Date Night - Why it's Important

Last night my sweet husband and I headed out on a date. We try to do it regularly but usually we just do something fun at home so going out is a real treat.
The date of choice was to an trampoline centre near the city. It's a huge complex with a ridiculous amount of trampolines. You book an hour slot and jump as much as you like.
We realised a few things during our time there. Firstly, we are incredibly unfit, the kids around us went non-stop for the whole hour. We were needing a rest after 15 mins and were ready to go after 45mins. Secondly, bouncing is no good for my bladder, I don't think I need to explain further.
After the bouncing we headed into the city for dinner. By the time we got lost a few times, then found a park and got to the restaurant it was 9pm. I forgot how scary town can be late at night...it wasn't even that late, but I was still freaking out a little while I waited for Aarahi to use the bathroom. The bouncers at the club looked at me strangely, perhaps I had too many clothes on or something because most of the girls were walking around next to naked. Seriously, it was shameful.

Now about dates. They are IMPORTANT! They are not just something you do if you have time, or money, they are something you make time and money for. My Aunty put it simply to me the other day when she said, "if you are not continually dating each other, you simply become room mates". She couldn't be any more right.
Dates are a way to keep the "spark" alive, and to reconnect. Remember when you we first dating, before marriage or years had passed? When your loved one used to send you flowers or cute little notes. Now after a few years life has become "comfortable"  for lack of a better word. Instead of sweet love notes, its notes like "can you pick of milk on the way home" or "what's for dinner" Although milk and dinner are both very important I am sure you will agree neither is going to make your heart flutter.
From my own experience I have found that as the excitement and newness of relationships wear off so does our effort we put into the relationship. Often I have thought to myself, "oh I am so tired, he knows I love him I don't need to do anything to prove it" But he does! he needs me to show him everyday how much I love and appreciate him. Continuing to court each other after we have been married has strengthened our marriage immeasurably. We both look forward to the end of the week when we get to have that time we have set aside for US. A time to be husband and wife, not mum and dad. In our family kids are great, we love our kids, we spend a lot of time, effort and energy on our kids but they are not the most important. The most certainly come second to our marriage. I mean once your kids grow up and leave who are you going to be left with? If you have not worked to maintain your marriage while your children are young then what can you expect to have once they have left home. Gosh you might be married to a stranger! haha but seriously.
Dates are fun, perhaps a little awkward if you haven't done it in a while but I promise you if you put away an hour a week to simply date your other half you will also find the benefits immeasurable. If you need some ideas for dates you can have a look HERE

The Sunshine Award....and plenty of potentially humiliating facts about me.

Yey I was nominated for The Sunshine Award!. I was nominated by Tisha over at Doctor Mom Recipes So make sure you go over and see her!!! Her site is great and I am sure you will find it useful too.
Anyway as part of the award I am to share 11 Random Facts about myself. This was harder than I thought it would be. Following this answer 11 questions given you by your nominator. Then nominate 11 other bloggers, which I am off to do now!

Enjoy...

11 Random Facts

1. I am terrified of dead things...people in particular. So much so that at night when it's dark I jump over dead people I "think" might be on the ground trying to get me. 
2. When I was 9 or so, I conviced my cousin to let me find out her blood type. The process involved cutting her hand with a pair of rusty scissors and holding her hand over a peice of paper with the alphabet written on it. Where ever the blood dropped was her blood type. 
3. I have the same password for pretty much everything, just different variations of it. It's complicated, don't try to guess. 
4. Sitting in church one day my cousin and I were playing torture (yep same cousin as above). I broke her finger, and she didn't even let out a sound. 
5. I once wanted to see how "super" super glue was a glued my finger to the door.
6. My husband and I rarely argue and if we do it's pretty pathetic. The truth is that I often argue with him in my head, I always win and feel better and he is none the wiser haha.
7. My husband never calls me by my actual name, when he does it freaks me out. 
8. In my final year of high school I got out of Biology because I don't believe in evolution so got to skip that part of the course. I was supposed to go to the library and study but I usually spent the time doing something else. At the end of the year I had spare time in the exam so decided to attempt the evolution part of the exam. I passed with merit. 
9. My sister and I hated each other growing up. To the point we would walk on opposite sides of the road to school. Our friends now tell us that we used to spend that time complaining about each other. But we grew up and now we are the best of friends. People who knew us back then can't believe it.
10. I hate monopoly, all versions of it. I think it stems from the over competitiveness displayed by my family. I can not under any circumstances be enticed to play, much to my husbands dissappointment.
11. My husband loves games of all kinds, he will play me until he wins. The one and only game that I hold the title to is Hula on the Wii, even at 9 months pregnant!

