Philippians 2:14

"Do Everything without complaining or arguing!"

 What a world it would be, eh? 

(and yes, I know.. there is more to the verse.. but when you're dealing with 3 &4 year olds, there is no reason to complicate things!)

So, we've been dealing with a bit of extra attitude in our house lately. Well, maybe if I'm honest, its been going on for a while, but now there's two of them and one fairly impatient (very pregnant) momma - so change was necessary!!

Lately, its seems that every time I ask (tell) one of the girls to do something (at least anything that goes against their precious desires), I'm met with a sour face, defiant NO, storming off, completely ignoring me, or even a full out tantrum.

So, a few days ago, Marco and I were talking about how to deal with it. I simply don't have the physical strength or the energy to discipline physically at all. And since our lovely 4 year olds latest tactic was dropping to the ground like a 1 year old, well.. we had to put our thinking caps on, get on the same page, and come up with a BRILLIANT plan!!

I think we've done it!

At the moment, I'm bombarded constantly with requests to play games on my "phone" (my iTouch), so I realized that we should be able to make this whole compliance/obedience issue a positive, rather than the usual negative. Somehow, they had to be able to earn game time. And somehow, I needed to be able to take it away too!! Well, as soon as I said that, Marco said.. "what about a clock?" well.. duh.. of course!
So, a few hours later, out of the deep dark abyss called his garage, came this:


So, now at the start of every day both hands (one for Kelsey, and one for Morgan) start at 0. When they are asked to do anything, they are expected to reply (immediately) with "yes mom", or "OK mom" (or Dad). When they do, their hand gets moved ahead by a minute. If they don't, or if they complain or argue, the hand is moved back a minute! Then between suppertime & bedtime, they are allowed that many minutes of game time on my "phone". And, since i don't really like them to have that much time, we only made the clock go up to 15 minutes! :)

There are, however, a few glitches which we're still working through! For example, at the moment my lovely bossy eldest child, thinks its a competition between her and Morgan. Not the intention. So, we're talking through that one. She also likes to tell me (constantly) that I should move it ahead. "I did it straight away mommy, you have to move my hand ahead!" - Ugh. There is also the problem with what happens after they've had their daily game time and they're getting ready for bed. Do I move the hand ahead or don't I? I choose not to, much to the dismay of my eldest rule follower! So, we had a quick chit chat about how we need to be obeying with a happy heart even without the clock. I mean, the whole point of the clock is to just create new habits, but how to explain that to a legalistic little girl??!!

Anyway, I'm quite excited about our new little clock! I'm excited to see the attitude changes in my little girls, and I'm hopeful that it'll result in long-term changes too!

oh, by the way, the clock is just a cut out piece of MDF, spray painted red. The hands are cut out of ice cream lids. I'm pretty sure a marker was used for the numbers and the letters. And a screw was placed in the middle to allow the hands to easily move. And, since we have plans to rip down the wall that we attached it to, Marco just screwed it onto the wall. :)

Renovations - Bathroom/Laundry Room

This blog was supposed to be about our family, our marriage etc., but part of that should also include how we spend (what feels like) the majority of our time! RENOVATIONS!
We are currently in our second house. Our first house was a small 2 bedroom brick house that was in excellent condition but very dated style. So, in the 2 1/2 years that we lived there, we simply had to repaint, pull-up a bit of carpet and change a few curtains. Easy!

Then we bought this house:

This house needed help. This house was a 3 bedroom wooden house that was very much neglected over the years. In fact, when we got the keys, I cried. 

Note to others: NEVER buy a house while you're still postpartum - or pregnant, for that matter!!

We've been here now for almost 3 years and we've accomplished LOTS! But I'm just now starting to like it here. (pathetic princess, I know). Anyway, I'll use the next several posts to do some before and after shots of various parts of the house. 

First, make ONE usable space in the house!

So, we immediately had to gut the laundry room and toilet and build a PROPER bathroom/laundry room. And for the month or so before that was finished I was forced to bathe in this bathtub designed for very skinny people. The shower hose only reached up about 3 feet so you HAD to sit down in the bathtub and sort of hold this shower hose over your head and body. Meanwhile, the water pooled up behind as my backside acted as a bath plug! Fun memories! 

But, before the first 4 months were out, we had turned THIS:

Into this!!

Ahh.. much better!! Marco tiled the floor himself. We put insulation in the walls. Moved the toilet, added a shower, took out 2 windows and even put in stairs leading to the roof space to make storing things a bit easier! Marco even got someone to fix the door (which had a rough cat shaped hole cut in the bottom of it) and then stripped and oiled it! 

My favorite bit, however, is this one wall we managed to bring up:

it makes me smile :)

So. One room down. 

Getting Married

So.. Maybe i'm the only one but I have the funniest conversations with my kids around the dinner table. Honestly, I can't imagine how many conversations I would miss out on, if we didn't have dinner altogether.

