Christmas.....Part One

It was our first Christmas as the Summerfield-Lawton family - which is kinda awesome in itself - it has been almost a year....I cannot believe it! And honestly its been awesome, amazing...etc

So....Yay for us! 

The highlight gift - a trampoline for the children, though perhaps more so for dear Husband. Although the size may have been a little extravagant. 16 ft!! Its takes up our entire backyard!!

Christmas Eve was with my immediate family - parents and three brothers and the fiance of one of my brothers. Roast turkey cooked in the Webber, prawns and cold ham and salads. I was super desperate, as I always am, to get opinions on my rose marie sauce. I thought it was brilliant! Chris made the Pavlova - I guiltily was a little judgmental of his recipe - he dared to deviate from Mum's tried and true recipe....sorry!! - it was yum and you did great!!

We tried out Uncle Matt's 3D TV and Michael and the kids watched 'Despicable Me'

And check out that chair....I mean seriously.....what??!!

and met the new addition to their family....

Meet Jax (the bulldog)- and Grandad....

Being the super organised person that I am, after returning home and putting the kids to bed, I still had presents to wrap and a pavlova to make (Take 2 - the first attempt got binned early in the day). Michael also had to finish the putting the trampoline up. It rained. So now Michael gets to tell the story of staying up until 2am, in the rain, on Christmas Eve putting together a present for the children. He loves it! What a champion!

I then decided I would set the table and make the lounge room all pretty for when the children wake up....

It lasted until after church when they were allowed to open their gifts from under the tree. (they got their stockings as soon as they woke).....

I don't know how they can trash a room so fast...

I am still cleaning up the mess!!.....

Do You Wobble?.....

I love a good line dance.

I have a secret desire to go back to Texas, (because I just don't think country line dancing really cuts it in Australia), don my funky 'honeymoon' alligator cowboy boots and my pink cowboy hat and get down to some serious boot scootin'!! The country music is brilliant over there!....


Anyway....so line dancing is awesome....not the 'Nutbush' mind you, that is so so terrible! In my opinion line dancing is a group of repetitive simple steps and you BYO groove, and I.....am all about the groove baby!  And there is absolutely no groove in the 'Nutbush'!


Recently have found my ultimate line dance....The Wobble. Michael thinks it is lame because there is nothing to it.....Handsome Man, that is the idea of it! My perfect kind of beat to get down to some serious booty shakin'! 


Enough build up....here are the basics....and here is gettin' wild wit it from the Raw Connection West Coast Swing Dance Party in July....I am somewhere in there on the left.


If you don't know it already....you're seriously missing out. 


I'm just sayin'.....




"I can dance Homie.....I don't two step"

Sitting In A Box Anxiety....

When I was a baby - probably between 6-9 mnths - Mum used to sit me in a box on the kitchen bench and cook or clean or whatever around me....I would just sit and play with toys (I am assuming she gave me toys!) and not try and get out.

How unlike my own children.

Yet totally like my personality. I am extremely inquisitive and I will ask thousands of questions yet I seem to be afraid of action. Especially action of the unknown variety. As a result I miss countless opportunities (ie. I didn't have my first real kiss, until I was 18! - and there were plenty of opportunities. Well, at least two I can recall, one involving two sets of braces ....Though I am sure there would have been a snowball effect!) - or when I do take an opportunity, its a great leap of faith!

I am having anxiety at the moment....doing things anxiety. More specifically, giving a gift to my Visiting Teaching sisters, now that my companion has moved away (what can this uncreative, sugar fearful lady offer?!!) AND expressing my gratefulness to my neighbour(s) for being cool with my youngest jumping over the fence often to play with their two children (3, 2)...he works nights, and doesn't sleep a whole lot and she works days....as I type, all three of mine are over the fence in the neighbours pool. Oh the anxiety/guilt!

I have just returned from a neighbourly sojourn....I sucked it up and went over to help supervise the children and be more friendly, instead of hiding in my house while the kids get to know the neighbourhood.

The children all played well together and I stepped out of my box for a little while - it was great I thought! We have been invited over for a Christmas Street Party on Friday night....how is that for a rewarding experience!?

Now just to figure what to do for my Visiting Teaching sisters....

PS Yesterdays car leak apparently was the air conditioner - it happens, and it stopped. Thank goodness! The damage appears to be minimal and only cosmetic. Though I did ask my husband if he pines for his bachelor life - I feel constant guilt about our whirlwind family of noise and destruction - he vehemently assured me that his life is far better with us in it.....despite the damage. Yay!

From Good To....

Well....Not sure yet....

Today started awesomely, woke up from a lonely nights sleep (husband was away overnight for work) and felt super motivated, so I cleaned both bathrooms and toilets and headed out to successfully acquire some tickets to tonight's Christmas Lights bus tour. I was feelings pretty productive and just a little housewife sassy, in my awesome 'I have a funky mother who gives me clothes' orange skirt.....

When.....