Questions from my Nominator

1. Tell me what is inside your bag right now: Well right now it's in the wash because it had squashed banana and spilt apple juice in it. Gross I know
2. What is the ultimate vacation destination for you: We've done a lot of travelling in the last few years and it's always been BUSY so a trip to a tropical island would be nice. We are hoping for Fiji soon!
3. Why and when did you start blogging?I started blogging about 2 1/2 years ago after my son was born. We live in a different counrty to all our family so wanted a way for them to keep up to date with how our kids were growing etc. 
4. Android or Apple? I have both, I cant figure out android so i'll go for apple
5. Share one embarrassing experiences you had so we can all laugh about it now I once threw up in the middle of the food court all over my food. and then multiple times on the way to the car. It was horrible. My friends I was with stayed and ate their food then came back to my house to watch movies while I sat there and continued to throw up. 
6. What is your favorite expression? I don't know if I have one?
7. Tell us about your childhood. I was an only child for a large portion of it. My cousin was my best friend we got in to lots of trouble together. I could pretty much convince her to do anything I wanted. My mum married and as of now I am the oldest of 7 kids. We are sometimes refered to as the rainbow family as we have kids that are white as day and some that are quite dark. We always laugh when people can say they see the resemblence. 
8. Share your most romantic date ever.Im not sure if we do romantic. But our most fun date was when we took this Zebra (it was really a giaraffe we drew stripes on) around town and took photos of it with things that began with Z. It was our Z date, we did the whole alphabet.
9. If a genie grants you 3 wishes, what would they be? A dishwasher, to not have to shave my legs etc, Money, that's always nice to have
10. If you can change the name your parents gave you, what would it be? I like my name, but for some reason people can't seem to remember it. So I answer to Courtney, Kristen, and Michelle. My friends mum has always called me Brooke, I like that one best. 
11. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Night for sure, but I am still a Grandma and in bed by 9pm most nights. My husband and I stayed up til 2am a few months ago, that was when we realised our youth is gone. 

My Sister and I. See we are best friends now

A day in the Life

I should have known today wasn't going to be a "normal" Thursday when I woke up this morning and looked at my phone. It was 7.45am! I haven't slept that long in who knows how long!!!!!!!!! what was even stranger was that I was the only one awake. I sat in bed checking facebook, emails, other random things. The kinds woke up just after 8am and the chaos began. 

Today probably wasn't the day to sleep in. We need to be at Gymbaroo by 945am and it takes us about 30mins to actually get there. So I shoved some breakfast in us all. Lili spent a good time throwing herself on the ground complaining about the hard life she has as a spoilt little princess. 

Kids dressed. Finally get Auron to wear a different pair of pants. He has become obsessed with this red pair of shorts he was given last week. I get in the shower for probably the quickest shower known to man. While getting dressed in the room Lili climbs into the shower, she emerges wet as a fish. Change her again. 

Yey finally out the door. The kids argue over who gets to sit where in the pram Auron wins. 

Gymbaroo goes off without a hitch. 

We walk accross the road to the shopping centre. Auron sees the new Despicable Me movie. He thinks he's in heaven, doing a little dance and everything. I let him put it in the trolley and then disappear it later on. (he's getting it for Christmas) He also tries to convince me to buy him some cars, he suceeds. 

