A fruit baby?

This past week I have had cravings? I dunno if i would call it cravings but an unsual desire to eat fruit! I'm not usually a fruit person, we have lots at our house because Aarahi's a bit of a fruit nut. This week though I cant seem to get enough of oranges and green apples. Also almonds....who knew those things were so good?
I finally relented this week and got some warm clothes that fit me. I thought I could get through this pregnancy/winter without having to buy any more clothes but after a week of living in my pj's and Aarahis hoodies I realised if i was ever the leave the house again I would need some new clothes. Unfortunatly all my maternity clothes from Auron are for summer so are no good to me. Lucky for me Pumpkin Patch had 50% off maternity! $150 later and I was sorted. We also picked up a cute little leather jacket for Auron for cheap. Ahhhh I love end of season sales. It's amazing hw much better I feel now that I don't look so hori.
The past month or so Auron has for some unknown reason taken a disliking to baths. He hasn't fallen over, or the water been too hot/too cold so no idea. Turns out he only wants Daddy to give him a bath. Aarahi has no problem getting him in and clean whereas he will perform so much for me that i dont even bother and just wipe him down with a wetwipe.

Our ward had a Returned Missionary Fireside last night, all the RM's brought in little keepsakes they had from their missions. One of them (Bro Kayrooz) brought along a yearbook in which Aarahi came across his oldest sisters profile! pretty cool alright.

This week we decorated a butterfly with all sorts of different things. I just cut out  a butterfly template and stuck it onto some clear duraseal 

The finished product! Now proudly hanging on the dining room wall.

Up to mischief again..... 

A whole loaf of bread with one bite taken out of each piece!

The CULPRIT!

I HATE WINTER

I think having all this cold weather I shouldn't be too surprised Auron has a yucky cold. I am pretty blessed that when he's sick he doesn't make too much of a fuss, just a extra bit clingy and sleepy. We're also lucky that the new pram we bought is a real cosy one so he doesn't get cold if we have to go out. Talking about being cold though, he's just discovered how to take his clothes off, as soon as he's dressed and I'm getting his breakfast he's stripping down. Getting him to put them back on is easy but he just takes them off again so I give up and just turn the heater on. Hopefully he doesn't decide to rip off his nappy, that could be a filthy disaster.

Come Friday last week I got struck down with the cold Auron has, it's full effect arriving on Saturday night. Auron and I skipped church and set up the lounge with matresses and mountains of pillows and tissues. Aarahi went to church saying he would probably stay a little longer and have a meeting with his  counsellors so when he arrived home barely 2 hours later I was a little surprised. Apparently church was cut short (only had sacrament meeting) because it was too cold in the chapel as the heating system was broken. It was nice to have him home to take care of me.

On Sunday morning I woke up to a rash on my hand, by the time Sunday night came my whole body was covered and itching like crazy. I had NO sleep that night. I went to the doctor the next day, turns out I'm allergic to my asthma inhaler....go figure the inhaler I've been taking for the past 23 years of my life. The problem is that when I'm sick I need my inhaler to be able to breathe so the doctor did some swapping around and gave me a different one, so far so good, I'm still covered in massive red rashes but they are going down slowly.

Well just got home from the movies, we went to see Brave. It was a really good movie, I liked it, Aarahi liked it, Auron watched the majority of it before becoming more interested in the packet of M&M's.

Auron was more than EXCITED to see Cookie Monster and Elmo on the news tonight. They were having a show here in Melbourne, I wish I had got tickets for us but Auron had no interest when they were selling the tickets. 

Reading my scriptures like a good boy

Auron loved our trip to Bunning where they had little trolleys,  he kept filling it up with all sorts of junk.

Auron's been quite interested in matching things lately...in particular shoes  so I made him some cool matching blocks out of wood (so he can't fold them and break them easily!) So far he's really enjoyed them and has found other uses for them too. I made about 12 I think.

