Renovations Finally Starting

WE have been in our house for over 6 years and had up until recently had not done anything to the house. When we bought it, it was your standard "im a rental home" with walls needing paint, new but cheep carpet and lino throughout. The house really needed a facelift. recently Matt has found there is a handyman side to him after all and pulled out our old laundry ( our new laundry was converted to the corner of our deck) and he then went on to tile a new floor. The old laundry has been turned into a "study nook" for matt so I can reclaim back one of my bedrooms. I am happy to say that the study area has the computer in it and is just waiting for some shelves to be complete.

Unique little Man

I love this guy. He is such a strange and funny child and makes me laugh ( and scream! ) everyday. =

He definately has a unique way of dressing from towels on his head to complete weird outfits. then occasionally I am suprised with a "normal" outfit. I cant believe I only have him home for 1 more year before he goes to school

Adelaide road trip part 3 - Melbourne

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I always love going to Melbourne. I really miss not living there anymore so when we arrived in melbourne off the highway from Geelong I was very excited to see the city. Zack was too saying to me " look at all the shopping" ( big buildings). We stayed with Kelly in melbourne which was great. we definately miss not being around them, and it was great hanging out with them. Zack didnt remember auntie Kelly but he was So relaxed in there home and made himself at home very quickly. it was great watching him and Mia play together. Zack was SO facinated with Kelly stairs and spent a great deal of time playing on them

we didnt do a lot in melbourne. We drove around and had a look at our old house, and visited a few old favourite shops. And we went out for dinner with kelly and her lot and Andrew and Joanna ( no idea where it was though). It was actually a little sad leaving for the boat. we really didnt have enough time to hang with Kelly and the kids.

adelaide road trip part 2 - the Great Ocean Road

On our way to Melbourne from Adelaide we drove part of the Great Ocean Road. I would have liked to do the whole thing but the kids were cranky and we just wanted to get to melbourne. WE did visit the 12 apostles and other rocks around that area which I just loved. They just looked amazing and much better then any picture can capture. I would definately love to go back there again without kids or when they are a little older and spend more time walking around

ADelaide Road trip part 1

A few weeks ago matt and I and the two little boys took a last minute trip to ADelaide to buy a new car. It was zacks first plane ride so he was really excited and he was really good for the first leg of the flight. but from melbourne to Adelaide he pretty much sat on my legs a cried.(wont be taking him again in a hurry!) I had never been to Adelaide so I was excited to see it. WE were only planning a few hours there after we had the car but I figured I could see a little. I think by the time we had picked up our new car I was pretty happy that i had seen enough of ADelaide....it was much nicer in my imagination! However it was nice to see and the beach was lovely. We also got to visit haighs chocolate factory, unfortunately we did not buy enough chcocolate but we have learnt for next time!. we also got to have a quick visit with our sis inlaw Lisa and meet her beautiful little girl Isabelle and introduce Zack and sam to her as they had never met her before. It was great catching up as we hadnt seen her in about 5 years.unfortunately we were too busy catching up that i forgot to get a photo.

WE also had a quick drive by the Adelaide temple ( and ate our maccas in the carpark). before heading off in our new car to Mount Gambier where we were spending the night. Mount Gambier was pretty ordinary but we did love visiting the blue lake. I had never heard about it before until just before our trip but it was pretty cool.

My Grandpa

Back in Early June my Grandpa passed away. He had advanced dementia so while it was a sad day knowing he was no longer with us in any way , it was also nice to know he had been relieved from living in his dementia world. he No longer remembered us and that in itself was very hard to watch. Grandpas Funeral was a lovely day of catching up with family that I hadnt seen in a while...some a long time. especially all my Docking Cousins. He was So loved by his grandkids with all but 2 of his grandkids able to be there. It still doesnt seem real that he is no longer apart of this world. It was a lovely funeral ( as lovely as they can be) with much of the family taking part in both big and little ways.

Turning 3

Zack turned 3 back in April. It was the first birthday that he was really excited about. He didnt care about presents but he did care about his cake and going to higs breath ( which is something we do on each persons birthday in our family). Zack is obsessed with higs breath he is always asking to go and counting down until the next birthday. we didnt do a party but he had a great day at home and loved going to collect his cake from my mums sister who makes cakes for a living ( i didnt have it in me to make a cake this year). he chose Thomas and I was glad that she made it and not me. it looked fantastic and Zack was very pleased. He had an awesome time at Hogs breath being super excited the entire time. however after hogs breath we had both grandparents come up after for cake and he just crashed. Happy zack turned into grumpy zack , not even wanting to blow out his candles ( his big brothers had to help!). It was just too much for him! but he had a great day and he still talks about it 4 months later!

