Beautiful girls

I just had to show off this beautiful picture that Damien took at the Botanical Gardens on Sunday. How gorgeous are these girls? They all then sat with their toes in the water and splashed. Hannah had way-too-much-fun, got drenched and stopped passers-by with her baby giggles.

The other picture explains Leilas new look (?layered?). Don't trust 4 year olds with scissors apparently. Bethany put blue tack up her nose the same day, and last week Hannah decided that she should put my mobile phone in a cup of water she found under a seat at the chapel.
They are still gorgeous girls though.

House of plague

Well, in the past few weeks we have had more health trouble than in the last 12 months!
Gastroenteritis started with Bethany and then went through everyone (except me). Leila was hit particularly hard, she hardly ate for 2 weeks, and dropped below 14kg. She's making up for it now though.
Damien took a week off work, so when I came down with mastitis I thought he'd be able to look after me. Not so, due to gastro. Unlucky!
To top it all off, just in case the photo didn't give it all away, we also had head lice. Oh the joy... In the photo, you can also see the fat lip Leila got from Beth recently.
At the tail end of all this we also had the girl's dance recital at the Theatre Royal. I wish I'd gotten some more photos, but it was a mad day of baby wrestling whilst trying to deal with rehearsals and crowded dressing rooms, with multiple costume changes and over-excited kids. They didn't finish and escape the theatre till nearly 11pm. Took us a week to recover!

A Burton Blog about unauthorised baby snatching

Hi all, This is from an e-mail Libby sent to Miriam. Miriam's adapted it for all to see:

How do you stop a Rhiannon from getting baby Jocelyn out of the cradle (usually while she's asleep)? Our floor is cement, Rhiannon is three, and Jocelyn is a floppy newborn...

No major injuries so far (but a few minor ones. thankfully Jocelyn didn't cry too much).
Once Rhiannon saw that I had seen her, and so she immediately dropped Jocelyn back in and then stepped back to protest her innocence (demonstrating her guilty feeling about her behaviour). When I got to the cradle, Jocelyn was lying cross ways in the cradle with her head wedged up against the bars at a 90 degree angle to her shoulders. Not happy.

1. First tactic... we had a serious talk about grown up jobs. This included Rhiannon insisting very loudly that Jocelyn is her baby, not mine... result? Total failure. Still picking up Jocelyn.
2. Second tactic...We made (thanks for the idea Miriam) a stop sign, complete with a happy face smiley, and a sad faced smiley (actually Libby, I put in a picture of a dragon and an angel and then actually threatened to breathe fire on Leila if she went into the nursury). We talked about stopping to think about if she was doing something that would make Mummy happy or sad. She can explain the process beautifully to visitors and to Daddy. Total failure, still getting Jocelyn out of bed.
3. Third tactic...I put up a mosquito net, to make a really clear line that Rhiannon should not cross. Total Failure. Still picking up Jocelyn.
4. Fourth... (Getting desperate) We bought Rhiannon her own life-sized newborn baby doll. (It is sharing Jocelyn's clothes and nappies) She has been named Ohfae, but we seem to be abbreviating that to Fae. Rhiannon has been feeding her baby while I feed mine. She changes nappies while I change nappies, although I'm insisting that her baby does pretend poos and wees, and doesn't need a new real nappy every change. Fae changes her clothes more regularly than Jocelyn does, but she uses the bath water after Jocelyn. Unfortunately Fae does not distract Rhiannon when she wants to cuddle my baby. It's a good tool to get my baby to myself, but as far as keeping Jocelyn in her own bed? Total failure, Still picking up Jocelyn.
5. *Fifth tactic...Now our room is completely dominated by our Baby Dan playpen/fireguard, a hexagonal, metal, tall playpen, with a gate Rhiannon can't operate. This has been used in the past as a fire guard, playpen and cubby house, but has found its' truest calling as a save-baby-from-siblings device!

We've kept the sign and the mozzie net up. We still find Rhiannon under the mozzie net, reaching through the bars of the playpen rocking Jocelyn. But so far she can't reach in enough to try and get Jocelyn out. 2 days with a safe baby! We'll keep our fingers crossed. Wish us luck!

We have a Toddler

Yep, It is official. After her very first wall drawing (we are so proud!) a teddy down the toilet and "the great sugar incident" we can deny it no longer. Hannah is a Toddler.

