Another Falls Victim....

**  probably would advise against reading this if you are eating your lunch  **

Well it is the first week of school holidays here .....time for trips to the movies, adventures at the park, dvd nights filled with pizza and lollies, outings with friends....

But no....not here in our little part of the world.....

Instead we are one by one falling victim to the stomach bug from hell.....

When Friday of last week rolled around exhaustion took control of my brain and I offered the girls the chance to stay home for the day  (a very rare treat but considering Miss 14 was in Japan it was slight consolation !!)  Miss 15 and Miss 12 jumped at the chance...but as expected Miss 9 wanted to go to school.  

Hubby was working locally so he dropped her off much to my pleasure.  There was no morning rush to shower and be dressed.  It was lovely.

But around 11.00 am I had a call from school that Miss 9 had vomited and was in sick bay so could I kindly pick her up.  :-(

Well when I got there Miss 9 seemed perfectly fine, in fact she wanted to go back to class, not come home!!  But rather than be frowned upon I convinced her to come home and rest up. There were no more symptoms displayed by Miss 9....she had bounced back so we attributed it to a warm day and running around after eating.

Come Monday afternoon after an exhaustive day of shopping with Miss 15, Miss 12 and Miss 9 some thirty kilometres from home we picked up Miss 4 from preschool.  Before we could complete the five minute journey home she was complaining of the need to vomit.

Another hot day and busy playing at preschool she seemed to feel a bit better after we arrived home and she settled on the lounge.  But that all changed about half an hour later as the poor thing proceeded to vomit up the entire contents of her stomach and some.  The vomiting continued for a few hours until Miss 4 was utterly exhausted.  Thankfully she is proficient at vomiting into the container!

Then the battle to keep her fluid intake to small sips instead of huge guzzles began.  And sadly each time I was distracted and she got more drink in than I permitted it would come back out within 10 minutes. It was a long night that night as she was restless and tossed and turned all night.....and I was constantly on edge thinking there might be more vomiting.

The next day thankfully the vomiting had ended but Miss 4 was a pale shadow of herself.  Most of her day was spent dozing on the lounge.  A quick trip out to pick up Miss 15 and Miss 12 from their photography workshop felt like an eternity as Miss 4 cried the whole time because every sound was giving her a headache.

Thanks to the day of napping a late night was had.  Morning came and with it came my turn to fall victim to the bug.....great!!

Somehow I managed to get Miss 15 and Miss 12 to their workshop and returned home with Miss 9 and Miss 4 in tow.  I threw myself onto the lounge and that is pretty much where I stayed for the day wallowing in self pity!!  The house was trashed (well even more than usual), the girls had to fend for themselves (thankfully the fridge was well stocked) and a request from them for lunch nearly made me puke!  The best that I could do was to put some chicken nuggets in the oven, throw them onto a plate when they were cooked and seek refuge from the smell.

It took all the strength that I could summon to get everyone into the car to pick up the older girls. 

We made it home and I made it back to my position on the lounge.  I cold now entirely relate to how Miss 4 felt the previous day when she said noise was giving her a headache.  The sound of others breathing was enough to drive me insane....though luckily the moaning and groaning emanating from my mouth was like music to my ears oh and it served as a reminder to the others to stay away!!

Hubby arrived home after a 14 hour day at work to sheer disaster.  Mess as far as they eye could see, no dinner in sight, a list of things that needed to be prepared, found or organised for the next day....and he managed it all like a trooper.....even cleaning up the vomit from Miss 12 who became the latest victim.

Seriously that was one nasty stomach bug that likes to hang around for a more than 24 hours...just to make sure you don't forget it in a hurry!!!

Hopefully week two of the school holidays will be a bit more fun !!!

A Healthy Start.... and a giveaway!!

{sponsored post from Mums United and The Heart Foundation }

Being a busy mum of five girls I often feel that I should be doing more to promote a more active and a more healthy lifestyle in our home.....but where do you start?

Well recently I took part in a Mums United - Heart Foundation Challenge which was perfectly timed as the focus was on improving our family's health by making simple changes in our diet such as looking for Heart Foundation approved products.....and by increasing our exercise, starting with simple things like a walk around the block.

As part of the challenge we were sent some wonderful Heart Foundation approved recipes.  So I decided that that was the place to start.  You can check out the recipes for yourself at the Heart Foundation website by clicking here .

With a few family members popping around for a visit I decided that the banana cake from the website was the way to go.....here's the recipe....

At first I thought this would mean a quick trip to the shops but I was actually surprised that some of the ingredients right there in my fridge and pantry were already Heart Foundation tick products.....

So I was able to get straight to making the cake which was an easy to follow recipe.

When all the ingredients had been combined it was into the cake tin and into the oven.