Sam's Blessing Day

Its been so long and some of these catch up post will be a little out of order as Sams blessing took place before his surgery..if I had blogged about it at the time I would have remembered if it was march or april :) But a photo memory of the day i do have of those who assisted in his blessing.

catching up again...april 16th 2012

OUr c Finding time to update the blog is so hard. Zack gets into everything so I cant take my eyes off him for a minute or who knows what he will be destroying...hopefully with all the kids home today they are keeping some sort of an eye on him. trying to catch up as this is sort of a family journal. April 16 2012 was one of the longest and scariest days of my life...sending my baby in for surgery. None of my kids have had surgery except Sam. This was his second ( his first was when he was 3 weeks old) but this was a biggie. He was having a pyleplasty on his left kidney. basically cutting the connection of the ureter to the kidney. cutting out the blocked bit and reattaching. It was meant to be 2-3 hours however is was more like 3-4 hours long. Iw as so worried that something might go wrong, he may not wake up or that they would botch his circumcison which he was having at the same time.. since none of my others have been circumcised I was quite stressed about it but his surgeon had insisted it was neccessary with his kidney problems. His surgery went well and then we started a very long 8 days in hospital. But as it is in Hobart there were certainly plenty of familier faces both staff and patients to help make the time go a little faster. Hwoever we were certainly relieved when his drain finally came out and we were allowed to go home. Thankfully since then he hasnt had any problems. His kidneys are still screwed but the surgery has hopefully stopped any further damage to the kidneys. were are still waiting to hear about his 3 month post surgery test results but I am hopeful that kidney function hasnt got any worse in that kidney..the right kidney who knows. that one is certainly harder to fix and may not be worth fixing since its already low functioning.

what a trooper

Sam had his monthly ultrasound last week and I was prepared for a 45 minute screaming match like his february scan. He really hated it so I was expecting the same. However this time he lay there and went to sleep with not a sound.

I have spent weeks trying to get a smile on camera. so far this is the best I can get

Beach Fun

The week before Sam was born we had some really hot weather ( for Tassie anyway). We arent really a beach family but we headed down to the beach a couple of times that week and enjoyed the water. I actually went swimming a couple of times which was the first time I had swam at a beach in 9 years! I loved it and now want to swim all the time.

trying to get a nice photo....

is never going to happen with 3 crazy boys who cant look at the camera at the same time, and smile without pulling faces....or zack who cant stop wearing that silly tea towel. I would love to get some photos of him with his lovely sun bleached blonde hair.

Back to School

The first day back to school was very easy and non stressful this year. It was nice going back to a school where the boys werent the "new" kids this year. They both found friends before they even got to their classes so they were very relaxed and I could have almost not been there. It was good though to meet their teachers. Since we are still newish to the school I dont really know many teachers yet so it was good to meet them. Ethan and Daniel were also excited to show off their new brother to their friends and new teachers. Sam was a real hit with everyone. After we dropped them off at school Zack was a little sad on the way home. But we ended up having a really nice quiet day at home. I am definately enjoying being back at school and having a little peace during the day with just the little boys at home.

Zack of course had to be in the yearly back to school photos this year. He has an obsession with wearing a tea towel on his head at the moment and so almost all photos he looks like that!

giving the "baby" a bath

Since Sam was in hospital for so long, which required me to be there pretty much all day everyday, the kids spent a lot of time at my parents house so Matt could also come into the hospital. While Zack was staying there one afternoon he asked aunty Erin if he could give the baby a bath. The baby which was Ariel. he is so facinated with bathing Sam and always has to get a chair to "help" me bath.

Samuel Murray Jury

A month ago yesterday we welcomed the last member of our family. Little Samuel Murray Jury on the 5th January 2012 at 9:13am via C-Section weighing 4080g. He was a big boy but not my biggest!. All our boys have family names as their middle names and he is named after my grandpa ( Docking). He came out looking very chubby but so gorgeous. It was by far the most relaxing of all my c-sections. The anethesist was awesome. I didnt even feel the spinal go in....his supervisor on the other hand was not so good and I felt every try he made of trying to get my canular in.....it only took 5 goes and left my hand very sore and bruised.

The boys were very excited to visit and meet their little brother....and very happy to have another boy and not a sister as it means the big boys will get their own rooms when we do some minor renovatng !

unfortunately on day 3 doctors decided that Sam had dropped too much weight. He dropped a third of his weight and was admitted to the special care unit to have a feeding tube inserted. Sam was tube fed and breast fed for 5 days. We then got weekend leave however on returning to the hospital on the monday he had lost more weight so he had to stay.