By the way, she has accessories. The sugar incident for example, was nicely set up by Leila who did a "Winnie the Pooh" with the sugar jar (i.e. taking it away from the kitchen secretly for a nice long private chat) and then left it within Hannah's reach.

We are hoping that Hannah will get talking soon, as she is getting really frustrated when the rest of us are not doing what she wants, but often can't actually tell us what that is. She has perfected the scream and throws herself around. I am turning into a champion baby wrestler during the big girls dance and music lessons (she wants to join in the class or rearrange whatever she can get her hands on). Sometimes we get beautiful baby babble, and she can say duck, fish, dad, mum, thank you, and that (dat). If she sees a bird she gets really exited and we have to stop the world and take notice too. Beautiful.

Superhuman strength?

Bethany was being overly acrobatic, holding on at the front of the bunk and swinging her body to kick underneath the slats of the top bunk.

She suddenly ended up squashed between two mattresses, sustaining a bruised forehead in the process as the top bed came down all of a sudden.

The amazing bit about this story is that Leila lifted the top layer to help her sister out of the sandwich. Leila is a very petite 4 year old. Her size 2-3 underwear is baggy.

This is one of those accidents where we appreciate our girls a whole lot more.

Jeremy's house blog

Hi again,
I just discovered Jeremy's blog about his new house:
Jeremy's blog
Thought you might all like the link (above) to check it out.

Grandpa in Hospital - Libby out of Hospital

Grandpa had prostate surgery recently and was doing well - driving again but not ready for anything strenuous yet.
Unfortunately this morning he woke to find that he'd had (was having) a bit of a bleed. Mum took him to Calvary where he was admitted to the surgical ward. I spoke with him on the phone tonight, and he says that things have settled down. He thinks he'll probably be going home tomorrow depending on how he goes overnight and on what the second urologist says.
Dad thinks that he might not be able to drive again for a couple of weeks. He is on antibiotics because infection is the most common cause of this type of event (but he has no other signs of infection).
So there you are - the official update (with Dad's permission). I hope you all remember him in your prayers.
The other announcement is that Libby is home from Hospital. I have put up some photos from my visit with her on Friday at the following link: Jocelyn Burton
The picture on the right is my favourite so far.
So, I am sure that your thoughts and prayers are with her, the rest of the Burton family and with Grandpa Chick as they face the next few days.

Welcome to Libby's baby,

Jocelyn Burton has arrived!
I don't know many details yet, but she was delivered by C-section at the Royal Hobart Hospital today, and weighed in at 8lb 14oz. Apparently that is bigger than Sam, but smaller than her sisters Imogen and Rhiannon.
It was pretty exciting telling Imogen and Rhiannon the news after I got the message (on the answering machine) from Tony. Imogen was a bit disappointed that she didn't have a new brother, but didn't complain too much. We were at the beach trying to make sand sculptures when Tony rang.
Tony and the bigger kids came to the Norman's for dinner before the long drive home. Libby and Jocelyn will be in hospital for a few days yet. Congratulations to you all!

Imogen's accident

Doh! you can't even see the dent in this photo. This is supposed to be a picture of Imogen's recent head injury (about the 26th Oct). She came off a bike:"my foot got caught in between the pedal and the ground and I lost control of the bike and I ran into a treated pine pole".
The Doctors in emergency said that it was lucky she was wearing a helmet. She had to have a CT scan to check that bits of bone hadn't gone into her brain. It happened at 1:30, she got to Emergency around 4:00 got out around 12:30am. What fun for her mum Libby (who is having a baby by C-section sometime today).

Stuck in a burning car?

I took Damien's Nissan (recently up and running again) to the hospital yesterday when I got called in to help with a pacemaker implant. It sits low and sounds illegal. I can hardly reach high enough to get my ticket from the ticket dispenser at the car park. If I don't drive it really close to the teller box on the way out, I have to get out of the car to hand over my money. A very uncool thing to do in a cool car, especially as the hand brake doesn't work...
On the way home again I felt very very sleepy. This has been happening a lot lately - Need to go to bed earlier!
I opened the window to wake myself up, and smelt hot car. I had noticed earlier that the temperature guage was up a little, and sure enough it was now off the graph, so I pulled over, wound the window up again, and clicked the key to allow the turbo thingy to cool before the engine stopped automatically. I rang Damien, who suggested that I would probably make it home (!) and so I clicked the key back again and tried to start moving. Nothing happened.
It was at this moment that I saw the smoke drifting forwards from the rear of the car. Okay, time to stop the engine completely and get out. Now where was that fire extinguisher?
I stopped the engine, and then discovered that the door wouldn't open because of the way the window winds up too far for the chassis. It's a powered window. I can't wind it down without the engine going.
Did this mean I was stuck inside a car that was quite possibly on fire????
Luckily the smoke stopped by itself, and luckily I was able to get the door open by applying some direct pressure to the window itself and somehow unjamming it.
I walked the rest of the way home.