The aroma of the cake cooking was torture....it smelt so good!  Time was up and the cake came out of the oven looking wonderful.

As soon as it had cooled I whipped up the icing and put it on the cake....just in time for our afternoon tea with the family.

The cake was devoured by all with high accolades received.  When I revealed to all that this was in fact a healthier version of banana cake the requests for the recipe were overwhelming !

So the cake was a hit and it was simple to make the changes to Heart Foundation tick products (though most for this recipe I already had!).....

Next I think I will pop over to the website for some dinner inspiration....check back next week and I'll share the results!!

But wait.....

Here's some good news.....thanks to Mums United and The Heart Foundation I have a 
$200 supermarket voucher to give away.....so now you too can go shopping for some Heart Foundation tick products....

Here's all you have to do to be in with a chance to win...

*  pop over and 'like' my Facebook page.....just click on the button on the top right of this blog
*  post a comment below on this blog and tell me which of the recipes from the Heart Foundation website tickles your fancy the most.....and why?
*  please include your email address in the post so we can contact you if you are the lucky winner
    


terms and conditions
-  competition closes  at midnight on Tuesday 8th October 2013
-  competition is open to Australian residents only
-  only one entry per household
-  we will be looking for original and creative answers
-  judges decision is final
-  winner will be announced here on the blog on Tuesday 15th October 2013


So pop on over to the Heart Foundation website, check out all of their wonderful recipes and remember to pop back here and complete your entry....feel free to share the competition with family and friends too...and good luck !!!!!

5 weeks in....

Well nearly every waking moment of this week was consumed with getting miss 14 packed and ready for her trip to Japan....and Wednesday night saw her depart safely....

It was a terrible week for food as the dining table was covered with clothes, suitcases, yen, toiletries....you name it it was probably on there somewhere.....

So meals were more of a rushed convenience type....ranging from toasted sandwiches to two minute noodles !!!

A check of my Lorna Jane app shows zero exercise this week.

Sunday's weigh in showed no loss....no gain....I had to be happy with that knowing that zero effort had been put in by me!

A busy life with 5 daughters and a hubby who works long hours is always going to throw these kinds of weeks at me....I have to work at being prepared or having a back up plan.....if I could cook up some of the meals and have them in the freezer for these situations it would be ideal...just to find the time to get this done!!!  And to find a back up plan for exercise when time is tight.....

School holidays are here....that makes me nervous as most of my exercise is currently being done walking to and from school.....  I'll have to see what I can do.....hoping I don't just lose it for the next two weeks...already disappointed with myself at how slowly I am progressing....well more realistically it would be that I am disappointed at how I can't stick with it 100%.....

4 weeks in...

This week I struggled a lot with the 'foreverness' of this whole thing.....

Whilst it is an 8 week challenge it is more than that....it has to become a way of life.... FOREVER!!

I felt like every day my head was consumed with thoughts of food from morning til night even though I had mapped out what I was going to eat the thoughts wouldn't go away !!!!!!!

I have downloaded the couch to 5K app and managed to complete day 1....it was a five minute warm up followed by 1 minute jogging, 1.5 minutes walking, 1 minute jogging, 1.5 minutes walking...repeated 6 times followed by a 5 minute cool down...but I kept walking to complete 5kms.  I found having the walk/jog broken down like this was achievable....but I need to be child free to get it done so only managed day 1...hoping to get back to it soon.

On top of that I only managed another 8 kms over the rest of the week.

Food was reasonable with even a few perfect days thrown in.

Come Sundays weigh in I knew once again that the figures wouldn't be great.  I managed a loss of 400 grams.....still it was a loss.

Til next week...

10 years......

Last post I was after ways to stop my flow of tears but today I am letting them flow freely.

Today marks ten years since my lovely nephew passed away....way too soon.

Today's tears flow for my nephew who is still so sorely missed.
Today's tears flow for my sister who despite her own personal tragedy is always there for everyone else.
Today's tears flow for my brother-in-law who lost his son, his best friend
Today's tears flow for my niece who lost her only sibling.

It is hard to believe that ten years have passed.  I can still remember so clearly the night that I received the fateful phone call telling me of the terrible accident.  I remember the urgency of knowing that I just had to get to the hospital.  There was no precedent to follow.  Our lives were on some sort of crazy auto pilot for the following days, weeks and months.

Time has passed but our hearts still ache.  But as my brother-in-law said today...it is a very say day but we have 21 years of wonderful memories to celebrate.

Rest in peace.......

Pass a tissue....damn just give me the whole box...

Lassie.......the lyrics of 'Lean on Me'......funerals......good report cards.....onions..... so what can all of these things possibly have in common?

The ability to reduce me to tears......

