Holidays.

Next week is the last week of school holidays here. Steve will go into work on Thursday and Friday and the children will go back to school on the following Tuesday. 

I feel a little bit sad that the holidays are so close to finishing but it will be good to have a routine again. 

diabetes care becomes harder when the children are on holidays. They sit around a lot eating irregularly and much more than they usually would. BSL checks also tend to be on the lower side so getting back into our school routine will help manage them better. 

These holidays Steve and I have spent a lot of time looking for a unit to buy. We have made a couple of offers on two that we have liked but so far no success in buying one. Hopefully soon we will buy one. Our plan is to rent it out till Steve retires and then go and live in Adelaide. 

I have also been getting ready for Daniel and Ange's wedding. I have made Christopher a vest to wear and a dress and bolero for me. 

This is the pattern I used for the dress and bolero. 

These are the vests the boys will wear:

I made Joseph's for Musical Theatre Concert. 

Here he is in his costume: 

For the wedding, they will wear long pants, a shirt and tie with it. 

;Thanks for visiting. 

Therese. 

Happy New Year from Aussie Coffee Shop.

Looking back over the year that has been, I think it has been one of my favourite years. 

Lots of good things happened. 

Joseph went of to kindergarten and really enjoyed going. He also started therapy with Novita Children's services and enjoyed that too. 

Brigette got her P plate licence and started driving herself and Tom to school. 

Steve and I had 4 nights away on our own in Melbourne. We also went to Adelaide a lot for many friends 50th birthdays. It was great to catch up with a lot of friends we haven't seen for a long time. 

In July we paid of our house in Port Augusta. This was a pretty wonderful moment for both Steve and I. 

Daniel got Engaged and to a beautiful girl and we also went to Adelaide for their engagement party. 

Two of our children celebrated sacraments this year. Christopher had his first reconciliation and Amelia was confirmed. 

Madeline had 9 weeks in Thailand doing volunteer work with IVHQ.

The last thing that I remember that was great about our year was Sam's girlfriend, Jess joined the church. She and I did RCIA together and I was her sponsor on the 23rd of November. 

Along with the good, we also had a few things that went wrong. Tom had ketoacidosis twice and had to be flown to Adelaide with The Flying Doctors. Looking after three children with diabetes continues to be challenging but I am grateful for blood glucose meters, insulin pumps and a team of professionals that are only a email or phone call away. 

So now we are in 2015, we are looking forward to Daniel and Angelique's wedding, Joseph starting school and Amelia going to high school. 

Steve and I are looking for an investment unit to buy in Adelaide. We want to buy one now since our house is paid of. We will rent it out and then move into it when Steve retires.  

With Joseph being at school, I will have more time to do volunteer work at the school and within our parish. I will also be able to get more sewing done hopefully. 

St. Catherine is going to be my blog patroness again this year. I haven't chosen a word for the year but I am praying about what it should be and how to use it in my everyday life. 

Here are a few photos from the year. 

School Holidays.

Well we are into the second week of term two so I thought it was high time I did an update of what we did in the holidays.

In the first week, we celebrated my 48th birthday. Only two years till our 50th. It was a nice day. The family went to Mass together in the morning and then we had our parish priest and one of our seminarians over for lunch.

The weather for the first week was quite warm. It was a good time to start summer sewing. I sewed a few tops for me and a couple for a girlfriend.

In the second week, Steve and I travelled to Melbourne. We took Tom and Christopher to Adelaide with us and left them with Daniel and Amelia and Joseph stayed in Port Augusta with Brigette in charge.

Steve and I stayed at the Murcure in Albert Park. We had a very nice view of Lake Albert.

 The reason we went to Melbourne was to see the Musical, Once.



It was one of the best stage shows I have ever seen. I spent a lot of time listening to the soundtrack on YouTube in the weeks leading up to our holiday so knew the songs well. My favourite song would have to be Falling Slowly.



We arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday. Wednesday we had a sleep in and then went to town. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral for Mass and then sat and prayed for a while after. After a late lunch we went back to the hotel and spent the evening there. \

Thursday we got up early and went out to see my uncle and aunt. They live in the eastern suburbs and we spent the day with them.

Thursday night was Once and on Friday we sat around most of the day at our hotel. It was nice to sit and relax and not have to do anything. After lunch, I ventured out on my own and navigated my way to Lincraft to look at fabric. they were having a sale and I would have bought a lot but I knew I had to get it back home and didn't want to have my luggage weighing more than was allowed.

Friday night we meet my cousin, his fiancée and a good friend that we haven't seen for years. We went to Lygon Street and I had one of the best lasagne's I have ever eaten.

 Here is the 5 of us. Steve, me and Daniel

Tom and Valentina. 

 Steve, me and Daniel. 

 Steve, Valentina, Tom and I. 

Valentina and Tom. 

After a nice tea we went to a chocolate shop for dessert. The dessert was very rich and filling. 

We had such a fun night this night. It was our last night in Melbourne and such a great way to spend it. 

We got back to a sick kid. Christopher picked up some bug while we were away so Sam had to take him to the hospital. We got back Saturday night. I spent the night at the hospital with him and we brought him back to Port Augusta on Sunday morning. 

It was a really nice break. So thankful that our older children are so willing to look after our younger children and give us a small break.  

Spring has sprung.

It is such a long time since I posted but I want to get back into blogging. This year has been particularly challenging in looking after all our children's health needs and keeping everyone happy and healthy.

Tom has had a hard year with his diabetes. Twice he has been flown to Adelaide with flying doctors with DKA. He decided he wanted to have injections each day instead of a pump. His hba1c has been going up up up and we had to change something to bring it down. MDI (multiple daily injections) seemed to be the best way to do this. Since he isn't on a pump, he tends to forget to have his injections and this is what has caused DKA both times. Since his last trip, Steve has been supervising his morning injections and bsl checks.

Amelia and Chris are still pumping and they are going pretty well with it. It has been challenging though getting the right basal rate for them both. I upload their pumps to the internet each week and their endocrinologist looks at their readings and emails me what needs to be changed.

Although it seems like it sometimes, diabetes is not the only thing going on in our lives. There has been plenty of good things happening.

In March, Daniel got engaged to a beautiful young lady, Angelique. Here is the family photo that was taken at their engagement party.

We are so happy that Daniel has found such a lovely girl to marry and we are all looking forward to their wedding in January.

In June, Amelia was confirmed by our Bishop. Here she is after the ceremony.

Angelique was Amelia's sponsor and it was a lovely ceremony.

This year, a lot of my friends have turned 50 and we have had 3 trips back to Adelaide for their birthday parties. The last one was one of our grooms men, Mark. While we were in Adelaide for his party, Steve and I went to Festival Theatre and watched Grease, The musical. It was a great afternoon and we really loved getting out on our own. Here is a photo of me outside door 11. That was the entry door for our seating.

The last bit of news which I am excited to share with you all is Brigette has her P plate licence. She will now be able to drive Tom and herself to school. It will help a lot to have an extra driver in the house.

Hope you are all well. Looking forward to catching up with all your blogs soon.

Therese.

What we are doing this year.

Next week, school will be starting in South Australia. I thought I would go through everyone and let you know what we are doing.

Daniel, Sam and Madeline are all still living in Adelaide. Daniel has about 18 months to go with his teaching degree and Sam and Madeline are both working for Hungry Jacks still. Madeline has left fashion design and is thinking of studying creative writing. She was going to apply last year, but because she would have had to pay a late fee, I suggested she wait and she did. Maybe she will be able to do a mid year entry. Sam is also doing a management course. He is hoping to get some management position at some stage.

In Port Augusta, Steve is back at work as a permanent relief teacher. This year he is at a different base school though. His base school is the school he goes to when they don't need a reliever in any of the schools.