Mount Field Chick expedition

Matthew sent me some beautiful pictures of his tribe at Mt Field on Show day 23 Oct 2008. I've tried to figure out how to put up a slide show, but couldn't figure out how to alter the display size. Never mind. Instead I've set up a public album, so check out:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Miriamnrmn/MatthewAndKidsAtMtField#

Some truly lovely photos. I especially like the one where Sophie is trying to be a Yettie.

I've also set up a family blog site for Matt and his family: www.pavlovamarshmallow.com
He doesn't know anything about it yet...

Singing in the car/Wednesday Adams strikes again

Sometimes my girls sing in the car:
The other day I looked back to see all three girls including the baby doing the chicken dance "da da dada dada dah, da da dada dada dah, da da dada dada dah, (clap clap clap clap)"
We've also had some beautiful harmonization. Sometimes Beth just harmonizes with the Radio, sometimes she puts an obbligato or other harmony over what the rest of us are singing. Leila can practically sing higher than the piano, so we have fun with that too. Hannah often joins in and certainly bops up and down along with any rhythm she can find (she's particularly partial to electric guitar).
I went visiting teaching today. As we drove along Hill street Leila sang the "we're going up" song from Playschool. That was fairly cute, appropriate and normal.
She also sang her own version of the "two little Dicky Birds" song... one named Peter, one named Paul. She named all her other fingers too, and then sang "DIE Peter, DIE Paul, DIE Alice...

Granny's Birthday

My pictures aren't that great, but here is proof that Granny did actually get some cake today. After the usual Friday afternoon arrangements (plus a visit to the West Hobart train park to get completely covered in pine bark) I tried to drop Granny home - but she was locked out!! This worked out as the perfect excuse to kidnap her and give her a little birthday party at the Norman house.
Best yet, she got to have a long chat to Jeremy and Debbie. Happy Birthday Granny!

A lovely afternoon

After General Conference we went to the Botanical Gardens with Matthew and Liz and their kids and had a lovely time making daisy chains and walking around. Unfortunately Damien is very tired, and was a bit of a non-participant. Tonight he has a fever which explains things a bit (our girls have been a bit off color too).
We came home to find him asleep - and all the girls fell asleep in the car too!
Here are a few photos from the day.

Granny and Grandpa's little house

Here is a picture of where Granny, Grandpa and Philip are living now. They also have a couple of shipping containers on site to hold some of their stuff that won't fit!
They are currently getting it done up a bit, and considering selling again.

Hannah update (Oct 5th)

Well, Hannah seemed to think that walking was a cool thing to do when egged on my Mum (Hooray!! Good girl Hannah, you are so clever!!) but had decided it was absolutely pointless for any other occasion.

She's been standing unassisted for a while, and can go from all fours to upright without needing anything to pull on. Now she's started "walking" around on her knees. Looks pretty strange, but it's her current favourite.

Sometimes in the Bath tub she stands up and raises her hands as if to say "Ta Daaa!!! - look Mummy - no hands!" , and then she claps herself, because she knows she's clever. She likes making a big splash when she falls on her bottom, and does this repeatedly. And she laughs. It is so cute!

Today we saw deliberate self-initiated walking for the first time. 6 or 7 steps, with a big "look what I can do" smile.
Now we just have to get Leila to stop dive tackling her (Okay - there's a slight exageration there, but not much).

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. Nothing too fancy as yet, but I've finally decided to go public.