...and not the pretty kind of sweet tears....but the ugly kind of tears that result in red puffy eyes that take days to settle down, the ones that result in uncontrollable sounds emanating from your mouth.....the ones that leave you breathless, exhausted and sobbing through a massive headache!!

So tomorrow Miss 14 leaves for Japan....the first of our girls to travel overseas without mummy and daddy, the first of our girls to be away for more than a two night local camp with school....

And I am sure that I will turn into a blubbering mess at the point of farewell at the airport.....if not earlier ;-)

I've googled a few tips on how to hold back the tears.....here's a few gems from wikihow
http://www.wikihow.com/Stop-Yourself-from-Crying

1.  swallow saliva and bite your tongue
2.  blink a few times then look into the light...this will make the pupils constrict and keep the tears from falling
3.  Do a maths problem in your head...emotion comes from the right side of the brain.  Doing a simple addition and subtraction activates the left side of your brain and can circumvent the emotional response you're having 
4.  Puff up your cheeks and hold your breath
5.  Fake a yawn 
6.  Pinch yourself (but not enough to hurt yourself!) 

So please spare a thought for me tomorrow as I stand at the airport mentally calculating the sum of 3475 and 2954 whilst holding my breath and biting my tongue and at the same time yawning whilst blinking into the light after I pinch myself......

I'll let you know if it works.......

And yes...I have tears typing this.....!!!!!

3 weeks in....

So we are 3 weeks in to Shannan's 8 week challenge.....

And this week I increased my exercise which was huge for me...

On Tuesday I attempted a teeny tiny jog/walk and did 1km in 9.37 minutes.  I kept walking from there and ended up completing 5.70kms in 54.39 minutes.

Hugely impressed with myself I set out again on Wednesday walking 3.26km in the morning and 1.98km in the afternoon, Thursday I walked 2.93kms and Friday another 3.21kms so a grand total of 17.18kms over the 4 days.

I said no to the little....yet loud.....voice in my head telling me to each chocolate and drink coke...I succeeded most days but did consume 1 little freddo this time (improvement on last weeks big freddo!)....although I didn't follow the menu plan entirely because the fortnights grocery budget had run out I resorted to a plate of steamed veggies when hubby and the girls had sausages, where ever possible I had grilled chicken and salad.

I was thinking mid week that I was totally awesome !!!!

Then came Saturday and we were heading out so I popped on my jeans....well in actual fact it was more like struggled to put on my jeans....and at the moment I knew that there was no fabulous weight loss figure waiting for me on Sunday morning.

Sunday rolled around with a little sleep in...precious! Then I delayed getting out of bed for as long a possible with a hungry household...avoiding the inevitable weigh in.....

Finally I summoned up the courage and stood on the scales to see a 200gram loss.

Devastated was the first thing that came to mind.  I had got my butt out there walking nearly every day, I had attempted some of Shannan's exercises, I had completed a few sets of cardio and abs exercises from an app on my iphone and here I had a 200gram loss.

Usually that would have seen me down at Woolworths in a flash to stock up on a few family blocks of Cadbury.....but although the scales did not reflect what I had wanted them to in my head there was growth on my part because I didn't even think of taking a huge step backwards....I just felt more determined to get it even more right this week....

So late last night I trawled through the menu, made a few swaps and adjustments and made my shopping list.  I am off to the supermarket this afternoon to get everything I need for this week...I have posted in my diary for probably the second time in this challenge....and I will attempt to do so each day this week.

I even have my heart rate monitor packed in my bag to get a replacement battery tomorrow.

So I am typing this update now in an attempt to push myself a little further before I eat lunch...so that then I will hopefully survive the chaos of the afternoon and activities with the kids without hunger pains or temtpations !!

So here's to 110% this week......

A Tribute to Miss 4....

A little tribute to Miss 4 after one monster of a tantrum earlier this week.....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be asked to make sandwiches with vegemite and cheese cut into triangles which when delivered to you are met with squeals of disgust as what you really wanted was toast with vegemite and cheese, crusts cut off and each portion to be the exact same size square as the next....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be involved in a debate every single time we have to endure putting the harness of your car seat on....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer have to carry you, and your largest teddy bear, and your drink, and the groceries just because after repeatedly asking if you would walk at the shops to which you responded numerous times that you would walk you have adamantly refused to walk....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be asked to get you a drink of milk with milo which I stupidly stirred instead of shaking as per the silent request in your head....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be asked to get your blankie and put it on you while you watch tv, only to be met with tears when I apparently put it on the wrong way....seriously is there even a wrong way to a blanket?

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be told that your favourite food of  yesterday is now on your most hated foods of all times list.....