Brigette is starting year 11. She is hoping to do law when she finishes school so has some pretty challenging subjects. I am sure she will meet the challenge with the same success she has in the past.

Tom is going into year 9, Amelia into year 7 and Christopher into year 3. I expect they will all want to do Musical Theatre again this year and the boys will probably do Cubs and Scouts again.

Joseph will start full time Kindy this year and have 9 sessions a fortnight. He will go every Wednesday and Thursday for a full day and have a half day on every other Friday.

In term 4 last year, Joseph has one full day of Kindy a week. It was the first time, I had no children at home for 21 years. The day went really fast but I really appreciated having some time to myself. This year, I will go to the canteen on Wednesdays and have a day to myself on Thursday. I will miss having him around but time to myself is so rare these days, I really do appreciate it more and more.

A Year in Review. Part two.

July. 

Madeline and Sam moved to Adelaide in July. It was a big adjustment for us all. I suddenly realised just how much I did for them because we weren't nearly as busy as when they were home. Daniel also went to World Youth Day in Brazil. He was away when Sam and Madeline moved into the house.

Daniel enjoyed WYD but got an infection in his foot on the way home. It was very painful for him and became very swollen while he was on the plane. Fortunately when he got back to Adelaide,  he was able to get antibiotics and recover from it. 

August. 

In August, I took Amelia to Adelaide to start pump therapy. Being the third child to go onto an insulin pump meant that I knew pretty much everything there is to know about it. It took us a few days to get her insulin doses right but over all we have been really happy with it. It was good to have them all on the same treatment. While Amelia was on daily injections, I found I forgot often to remind her to have lantus. It was just as well she was so reliable and often did it without reminding. 

September. 

September was Steve's last month of work for the year. He had 4th term of with long service leave. 

I started doing costumes for the girls in Christopher's musical theatre group and Steve started working on what he would do for renovations while he was home. He painted the back verandah and then started working on the wooden floor boards in our lounge. 

October. 

At the end of the October Holidays, Amelia went on Diabetes camp. Steve and I took the opportunity to get away on our own while she was there and left the boys and Brigette with Daniel in Adelaide. 

When we got back, Steve worked on the lounge just about every waking hour and I spent a lot of time sewing the costumes for Musical Theatre. 

November. 

November flew by and I was in a great hurry to get all the musical theatre costumes done. I think it was in November that I realised just how big a job I had agreed to and thought I had taken on something that was too big. I just decided to keep at it though and sewed in every spare minute I had. the first week of December was the week before the concert. I finished the costumes just one hour before the first concert on the Saturday night,. 

December. 

Once Musical Theatre was over, we started to prepare for our family holiday. Our older children were going to the Youth Festival in Melbourne and we decided to go along and take the younger children to see around Victoria and Melbourne. 

We visited Halls Gap, Bendigo, Melbourne, Geelong, Warrnambool and Millicent. 

It was a great holiday but we were all glad to get home. 

On Christmas day, my mother turned 80. 

We went back to Adelaide for Christmas and to celebrate my mother's birthday.Because we had been away for two weeks just before this, we only stayed in Adelaide for the two nights and came back. 

I hope 2014 will be just as good as this year has. 

Therese.

You can read part one here.  

A year in review part one.

January. 

On the first of January, Daniel turned 21. He was in Vietnam so we didn't get to celebrate with him till he was back in March. We had a family party at my mothers place just after he got back. 

 Just 3 days after Daniel's birthday, Amelia was diagnosed with type one diabetes. We had three children in the house with it now. Having two children diagnosed before Amelia meant that I knew exactly how to look after her but still, it was a big struggle to look after three children with this disease. 

Tom turned 13 on the 14th of January. He got his first mobile phone and a remote control helicopter. He started high school a couple of weeks after his birthday and has matured quite a bit over the year

Christopher went of to school for the first time this year at the end of January. I thought he was ready for it after being home schooled for reception and year 1. He adjusted really well and proved to be a very organised student over the year. I did check his diabetes bag and school bag each day but it was rare for him to leave something out. 