I ran over a sheet of metal on the freeway on the way to my last errand stop (I keep replaying that moment in my mind with all the things I should have done to prevent the 'accident'....but I guess what's done is done)....It buckled under my car and I dragged it briefly, as I slowed down to pull over. I managed to unwedge it from under the car...meanwhile in the breezy breeze on the side of the highway, on my hands knees, my awesome orange skirt was not feeling so awesome....

The car started and we headed to our next destination - on closer inspection the metal had scratched up the front under carriage of the car and it was leaking....freak out! So we bolted into the shops, and instead of searching for lego men that the kids could spend their money on in place of toxic sugary goodness (the money that the drunk man at the RSL gave them last night....I know, it was the Sabbath...all for the purpose of getting on this lights tour - which better be fabulous btw!), I relented and permitted candy.

The car made it home alive, and I placed some cardboard under it to catch the leak in case it stained the driveway....turns out it is water....is this a good sign??

Now I am depressed - though slightly better since breaking the news to Michael and finding out that he isn't mad at me (not that he ever is - but I still worry...old habits die hard...) I really hope everything is ok, car expenses at this point are the last thing we need! ....I have done nothing else except feed the kids lunch - which they didn't eat - eat snacks and read CJane.....

Now to drag myself off my amazing bed (have I mentioned how much I love my bed??...Thank you Kevin Rudd!)....and think about dinner and Christmas lights and maybe some warm egg nog when the husband gets home from dancing....(this weather is so bizarre!)

Spring Clean Anxiety....

I think I may taken on too much?!


Its 3.14pm. I cleaned for a couple of hours this morning, crashed out after lunch with the kids watching a Christmas movie ("Nativity" - its an English movie - twas good, what I saw of it)....now I am trying to motivate myself to keep going.

I know people do this all the time, but I do not and have not....Where I do like to keep the house reasonable clean and tidy (I am great for cleaning toilets!), and I grew up with a super cleaning mother and her yearly Christmas clean - I have, a number of times, found my self finishing the final clean before moving out of a house and thinking..."Wow, this place really looks great" and wanting to stay a little longer.

I don't know why I have never Spring/Summer/Christmas cleaned, I guess its just always seemed like too big an effort....and me being me, not knowing how to tackle it - just didn't. Plus it was easy to blame my 'unsupportive husband' (Not this one, he is brilliant), a demotivating drug problem and....babies (those last two sound terrible together, but alas, that was the reality of it) - I don't think those excuses cut it anymore...

But now I am doing it - that is, I have done lists! and laminated them (oh, how I love my new $18 laminator :)..... My son has done his room, and my daughter is half way through hers, though she has kind of given up a bit. I know I will have to step in and help with the culling process. (After my lamenting post previously on the kids and the holidays - yesterday was great, the children were awesome and motivated of my cleaning endeavour and we had a great day!) My kitchen is also...nearly half done?, maybe not quite but the success is all hidden. I think that is what is so discouraging. One wall of cupboards looks brilliant inside, but unless my husband notices the awesome cleanliness of the 'joins' between the floor and the cupboards (he won't) then you can't see anything!

Anyway I am trying to keep plodding along, reminding myself that if I work on something every day, then its bound to get down eventually!

Are you a 'cleaning aficionado'?? Got some tips for me?? Some super quick, barely any washing up, dinner recipes so I can keep up my mid-afternoon flow....I am thinking paper plates and plastic cutlery...

Only Slightly Bonkers....

Its only the morning of the second official day of the summer holidays and the children are driving me nuts!!

I tried to tell my son yesterday that its not that I hate spending time with them - they are super awesome little people and I am completely enamoured by their brilliant personalities - its just that these wonderful personalities are ofttimes sometimes hidden by bickering, whining,  selfish stomping demands etc....and they are the traits that I don't want to hang out with! However, the more I think about this, the more I think of all the negative traits of mine that they endure day in and day out - and the difference.....

They still want me around all the time!!

And on top of that, think that I am a most excellent mother!

*sigh* 

I honestly have so much to learn from them.....

I Am Not Worthy.....

As I type Michael is clearing out the spare room and setting it up for me to have a study/sewing room. (I asked him if he could do me a set up in the garage while he was on holidays) 

Pretty kind of him, huh?

But this is after a whole lot of nice things he has done to benefit me this weekend - and, unfortunately, I can't really think of a whole lot I have done for him. When I think back, all I can remember is me growling at my sugar-high children and dropping a whole lot of swear words an hour ago because my cake was leaking in the oven and I didn't know what to do.

Also he was going to go dancing tonight (which he very rarely does) because I had spent a whole lot of the morning in Spotlight with my mum getting set up with some sewing equipment, while he was at my dad's work Christmas party keeping an eye on the kids in the pool (Mum and I were supposed to be there but we ended up two hours late - talking and shopping)....

Soooo he is setting a room up for me instead of doing something for himself (oh yeah, and I made him vegemite and cheese toast because I couldn't be bothered making dinner tonight *sigh*) and I am feeling terribly guilty and like a bit of a failure as I wife. In my defense I can be pretty kind and thoughtful, just clearly not as much as he can be.

The only thing he has requested of me, is to make him some dance pants.....I better learn to sew then!