Finally, the weekend!!

I can start to relax a little now the weekend is here and the husband is home. I survived the night shift odeal - just! I definitely have to give thanks to my to do list that I posted the other day. It kept me in line. I did everything on the list that night apart from sweeping the loungeroom floor, which I did the following morning.

I also need to thank my sister for her help the past couple of days, she had Missy over for a sleepover Wednesday night, as hubby worked a double shift yesterday (Thursday), starting in the wee hours of the morning, making it a challenge to get 4 small kids and myself ready in time to get Missy to school. My nephew and my daughter attend the same school, so my sister took her. She also had Mr almost 4 for a few hours today which was heaven sent.

Missy has a party to go to tomorrow. Hubby wants to take her as he feels he is missing out on a lot with the hours he is working. I want to spend some quality time with the boys, so I might set up a picnic in the back yard for them and enjoy the moment.

Little Miss and Mr almost 4 are going 'camping' tomorrow night under the kitchen table. We often throw some sheets over it and they pretend it's a cave or something, but they have never spent the night in it, so they're very excited. Missy's only concern is where I'm going to put the chairs... Lol!

I'm not sure what's planned for Sunday, I don't think we'll go anywhere, cause we've got some busy weekends ahead of us, and it'll be nice to spend it at home with the family.

Under $14k

As of yesterday, 30th April 2012, we are under $14000 on our car loan. Yaaaayyy I can see the finish line :) :) I'm hoping to make it to under $13000 by the end of this month. The lower the amount owing gets, the more keen I am for the debt to be gone and for the car to be ours :D

Happy debt paying peoples :)

Today's chores

I was supposed have a Drs appointment today, but have rescheduled due to my husband working night shift. He has been covering for the night shift superviser on and off for the past month as he has been on leave.

The extra money has been great and we've been putting extra onto the car loan. The downside of the night shift is not having hubby around. I'm used to doing the afternoons on my own and have got a routine in place, but I'm not used to having hubby not here during the day.. Well he is here but he's asleep :) So I've been trying to keep in control.

I've also taken the boys out of preschool due to the constant sickness and also to save a bit of money. I'm really gonna miss my Fridays being just bubs and I, but it's not forever and once the debts are paid off it'll be worth it.

My days are spent chasing my tail when Hubby is on night shift, I drop Missy off at school, come back try and do as much as I can of what needs to be done, then it's time to pick Missy up from school again.

So today I want to set myself some To Do's which hopefully will keep me on track.

• a load of washing  done
• run dishwasher done
• fold yesterdays washing done
• put away yesterdays washing - done
• general tidy morning done
• wipe over bathroom done
• check Missy's bed is made and room is clean done
• general tidy after lunch - done
• Get washing off line - done
• fold washing - done
• put away washing - done
• get dinner ready - done
• sweep kitchen floor done
• sweep loungeroom floor
• fill washing machine ready for tomorrows load done
• make Missys lunch for tomorrow
• lay out clothes for tomorrow - done
• read with Missy - done
• pay phone bill - done
• Catch up on Missy's baby record book, 5 y/o page  done
• have 5 glasses of water had - done
• take time out for self
• exercise - walk to pick up Missy - done
• general tidy night - done
• unload dishwasher
• load dishwasher
• fill out Missy's Take home reading journal - done

I love this

I'm dreading the day my babies are too big for mummy's hand. Mr almost 4 is already starting :(

Coping with 4 kids under 6 - "How do you do it?"

"How do you do it??"

Is something I'm asked on a regular basis.

''I can't handle this 1 (or 2)  and I often think of you with your 4, How do you do it??"

I do it because I have to. It's what I'm used to. It can be very hard at times, but there are things we do (and don't do) in order for us to cope a little easier..

My husband works the afternoon shift.
My husband is home during the day, so basically, I'm only on my own for 5 or 6 hours before the kids go to bed. This time is spent with kids naps, play, dinner/bath/bed routine, and unless we're having a particularly bad day, this time goes pretty fast. Granted that is the busiest part of the day, but more on that later :)

We're a team.
We help each other. We both do the housework and we both see to the kids. There are things either hubby or myself do the bulk of, for eg. I do the cooking, he mowes the lawns and does the yard work. Having said that, if hubby hasn't had time to mowe the lawn, I'll do it (I draw the line at the whipper snippering though lol), and if I can't be bothered cooking, he'll do it. We both know what needs to be done and do it (routines - see below)

We don't stick to a schedule.