Since I've been sick the housework has been lacking. One afternoon  I turned the vacuum cleaner on and left Auron to clean the kitchen while I had a shower. When I got out he was still going, he had done a pretty good job too I must say.  

The weeks are flying by

This year seems to be going so fast. Before I realise it's the end of the week and I have barely accomplished anything. Auron and I went to town on Thursday to return some library books and do some groceries. It was sooooooo busy! I had forgotton it was school holidays, I hate school holidays...in particular all those crazy teeny boppers lol. At least I managed to get everything done I had on my list.
I have seen some really neat things to do with Auron lately as he has been getting a bit bored with our regular activities. The first one we are trying is making some coloured rice and hiding some little "treasures" in it for him to find.  I also made some coloured pasta (I was on a roll). I bought these cool cards the other day that have photos on them of different animals which he loves to play with.
After 14 months or so Auron is actually in some kind of routine, never really bothered trying to put him into one, he's kind of just done it himself. We're down to one sleep in the afternoon, and he still wakes up once at night (pretty sure I could knock that on the head if I wanted but I kind of like it because he comes into bed with me) I actually will be pretty gutted when he decided to sleep through the night. I think I can count on one hand the times he's sleep in his own bed for a full night. What I'm most happy about is that we can just put him to bed and he doesn't make a fuss.
Aarahi took Friday off work and we did nothing, except go to the supermarket for toilet paper which we were desperately in need of after which we came home and had the most wonderful pulled pork sandwiches on homemade buns, that we are still eating today and probably tomorrow.

I was being a little too quiet...must have been up to mischief throwing eggs on the ground. I must take after my Uncle Khyber.

Doing some more paintings.

My coloured rice with some animals to play with.

I really liked mixing the colours together and scooping the rice up and putting it into different containers

This is me playing with the pasta after I had my nap. Mummy  gave me some pipe cleaners to thread on the pasta with holes in. I'm pretty good at sorting out which ones go on the pipe cleaners. When I am a bit bigger I will learn to sort my pasta into colours.

Drawing fun

This week has been cold and miserable. The washing has been hard to get dry, to the point I was running out of clothes that could fit me...not hard these days. I think perhaps investing in a dryer is something to consider especially since we use cloth nappies on Auron.
Due to the bad weather we've spent pretty much everyday inside with the heater on full. We have managed to do some fun things like painting and gluing things and lots of colouring. We have also been trying to learn about our face, eyes, ears, nose etc. Last week we managed to go to the library after my hospital visit and get out some book. Auron hasn't been too impressed with my selection and still prefers the ones we already have at home. He has a fascination with cooking books too...takes after his mama there.
Auron is finally starting to talk! YEY! I know he understands a lot when we talk to him but he's never really made any effort to actually talk aside from calling out to 'dad'. His second word after 'dad' has been 'thank you' haha pretty proud of that one!
The end of June is the end of the financial year in Australia. The big retail stores usually have huge sales, mostly on toys but other stuff too. LAst night we went out to see if there was anything we might want to get for Chirstmas and ended up doing all our christmas shopping. Auron was a bit upset when he saw me put the cool new toys away but he came right when he saw the Sesame Street DVD daddy said he could have now.
My faithful hair straightner has been broken for awhile now, despite all the banging it on things it just didnt want to work anymore. Aarahi has been hasseling me to get a new one for a few months but being one who finds it difficult to spend money on myself i've kept putting it off, until yesterday when being the lovely husband he is dragged me into the hair shop. The intent was to by a GHD but on talking to the hairdresser and trying a few out we settled for a Baybliss, lol $3 cheaper! I love it! It's easy to use and works FAST, like 10mins to do my hair which is ridiculously long and thick.

