Photo update!

This is a picture of Natalie a few months ago before she got her glasses. You can see her right eye turning in quite a bit!

This is a cute one of Hayley. I'm not sure exactly when it was taken... possibly Father's day. She's a little grubby, but totally happy. <3

 The swing is her absolute favourite thing. Natalie kept wanting to push the swing for Hayley, which was a little dangerous for both of them so I had to take control of that one! Only little swings for Hayley. Love that little smile, and she's even waving :)

Another swing pic for Hayley, this one in Milang on Jonathan's birthday. This playground was at Lake Alexandria. It was windy there but we had a lot of fun.

Natalie loves painting. She has a tendency to use just one colour on each painting. Often she'll only have a small amount of paint on the page and she wants a new piece of paper. I guess she likes that white space daddy is always talking about as a designer. :-) She's totally gorgeous and I love that she loves creating.

My little artist.

Beautiful little lady.

 Natalie's gallery.

 Natalie loves taking pictures with the camera.

Self portraiture is a must :)

Reverb Day 7 - What Will You Take With You?

What's the one thing you want to take with you into 2013?

Hmm... Again, the answer to this question is already in some of the blog posts I've written recently.

In a nutshell: I want to take with me this zest for life; an attitude of gratitude; the determination to be an in the moment, intentional, loving, fun mum; positivity - the ability to see the joy in each day despite any difficulties. These are things I've been given in greater measure this year that I'm not going to leave behind. :D

Reverb day 6 - What did you learn?

Compare the “you” from the beginning of 2012 to the “you” that you are now. What new skills or talents have you learned or discovered this year?

I love this question! I've written about a lot of these things lately (Letting Go, Being Like Me, How will you celebrate you?), but I guess I can touch on them now too.

2012 has been a year of growth for me. I feel that I have learnt a lot; about myself, about life, about my children, about happiness, and about how Heavenly Father is aware of and cares for me.

At the beginning of the year my hubby and I had a tiny baby and an almost-2 year old... I was a full time mum with no study commitments, and Jonathan had just finished his diploma which meant he was home a lot while looking for a job. - And that has ALL changed. *jaw drops as, in writing this, I realise more has changes than I realised*

At the beginning of the year, I didn't feel confident that I could do what I was doing - taking care of two kids, WITH the help of my husband and WITHOUT chucking study in the mix...

And then...

• When the school year started I took up one subject to go toward my SACE, wondered time and again whether I was crazy for deciding to do it, but kept at it anyway.
• Jonathan found work, which although I knew was necessary and a blessing, also left me wondering how I could possibly do everything I was doing WITH his help, without it. Which in some crazy way I did. I should note that I certainly still had his help, it just meant he couldn't be there in tricky moments when both girls were demanding things like he had been to that point.
• There were also a lot of appointments related to Natalie's speech and her eyes, and Hayley's physio stuff.
• Somewhere along the line (maybe around July, but I can't remember exactly) I started up piano lessons again and sat an exam in October.
• And somehow - in some miraculous way - I actually feel less anxious and much more relaxed in life right now that I did when the year started.

And here I was wondering how I spent all my time this year. :P  Well it wasn't easy... but that wouldn't be any fun, would it? :-)

Has that really all happened just this year?

There are a lot of people I couldn't have done this all without, and to them I will always be grateful. I hope you know who you are.

I'm grateful to know that I've grown.

I wonder if the fact that I am feeling more competent and confident than at the start of the year means that something else is heading my way to offer a new challenge? 

Reverb day 5 - Dream Destination

What was your dream destination in 2012 and why? 
It can be a town, city, country or region -- real or imaginary -- and doesn't matter if you actually got there or not!


Dream destination... oh, these questions are impossible sometimes! haha.

To be honest, Jonathan and I have occasionally discussed the idea of moving interstate or even overseas to find different work opportunities for him - and part of me thinks that idea is exciting... particularly living in the UK for a while I think would be great! BUT, then I think about my life right here where we're living and I feel that even if it were a financially viable option for us, I just couldn't do it. I love it here too much.

