Wedding Dresses and Hospital Emergency Rooms

Yesterday was definitely an interesting day. Firstly I couldn't sleep because it was hot and I knew the dishes weren't done last night and it was driving me crazy knowing there were dirty dishes on the bench. I had waking up to dirty dishes. So I got up at 5am and did them. The kids got up then too, like I said it was hot, no one could sleep.
Next on the agenda was WEDDING DRESS SHOPPING! My best friend is getting married, so we thought a bit of dress shopping would be a good idea. We went to two places, tried on about 20 dresses. She was lucky enough to find a beautiful dress that looks absolutely stunning on her. After we had finished with the dresses we went to have a celebratory drink...an orange juice from Burger King haha.
While we were there I got a call from Aarahi to say that Auron was sick and not breathing properly. I could hear him in the background and knew it was croup. So I headed back to the train station with the plan for Aarahi to meet me there, then we would head to the hospital. Auron fell asleep in the mean time. I walked/ran home from the train station because firstly there was a strange man walking behind me and secondly I was busting to go the toilet because the girl at burger king wouldn't let me use the toilets because she had already cleaned them today? seriously how ridiculous, it was like 4pm was she not going to allow anyone to use the toilets for the rest of the night?
Auron woke up not long after I got home and was still barking like a seal and having trouble breathing so we headed to the children's hospital. It was seriously the best hospital experience I have ever had. We waited probably less than 1min in total! They gave him some drugs and monitored him for an hour or so then we were out of there! He still had a bit of a rough night, but is happily resting now watching some TV. Daddy is off to a meeting but will pick up his prescription on the way home.
I'm hoping that he is better soon, we are off overseas on Wednesday morning and would hate for him to still be feeling terrible while we are flying.

Sleep Sleep GLORIOUS Sleep

Many of you know that we have battled with sleep in this house. Lili in particular, but Auron's had his issues at times too.
A few months ago we thought we were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...That light was most likely the lights of a train coming to shatter us in to a million pieces. For the couple of months we have been surviving on only several hours of sleep a night. For the past 2 weeks Lili has woken up close to midnight at least 4 times each week and literally screamed the house down for HOURS and HOURS inconsolable. She would calm down for a little while but start up again the moment you began to relax. She kept the WHOLE house awake. We just couldn't figure out what on earth was going on. She was fine during the day, slept fine when she napped etc. She wasn't hungry/thirsty/ dirty etc.
In a moment on absolute pure desperation I prayed (begged) to know what to do to help my baby sleep. It was probably one of the most desperate prayers I have ever offered. Then the thought came to me "stop giving her cows milk, it upsets her stomach"
Well I was willing to try anything especially if this was indeed the answer to my pleadings. At the start of the week I ditched the bottles and all other cows milk products. SHE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! Surely that must a coincidence. But sure enough night after night she has slept though. I need to note here that even when she was sleeping "well" she was still waking once or twice at night. It's like I have new children! Auron is a lot more patient and less whiny. Lili is less clingy and generally a lot happier!

So there you go my wonderful sleep story! I am so glad it has had a happy ending!

Oh Dear...

Lili is at the age where she is just pure mischief. We can't leave her alone for 5 minutes without her finding a way to create trouble. She is 10 times worse than Auron was at her age!
Today her act of destruction? mutilating a perfectly good chocolate cake and block of butter. I came back inside from hanging out the laundry to find this:

She always does it with a look of pure contentment. I love her so much even though I pretty much spend the entire day cleaning up after her.

This pretty much sums up my life right now

Off to the Temple we go

Yesterday Aarahi and I went to the temple together for the first time since Auron was a baby. I know I know we're useless. I could give you a million excuse as to why but none of them are really good enough.
Our New Year's resolution was to go to the temple together once a month. Woohoo month one done and dusted before the first week is over! We had some of our good friends watch the kids. Auron and Lili adore them. They were even lovely enough to take them earlier so we could go out at have dinner before our temple session.
We dropped the kids off at 3pm and headed off. The temple is about an hours drive away so we read our scriptures..well I read out loud while Aarahi drove. No decent restaurants were open so we settled for the food court. After dinner we headed over to the temple for our 6pm session.

And oh how wonderful it was! 

It was so nice to be back and I can't wait to return next month! Temples are a big part of being LDS/Mormon. They are a place to receive inspiration, to feel close with God and to participate in sacred ordinance. It truly is a wonderful place to be. If you want to know more about Mormon temples you can go HERE

A few shameless 'selfies' before we left...

Home School Morning Board

Auron was a bit sick today which was kind of nice because I needed to get a lot done. He's a pretty easy sick kid, just lies on the couch and watches Tv and sleeps. He asked for a raspberry iceblock for breakfast, I complied. I mean if you're going to be sick you might as well get all the perks that go a long with it right?

Our school year starts the first week of February so I am disparately trying to get organised since we are going overseas for two weeks this month. One of the main projects I wanted to accomplish was making our Morning Board.

A Morning Board is a way to start the day, which reviews things that are going to be learnt that day/week. A plan for the day. For younger kids it's a good way to familiarize them with days of the week, shapes, numbers etc. You can pretty much put whatever you want on yours.

Our board includes:

• The Date 
• Letter of the week
• Shape of the week
• Number of the week
• Scripture to memorize 
• Weather
• Plan for the day

I printed out all the parts then laminated them. This is about as creative as I get, I only had an hour or so before Lili woke up from her nap and would want to "help". I'm sure if you have more time you could do something a lot more fancy.