Back on Track (written 2 weeks ago almost)

I haven't written a post in a while seeing as I broken the charger to the laptop and have been too slack to go get a new one...really I just didn't want to have to pay the $100 for a new one, but we are now back up and running again.
Well lots to catch up on. First of all Aarahi's mum and brother Haroma came over for a week I was still in NZ when they arrived but that didn't matter. They were over for a wedding of one of the boys from back in Tauranga. Haroma was best man and Aarahi groomsman (which he only found out like 4 days before the wedding haha). They said the wedding was lovely, you can't really get much out of boys about weddings though other than what they had to eat.
Nanny Kaye was able to go visit with her sister who happens to live in Melbourne aswell while she was here which was nice for her I'm sure. As for the rest of the week they were here we were actually pretty boring, went to IKEA and Scienceworks one day. Science works was pretty fun, if you were like a 8 year old kid, especially a boy you would totally be in your element. We also went bowling one day, I don't bowl well at all and had a dismal score (I blame it on being pregnant) so I let Auron replace me on the second round he did pretty well with his little ramp thing and was only 1 behind Uncle Haroma at the end of the round. On the last day they were here I had well and truly exhausted myself and couldn't bring myself to do anything. Haroma went into the city to see one of his friends though. Later that night we dropped them off at the airport. It was sad to see them go, especially since we know we wont be getting back home for awhile now.
The whole next week I spent recovering from travelling and being so non-stop busy. Auron always takes a few days to get back to normal after a trip away. He has to come back to reality that he's not the centre of the universe and that if he wont eat his eat dinner there's no one who's going to let him eat grapes and chocolate pudding instead!
It was my birthday at some point in all of this, to which we nothing for. I didn't even bother getting out of my pj's all day. Although I did get some lovely bracelet charms and some yummy bubble bath.
The next week ...this past week was queens birthday weekend. For some reason its a week later here than in NZ. I was finally feeling up to leaving the house. We went to look around at the shopping centre where we want to move. While we were there we found Hog's Breath restaurant. We had really wanted to go there while we were living in Brisbane but couldn't afford to so we took the opportunity to have lunch there. IT WAS SO GOOD! Even Auron ate an entire kids meal, for some reason he screwed his nose up at the lunch I had packed him when he saw our food (to be fair it was a pretty unappetising packed lunch)
The rest of the week just went by as usual. This morning we headed back out the same way to go to an open house, it was a nice house but too small for us. There was another house in the same complex that was available too which is about 3 times bigger so will probably look into that. After we went back to the shopping centre did some shopping had some lunch and finally made it home. I am totally ready to go to bed now.

At the Science Museum, of all the cool things to do all he wanted to play on were the big red chairs 

Ooooo so many pretty balls

Daddy helped me line up my ramp just right

See that! just about bet Uncle Haroma

"helping" mama sort out clothes for the new baby

NZ Trip - Auckland

So after a lovely week in Palmy Auron and I headed up to Auckland to family number two! I'm pretty lucky being blessed with two families.
Our time in Auckland was pretty relaxed compared to Palmy. Each of the kids had a day off school so would have some time to spend together. We went out to lunch at a place called 'the wok 'n' noodle' think its a pretty cool name for a restaurant. It was really good too, so if your in Auckland you should definitely go.
My sister Ellie lives up in Auckland now and invited me and some of the other ex-palmy girls over for dinner. We had so much fun catching up together, some of the girls I haven't seen in years. My sister is also pregnant and due a couple of months before me. Her little boy is also just a few months younger than Auron (we tend to reproduce at the same time in this family it seems)
On Thursday Aarahi's brother and Mum were up in Auckland to fly out to Melbourne for a wedding Aarahi and Haroma were groomsmen at. Aroha and I went and met them while they waited for their flight. Aroha was meant to road trip down to Palmy with me for Haroma's homecoming but ended up not being able to at the last minute so was good that she got to see him then. After we said goodbye we headed into Parnell to have a hot chocolate at the Chocolate boutique....yup good stuff everyone should go there.
On Friday Ahila-mei and Khyber had the day off school so we headed out to the Zoo. It was AWESOME they have just done it up and added all new NZ exhibits which were pretty spectacular. The eels were a tad gross though.
The main event of the week was Khybers baptism on the Saturday. Teri and I cooked up a small storm in the morning, yummy finger food. I got to speak on Faith and baptism, I was determined not to cry and did so well! I did get a little shaky but held it together. Te Arai was able to baptise his little brother which was pretty special, then he started to bawl his eyes out and my attempts at not crying all fell to pieces. Later that night I headed out to the night markets with Tearai and Emily which was fun. Unfortunately being pregnant prevented me from eating lots of the yummy food there!
Finally Sunday came and our holiday drew to a close and we headed back to the airport to get on yet another plane....SO SICK OF PLANES! Auron did awesome yet again. We were so happy to be home with Aarahi again!