It's partly about the geographical location - I'm so patriotic and love Australia and SA so much, but there is more to it than that. It is also where a large part of our family live, so that's one huge thing for starters. But it's even more than that.

I love Prospect Ward (where we attend church) and everyone in it. I'm so grateful for all the friends I've made there in the past 3 years, and can't imagine thriving so much not being surrounded by them all, often. The idea of even moving a few suburbs away and being in another ward can send me in to a panic attack - as it did when we were house-hunting at the end of last year. (Yay, we just renewed our lease for another 12 months!) I don't know if we'll be lucky enough to always be in Prospect Ward, but I'm so not ready to let go right now! haha

There are also the community things I've been attending that have been such a blessing, and have helped me so much as an individual and as a mother. This year I began the process of completing my SACE - once and for all! - and as I only did one subject and want to continue in 2013, that is an important factor in considering where my dream location is. There are other playgroups and classes I've attended at the same place (CaFE Enfield Children's Centre) that have been a huge blessing to me. Since I've written about that before, maybe I won't go in to the specifics... I've also been participating in a program at Gilles Plains to do with Natalie's speech. It has given me a really holistic approach in how to interact with both my girls and help them with all aspects of their development though, and although I'm sure these programs are run elsewhere, a lot of what I've learned was specifically from the women who run the group that I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten elsewhere. (On a side note, Natalie is talking SO MUCH these days.)

Those are just a few examples of the things that really make my dream location HERE. Right HERE. The more I think about it, the more I see that Heavenly Father knows exactly where we need to be to help us grow and to thrive despite the challenges that he gives us to help us grow.


On a fun note, there are lots of places that I would like to visit and I really can't pick just 1... but my hubby and I were just discussing how awesome it would be to go to France and see the Louvre and Notre Dame and the Eiffel tower. Italy would be cool too. But let's face it, I just want to see the world (eventually)! I'm a sucker for history. I'd love to see the pyramids in Egypt, The Great Wall of China, and the list could go on and on...

Reverb day 4 - How will you celebrate YOU

How are you going to celebrate your self this festive season?

I had never thought about this question until this morning, but I think a huge part of celebrating myself will be in celebrating Christmas - that Christ was born. My faith in Jesus Christ is so essential to who I am that being bold about this faith, being grateful for the gift God gave us of His Son and making it central to my family's festivities celebrates who I am.

In much the same way, the time spent with family celebrates myself... as they help make me who I am and are such and integral part of my heart <3 It wouldn't be myself not to spend time with family. On the other hand though, I do want to make the effort that it is a lot more of a relaxed time than I have felt in the past... in the last two years I really did a lot of stressing at Christmas time and all the get-togethers with so many groups felt like a lot of work with 1 or 2 kids to be mindful of - this year I want to be much more focused on gratitude and how much I love and appreciate each family member and enjoy spending time with them.

I realise this might sound soppy to you all, but it is authentic.

I have goals that I'm working toward for the next few years, and it is important to look to and plan for the future... but I also want to make an effort to look back and acknowledge how far I've come in the past year or so. I guess that part of using this process to 'celebrate myself' will also be to acknowledge the difficult things that I've had to overcome... not to dwell over them in a negative way, but to see how I overcame those things and that they have helped me grow.

I'm really enjoying this #reverb12 challenge. Some of the questions have been tricky to answer and some - like this one - are things I had never really thought about until reading the question. We're only on day 4 - you might enjoy it too! You don't have to blog, but can just write in your journal or even just think about the answer without recording it at all. See the button to your right :-D

Reverb Day 3 - What Do You Really Wish For?

Today's reverb question I found hard to answer...


Today's #reverb12 prompt and image come from... Cam aka Curlypops. Many of you may know Cam as blog button designer extraordinaire. What you may not know is that she is also making the most of a life lived on hold:
Living life on a transplant waiting list gives you lots of reasons to reflect on what you've achieved in your life, and what you wish for the future.Imagine a scenario where you only had one year left to live. What is one thing that you really wish to do that you just haven't had the chance to accomplish yet?
I would like to add: what steps could you take (however small) to ensure that you accomplish this thing in 2013?