One day in the not too distant future I will no longer be asked to put your hair into a side pony tail, by which you actually meant two pony tails one on either side, and of course this has to be the day we are running late (well actually that is every day)....

One day in the not too distant future you will no longer want to unlock the flyscreen and the front door all by yourself with total disregard for the fact that you are about to break the key off in the lock and there is no alternate way into the house.....

One day I may look back at all of these things longingly....perhaps even with a tear in my eye at how much I miss them......

But for now.....little by little each day......you take a bit of my sanity, wring it and squash it, throw it down and slowly stomp it firmly into the ground.......aaah Miss 4 you are like no other !!


But I love you with my all my heart 

2 weeks in....

So we are 2 weeks in to Shannan's 8 week challenge.....

and I had a weight loss of 200 grams.....

Again I was not 100% on track with exercise and food.... but I did manage one huge breakthrough...no chocolate (except for that one large Freddo on Friday) and no coke...now I'm pretty sure that I won't be getting any special awards from Shannan for that but considering chocolate and coke were consumed on a daily basis I am happy with that progress.

I have completed one or two of Shannan's 8 week challenges in the past and have seen some positive results myself....but I have always only given it a half-hearted attempt (really more like one eighth hearted if that's possible!!)

I have either been slow to start and therefore always behind the pace from the get go...or I have been on track at the beginning then hit a bump in the road part way through and totally veer off course.

This challenge I have once again started off slowly but I am catching up and have actually completed some of the challenges set by Shannan...which is probably a good idea coz that is the whole point of doing this really....do what Shannan tells you to!!!

Today I kinda almost jogged a little...now you may recall that running is not my thing....so I was pretty impressed with my little attempt.... I walked/jogged 1 km in 9.37 mins and then combined that with Sunday's SS to complete 5 kms....so I walked the rest and ended up completing a total of 5.70 kms in 54.39 mins.

But wait there's more....when I got home I did a 10 minute cardio workout and a 5 minute ab workout on some app that one of my daughters downloaded onto my iphone.....I am now sooo exhausted and can hardly walk...which is a good thing because all I can think about now is food but am too exhausted to walk to the kitchen!!!

Last week I attempted to improve my planning.....that is still a work in progress but it is coming along.

Last week I was also supposed to pick up the pace with my exercise and whilst that didn't happen I am making steps in the right direction now.

Again there is still room for improvement but I am feeling good...oh and I forgot to mention that my HRM needs a new battery so I don't have a calorie count for anything but I'm guessing today was like a thousand calories burnt   ;-)

Now to stay good for the rest of the week !!

September with Dad Down under's 365 'challenge'

Recently Dad Down Under shared the monthly challenges that he is setting for himself over the 

next year and invited anyone to come along for the ride.  You can check out his challenge here...

http://daddownunder.com.au/2013/07/dad-down-under-365/

In need of some motivation to make some changes to my life I have decided to jump on board, possibly tweak the challenge here and there and drag the family along for the adventure!

The challenge for September is to exercise.....30 minutes of rigorous exercise 5 days a week.

Hmmm now this is a term I am not  familiar with so I had to turn to the dictionary for help ....

rigorous....extremely thorough, exhaustive

exercise...an activity requiring physical effort often carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness

Wow...put the two together and I am NOT liking the sounds of that !!!! 

But hey since I'm carrying a few extra kilos I'm pretty sure I need to get my butt moving...so once again I am jumping on board and taking the kids along for the journey....

My current exercise routine consists of walking to the fridge for chocolate.  Years ago I did join a gym but more for the use of their crèche facilities than their exercise equipment.  I have never played a sport...team or otherwise.  So this will be tough....coz I am already full of excuses!!

But luck would have it that Dad Down Under's month of exercise coincides with Shannan Ponton's 8 week challenge that I am doing which is now into week 3.  So far  I have been slow off the mark so now's time to get serious and 'harden up' as Shannan would say!

So in my days that are already full I am looking to find time to exercise  Organisation and preparation will be key....as well as a large amount of attitude change!!

One of my best options is to walk to school as many mornings as I can.  This will mean leaving home some thirty minutes earlier than when we drive so I need to have exercise gear ready the night before and I need to ensure we are all ready early to set off walking.

The girls were less than enthusiastic about this month's challenge ... they much preferred laying in bed reading (come to think of it so did I  !!) but they are on board and have decided to spend 30 minutes of an afternoon 3 days a week exercising with the help of wii dance.

I am also planning to put together a bit of a boot camp experience for Saturdays and Sundays where we can all get up to the park and set up a few stations eg push ups, sit ups, plank, jogging, etc.... that we rotate after 1 minute....this way we can get outdoors and all get involved together with no costs.....I haven't shared this wonderful news with the girls yet...surprises are good right!!?

So wish me luck and here we go.....