Probably the one and only intentional pregnancy photo that you will ever find of me. Note the unintentional matching red stripy tops lol.

Lizzy, Eden, Sariah, Me and Ellie plus the Bubbas

Lizzy and Ensign

Sariah and Ensign

Little cuzzies hanging in the cot

Fast asleep with Uncle 

Who are these crazy people?!

Tearai and Khyber just before his baptism

Auron with Nanny Teri

At the airport with Aunty Mei and Uncle Khybs

Oh look there's that crazy Aunty Teuila again!

NZ Holiday Palmy

For the past two weeks Auron and I have been back home in NZ. Poor Aarahi stayed at home and went to work. I can honestly say it was the longest two weeks of my life. I missed Aarahi terribly but we still had an amazing time back home. I guess it's one of the sacrifices we have to make since we moved countries. Our kids still need to know their family and get to spend time with them, and sometime we just wont be able to go together.
So what did we get up to? we flew into auckland at 5am and spent the day with our family their before heading down to Palmy later that afternoon. The next day Aarahi's little brother and the youngest of the nine Matthews kids returned home from his mission in the Philippines.  It was really good to see him after a two year stint away. He's still the same, not much different there. We spent the next couple of evenings with all of Aarahis siblings and their families. The kids have all grown so much even in the last 6 months since ive seen them. Auron spent a good deal of time running around with his cousin Cumorah who is only a few months older than him.
My mum had the week off work so we spent a lot of time together which was lovely. We ate A LOT...well I did. Whenever I go home there is a long list of food I need to eat. Palmy has some good cheap places to eat and I am yet to find somewhere here in Melbourne that matches it. I guess i just need to keep searching, seeing as Melbourne is known for its food.
While I was home, a rash that I had had in Melbourne went a bit crazy to the extent it was all over my body. Seeing as mum is a midwife up at the hospital we bypassed the emergency room and headed up to the maternity ward (lucky I was actually pregnant). Saw the doctor up there, she said it was an allergic reaction to something, and dosed me up of a few different antihistimines. They decided to do a quick check of baby. They couldnt find the heartbeat with the normal doppler, so hooked up the CTG machine....still can't find baby, better just check with an ultrasound, and there baby was swimming around like a pro. We ended up staying on a couple hours more so that the Doctors friend who was sitting her ultrasound exam the next week could practice on me. It was pretty cool getting a good long ultrasound and seeing the baby doing its cute little things. When I was pregnant with Auron the ultrasound person wasn't too keen on showing me the scan or explaining things.
My friend Ash and Great Aunty came over from Wellington and New Plymouth which was awesome as I don't think I would've made it down to see them otherwise. I was really good to see all my old friends and catch up on all the news etc.

Mum and Auron while waiting at the Hospital

Auron with some of his cousin (he wasn't too happy about it). Wish I had more photos but couldn't find my camera  for awhile.

Punk the cat kept wanting to sleep with Auron. I don't know why  because Auron tormented him all week.

Wearing Uncle Teinas shoes.

On Tuesday afternoon Mum, Teina, Auron and I headed down to Wellington to catch the plane to Auckland......