Schedules don't work in our family. Not with an overactive toddler and a baby who doesn't know what sleep is. Maybe when the kids are older one may work, but at the moment, it's more of a headache trying to stick to a schedule.

Routines.

This is a must! We've had our fair share of failed attempts and disruptions, with the birth of our 4th bub, illness, 1st born off to school and life in general. But without a routine life would be much harder to deal with, especially when we're hit with major disruptions.

The older two know the routine. For eg. They know they have to play quietly in their room if they wake up too early, and to tidy their room and make their beds before breaky. They also pull out their bowls, spoons, cereal and milk (or spreads if they want toast) and set it up ready for us to make - this was their doing, we got up one morning to find it all out ready to be made, and they've done it ever since :) 

I'll do a post on our typical day and what I do to cope with the busy time before bed at a later stage.

Communicating with each other.

Another very important one. We tell each other everything. We need to stay one step ahead at all times, especially where Mr 2 is concerned, and in order to do so, we have to communicate. If we have an issue whether it be with each other or something totally unrelated, we'll say so. We give credit where credits due and we know what we both want out of life.

Friendship.

I'm throwing this one in, as we are best friends first and foremost and we share a great bond. Without it I really don't think we'd cope at all.

There are other things we do, but I think the above are the most important and without them I'd hate to think how our lives would be. We have our fair share of bad days, recently, more than our fair share, but we get through, we have to :) 

Worried about my family..

Since December last year, a week hasn't gone by where someone in this household has NOT been sick. Bubs has been sick with a nasty cough for 4 months, which the Dr thought might've been Pneumonia. We've been sent off for all different tests and X-Rays,  which thankfully ruled that out but we're still left wondering... to this day we have no idea what is wrong with him and it's killing me :( My other kids have passed it (cough/cold type thing but apparently lungs etc are clear) back and forth to each other for months, I've had it on and off for months and DH has barely had it.

Not only have we been dealing with that, but DS 3.5 decided to have a head on with the TV unit resulting in a trip to emergency and 3 stitches. Next, even before the stitches were removed, DS 3.5 broke out in a rash. We thought it was Hives at first, but found out it was a bad skin infection and was told to keep an eye out for Meningococcal. Thankfully this healed up.

We've had a Gastro outbreak 3x since February. Most recent being now. Bubs became ill late Monday afternoon. He wouldn't keep anything down, was lethargic and sometimes unresponsive. DH was at work, so my Mum came up to help. We called the Dr out, and he checked him over. He wasn't too concerned at the time as bubs wasn't dehydrated and looked OK but told us what to look out for and when to go to hospital etc. Well, he seemed to improve yesterday, but then started to have the runs (he didn't have diarrhea on Monday, just vomiting), and tonight he seems to be hit hard. He hasn't been keeping anything down and quite miserable. He's asleep at the moment, but if he has another session like he did earlier (won't go into details but it was very very messy) I'll take him to the hospital.

I know this is nothing compared to what other families go thru, but it's really hitting us hard... not only in the obvious ways but financial aswell, we've been spending $60-80/week on medicines, which I thought was bad, then this passed week the bill was already at $120 (for the one week) and I haven't got all the prescriptions yet.

I just wish they'd get better soon.

Under $15k mark

As of Friday 30th March 2012, we are officially under the $15k mark on our car loan. We're not quite half way yet, but I'm thrilled to have made it to this amount.

One of our financial goals for this year was to completely pay out the car loan.

We originally wanted to pay it out by the end of this financial year (30th June 2012), but we have now given ourselves to 31st December 2012. Reason being - our yard slopes towards the road, and no matter how careful or quick we are, toddlers, toys and sloping yards towards roads do not mix. So we have decided to fully fence the yard so our kids can play safely, in turn, the car will be paid out at a later date.