Wow what a year it’s been!

So we started the year with the floods. It was pretty scary start to the year, the rain was like nothing I have ever seen before. We had a warning to evacuate to higher ground but by then the roads around us were already flooded and there was nowhere to go, lucky for us we live close to the top of a hilly street. Watching the events unfold sent an overwhelming sense of luck and relief through us, we were lucky, just 2 streets away homes were flooded, the main road was completely under water but “our flood” was nothing compared to other towns and suburbs around Queensland. Hubby went to help with the clean up and has said the things he saw during that time will stay with him forever.

Moving on from the flood drama our year just got worse……………………. just before J was due to start school, (which alone has been one drama after another!), he pushed me and I tore my thigh muscle. I can’t tell you how painful this was but I will say that I struggled so much with the pain and using the crutches that Hubby had to take some time off work to look after J and the house. I managed to get around slowly and with a limp but minus the crutches before J started school. *phew* He had a meltdown when we arrived at the school on his first morning before the bell had even gone and there’s no way I would have been able to deal with the situation if I had still been on crutches.

During the second week of school Hubby arrived home from work only 30 minutes after leaving the house to go to work. I was completely shocked, he’s one of those people who is never ill etc so for him to have hurt himself bad enough to come home meant he had REALLY hurt himself. The drama with his back has continued all year with an end result that we couldn’t have predicted! (I’ll come back to this later in the post)

Then we suffered a huge blow in March when I miscarried for a fifth time. Less said about that the better

At the start of the year I thought that I had started to develop some nice friendships with a couple of people here, unfortunately by mid year these had turned sour and one person in particular showed a side to them that I really didn’t like and so yet another blow was dealt. *sigh*

Just to end the year as it started 6 weeks ago J broke his wrist falling off his slide. Although this was yet another low moment it also came with a high, J hated having the cast put, he hated wearing the cast and he HATED having it took off but he coped, in fact he coped with the whole ordeal brilliantly, much better than we had predicted.

It really has been one blow after another this year but along with the lows we’ve also had a few highs. Little things this year have actually been huge highs for us that have put the biggest smiles on our faces

Little things like……….. meeting a couple of old men that my Hubby worked with, with various stories to tell that have made us giggle.

Like J actually eating a proper, hot, home cooked meal! This for me was and is one o the biggest highs of the year, J has now eaten Sheppard’s Pie more than 10 times, (once he’s eaten something at least 10 times it kinda becomes one of his foods”), it doesn’t matter that he makes himself Sheppard’s pie sandwiches that have to be triangles or that he thinks they give him “the strength of 1000 Sheppard’s” (which of course makes him stronger than Dad hehehe), HE EATS IT!

This year J has also learnt so many new skills including how to move his arms in order to swim, how to hold a pencil with less than 4 fingers, how to read, how to pedal properly, (this year he finally started going around in a full circle with the pedals), how to get himself dressed (top and bottoms, next year we’re going to work on buttons and socks), how to use cutlery correctly. The list goes on, he’s done amazingly well this year and all of the little things added together has meant he has made huge progress with his development of skills he was/is lacking in.

Our proudest moment this year was during the last week of school. J has only ever attended 3 parades/assemblies at school, they’re just too sensory overwhelming for him, so just imagine if you can how proud we were of him when during the last week of term not only did he attend the parade but he also got up on stage with the rest of his class to perform Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer AND sang the whole, entire song!………………WOW Definitely the biggest high of the year

As this year is coming to an end, I’m sad to say it’s ending as it began. The powers that be have decided that they can’t do anymore to fix Hubby’s back, nor can he go back to work until it is fixed. Unfortunately our circumstances mean that we’re pretty much being abandoned by Australia and so have to return home to the UK. It’s certainly not something we wanted to be doing but we’ve been left with no other option and so I will be offline for a little while whilst we get everything sorted, (there’s so much to do!). All we can do now is to try to enjoy one last Christmas in Australia, make the most of our time left here and plan for the future.

Well that’s it, the end of our year, here’s hoping next year will be filled with a few more highs and not so many lows.

All that’s left for me to say is MERRY CHRISTMAS and (I hope) HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy Christmas Everyone!

As for me, well I’m still not feeling all that Christmassy even though the big day is now only a week away!! So my Christmas list has taken some thinking about, I love shopping………………..for others, believe it or not for myself it’s a little harder. But here’s my list………………

1.  A Full Night’s Sleep!

A full uninterrupted 5 hrs sleep would be great

2. A New Alarm Clock

The one I have is pretty cute but he it keeps waking me up way too early and I think the radio is broken on it because it just keeps repeating itself “Mum wake up!” LOL

3. A Smile

A smile from my little monkey Christmas Morning would be great…………… another when he opens his pressies and tells me that we got him “the right thing” would be perfect

4. A Family Portrait

We have very few pictures of the 3 of us, in fact I think the last one was taken almost a year ago! Hubby and J both loathe shopping and so I have demanded asked for us to have a family portrait/photo done as my Christmas present from them.

5. An Espresso Machine

Just so that I can put my new coffee making skills into practice

See Mr Santa Claus I’m not really asking for much and I promise I’ve tried very hard to be good all year (and it’s been a very trying year)

In the spirit of Christmas (see I’m starting to get some now hehe) I’m going to share by tagging the following fab bloggers

Super Single Mum

Sabina at Mummy Matters

Fi at Wonderfully Wired

Gemma at Growing My Family Tree

]]> http://mumtoj.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/all-i-want-for-christmas-is/feed/ 4 mumtoj sleep zzzzzzzzzzzzz A new Alarm Clok A smile from a little monkey :) family-silhouette-clip-art Espresso Machine http://mumtoj.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/gadgets-i-cant-live-without/ http://mumtoj.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/gadgets-i-cant-live-without/#comments Wed, 14 Dec 2011 02:21:47 +0000 mumtoj http://mumtoj.wordpress.com/?p=2221 ]]> I was recently tagged in a Meme by my wonderful friend Supersinglemum.

