but then that all went down the drain.  On Monday I had to take Arley to the dentist for a longer appointment, getting ready for his Invisalign treatment.  I thought there was a chance he might get a tooth pulled, and I told him as much and told him what would happen if they did…however I told him I didn’t think it was going to happen then.  I was wrong!  Arley was in the dentist chair and the dentist said the tooth was coming out.  In two seconds flat Arley was back out in the waiting room telling me it wasn’t going to happen.  I managed to get him back to the dentist’s room, but as soon as the dentist went to look in his mouth, Arley was out of that chair and scooting under that big swinging arm thing.  I went to get him but couldn’t find him in the waiting room.  Instead I found him in the supply closet.  OMG.  I had to bribe him to leave and go back to the dentist’s room.  His reward for being brave was: a direct trip to the supermarket to buy whatever he wanted, no school work for two weeks, his iPad overnight in his bedroom for two weeks, and an open bed time for two weeks, and Carmie had to get all this too.  And then Arley still wouldn’t sit still until they gave him some gas!  But we got the tooth pulled!  In two weeks Arley goes back to get his first Invisalign mouthpiece, and if all goes well, his dental work will be finished in six months!

We had Taekwon Do on Tuesday morning again, after three weeks off.  The lesson was a bit of a disaster.  I wasn’t participating because I have an injury (I fell off my electric unicycle!!), and Carmie hadn’t slept well at all the night before.  Arley was all complaints, because apparently his leg hurt too and he hadn’t slept well either.  Grrrrrrr.  We didn’t really manage to turn it around, but I had him message Mr Kelly and apologise an hour later.  We spent some time up at Lolo and Dida’s, and Carmie had a psych appointment, at that’s it for Tuesday.

I had to take Carmie for a speech therapy assessment on Wednesday morning.  She starts speech therapy every two weeks in March.  I’m hoping she will get more confident from it, and her speaking will become more clear.  She is a very fast talker, and she breathes in the wrong spots, so sometimes she is hard to understand.  She started back at her social groups this week, and she seems pretty happy about it.

I don’t have too much else to add.  I have been helping Jeff with his guitar school.  We are changing a few things up this year, and hoping to grow our numbers significantly, so keep your fingers crossed!

I have incredibly boring photos this week!

651, 652 +547, 548 Weeks

Oh boy, I haven't posted in two weeks, and we've had Christmas and New Years and we are well into 2024!  I can't quite believe it's 2024 - I'm turning 50 this year!  Oh my goodness.  We have decided this year is the year of health, so hopefully by the time my birthday rolls around I'll be in good shape for my next decade.

Christmas was nice.  We have spent the last three Christmases on our own, which has been very peaceful and stress-free.  This year we had Lolo and Dida and my brother Sting in town, and it was definitely more fun!  We had a beach morning where we all went swimming (well, Lolo and I only went in up to our wastes, and Lolo was panicking the whole time about the kids' safety - insert eyeroll!).  We had several swimming sessions in our pool, games and fun with Sting.  It was great to have him around.  He has promised to come up more often, which would be awesome.  The kids love him.

The kids were very excited for Christmas morning, and they both said it was the best Christmas ever.  Sadly our internet got shut off mistakenly on the 22nd, and then all of our 4G got shut off on Christmas day, and we are still fighting with Telstra to get it all back on.  We are all hotspotting of Jeff and my phones, and it is very frustrating!  Plus I have spent almost 10 hours on the phone to Telstra, and I can pretty much say every employee I have spoken with there are completely inept.  It took them ten minutes to accidentally shut off our internet, and apparently it's two weeks to get it back on!

New Year's Eve was a bust!  We had planned to have a picnic dinner out at La Balsa park and then watch the fireworks, and we were all ready to go, dinner made, when it started to rain!  We couldn't imagine sitting on the wet ground, so we decided to stay home and have a family game night after dinner.  First game in and Arley had a meltdown from stress and confusion (not understanding the rules), and we all separated to do our own thing.  So, not the best New Year's Eve, but the kids ended up happy because we told them they could stay up as long as they wanted so they could message their friends at midnight.  They both went to sleep around 2am, and felt very grown up.

We have been chilling at home a lot.  It is really crowded here because of the school holidays, and the weather has been crazy.  One week it was so hot that we had our hottest day in four years, and then it rained and thunder-stormed for days.  Jeff and I are getting his guitar school ready for the new year, starting off with a new schedule and big plans for jam sessions and open mic nights.  We have been keeping busy.  I thought I'd get time to paint, but it seems like my time still has not come!

We have moved the kids' computers into their bedrooms.  The kids and I were sharing the study before this, and while it's probably not the best idea to have their computers in their bedrooms, it is so nice for me to have more space, both physically and mentally!  Arley said the day we moved his computer to his bedroom was the best day of his life, and Carmie was squealing and stimming, so I think they are both very happy with the arrangement!

We took this week off from activities, except for Arley's afternoon activity with Chayse that happens every Thursday.  They went swimming at Cotton Tree pool.  He loves it there.  Next week all of our activities and appointments start again, and I am not looking forward to it!  We have five additional appointments booked for next week on top of regular activities.  On a good note, if all goes well, Arley's dental work will be done in six months!  He has finished with his appliance that was widening his palate (by 8mm!) and next he needs a tooth removed, and then he is going to start Invisalign.  I am so excited for him to be finished, and to see the results!

I'm hoping to enjoy the next three days - maxing and relaxing - before the chaos of real life starts next week!