A Juggling Mum

Today is Clare’s 8th birthday and to celebrate we had Pizza for dinner (Clare’s choice) and I made chocolate butterfly cupcakes for dessert. They were really, really yummy! I will post the recipe tomorrow.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

When I say baby I mean my eldest baby, I haven’t shipped baby Sophie off to some kind of baby camp. Although after the last few nights of her waking every couple of hours I wish I could send her off to some kind of baby boot camp ……lol! No I’m only kidding, I’m talking about Chloe, my 10 year old. She left this morning to go to her first camp and in true Chloe style it just so happens to be a debating camp. Chloe and 3 other kids from her school (including her best friend) were selected to attend the overnight camp.

I am so excited for her, she has been looking forward to this for months and the fact that she gets to share this experience with her best friend A is very special.

It feels kind of weird here today though, even though right now she would normally be at school the house feels kind of empty and I am having trouble concentrating on anything (I’m surprised I have managed to get this far through this post), it’s not that I am worried or anxious. I’m not really sure what it is……. perhaps it’s just that I miss her!

My little cousin checking out her stash of eggs

Easter Sunday in my house was a little different this year. My four eldest kids wanted to have a sleep over at my parents house this weekend and the only day that suited everyone was on Saturday night. So I woke up on Sunday morning with only my baby and my partner in the house.

It was very odd to wake up on Sunday morning and not do the whole Easter Bunny thing. The Easter bunny still visited here, but he/she (does any body know the Easter bunny’s gender?) was able to sneak in quietly in the morning and place chocolate eggs in the kids baskets without fearing that the precious sleeping children would wake at any moment.

It was however lovely to get out of bed and not have to get five kids fed, dressed and ready for the day. I leisurely fed the baby, some some breakfast, had a shower, got me and the baby dressed, decorate a chocolate cake, packed some things to take to my parents house and even managed to check my emails. It was a lovely Easter morning for me!.

Around 11am my partner, baby and I walked up to my parents (they live just up the road) where my family were gathering for Easter lunch.

The kids started the celebrations by having an Easter egg hunt in the back yard. This year they were hunting for chocolate eggs and plastic eggs filled with small eggs and a special Easter message. This is my favourite part of Easter. I love watching the kids hunting for eggs and seeing how excited they get when they find one.

After the egg hunt we exchanged Easter eggs, and all ended up with way to much chocolate to take home.

Lunch followed the exchange of eggs. Unlike Christmas Day we don’t really have a traditional Easter lunch, we all just bring over what ever we all feel like eating on the day. This year my Dad cooked chicken wings and sausages on the barbecue and we had some salads with them.

After lunch we got to sit around and relax and talk and eat chocolate eggs. The kids spent the afternoon playing the PS2 and making up Easter related games in the back yard.

We had hot cross buns for afternoon tea and sat around talking until dinner time, which was left overs from our lunch. Because I had made an Easter cake we all forced a small piece down before we all packed up our stuff and headed home.

We came home and the kids went straight to their bedrooms to see what the Easter bunny had left for them, thankfully I had told them that they were not to eat another single egg and we managed to get them all into bed. But within twenty minutes both Caitlin and Clare had thrown up. Thankfully both felt much better once they had vomited and we had a quiet night. I think they learnt their lesson because today they really didn’t eat much chocolate at all.

Christmas came and went in a blur of wrapping paper and tinsel and now we are enjoying the school holidays. We have been spending a lot of time at the local pools where the kids have had 2 weeks of swimming lessons. Their lessons go for 45 minutes and then we stay and have a swim together. The kids have been having a great time and they are doing so well with their lessons.

We have also been getting everything ready for the beginning of the school year. New uniforms, shoes, bags, pencils, books etc. It’s an expensive and exhausting exercise but lots of fun. I love the back to school preparation.

Riley is starting Preschool again on Friday. He started last June after he turned 3 but he wasn’t ready for it and I didn’t want to push him. I’m hoping that this time it will be different and he’ll settle in easily. I’m expecting some tears when I leave him, but fingers crossed they won’t last for long.

I’ve been concentrating on spending time with the kids during the holidays so I’ve let most of the memes that I usually participate in slip, but when the kids go back to school at the end of January I will be back in full force

See you then!