Wordless Wednesday

these are the people in my neighbourhood family....

Christmas morning and the new arrivals

Well I did it again. At least I'm keeping with tradition. By this I mean staying up waaaay late Christmas eve preparing like a mad thing for the next day. I was making my very first ever lemon maringue pie at somewhere between midnight and 1am. Then folding laundry and vacuuming the entire house. I climbed into bed minutes short of 2am to be woken by 4:19am by a very excited 4 year old. She was taken back to bed after a very lengthy toilet stop and some excited nervous chatter about Santa not coming in if she was up. I slept walked through all of this.Two hours later and I had 3 of them jumping around the bed alerting us that it was Christmas morning. I felt like death warmed up. We told them to go back to their bedrooms and wait for us to come and get them when it's time. That lasted for a minute. I could hear master 10 counting the seconds. We rolled out of bed and begrudgingly woke up miss 3.

I was so sleep deprived that I couldn't even work the camera settings. So all the photos are blurry. Kind of sets the mood of how it all looked from my eyes anyway.

After the stockings we moved into the lounge to see what santa had left....

Mine!! Totally cool prints from Gooseman to me. I also got the most wicked present from my parents that will have to be posted later as I need to buy something to stick them to the wall, ok, ok I'll tell you it's FLYING DUCKS! 3!! Tooooo cool. Will post a pic of them in the next few days.

This is Zeke.

and his twin bro Rastus.

Despite being a complete non-cat person (still am) I am contemplating giving them an animal every year as these are the only things that remain un broken, lost or tossed aside. They are played with from the moment someone gets up till they go back to bed again at night.

I was almost sick when I smelled something fowl from the laundry/new cat toilet/feeding place....I thought they had pooed. But no, it was the MOST revolting thing on this earth. Cat meat. Soooooo gross. That's all Gooseman's job. I refuse. I have also learned this weekend that cat's fart. And it smells like cat meat. It gives me nausea. Seriously. And master 8 couldn't resist trying out the kitty litter box and took a morning whizz in there yesterday!!  I'm still shaking my head in dis belief as I'm writing this...what more can I say?

Merry Christmas 2009 from Widge's corner of the world.

Merry Christmas Eve

Happy Christmas Chickasaurus rex !!!(spelling!) you are the winner of my book! courtesy of random.org Can you please shoot me an email of your addy bridget.whitteker@hotmail.com

To everybody else I hope you all have a blessed Christmas full of peace Joy and LOVE. Thinking and praying for all my friends who have lost loved one's this year.Big HUGS!

Thanks for taking time to read my crazy blog

Widge xoxo

Holidays day 5......Giveaway. Holiday crazies. And twin boys

Technically it's no longer day 5 any more because it's 12;32 am but I have just finished wrapping pressies and am having a small blog stop and another corn chip fix before beddy-byes.

Today has been manic. And by the sound of a lot of other blogs around I am not alone in the area of having kids who are spinning like crazy things, high on excitement, pent up energy, and boredom to boot. We lived up to our name the yelling family big time today. The kids literally woke up screaming.

I tried everything to entertain/distract but there was no winning. Until master 8 finally ran out of batteries at 2pm and put himself to bed for a nap! Yes! I know! totally out of the ordinary but I told you today was CRAZY.

Gooseman arrived home from work around 4pm and I could finally escape to the shops to pick up last minute supplies. What a ridiculous adventure that was. Half our town was crammed into the supermarket. It took me over an hour to get through. I was just so pleased I wasn't one of the many mums in the place trying to control kids. I realised this when I heard a mum repeatedly call her baby an idiot at the check out. No I'm not judging. I could understand her frustration and I felt very sorry for her having embarrassed herself in this way in front of so many on lookers.I only looked cool calm and collected because mine were all at home.

Tomorrow is one of my favourite days of the year.Christmas Eve. I don't know why. I think it's all about the anticipation. The reality is going to be lots of cleaning and preparation and trying to keeps kids from completely spazing out (or make that me).

Tomorrow night Gooseman also picks up the newest members of our family. Twins. Of the feline variety. I may have mentioned before I am sooooo NOT a cat person, but I caved. Or rather Gooseman went out and brought 2 kittens last week and then it was done. Couldn't exactly take them back. But I am looking forward to seeing the kids faces when we give them to them on Christmas morning.

And for the give away is this book Scandalous Grace by Julie Ann Barnhill. It's pre owned by me but still in really good condition and I was wondering if someone out in blog may like to have it. I listened to this woman on the radio one day and what she spoke really touched me. She's honest, real, hilarious and she's been there. If you would like to have this book leave a comment saying so and I'll pick a winner sometime tomorrow after 7pm 24th Dec Kiwi time.

Holidays day 4......Cold Turkey aint so Fun

So now that I've declared and made such a strong stand against facebook (for myself, I totally understand more disciplined folk who can handle it are free to enjoy) I've dug myself in it and there can be no turning back. It's like Meg's said in a comment; you are a crowd of witnesses that I am able to keep myself accountable to.
Habits are hard to break. I found myself repeatedly drawn to the computer today with a cup of tea in hand, checking my blog far more than usual and nothing much else to do on the PC.
The land of blog doesn't seem to have the fast paced news feed as facebook has. I find myself wondering what certain friends are up too today. I feel like I'm in a bubble. That feeling when you go out and realised you left your cell phone at home. The panic of what would then happen if there were in an emergency. What am I missing out on???