February. 

Joseph celebrated his 3 birthday in February. He has grown up so much. 

Here he is with his new basketball ring. He has had many enjoyable hours playing with it. 

10 days later Christopher turned 8. All our children seem to be growing too fast. We have so many birthdays to celebrate each year and sometimes I find myself wondering where all the years go. 

February was the start of lent too and and the resignation of Pope Benedict. I was greatly saddened at his resignation but trusted that he was being guided by the Holy Spirit. 

March. 

At the beginning of March, we picked up our new Dualis. We got it just in time to take the children to Adelaide for a check up with their Endocrinologist. The Dualis has served us well over the year and has been my favourite car to drive. 

On the 13th of March, Pope Francis was presented to the church. We had a new pope. It took only two days for the Cardinals to elect him. I think this shows their unity and faithfulness to God. 

Madeline celebrated her 18th birthday on the 29th of March. (Good Friday). Just before her 18th, she decided to leave school and work full time at Hungry Jacks. She applied to study fashion design at Adelaide TAFE and started saving money for her move to Adelaide. 

April. 

In April, Madeline and Brigette had the holiday of a lifetime. They flew the Singapore and spent 8 days with my sister and her family. It was a great experience for them both. 

Steve and I also had a weekend away. Because we knew Sam and Madeline would be moving out in July, we thought it would be our last chance to get away and leave our younger children with the older ones in charge. We went to Claire Country Club and had a great time alone. 

May. 

Amelia and Brigette turned 12 and 16 in May.  Amelia had a party with friends at Hungry Jacks and Brigette went out to the movies with a group of her friends. 

Brigette went for her Learners permit and passed. She has been driving our Carolla around and will go for her P's in May 2014 I think. 

June. 

June was the last month that Sam and Madeline were to live with us. They applied to rent a place with Daniel, close to Flinders Uni. It was another milestone in our lives but I was glad they were leaving and pursuing their dreams. 

2 more leaving the nest.

Today Sam and Madeline have gone to Adelaide to look at houses to rent. They are hoping to get a house with Daniel so the three of them will be living together. The plan is to move down there in 3 weeks.

Sam is planing to work at Hungry Jacks still and Madeline is too. She is also going to be studying  fashion design part time at TAFE.  Sam says he wants to do some study but he isn't sure what he wants to do yet.

Over the years our family has changed so many times. Each time has brought challenges and blessings. Our last big change was Daniel moving out and Joseph being born. Joseph was born a week before Daniel moved to Whyalla. I missed Daniel when he first moved but I am very proud of the great young man he has become. I am sure I will miss Sam and Madeline too but I am confident they are going to grow and mature in the same way Daniel has.

Life will be a little bit quieter around here. I think we will  notice Sam and Madeline absence more so than when Daniel moved since there is two of them going. Looking forward to the change and having things a bit quieter though.

What have we been up too?

Well it is over a month since I last posted here. I wanted to get on tonight, and post one post in April.

Life has been busy with all our children but I am feeling pretty in control with looking after our three diabetic children and managing a large family.

Since my last update, Madeline has left school and started working full time at Hungry Jacks. She has been accepted into study at TAFE to do certificate 3 in fashion design. Her plan is to work full time, save some money and move to Adelaide in July as long as they have an intake. If there is no intake, she will start her studies in January next year.

We have just had two weeks of school holidays here. During the holidays, Madeline and Brigette went to Singapore. My sister lives there at the moment and is moving back in June. She flew the girls over and they had 8 days with her and her family.

Steve and I drove the girls to Adelaide to catch their plane and then we had a night on our own in Clare. We stayed at Clare Country Club. It was nice to spend some time alone.

The other holiday we had was camping in Bundaleer forest. Steve and I took our younger 4 children and we meet Daniel and our 3 nephews there. We hired a hut that we could throw mattresses on the floor and sleep. Outside we had a camp fire. It was fun to sit around the camp fire and drink endless cups of coffee, talk and play with the children.