Sam was also born with a condition called Bilateral Hydronephrosis. Which essentially means water on the kidneys. through out my pregnancy we were monitored very closely not knowing when he may need to be born, and unsure what the outcome would be. we were given so many different scenarios of what may happen. Only 2-3 hours after he was born he had his first renal ultrasound. over the next 3 weeks he endured endless blood test, ultra sounds and invasive test to determine what kidney function and what damage he had. From the test we found out that he had grade 5 bladder reflux on his right kidney, and that kidney only has 25 % fuction, and the left kidney had whats called a PUJ obstruction in his ureter with 75% function in that kidney. The Damage in both kidneys is irreversable. His Surgeon decided from these test that he needed surgery to try stop any further damage to his "good" kidney and on January 25th he had surgery to place a stent in his ureter. this is a stop gap to allow him to grow a little before he has major surgery to repair the ureter in the next few months. That day was certainly not how i expected to be spending my wedding anniversary. Ive never had any of my kids go under a general so I was more then a little worried. Thankfully that Surgery has been successful and 2 days later he was FINALLY discharged from hospital with what felt like half a pharmacy as he has been on antibiotics since birth and will continue to be possibly for the rest of his life and he also has to take sodium ( which taste like liquid playdough).

a big birthday

back in october we got to celebrate my Grandpas 85th birthday. We had a special family party for him with all but 2 grandkids making it for the occasion. It was the first time in a long time that the family had all been together, and it was a lovely night to catch up especially with those that I dont get to see very often. And the kids got the opportunity to meet some of there second cousins for the first time and they had a great time playing. Grandpa has dementia and doesnt remember us now but he was very aware that everyone in the room that night loved him and that he had created a beautiful family.

2 weeks to go

only 2 more weeks to go until this little person arrives in our family. It has by far been the longest pregnancy ( im sure it has been more then 9 months!). I also had forgotten how hard it can be being pregnant with a toddler, and a high maitenance toddler at that.
It has been fun though trying to help Zack understand what is happening and setting up his little room so that we can fit a cot and a bed in there. Thankfully they wont be sharing for long as Zacks room is SO small, but for the first month or so they will. all I can say is bring on January 5th.

Our Weekend In Melbourne

I have fallen a little behind this year with the blogging. I just cant seem to find the time to sit down on the computer, So I am playing a little catch up at the moment.

Back in June I took the older 2 boys to melbourne for a couple of nights.It was their first trip back since we moved 4 1/2 years ago. When I first decided to do it it seemed like a fun adventure ( which is was) however very tiring as by the time we went I was well into my first trimester and very tired.

We stayed at Plum hotel and apartments in Southbank and got an awesome deal thanks to Auntie Leah who works there. The first full day we had there we went to the Aquarium which the boys just loved. I had never been myself and loved it also. after the Aquarium we headed to the outlets to do some shopping ( the boys were very keen to spend their hard earned money). the boys bought themselves all sorts of bits and pieces. For the sports mad Daniel the highlight of his day was riding the train with all the football fans on it heading to a game. they werent even Collingwood supporters but he got into the spirit of football chatting with the supporters.


The next day we headed off to the Zoo taking the tram ( I learned at the end of the day the train would have been easier!) The zoo was a lot of fun and Daniel had a huge facination with the apes. By the time we had walked around the zoo, had lunch and bought half the gift shop it was time to head back to the hotel to grab our bags and head to the airport home....or so we thought.


at the airport we found out that our flight had been cancelled ( thanks Tiger) and that due to the back log of flights that had been cancelled the previous week due to the ash cloud there were no flights on any airline for days. So off we went to a new hotel that tiger was putting us up in ( although yet to get my refund for that still). We stayed at the Mantra hotel in conjoined rooms. IT was probably the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. the cleanest , nicest bathroom, and nothing like a king bed all to myself , watching tv and eating chocolate. It was a nice relaxing night.



Thanks to Tiger we had an extra day and we got to spend the day with auntie Kelly and the cousins ( auntie kelly took them out of school for the day). it was so nice to just relax and let the kids play together as they dont get to do that very often.



That night after saying goodbye to our cousins we headed back into the city and down to port Melbourne to catch the boat home. I wish I could say i love the boat but I dont, especially when it is rough.

When we arrived in Devonport we caught about our billionth taxi to mcdonalds to wait for Matt and Zack to come and pick us up. We were all very tired and relieved when they arrived and eager to start the drive home.
It was a great weekend, although next time I think i will take matt with me if I am taking kids.

Our traditional photo at Ross Bridge. Matt makes us stop there every time we pass and take a photo. It was very wet and cold that day