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| Got my hair cut off!! YAY (and Snapchat always makes you look beautiful LOL) |
Hello world - is anyone out there?
Here I am, back to me again - feeling much better 😀
I debated if I should continue Blogging......... considering I haven't done very much for the past few years and all that.
But, this is my record of me and my family. And although I have not posted much I really want to.
So, I am going to commit to one blog post a week for 2019!!!
There is a "bit" to catch up on...............
Here we go!
The biggest and best news is :
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| Little Blaydon - so gorgeous |
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| Summer and Blaydon <3 |
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| OMG I am the luckiest person in the world! |
I am a Nannie again!
Yes my eldest daughter Alex had a beautiful little boy on Wednesday 24 October at around 4pm.
He is very lovely and his name is Blaydon.
Unfortunately, when he was born, he had a collapsed lung and had to go into NICU for a few days. They put a tube in his side to get the air/fluid out and allow his little lung to inflate.
It was quite stressful, especially for Alex and Ben. But after very good care and some time in hospital he is home now and all is good on the health front.
On the sleep front.............. well that's another story!!!!
I went up there for a bit over a week in November and is was fantastic. They are coming back in February and I can't wait (I will be doing Nannie duties whilst Alex and Ben go to a concert).
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| The beautiful Alex and Summer |
Christmas
This was a quiet affair after the madness of last year when everyone came to our place. We just had Mum and Dad over for lunch. Very nice.
Then I popped (drove!) down to Sydney and stayed with my very good friend Courtney and her family on their farm. Had a great time and then dropped my old little buzzie car to Jemma to have. We had a lovely lunch at Yum Cha and I met her boyfriend Reece. Both Alex and Jemma have boyfriends with the same names as my twins - Ben and Rhys!! How funny is that.
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| The beautiful Jemma and Reece |
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| At the farm with Courtney - I LOVE IT |
Of course there were lots of animals to see (and this isn't many of them!)
I drove around to our old house and it looks just the same (well not as perfect in the yard as Greg always had it). I then drove down to Hornsby and was very saddened to see that Mt Colah, Asquith and Hornsby had become unit city - high rise units everywhere with the obligatory washing hanging on the balcony *sigh*. Then when driving down my old street where I grew up, all the houses have been left to rot (due to waiting for developers to come in) or townhouses have gone up. It looks nothing like when I was a kid and yes progress is a "thing" but this was just sad. I felt like I wanted to cry really. It's still a nice place, just different I suppose.
But, it just cemented that we made the very right decision to leave and move away. Where we live is absolutely beautiful and I am so thankful that we made the big step to go (for all the reasons above). I felt absolutely no regrets at all (which is good and I didn't think I would but hmmm, you never know I suppose).
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| Boo grabbing my hand, wanting more pats |
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| Christmas fun |
We celebrated Halloween 💀
When we were in Sydney, I had a very good friend Stacey who came from America. We are still good friends but now live states away :-( Anyway, Stacey celebrated and put on the BEST Halloween parties ever. Just so much fun - we absolutely loved it all.
Anyway, last year when we had just moved into our house, and we got HAMMERED by all the local kids for Halloween. It was fantastic (but I ran out of lollies).
This year I was organised and I did a little display. It was fun. The boys went trick or treating and caught up with some friends from school and had an absolute ball.
So much fun.
And, lastly, I finally bought myself a new to me car.
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| Cleaning the car |
I agonised over this purchase - it was so much money to spend. I ummmed and ahhhed over getting a new car (aound $30K+ for what I wanted). I think this caused some (a lot) of my stress.
Why? Well, you see, I am not impressed by "things" and cars I am the least impressed by! Such a lot of money on something that depreciates faster than an ice cream melting in the hot sun.
It wasn't sitting well with me, spending that much money on something that I didn't even care about or was impressed by. Let's face it, any new car would like a second hand car very quickly with three little boys jumping in it!!!
But I couldn't procrastinate forever, so I was about to go and buy the one I picked out (it best suited our needs - and I looked at every SUV in the range going - took me days and days). I thought I would check Gumtree and Carsales to see if anything suitable was for sale first.
BINGO!
Private sale car, less than 2yrs old, leather seats & Android car play, window tinting, mats etc. Everything I wanted, in beautiful condition and a good reason for selling. It was over $11K LESS than I would have had to spend on a new one.
I'll take it thanks very much. Tick that box.
I bought it from a lovely young couple. They had decided to buy a van, as they unexpectedly fell pregnant after buying the new car (it was difficult to fit 3 car/booster seats across the back). They owed more on it than I paid for it. I wanted to give them some tips about buying cars and how much money you lose (I suppose they guessed that one). I felt like crying when she told me she had extra owing on it (we sorted it all out & the loan was paid out). I didn't haggle because, honestly, I could afford to lose the extra $500 I was intending to knock them down - they needed it way more than me.
So, I probably paid a little extra than I wanted too, but I now have a great car and am very happy. I love it and the fact that I didn't have to drop $30K+++ on a new one - it has everything I need :-)
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| A beautiful plant that Greg's mum bought me - going great guns |
I still have lots more that I could talk about - Greg's Mum came up for a visit, Greg's brother came for a visit, lots happening around the house and so on..... But this is long enough and I will do a post a week for the year.
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| A chocolate hamper I made for a school raffle |
See you next week.
Love Rach
xxx
