Now I know my ABC's next time won't you sing with me

Noah is currently really fascinated by learning the ABC song and walks around the house singing it on and off for most of the day.

What he doesn't know about all those letters are that the most important ones are I, V and F.  Those 3 letters represent everything to us right now.  Without them we wouldn't have this precious boy that fills our heart daily with so much love and laughter.  We never forget how lucky we are to have him.  A generation ago we would never have had the opportunity to be parents - we would have been declared infertile and had to live with that.

It's not that we wouldn't have been fine just the husband and I but we are so much more as a family.  Noah has given us more joy and happiness than we could ever have imagined.

Now IVF has again given us a chance. A chance to give Noah a sibling.  We desperately want to be parents again but it's almost more important to us for Noah.  As we watch him interact with his friends and love them deeply it mean so much to us that he has a brother or sister to share that special bond with.   He is already so excited about the baby in mummies tummy.   We are just hoping and praying that those other 3 letters HCG are on our side.

Saturdays blood results were inconclusive so we are still waiting waiting and hoping our scan on Friday will have some more definite answers.

Hot Cross Buns, Hot Cross Buns,

One half penny

Two half pennies

Hot cross buns.

If you have no daughters

give them to your sons

One half penny

Two half pennies

Hot cross buns

This is the one and only song I ever learnt to play on the recorder and I think it is the same tune as Three Blind Mice so technically I know 2 songs.  Is the recorder even a real instrument?? I've never heard of a person who 'plays' the recorder.  I'm sure it is just an instrument of torture created by school teachers to punish parents.

I can never think about HXB and not remember this song and that damn recorder.

I have drawn the winners of the $5 Bakers Delight Vouchers - there were 20 lovely commenters over the week so all their names went in a hat (we do it the old fashioned way around here no random number generators).  Noah drew them out amidst cries of "What we do now mummy?'

The winners are - Chantelle from Fat Mum Slim

                            Kellie from Three Li'l Princesses

                            Tara from Our Whirlwind Adventures

                            Sandra and Willo

I'll be in touch to get mailing addresses and get your vouchers to you asap.

Thanks everyone and keep an eye out tomorrow for a decadent recipe to use up left over HXB's ( not that there would ever be any left over surely!!)

A Little Bit of Easter

We have finally made a very small start on our Easter activities.  Noah is so excited this year because he knows we're having an Easter Party.  I want to make it really fun for him so we have lots of things planned including hatching chicks in our home.  I'm rolling Easter and a few farm activities all in together to try and give Easter some meaning for him besides chocolate (more on that another day).  We are even going on a farm stay the weekend before Easter.

Today we started preparing some of our decorations and look at our beautiful Easter 'tree'.

We also made this really easy paper chain which you can buy from Target - all the strips already have a sticky end so it is a super easy no mess (no stapler) craft.  It was only $2 for a pack with enough for a 40 link chain too so you gotta love that.

Four

A quartet, a foursome...


The word four has four letters. In the English language there is no other number whose number of letters is equal to its value.


The number four on a calculator is made up of four light bars.


Many things are arranged in fours. There are four suits in a deck of cards, four points of the compass, and four phases of the moon. There are four wings on a bee and four leaves on a clover, if you are lucky.


The four seasons are spring, summer, autumn and winter. 


A tetrahedron is a kind of pyramid with four triangular faces. It also has four corners. *

Best of all 4 years is how long I have been married.  

Today is my wedding anniversary (and my husband's too - fancy that!)  Yes I know it is April Fools Day - we thought it was fitting after our false start the previous year when we had to cancel 5 weeks out from the big day.

We have been together for 9 years all up and it has been a wonderful adventure.  We have had many ups and definitely our fair share of downs too but we have stuck it out and we're still very much in love.  He makes me laugh every day (sometimes with and sometimes at) and that is really all I need.

* This information shamelessly stolen from HERE.
** The idea for this post even more shamelessly stolen from the amazing and clever Mrs Woog

HCG Update

All the twin speculation is over - we had a scan today and can categorically tell you there is not two babies in there.

Unfortunately that is about all we know for sure right now.  After such wonderful HCG levels so far, yesterday's blood test caused some concern with only a very small rise in the 4 days since our last test.  The clinic was understandably concerned and thus the ultrasound this morning.

The scan showed a bleed in my uterus which also happened with our pregnancy which gave us Noah so in itself may not be too terrible.  The scan also showed one good size egg sack albeit sitting lower than is optimum.  It's too early for a foetal heartbeat so it's impossible for them to determine if the sac they can see is still a viable pregnancy.  Blood tests will provide better information so we have another one on Saturday morning and then another scan in a week.

All we can do now is hope and pray and take it one day at a time.  It has always been the limbo that is the hardest part of IVF.  We are back in a holding pattern - the initial excitement replaced with worry and fear but we will certainly be trying to be optimistic.



P.S.  Sorry for the lack of light and fluffy Easter posts promised but I'm sure you understand.  I will still be drawing the winners of the hot cross buns from all the peeps who commented over the week.  Last comments that can be included will be Saturday April 2nd at midnight (WST)

Where do you draw the line??

I am not a budget food shopper.  I didn't grow up in a budget home.  We always had lots of nice food and nothing was really out of bounds.

I am not a loyal shopper - I flirt with them all making no commitments to one favourite supermarket. I shop at IGA sometimes even though I know it is more expensive but hey it is open 7 days 12 hours a day and it's convenient.

If I'm shopping and an item we need is on special I may buy extra and 'stock up' but that's about as far as it goes.

When I was in primary school I had a friend whose mum would read all the catalogues and make shopping lists for every store based on what was on special in each one.  I admired her dedication but even back then at the ripe old age of 12 it seemed to me to be a false economy.  All that time and effort to save a few dollars overall.

I knew another woman who would take a small paring knife shopping with her and actually cut the ends off the beans so she didn't pay for any weight she didn't need.

I remember my mum telling me stories about my Nanna coveting stone fruit but not buying it because it was too expensive.  It's a scenario I simply cannot imagine but today when I went to buy 2 largish bananas and it was going to cost  $6 - I had to draw the line.  I'm sure I've paid as much before - probably the last time there was a banana shortage - but it would have been hidden in a larger grocery bill. Seeing it broken down like that was just too confronting.  On an average day Noah eats 2 bananas sometimes 3 - that's a minimum $42 a week banana habit.

Are you a budget shopper?  Are you a disciple of the catalogues and specials?  Have you bought any bananas lately??