This may sound a mild dramatic but there is a feeling of having committed social suicide and knowing that my funeral is going on and with a click of a few buttons I could see how life goes on with out me or in a sense even "come back to life".

On re- reading this I realise how pathetic I really do sound and for those who have never succumbed to the evil clutches of facebook dependency (FBD) ;)  you really wouldn't understand it at all. But these feelings are real. But thankfully that's all they are. Feelings.

Apart from the facebook withdraw my day was full of unexpected but very welcome vistors. Meg's and her family joined ours for the day and the kids once again paired off and got up to all sorts of adventures of their own LITERALLY. The older one's managed to explore our whole town  unbeknown to Meg's and I. We got a bit of a fright when the Master 10's arrived back home to say that they had caught up with the 2 younger boys at the local library! Quite a distance from the very close park they were told they could play at by our home. Panic stations slightly. Everyone was found. Told never to venture further than said boundaries ever again and thankfully all was well.

Meg's and I talked non stop over corn chips, modelling clay and caramel lattes. I love how we never run out of things to say when together. Conversation is as natural and plentiful as some fast growing crazy manic plant.

So day 4 of these school holidays has been a success. We are all still alive, well and some of us are smiling, and some have been sent to bed early for teasing their little sister....just another normal day really.

Facebook want's to be my friend. Ignore.

I've deleted my facebook page. For the second time this year. And dare I say it for the last time.

"What's such a big deal about that?" and "What's so bad about facebook?" you may be thinking. And my answer is nothing. For some people. For me however the issues run deep. Far below the surface of innocent social networking. Somewhere deep inside of me is a murky place that is calling out for approval and acceptance from all the wrong places. A place where I can show the "cool" people from my past that hey, I turned out ok.

The "Look at me! Look at me!" is a far cry from living for an audience of One. I'm creating an image of myself that I don't believe I am entitled to create.

That and it is so easy to turn on quickly to check my messages and stay browsing for an extra 20 minutes. I shudder to think of the time I have spent wasted on there, snooping through other people's "life image's". Yes there are great things about the site. I have found such satisfaction in finding long lost friends and rekindled many old friendships through facebook. I fear though in the process that I may have damaged some also in the real world. Friends who I would visit or call to catch up with before FB now are quickly caught up on with a quick scan of their page.The relationship realness gets lost. (and then it's also really weird when you finally do bump into them in the real world and they still know everything that's going on in my life). Weird.

I've become a hermit.I turned from someone who couldn't stand being stuck home for two days straight to now sighing in relief that I can sit at the computer instead of actually interacting with anyone face to face.

I've also gained a good 6 kilos since getting a computer. I used to be out walking a lot. Because I enjoyed it and it was part of my day.

My house has been less clean.

My kids see my back at the computer far too often during the day.

This is the verse I have screaming at me during all of this:
Everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up.1 Corinthians 10:23

I truly believe that this seemingly small act is a big chunk of de-cluttering my life. I feel that I am finally being obedient as I have been plagued with thoughts and desires to get rid of this from my life all year. I justified it and tried to discipline myself in this area. I did start to spend less time on there but there is also the vanity and self promotion that is rearing it's ugly head in me. A desire in my heart is to learn humility and I can't be chasing after that while stressing over showing only the best parts of my life on facebook. I never shared my blog there as many of you do because I never wanted certain people knowing my real thoughts and struggles of daily life.I wanted my blog to be real. Not a show. I wanted my facebook profile to be cool.

In my day we had playdough cakes and Silent Night now it's gourmet cupcakes and advertising jingles

The week has wrapped up or just started depending on your calendar but I usually think of Monday as the first day of a new week so here's a snippet of what's gone on:

Miss 4 (almost 5) finished up at kindy for the year and her life! eek where'd that time go?? 

This exciting package arrived in the mail from a very cool blogger!!! The fudge was to absolutely DIE for and I just polished off the last of it tonight (I've been savouring it). It even went out on a hot date with me and Gooseman to see this brilliant visual master piece Avatar.

Both me and Gooseman enjoyed it (which hardly ever happens!) I was even worried that after him being so excited to see the movie that he may have been thinking it was lame because it was a story I could actually follow and I WAS LOVING IT! Thankfully he was too. I can't stand watching a movie with someone who isn't enjoying it. (usually because I'm the one falling asleep in Gooseman's movies so I know how it feels). One year he took me to Batman Begins for my birthday and I was so bored I almost cried. Seriously. So if you check it out make sure you see it in 3D because it's fab!

With School and Kindy holidays officially in full swing now I'm hoping for a bit more chilled atmosphere. No more picking/dropping off or lunches to pack for awhile. This coming week I really hope to get the "feel" of Christmas in the air. Are you feeling it? Or is it just me feeling a little like this guy ??

I'm surprised and saddened that  my kids don't even sing Christmas carols at school any more. Apparently they are not PC. At their end of year break up they sing one song called "Kiwi Christmas" (or something like that) and THAT'S IT! I  also attended  their last assembly and they had a good half an hour spare before home time so they started singing and I had assumed it would be some carols, but there wasn't even a Jingly, Merry, Silent bell heard. They sang t.v advert songs of all things on i karaoke.  Totally weird. Sad. I stood outside talking with other parents as they kids crooned to the latest Telecom ad.

So the goal this week is to get in the festive mood. Make it Be.