Where has the time gone???

This year business has really taken off and the kids have kept me super busy, leaving me not very much time to myself.
This brings me to tell you one thing... I already have a New Years resolution...BLOG more!
Having no time to myself with hubby working 6 days and myself working on his off day, the months have just slipped by. All my kiddies had their awesome birthday parties. My little 6 week old bub is now 13 months! Boy has it been a long & tough 13 months. Lol. Our little sweetie is a handful. Doesn't help that for 6 of those months she was terribly sick.

Finally I'm getting on top of things, every now and then I have a spare 10 minutes to myself. I know, weird, right?! Lol
One thing I have enjoyed this year is on the 21st of each month I take a photo of my baby girl. A story book themed photo. It has been lots of fun. Next post, I will show you the gorgeous images I have taken. Although... I could be bias! Lol

Tomorrow I am running the warrior dash to raise money for charity. It will be interesting. May have to share some insight into what's involved in that once I am done (if I come out of it alive lol)
For now, over and out!
Bee. xx

A romantic dinner for 15.

Wow it has almost been four months since my last post. Proving exactly as I thought...4 kids can be and sometimes is chaos! lol
Time to do some catch up bogs.
We have had 3 birthdays in as many months and I am REALLY keen to show you all the fun. Also our Lexi is slowly on the move. Geez time flys when your having fun. Oh well back to it. My first special mention will be to The Mandarin Master at Stafford, Brisbane.


We celebrated my husbands birthday with a good old fashion Chinese dinner. We usually go to a buffet style Chinese restaurant, with all you can eat. For something different to celebrate his birthday he requested that we go to a sit down restaurant and order off the menu. My first reaction... "WHAT!!!! No all you can eat! Since when?" lol.
The daddy of the house is a BIG fan of getting value for dollar so we usually always go for something like a buffet. His suggestion of a sit down romantic dinner for two was refreshing.
It also encouraged my mind to go wondering. With the help of a close friend, we located a restaurant that had rave reviews and made the booking for 15 people. NOT so romantic I can here you say, no, but I knew that it would be the the perfect way that my husband would want to celebrate... surrounded by our close family and friends.
Of course we kept it a secret, he assumed it was going to be a romantic dinner just for us (+ little miss 4 month old fully breast fed bubs of course).
When we arrived, he quickly noticed all of the familiar cars of our friends and family and preceded to inform me he already knew. My response..."What! NO you didn't. Really? How?"
The simple explanation, one text message sent at the wrong time and the convenience of an iphone displaying the message on the screen for you, and all who get to the phone first, to see grrr. He had found out 3 days before hand. Damn it! Three weeks of planning ruined three days before the event. Oh so close.
I didn't worry too much, the cheeky as smile on his face was rather infectious. It did kind of defeat the purpose of the big "SURPRISE!!!" yelled at him from his sister when he walked in, but oh well, what's the saying...'It's the thought that counts". lol
Funny thing was, all though we all ordered our individual meals, we decided to utilised the lazy susan turn table in the middle and shared our meals. So it did turn out a bit like our own private mini buffet style dinner.

The food was delicious! They were very accommodating and prepared the meals exactly as ordered and the portion size was huge. So big infact that we ordered way too much for all of us and had plenty to take home to the baby sitter, aka my little brother.
I provided a gorgeous chocolate mud cake courtesy of The cheesecake Shop. 

The lovely people at the resturant brought it out, candles lit and then once the we had sung to the birthday boy, they offered to cut it up for us. That's service. 
Needless to say we all had a fantastic night. The man of this chaotic house enjoyed himself, enjoyed the delicious food and enjoyed the company. Happy Birthday to the daddy of 4 Chaotic kids! xx

Happy New Year!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A Fresh Start!

This is my busiest time of year!
Preparing the business for a new year of photography, organizing the kids for a new year of school (kindy, grade 3 and grade 5) AND... the part I find exciting and fun... organizing my family's birthdays. YAY!!!

I have 3 birthday's within about 6 weeks of each other. My husband's at the end of January, my son in February and my daughter who will be 8, very early March. So it's full steam ahead with all party planning.

I absolutely LOVE the excitement of preparing the kiddies parties.
Every year I throw my babies a party for their special day. People always say "They don't need a party every year. But I say "Why not? It is the only day of the year that is all about them! So we celebrate it the way THEY want to".

Last year we had a big year. With Lightning McQueen, Charlie and the chocolate factory and an Alice in wonderland being the 3 theme's of the year.

As it gets closer to their birthday's I will show you last years excitement and fun!

This year the theme's are Dragons, Rainbow Fairies and Harry Potter. Oh that's for the 3 bigger kids. For the hubby it's dinner at a Chinese restaurant and for bubba (still 9 months away so i may change my mind) it will be a story book theme, maybe the hungry caterpillar.

Can't wait to see the final out come for all!

Talen's Birthday, 2011. Disney Pixars - Cars.

At the moment we are in full party planning mode. So I thought I would give you a quick sneak peek into last years birthday theme... Cars!

Last year Talen turned 2. His favorite movie and books at the time was anything to do with Disney Pixar's - Cars. So naturally we had a Lightning McQueen party.
This post will just be a quick run down of what we did. I just had to share because I loved it so much.

Before guests walked in the gate they had to get their license to party from the Sherif.

The license's had a personal picture of each child along side a cars character.