So, here we sit tonight. Marco is at work (maybe we only have these conversations when he's gone.. ) and we're scoffing a feed of hamburger bun mini pizza's (2 minutes to make, 10 minutes to bake! Mmm, Yum!).
When Morgan pipes up, "Mom! I'm growing and soon I'll be married!!"
No idea why she's talking about getting married - don't think its been a point of conversation today, but whatever.. so, I ask, "Who are you going to marry?"
"Daddy", came the immediate reply.
Oddly perturbed that she's trying to steal my husband, I say, "You can't, he's already married to me. You  have to marry someone who's not already married."
This is a good lesson, by the way. Marry someone who's not already married.
Suddenly, Kelsey pipes up in a completely panic-stricken voice, "But, who can WE marry then??!!"
Daddy is obviously the only man in the entire world. Good to know.
Calmly, I reply, "Well, when you're bigger," mumble (at least 20) under my breath, "you need to find a nice boy who loves God and who loves you."
At this point, I'm thinking.. I'm so wise.. I'm the smartest mommy ever!
"Well," retorts little miss 4 year old smarty pants, "Daddy loves God and Daddy loves me. So, I'll marry daddy."

Well. I guess that settles that.

2011 in Review

So, here we are the last day of 2011. What's all happened??

• We got pregnant with our 3rd baby
• We got a our Piper puppy!!
• Kelsey turned 4
• Morgan turned 3
• We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary
• Marco and I had our birthdays, but frankly, numbers don't matter.. :)
• We learned all about rugby at the 2011 Rugby World Cup
• Marco built a new deck on our house
• He also stripped, sanded and painted 2 sides of our house
• He started 2 bedrooms and a hallway renovation
• Kelsey started to read
• Kelsey got a new bike at the beginning of the year
• Morgan got a new bike at the end of the year
• Marco bought  4 vehicles and sold 5 (and looked at 4,692,231 covetously). 
• Kelsey learned to stay dry at night
• Morgan learned to stay dry during the day
• I stopped working. Again. 
• We went to Nelson 3 times, & Christchurch once (where we got a new neice/cousin!)
• Or, in summary: we got our socks blessed off! 

Here's my 2011 in pictures:

Here's our house renovations from 2011 in review:

So. I hope you too had a great 2011. And, I'm looking forward to all that 2012 is bringing, Lord willing. I'm looking forward to having a baby, a visit from my sister, and a trip to Canada. Kelsey is looking forward to starting "big" school. Morgan is looking forward to starting preschool. Marco is looking forward to finishing some renovations, having a baby (same one as I'm having), and buying and selling a few more cars!!

Who's Santa anyway?

So, the Christmas season has come and gone for another year. I hope you remembered to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We choose, in our house, not to teach the kids about Santa Claus or the like. However, at the beginning of December, we were driving down the road and the girls saw a giant blow up Santa. Kelsey looked out the window in amazement at this HUGE thing and said, "Mom! Look! A Clown!!" I smiled. At 4 years old to think Santa is just another clown is pretty accurate in my books!
However, as is bound to happen, by the end of Christmas, it was a slightly different story. Going into a shop yesterday, there was a Santa figurine. Kelsey saw it and said, "Mom, look there's the Christmas Man. Some people call him Sanda." Again, I smiled.

Cute Little things

So, the girls are constantly saying and doing things that are funny! And, frankly, I think others are sick and tired of me posting them on Facebook (which I do so I can remember them later). So, I'll post them here instead.

The other night, K & M and I were having dinner. When Kelsey says, "Mom, how does the baby come out when its born?"
"God made a special hole for the baby" I reply quickly.
Pondering this for a moment, she says, "Where?"
"Down by my bum" I reply, hoping she'll change the subject.
Of course, before I could even get the next forkful of food in, Morgan says, "Eww, not by your bum, that's STINKY!"
"Well, we give the baby a bath" I mumble back..
Thankfully that was enough to change the subject to bathing the baby and where that would happen and what happened to our old baby bath.

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Turns out Kelsey thinks that Mitre 10 Mega is actually called: Mitre 10 LEGO   hahaha

WAY TOO long..

Ok ok, its been a while....

You know how you get out of the habit of something, and then you feel so guilty about stopping, that you can't do it again?? Yep.. that's me. I seem to be quite cyclic - I'll write for a few months relatively regularly, and then i'll quit. Then someone will say "you write well" or  "you should blog that story" and I think - you know.. I should! OK, I will.

So.. things that have happened:
Kelsey is now 4 and a bit and Morgan is 3 - yep.. they're HUGE!

Baby #3 is on the way and due in 6 short weeks. And, about 4 months ago, we got a puppy: Piper. 

So, that about catches us up on 18 months... now let's see if I can be a bit more consistent!! :)