it's been a while!

Just realised that it has been a while since my last post. A long while. I guess that can happen when life gets in the way.

So I will start with updating to the current news. My baby girl is nearly 16 months old. Walking everywhere, trying to run (most often when there is food involved). She loves playing with drawers, and spreading the contents everywhere. She has started climbing too- she was busted using a small chair to reach leftover pancakes with Nutella (and I will be doing a post with my pancake recipe).

Preschooler had a major hair cut last week. It has made her look very grown up, but it was meant to help us get the nits under control. I hate nits. Our home made prevention spray helps, but they are so hard to eradicate. Preschooler had surgery on her teeth last month, and has recovered from that very quickly.

Schoolgirl turns 7 next week. Her party preparations are well under way. We are doing our very first party at home (all previous parties were at play cafes or fast food restaurants). I am getting excited about it all- I have found some great ideas for the party, and I am hoping it will all come together well.

Teenager- well, teenager has moved in with her dad. As much as I hated the way it happened, I am actually proud of her for making a tough decision and committing to it. By all accounts, she is loving life over with him.

As for me- I am back at work. In theory, I am back full time. In reality- well, with 3 young kids at home, carer's leave is a common occurrence.

When I was preparing to return to work, I set some goals- I wanted to get fit again. I wanted to continue breastfeeding baby girl (I am aiming for another WHO baby at least- 2 years). I wanted to cook dinner most nights. I hoped to keep up with the washing during the week, instead of facing 'Mount Washmore' every weekend. Well... I haven't been exercising. I am still breastfeeding Baby girl, although I have stopped expressing at work. She wasn't taking a bottle, and I was running out of freezer space (and I recently donated all my frozen milk to a contact in Sydney). We are doing pretty well with dinners, mainly because I keep the freezer stocked with leftover meals. (I am still cooking large enough quantities to feed a hungry teenager). Doing ok with keeping up with the washing, although we have fallen behind at times.... like when baby girl gets a random vomiting bug- 2 full sets of queen sized bedding, 3 sets of pjs for her, 2 sets for me, plus random towels and clean up cloths. And the week the washing machine died and flooded the house- that put me seriously behind with the washing (but the flood kept me too distracted to care).

And now a confession. I started typing this post to try and distract from a major chocolate craving. Didn't work. <off to raid the cupboards>