I stood at the check out holding  screaming baby while the check out lady took her time ringing up my stuff. She came to the last item and it wouldnt scan, typical right. She then had to ring to find out the code. 10mins later I was questioning whether those shorts we really worth it (they were, theyre super adorable) 

Aarahi arrives and we go to do the groceries. Lili was consoled with one of Aurons new cars. (the purple one, not the green one he tryed to give her) While shopping Lili began to lose the plot again so we tried to get out of there as fast as we could. The card machines were down so we had to sign for our cards. Oops I hadn't even signed the back of my card yet. 

We came home Lili slept, Auron and I did some sewing. Lili woke up and threw the pins around the room. Hopefully I got them all....I put the load of washing that's been sitting in the washing machine on again for the 3rd time. There's also 2 loads out on the clothes line. It keeps raining and I cant be bothered bringing it in just to go hang it out again. I figure it will eventually get dry but for now its just getting a real good rinse. 

Oh how I can't wait til 730pm when the kids are alseep and I can sit down and watch some mindless tv. Despite all it's craziness I wouldn't change it for anything. This is the life I have always wanted and I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1\

Awesome Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas, I love everything about it especially time with family and friends. The last time I was able to spend Christmas with my family was 4 years ago now and it will probably be another few years before we make it back for Christmas. I miss all the fun Christmas traditions we have every year, but try hard to keep some of them alive for our little family.

Let me share with you our FAVOURITE christmas traditions

Sleeping Under the Christmas Tree

This is my all time favorite. There has not been a year that we haven't slept under the christmas tree on Christmas Eve. There is something magical about falling asleep under the twinkling lights of the tree. 

Special Christmas Foods

Christmas is full of food, and LOTS of food. In our family we have one dish that is ONLY made at christmas. Everyone looks forward to it, and mouths salivate. Last year my cousin who lives in Melbourne too when I asked if he was coming over for Christmas his first question was "will there be those Christmas eggs for breakfast?!" OF COURSE. 

To make our Christmas eggs

1 dozen eggs

600ml cream

salt and pepper

parsley

Crack eggs into large dish

Gently pour over cream until they are nearly covererd (you may need more or less cream depending on the size of your dish)

Season with salt peper and parsley 

Bake in an 180C over for 30mins or until the eggs are too your liking. We like them soft in the middle. 

The Wishing Tree

Christmas is not always a happy time for everyone and many struggle to make ends meet. Many children dont wake up christmas morning to gifts under the tree and a glorious feast for the day. Many stores have wishing trees where you are able to purchase a gift for someone who otherwise would not receive a gift at christmas time. 

I think helping children look outside of themselves if a wonderful gift to give them. Helping them develop compassion and love for others. 

Christmas Lights

On Christmas Eve we would load everyone into the cars and head around town to look at all the houses that were decorated. In New Zealand decorated houses aren't the norm so you actually have to go looking for them. After awhile though you soon learn where the good houses are. There is one house where the owner dresses up as Santa and gives out gifts to all the kids. People donate toys to him throughout the year. 

The End of and Era...Or so I Thought

Last night was the first time since Auron was born that we went to bed with out another little person in our room. We put Lili into Auron's room a few months ago when we were teaching her how to sleep through the night, she just slept better by herself instead of in our room. Auron however took her place in our room on a mattress on the floor, as we didn't want Lili's crying and complaining to wake him up.
Now that Lili is consistently sleeping through the night we thought it was about time we put Auron back in his bed. To tell you the truth my heart sunk a little when he was excited about putting his mattress back on his bed. I wasn't ready, I love waking up to him talking away to me. It's the best part of our morning together before Lili wakes up.
So to bed we all went, it was strange and I am still not sure I like it. When I heard his sleepy voice calling out "Mama" at 1am my heart skipped a beat and I went and picked up my big baby and brought him back into bed with us. My sweet husband just moved over and made some room for him. He's a sucker too you know.

Oh well perhaps tonight will go better?