As the title of this post suggests the idea is to list the gadgets I couldn’t live with out. I’m a big fan of gadgets, yes I’m a big kid but I love gadgets! So here’s a few that I can’t live without……..

1. My computer, do I really need to explain? Although I haven’t updated my blog too much over the past couple of weeks due to some huge things happening here at the moment, blogging has been a great release for me. I also use my computer to stay up to date with some friends and family members, living in a different timezone  is made much easier with the help of my computer. Skype is another thing that has proved invaluable, again using my computer to chat with a couple of close friends………… I even get to see and play peek a boo the Godson that I’ve never physically met with the help of my computer.

2. Ok I know it’s all about technology these days but seriously I don’t think I could live without J’s Ipad! He loves it and along with his Ipod Touch they help to entertain a very bored and sensory overloaded little boy on journeys, whether they be long or short! We also added lots of social apps, communication apps and ofcourse the usual educational apps. With J’s love of all things computer related the apps have really helped to encourage his development in some of the areas that he is lacking. He hates writing and has low muscle tone but is quite happy to spell and read words and even short stories on the Ipad for example, so both are very welcome additions to our family.

3. Finally the only other “gadget” that gets used lots in our house is my slow cooker. I love being able to just plop everything into one pot and leave it cooking whilst I busy myself with other “jobs” that need to get done and ofcourse it frees up alot of spare time which means I can give J my undivided attention and play!

Wow it’s December already, it’s crept up very quickly this year.  Like last year it just feels different and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

J isn’t a huge fan of Christmas, he loves to decorate the tree and to open his (and sometimes ours) presents and cards but that’s about it. He’s absolutely petrified of Santa and has put a complete ban on Santa visiting. He’s told us Santa is not allowed in the house and can leave his present at the door…………outside! He’s having to do lots of Christmas art at school which he isn’t enjoying, art is something he’s never really been a fan of, especially messy art and because he has to do it at school, it’s no longer fun at all for him. He won’t join us with our Christmas lunch, although he will still sit with us whilst he eats his usual cheese sandwich that has been cut into triangles. So you see he’s not really a huge fan of  the Christmas period.

There’s a huge difference in weather for us too. I know we celebrated last Christmas in Australia but we had so much rain and then of course the floods, for over a month now it’s been unbelievably hot and dry and well…………………. it just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. I think it’s because I’m so used to having a cold and frosty run up to Christmas. Despite the rain last year I felt pretty much the same, I even sat and watched a huge collection of Christmas movies and cartoons with J. I did this for 2 reasons, the first was to try to get him more enthusiastic about Christmas and the other reason was to try to help me feel more Christmassy. Did it work? No not really, but he did enjoy the movies

We’ve had abit of a bad run of luck this year too and have some pretty huge changes coming up right at the start of 2012. Maybe thinking of and working our way up to and through the really huge things going on at the moment is also contributing to my lack of Christmas spirit. We’ve even decorated our tree early this year, which was great fun but still didn’t get us all in the seasonal mood.

Yes, that is an Angry Bird on the top!

I just can’t put my finger on it but at the moment I just don’t feel all that Chrismassy, which is really unusual for me. I’m usually a big fan of Christmas, growing up my Nan always made Christmas a very special time of the year for me, of course it’s also this time of the year that I miss her the most. I miss spending my special time with her, taking her Christmas shopping etc. When think about it I guess I’m also missing some of my family and friends back home, I suppose it’s just that time of year.

I know it’s still a couple of weeks ’til Christmas but by this time I’m usually full of Christmas joy, I hope we can all get a little more Christmassy over the next couple of weeks and make this Christmas extra special for all of us but especially for J.

The sky was so beautiful last night it literally took my breath away

The whole sky seemed to glow red for a couple of minutes, just beautiful!

Linking up with Trish at My Little Drummer Boys

water bombs ready!

I was allowed 3.......J had the rest!

All that was left..........

A similar thing was done back in August, basically the idea is to take picture on this day, (and only this day), for this week’s Gallery.

I took this picture and although it may have seemed like an obvious choice for today, it’s something that means alot to me too.

Every year my Granddad would don his hat and medals etc and stand in the middle of town somewhere collecting money and selling poppies for the Poppy Appeal. And every year he and my Nan would pop some money in the collection tin and give us a poppy to wear as a sign of respect for all of those who had lost their lives in wars. Each and every year since my childhood I have bought a Poppy and worn it showing my respect for fallen soldiers, even J gets a poppy.

For me 11.11.11 won’t just be another Poppy Appeal, it will bring back some wonderful memories of my Granddad all dressed up, it makes me feel very proud thinking of him standing in town with his tray of poppies. So once again I am wearing my poppy as a sign of respect not just to soldiers and their families but also for my Granddad.

Why not pop over to Sticky Fingers to check out other Gallery posts

So…… All comments on the Mars Needs Moms DVD giveaway were numbered and then a winner drawn randomly.

I’ve just drawn a winner using a random number generator

and the winner is.........

and the lucky winner of this fab DVD was the person who made comment number 9…………………

Leila Matthews

Oct 29, 2011 @ 20:20:57 [Edit]