The reason I find this question hard to answer is that I couldn't identify any dreams I'm longing to fulfil that I'm not already in the process of accomplishing at least... I have a beautiful little family. I'm working on other study and interest goals. Those are things that I am excited to do, and do view as important (although not the be-all-and-end-all), but they are there and the steps are being taken. Honestly, there are things (like traveling) that I would like to do... but at the moment nothing that I would be terribly disappointed if I died without achieving...

Then I started thinking about one thing that I really am aspiring to for the year 2013 (and now!) which encompasses and influences all other achievements anyway - living life fully awake, intentionally, with gratitude, embracing joy. In case you're wondering, these are words one of my favourite bloggers often uses to describe the way she desires to live her life... and I think they are great words that simply describe and helped me really grasp a concept that I was already familiar with - life is supposed to be happy, and it can be, but it's up to you to grab it!

So maybe that's it, the thing I want to accomplish: embrace joy. I know that things won't always be simple and that life has stress - even now I can see things on the horizon that although I know will be a great blessing will have their challenges too - but if you make a conscious effort you can see all of that with a perspective of what will be at the end as well as the joys that surround us even when our circumstances try us.

As I have alluded to, Jonathan and I have some exciting things that are also a little bit scary coming up... watch this space! (PS - no I'm not pregnant.)

Reverb!

I was reading my Aunty's blog post today and saw a link to #reverb12 ... This started yesterday but I am jumping in with a catch up post containing my answers for both day 1 and day 2.


How are you starting this last month of 2012?
Take a moment, close your eyes, take a deep breath and ask yourself the question: how do you feel...
... in your body? in your mind? in your day job? in your creative life? in your heart?


I feel so great right now! With the exception of my back perhaps, I'm feeling physically well and this is something I really want to focus on more than I have in the past. I don't want to obsess over it but I want to make the effort to take care of my body - I'm going to need it for the rest of my life after all! And beside that, I know that how you feel physically rubs off on other aspects of life too.
Which is probably why I've been doing better with the mind stuff! I wrote recently about changing my mindset and how it has made such a difference in my day-to-day living. I have always tried, but more recently increased my efforts to live with gratitude and to find joy despite imperfection... and it's just a better place to be!
I have also become more goal orientated lately in relation to increasing my music (creative) skills. I sat a Grade 6 piano exam in October and have now started working on the 7th Grade syllabus and will do the exam for that in either May or October next year, as well as a Theory exam during the year too. My aim is to have a diploma by 2020, but my piano teacher seems to think I am not ambitious enough and could do it a lot sooner if I wanted to. :P I however am not going to be putting TOO much pressure on myself and want to go in to each exam confident and just knowing that I'm going to nail it... and if it doesn't take that long, that's just an added bonus.
All in all, I'd say December has got off to a good start, as should 2013. It's actually been pretty hard going a lot of the time over the past 2 years, but I feel like I'm coming out of survivor mode and have really worked out what is important to me as a wife and mother and understand what I need to thrive and that it is ok to care about that too. :)


What was your most significant expenditure in 2012?It doesn't have to be necessarily the biggest expenditure, just the one with the most impact.
What difference has it made to your life?


I actually couldn't think of what to answer without asking Jonathan... The most significant expenditure would definitely be that we moved house in January... and it was TOTALLY worth it. Seriously I remember moving in here and just being like, "My favourite thing about this house is... the aircon! No, the kitchen! No, the backyard! No, the space!" LOL Come to think of it one of the best things is not having to deal with salt damp and a landlord/agent who wasn't doing a thing about it, (but of course renovated after we moved out). I'm not one to believe that a better house will make you happier or anything, but the lifestyle living in a house vs. a unit and getting rid of the stress we had with that particular agent has been a big relief!