Sewing for Liz and cooking for the cousins

Well, look at my house and you might think I was lazy, but this week I'm measuring things differently.Liz Chick (my sister in law) works co-ordinating early childhood programs and such-like out at Brighton, Gagebrook and Bridgewater. She asked me to assist with making dress-ups, so I've helped out as costume consultant, fabric selector, pattern supplier and sewing assistant. Along with Emily Read from Rosny ward, we helped some of the local mums to do the costumes themselves so that they would get ideas and skills, and have a sense of "ownership" over the finished product.
We didn't finish in time! This week I have been finsishing the costumes off myself: sewing on cuffs, hoods, tails and ears. We produced a leopard, a grey furry animal (could be cat, mouse, elephant etc) two monster/dinosaur/dragons, and a heap of fairy skirts and wings. I also organised hero masks, a Doctor's coat, patient pajamas, and made 2 fabulous mermaid tails. Did I say they were fabulous? Cousin Sophie certainly thought so.
If that wasn't enough, I also sewed up a sheer organza wall hanging made up of pockets for an interactive display (the organza put up quite a fight, it took me the best part of a day), I helped my brother Matthew with the design of a couple of mirrored play structures and a light table, I cooked up a bulk pasta sauce which fed his family twice and mine 4 times, and also cooked up a big chille con carne for my sister Elizabeth and her family (equivalent volume to about 14 meals for us).
Oh, and did I mention that I also drafted a years worth of activities for the Rosny Relief Society "playgroup" enrichment group?
The best bit about all this is that I have had positive feedback (I'm a feedback junkie) and more company - it has been wonderful to see Matthew and Libby and Matthew's children. I love making things too - it gives me a real feeling of achievement, and bumps up the ol' self esteem. Nice to get a lift like that, now all I need is sleep!
Another thing - when the cousins came over today Matthew was working downstairs, and I had them all help me catch up while I sewed: Lewis made dessert, Jordan cleaned the toilets, Mariah polished Mirrors, wiped up the bathroom and helped tidy the lounge, and little Sophie set about cleaning windows. How wonderful! My girls thought it was great and even helped. Brilliant brilliant brilliant.

Hannah's first steps

I tried to get Hannah to walk at the Dance School - I guess I thought it would be a nice thing to be able to say that she took her first steps at Body Language Dance Studio: perhaps then she would be fated to be graceful?
Well, Hannah had other ideas: She took her first steps on Sunday the 21st of September during Sunday School in the Rosny Chapel. It was a perfect place: all the pews make for easy furniture walking and they are nicely spaced. Perhaps now she will be fated to be faithful? Even better!
Of course - I'm sure she'll have her own ideas about that one too.

07 August 2008 Beach with Bron

OW! I just burned myself taking cupcakes out of the oven. Not what I needed on a busy night like this.

I enjoyed having Bron Williams visit with Ammon and her baby Joshua. She spent time at the park and Beach with Leila, Hannah and I. I am feeling really befriended by Bron, which is truly lovely. My house was messy though. Having a hard time keeping up with it as well as preparing for Leila's Birthday tomorrow. Hannah adores the swing, and got to eat sand for the first time. She wanted to fly with the seagulls and had to be stopped from crawling into the water.
Leila fed the gulls and made sandcastles.
This afternoon I worked at the Hospital and Mum looked after the kids. This evening I worked on food for the birthday - just burned myself taking cup cakes out of the oven for example!

I am grateful that Hannah is doing a better job of independent settling now. Phew! Last week she wanted to be in my arms the whole time, and wouldn't transfer to the cot.

The thing that made me choke in the pool carpark

Another Wednesday girl story. This was one from the week when Damien first suggested that we should have called Leila Wednesday. On the outside she's a cute little skinny thing with pigtails, but on the inside...
After swimming I had given her a fruit box. I was strapping her into her 0-4 car seat when she looked up at me (with the fruit box straw still in her mouth) and said:

"Mummy, I want to fly with dress ups and drink blood"

it is a good thing I knew about the week's conversations, and I laughed so hard I choked on my biscuit: What she actually meant was that she wanted to be a mosquito!

ps. I don't think Leila actually knows about vampires yet.

Wednesday girl

What is it about Leila that makes us think she should be in the Adam's Family?
Well, take yesterday for example. She and her sister Bethany were wishing we had apple juice, and the conversation got a bit silly and giggly. Then Leila (nearly 4 years old, with pigtail plaits) declares that she wants eyeball juice...
I asked her about the eyeballs and where you get them from. Apparently they grow on trees and you just pick them.