Steve and I have been watching a few television programs together. Steve started watching The Walking Dead last year when Sam bought series one and two for him for his birthday. I wasn't interested at all in a zombie series and didn't watch it with him. He kept on telling me how good it was and how much he thought I would enjoy it. When series three finished he asked me if I wanted to watch series 1 and 2 with him. I agreed and said, when it is finished, we will watch Downton Abbey together. I sat through Walking Dead and we started Downton Abbey last week. I am really enjoying Downton Abbey and wish we had a bit more time to watch it. Since being back at school. we don't have as much time to watch series.

There has been lots more happening but I don't want to make this post too long.

Hoping to get into blogging a bit more this term and keep up with other blogs.

Therese.

2012

This photo was taken by my mother in law the weekend Steve and I were away. It is all 8 of our children with their three cousins and our dog pepper. .

Changes.

This week is the last week of school before we start our Summer holidays. It is the end of an era for us. Next year there are lots of changes taking place in our house.

Sam is talking about going to Adelaide to study Audio Engineering so our second child is leaving the nest. Madeline will go into year 12 at PASS and Brigette and Tom will join her there too. Brigette has been at our local Catholic school up until now but has decided to finish of her schooling at PASS because they have more subject choices. Amelia and Christopher will be going to the local primary school around the corner and Joseph will be home with me.

We will be changing the bedroom set up too. This week we will have a temporary change and when Sam moves out, we will have the permanent change. . Madeline and Amelia have been sharing a room and Brigette has had her own room for the last few years. Since Madeline will be in year 12 next year, we thought she needed her own room so Brigette will move in with Amelia and Madeline will move into Brigette's bedroom.

When Sam moves to Adelaide, we will put Tom and Christopher into Sam's bedroom and Amelia will move into the bedroom next to ours with Joseph. Everyone moving rooms will be a good opportunity for us to have a dejunk as well. We moved house 3 times in 3 years back in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Since then, I have become much more discerning about what we keep and what we don't when we go through our stuff. I have tried to go through rooms and things each year since. This will be the perfect opportunity for us to do it this year.

With all these changes, I am expecting to have more time for blogging. I really want to keep my blog going and keep all the memories of the things our children do and say here for us to look back on. Hopefully when school is finished, I will get more time for it and you will all here from me a bit more often.

Therese.

Catching up.

The first weekend of the holidays, we had convoy for kids in Port Augusta. Novita is an organisation that supports Joseph and provides services for him with his left hemiplegia. They invited Joseph to come to ride in a big semi trailer. We took Tom, Amelia, Christopher and Joseph all along for the day. Here is an article our local paper had on it.

Convoy for Kids.
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Three weeks ago now, Steve and I had a night away in Quorn. We went to Endilloe Lodge. Here is a video of it.

It was great to spend the time alone. I just wish we went for two nights instead. We are thinking about going back in January for our anniversary and if we do it will definitely be for two nights.

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While we were there, we watched October baby.



What a great movie this is. It was a bit slow to begin with but the twists and surprises as the movie played made it one of the best movies I have ever seen. If you have the oportunity to see it, do it. You will  not be disappointed. 

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Our local pool opened a couple of weeks ago. Tonight I took Tom, Amelia, Christopher and Joseph for the first time.  

Joseph loved the pool again. It took him a bit longer to get in than it did last year. He seems to dislike the cold a bit more this year but still had lots of fun. He really enjoyed splashing me too. 

What has happened at our house in May?

Life has been busy busy busy during May for us and I have been reliant on my diary more so than any other time in my life. June is shaping up to be just as busy but I am feeling pretty confident with my diary usage been much better than it has been at any other time, that it will be manageable.

In May, Amelia turned 11. We had a Saturday afternoon party. She had about 10 friends over. It was a great afternoon.

Brigette also had a birthday. She turned 15. She decided she didn't want to have a party this year because she wants to have a 16th. I hope she doesn't want anything too big.

