Swimming Day!

JJ has been excited for the last week leading up to today. It was his first swimming carnival. The kids from grades 3-6 took the bus to the Cressy Pool this morning. He brought home a note a few days ago for me to fill out, stating whether he was competent to swim the full length of the pool and participate in the various strokes or not. I ticked the other option which was for him to participate in the novelty events. We have only just begun swimming lessons so I didn't want to take the chance that he'd only make it half way across. He should be right to swim the entire length in next years carnival. It was fun watching him and his friends. I was proud to see him trying his best and not being upset when he didn't finish in the top three. Good job Bub!

He did well once he faced the right direction :)

next event...

Its a bit hard too see him in this shot - he's the little brown head in the back.



                                              ...And here he is with his mates Jordan and Callum.

A Childs Prayer

Our little Lani is so precious when she says her prayers. After we say our family ones, she goes to her room and prays on her own. She'll also pray throughout the day if she needs to. Lately she has been looking after the flowers at the front of the house, this includes watering them, talking to them and sitting there keeping them company. After she spends time in the garden, she goes to her room and prays for her flowers. Job and I are always impressed with how heartfelt and sincere her prayers are. I took a note of her prayer tonight:

"Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.
Bless that we wont watch bad movies that we like, even just a little bit of it that mummy wont know.
Bless that we'll have a nice day at school and no problems will happen. .
Bless that nobody will be mean.
Bless the little boy that he wont throw rocks.
Bless nanas heart.
Bless my seat that it wont come off and we have to get a new one.
Bless Chelsea that she wont go to Alexander.
Bless Uncle and the Rogers.
Bless the people they wont get sick and old.
Bless scruffy.
Bless our family that we wont have problems and wont forget anything.
Bless Jesus, that he died on the cross for us and bless the Holy Ghost.
Bless JJ and Benny for their eczema.
Bless Mummy and Daddy and the poor people.
Bless that the family wont be allergic or get hurt.
Bless that we wont have bad dreams, only good dreams and bless that I'll believe in it.
In the name of Jesus Christ Amen."

Games night

Back as far as I can remember in the Tai/Rogers history, there have been board games. We've played them together for years now. Sometimes when we lived close enough to eachother, (or even in the same house) it would be a few nights a week. Other years when we weren't so geographically close, it would be occasionally. In the early years, it was RISK. I even remember us staying up late playing it at mums the night before I went in for my second caesarean (Benny). Job just reminded me that we played it at Kym and Joe's in 2002 until close to 4am. Kym fell asleep that night, couldn't handle the pace! We've played many board games but our favouties and most played have included Cluedo, Zarahemla (a mormon twist on the settlers of catan) Settlers of the Stone Age and Killer Bunnies (the latest craze)  Personally, I love Cranium, we don't play that nearly enough :)
Now that we have our own place and aren't living with the Rogers, we get together once a month after church for dinner and games. Last night we played a 'Psyche Out' one we haven't played together for a long time. Its really funny as there is a lot of acting involved- for example, during the game I had to bark and act like a hungry seal, Job had 30 seconds to shed a tear (which he or none of us would have been able to do) and Joe had to impersonate a vampire (he sucked - haha, get it?!) On Kym's final turn she had to demonstrate the emotion 'RAGE.' I thought it would be a good time to get out the video camera :) She chose to re-inact a common event that happens in the Rogers household. Kym and Joe decide to go to bed at night, so Kym leaves the loungeroom expecting Joe to follow, only to wake up on the early hours of the morning to find him fast asleep on the couch. Everytime I watch this it cracks me up!

Sprints and Burpees - PART II

So its now been 4 weeks since I started working out with Kym in the mornings. I told her I will update our progress every two weeks, but I had a meltdown last tuesday morning while trying to run - so no pictures on that day! Then I got sick the next day, so I am one week behind the fortnightly updates.

So we've been slogging our guts out every weekday morning still at 6.30am, difference is now we have Mariah! She awesome. Kym and I LOVE having her workout with us, she is super fit and it wasn't until this last week or so that I even saw her puffed. While we run a lap for warm up, she chats away as if she's walking. I can hear Kym breathing and talking beside me while I'm just trying to concentrate on inhaling.....exhaling...repeat.

Mariah has studied human movement and has experience with personal training so we were quick to give her the responsibility of training us :) - lucky her. She goes to town once a week for a morning workout and comes back with new ideas for us to incorporate into our own workouts. We sometimes feel like we're having a mini heart attack but its really fun and Kym and I feel really good afterward. I brought the camera this morning to take some shots but unfortunately my photographer (Benny) was still asleep in his bed when I left. We did our workout and then I grabbed some pictures as we were stretching and cooling down. I didn't notice until I got home that Mariah pulls some really funny faces... 

 

Haha, sorry Mariah, they were too funny not to share. I was suprised that nearly every photo of you had you pulling a funny face. I love that last one though, you look cute.