When they enter the garden it was all about Fun, Food, and Activities!
What no games????
 Nope!
We had activities instead of games because Talen was too little to participate in any game we were looking at doing.

EVERYONE, young and old enjoyed the activities.
We had...

•   Race track painting
• Ramone's Body art (temporary tattoo's)
•  Grow your own plant - just like Red the fire truck. (For just $2 each we bought 4 punnets of 6 flowering plants, the kiddies thought this was a great activity).

We also had:

• Sally's cozy cone (an orange children's tent for them to play in)
• Luigi's leaning tower of tyre's (large old go kart tyre's that the children would try stacking).
• The spring from Radiator Springs (kiddies paddle pool with sprinkler on low.
• Sarge's surplus - Take home treats table.
   

Sadly I don't have photos of these.

For the adults we had Maters- guess how many jelly beans in the jar, winner takes all.


The food table was called Flo's V8 Cafe.
I had all the sorts of foods you would find at a Race event. Hot dogs, Pies, pop corn, chips etc.
I also made Mater cupcakes, (couldn't resist, they were adorable) and traffic light biscuits.

To re-fuel the kids visited Filmore's fuel stop.
Here they could find Filmore's organic bio fuel (fruit juice) and some rust-eze (cola).

Last of all the cake! I LOVED the cake.
It was 2 days in the making and so worth the effort when I saw the look on my little man's face.
Presenting LIGHTNING McQUEEN!!!

It was all so much fun!
Can't wait for this years theme. Talen has chosen ....DRAGONS!!! (Good one's of course hehehe)
Keep an eye out for it in February. :)

A little smile means A LOT!

How old were your little ones when they first smiled?

My baby was only 21 hours old when she shared her first smile.
"RUBBISH!" I hear you saying. In no way do i think my child is advanced. Don't worry! I didn't believe it either. I figured it was wind.

'Wind smiles are a cute sneak peek at what's to come!'

This has always been my belief, but the midwife who was standing next to me when bub smiled, convinced me it was a real smile. How do you tell the difference?

Well my lovely, older, midwife parted with her wisdom by describing the difference.
She explained...

"A wind smile consists of a twitchy smile, or rolling of the eyes, usually with both combined. A real smile is when your baby is fixed on your face and he/she shares a big steady smile while looking at you."

I wasn't sure about this theory until three hours later. Lexi had been fed, changed, burped, you know, all the necessary activities a baby need every 3 hours. She was lying comfortably in my arms. Eyes wide open and taking in her surroundings, (well as much as a 24 hour old baby can). Then she looked straight at me and I said two words to her...
"Hello Bubba"
My gorgeous little girl instantly shared with me, the biggest smile her little newborn face could manage. It was the best feeling I have ever experienced.
From that day (providing we aren't having one of those days, which do happen), she has been a happy smiley bub. Trying to catch that smile on camera, is more difficult than it seems.

 

Lexi's smile ALMOST caught on camera. 10 days old

Two days later... Yay!! A cheeky smile caught on camera, be it the blurry phone camera but hey it's still a gorgeous smile.

And this was at 6weeks. How cheeky is that smile.

She makes you want to pick her up and give her a snuggle.

The first 4 weeks of Lexi's little life was LOOOOONG and tiring, as she did suffer from wind problems, but everytime she was settled, calm, and relaxed, we LOVED encouraging these GORGEOUS smiles.

The "wisdom" that my midwife past on to me, I will pass on to others.
You may not believe this theory but I can sure tell you, when your baby has been screaming at you for 5 hours straight with wind pain....your arms are tired from rocking and patting her. Your legs and back are sore from pacing the floors, and you have a massive tired headache!
Then all of a sudden she finally burps/farts/poops all the air out of her and is cradled in your arms looking at your face. You WANT her to share a gorgeous smile! Because when she finally does and then falls peacefully to sleep at 3am. It definitely helps to melt all the frustration, aches and pains away.
Bee
xx

4 Kids Chaos Begins

Six weeks ago I gave birth to my 4th child. I had intended on starting this blog when we arrived home, to document her life and my chaos with 4 kiddies.

Well that obviously turned into 6 chaotic weeks later and here I am, beginning my Blog.

This first blog should be incredibly long with all that has happened, but what i will do is play catch up instead.

This first entry can be my introduction.

I am now a mummy of 4 kiddies... when did that happen? hehehe.
Three girls and a gorgeous little boy. Sara - 9 years old, Jorja - 7 years old, my little guy Talen - 2.5 years old and our new little princess, Alexia (lexi) now 6 weeks old.
I am married to my high school best friend (not my high school sweetheart lol). He was always there for me in the good and bad times. He was there when at the age of 18 I fell pregnant. He was the first person I told. Not a big deal you think? Well he was my best friend... not the father! He was the first one to visit when I gave birth to my 2 older girls, but back then he was known as Uncle Jason. Due to horrible circumstances, when Jorja was just 2.5yrs old,  I was given another chance to find a wonderful relationship.

I jumped head first into the forbidden pool of friendship and jumped out with a wonderful, doting, caring, husband (4 years and 1 more child later).
We had our first wedding anniversary last month, we didn't celebrate as we were too busy in the world of new parents...again!

Meet Alexia Violet-Jean.

Not a glamorous photo but since when is birth glamorous? lol.

This begins our chaotic journey with 4 kids!
Bee.xx