Joseph has been doing lots of therapy for his leg. We had a trip to Adelaide for him to see the Rehab specialist. Joseph is going to have botox treatment for his left hemiplegia in June. We are having another block of physio with a couple of physio students this month on Fridays.

Christopher has also started speech therapy. There is still a lot of sounds that he doesn't seem to be able to say clearly. At the sessions, it is really obvious that he is progressing well but I still have to remind him often at home when he doesn't say words correctly. If he has a second shot at them, he can usually say them very well.

I have meet a couple of home school families in Port Augusta. We have started to get together fortnightly for the children to socialise and the mums to have a chat. It is great to have some other families here for support. Sometimes home schooling can seem like you are all alone in the world so this group has been a gift from God for me.

Thanks for visiting.

Therese.

Wordless Wednesday. Having fun with the cousins.

RIP Dad.

Two years ago today, my father passed away. He had been suffering from Alzheimer's for 13 years and while we were greatly saddened to loose him, we were glad that he was at peace.

I have written several blog posts about my dad and how he was a great example for me in living our Catholic faith. You can read them all here. 

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Scooby Doo Live

Today we took Tom, Amelia, Christopher and Joseph over to Whyalla to see Scooby Doo Live. What a great show. Everyone sang along and Joseph enjoyed clapping every time they asked us too.

Hoodwinked too.

Our family movie for tonight. It is great so far.

Wordless Wednesday: Out with family.

We had a lovely night out for tea with Steve's sister and her family.

Thankful Thursday.

Yet another Thursday that I need to remember the things that are good in our life.

-1-

All the children and Steve ended up getting the gastro that was going through the house. I am the only one that hasn't got it and I am very thankful for that.

-2-

I am thankful for the doctors that look after Tom and that we have the technology to get him well quickly.

-3-

I am thankful for all the people that read about Tom and prayed for us.

-4-

I am thankful that we just have one day and one week left of term 2. Next week will be a bit of a quieter week and I will start planning for term 3.

-5-

I am thankful for the new spelling program that we have for Tom and Amelia. I have always struggled with the best way to teach them spelling and it was certainly their weakest subject. The new program I have seems to really work for them. The program I am using is called The Phonetic Zoo.

Therese.

Weekend Wrap up.

This is a post that my blogging friend Chez does when she misses the 7 quick takes. I missed them this weekend so decided to do a weekend wrap up for you all.

-1-

Blogger was down all day Friday. That is why I didn't get a 7 quick takes up.

-2-

This weekend Amelia and Brigette had their first netball game. Netball started last weekend but we were away.

Amelia's team won.

Brigette's team lost.

-3-

Saturdays are going to be pretty busy for us. Steve and I go to mass and adoration every Saturday morning and now we also have two netball games to get the girls too. I hope that their netball games don't interfer with mass and adoration too much.

-4-

Today was a beautiful day. Steve and I went for a walk this morning. It was great to get out alone with him. Sometimes life seems so crazy in our house and even though we spend lots of time together, we can sometimes go days without talking about things that are on our mind or talking about things that we don't want to discuss in front of the children. We walked for one hour. I hope we can do this regularly every weekend at least. It would be good to do it during the week but I don't think that is going to happen with all that is going on in our house.

In the afternoon, we spent a lot of time out in the garden with the children. Our garden area that Steve put in has grown a lot since I posted pictures of it. I will try and get some photos up this week to show you how much it has changed.

-5-

Joseph is starting to walk finally. He still crawls most of the time but can take many steps in a row as long as he is heading for something. I think in the next couple of weeks, he will probably start walking everywhere.

-6-

On Friday Tom and Christopher had a check up with their endocrinologist. I was really happy that both boys have a much better hba1c. Last time they were tested, it was in the 8's and they are both in the 7's now. I really hope we can get them into the 6's by their next check up.

So that is my weekend wrap up. I hope you all had a great one too.