Ok, so now Mariahs funny photos are up, onto the serious stuff - We did HIIT training this morning - something I learned off my brother in law (Job's brother John) It stands for High Intensity Interval Training. The idea is to have your heart rate up for 15-20 mins. Its meant to help burn fat for the rest of the day if done correctly. So this morning after our warm up jog, we sprinted (Kym and Mariah accross to the other side of the football ground and me into the cricket pitch in the middle!) then had a 30 second recovery. We did that for 15 mins and we were knackered. Then we did some lower body weights and stretches. We're now incorporating weights into our workout and its going really well. Kym has been the die hard fitness woman these past two weeks and has had to get me out of bed a couple of times. Its so good having someone to workout with as its very hard to slack off!

I think we are doing really well, yes I have had a couple of binges but apart from that, its eyes on the goal! My weight loss to date is 6.5kgs. I'm not sure what Kyms is and I don't know if she'll want me posting it on here anyway. Mariah better not have lost anything! Here's a few shots of us this morning:

                                                       Kymbo streching after her big run

    I like this shot. They were talking about missions and marriage while cooling down.
                 (Must have been the marriage part of the conversation here)



                     Since we didn't have Benny, I held the camera out in front and we all squished in

                     Don't be mislead by all the funny photos of Mariah, she's a hard task master.
                                            No taking short cuts on her watch or look out!!

                                        Don't mess with us and our (slightly weird) tough faces!!

As for Burpees.....we haven't done any for a while. May have to incorporate them into next weeks schedule.

Noooooooooooooooooo!

My funny little girl

So today Sisi and I did some baking. She LOVES to bake. Whenever I start getting ingredients out on the bench she gets a chair straight away and pushes it over. Everything takes a little longer and we make twice as much mess (I can hear all the other mums saying 'amen!')
I have been baking all the kids school snacks these last couple of weeks in an attempt to 1. Save money and 2. See if they're better off with their food intollerances if I make their snacks, thereby cutting out preservatives and all the artificial rubbish. So today we made biscuits. Half way through, once Sisi had eaten a quarter of the mixture, she starting chatting....full on. Every now and then she gets really expressive and chats for ages. Job and I often say we'll have to tape her doing it one day. With that thought in mind I quickly grabbed the camera and tried to record her doing it. It's extra funny because she makes no sense. For some reason she doesn't use proper words but rather makes up her own language.....and she goes flat out. Anyway, unfortunately she doesn't perform for the camera so I missed it. She is also still learning that she needs to stand in front of the camera and let me record before she can watch herself. She tries to look at herself while I am taping....and this is the result:

So the biscuits....this is how they turned out - a little flat, but still yummy. They have cranberries, white chocolate and almonds (instead of macadamias which benny is allergic to) through them. They are very more-ish and consequently for me I may need to hide them from myself. I ate a few of them.....not sure how many exactly, I lost count after three......but hey, I haven't had a bickie binge since my 7 tim tams - and I'm sure that was AGES ago!

 My little biscuit thief....

I have taught her well.

Just for Dad

Dad - this one's for you :)  xo

(And for anyone else that stumbles accross this post, its the first song my dad taught me on the recorder when I was a kid, I think he'll be suprised to see that I still remember it.)

Kids and music

Its been a while since my last post. I've been hit with the virus that's been going around and haven't felt much like blogging this last week. Head, nose and throat all feel much better but I can't shake it from my chest. Anyway, this isn't about me and my chest :) It's about our kiddes who have been having music lessons from mum (me) for the past couple of weeks. Lani has started on the flute. She spent the first couple of lessons trying to get a sound out of it and now she can play a 'b' - Probably doesn't sound like much but its pretty involved for little 5 year old hands. Both thumbs need to support the flute while the a couple of other fingers hold down the keys.

Benny has started on guitar. Once I dusted it off, fixed and broken string and tuned it, we were ready to go. He decided he wants to learn 'The books of the Old Testament.' My kids love that song as JJ has been learning it for Sunday School. So far he can pick 'Matthew, Mark, Lu-ke, John, the...' The guitar is nearly as big as he is and so its a bit tricky for him to get his hand around the frets properly. Its his birthday in May so we'll buy him a child size one then. I had a look in the music shop and they're $69. I was so relieved, I expected them to be much more - Can't wait!

For some reason I like this photo of Benny in black and white rather than colour..

Then there's JJ. He's a funny one to teach, he gets so impatient at times and huffs and puffs. Other times he's a complete nutter. We've been playing the recorder together. This is a part of Beethovens 'Au clair de la lune.' - Don't know if I spelt that right and I can't be bothered checking, but I'm sure you'll recognise it. We play it as a duet - something I remember from primary school. I can't seem to recall any other useful information from years back right up until yesterday - but for some reason this song stuck in my brain. Oh, and you'll probably notice I had the giggles, but did a good job of holding it in til the end!

JJ also wants to learn the Mario Brothers theme song on the piano. Its a bit difficult thought for his age as his fingers can't reach a full octave yet so we are playing that one as a duet too - just something for fun. It'll post it when we've finished it. The kids really enjoy music. They don't even realise they 're having a lesson, they just think its a heap of fun. One day we'll have a Tai band! Its my dream to buy a drum kit for the boys and me one day. With the drums, we'll be set :)