Some Autumn sunshine......

On the first day of Autumn it was still over 30 degrees in the afternoon. It hasn't been a particularly hot summer, well not many days above the low 30's, but still lots of quite warm days.  The mornings are cooling down rapidly though so we are enjoying the last of the warm days before it's time to rug up.

We took the alpacas down to the nearby paddock for a Sunday afternoon munch on some grass and took the kids along for a play and to fill in the hour before dinner.  Astrid decided she wanted to scoot down to the paddock. She is getting better on her scooter...... we won't talk about her bike riding though!

Since I had the camera with me I thought I'd grab some quick shots of the kids playing in the sunshine and grass.  You can't beat the excitement of running around in long grass and the awesome late afternoon sunshine!  Astrid had a good run and jump and Soren was happy to play in the long grass with the keys.

It's a shame they had grotty clothes on, and the faces weren't all that clean. That's what they end up looking like by 4pm. We still ended up with a few cute pictures.  You can't have them looking perfect all the time! Anyone with kids knows they stay clean for about 2 minutes at a time.

I'm not sure how many more weeks we will have of Summer dresses and shorts and T-shirts.  Most likely the Winter woolies will be out for the Sunday afternoon walks before we know it!  

Sick little Søren at sixteen months........

There has been a definite lack of blog posting of late. In fact there has been a lack of most things getting done around the house.  Astrid has been going to preschool 5 days a fortnight for the past month, and I would have thought that would leave me with quite a few extra hours a week where I could get stuff done. Unfortunately, between getting Miss procrastinator ready for preschool each morning and the walk there and back (sometimes multiple times to retrieve forgotten hats), there isn't that much Astrid free time.  Master Søren has also been unwell for pretty much the whole last month....

Søren Augustus, proud owner of 6 teeth for the past several months, decided to go the whole hog and try and grow 8 more in one go!  I don't make good teethers it would appear. Astrid was always awful at teething and Søren has not improved on his sisters record.

Most of February was spent putting up with a cranky baby who spent most of the day miserable and crying. Søren is normally such a happy baby, and he has been plain miserable. His whole mouth and face are swollen, he has bleeding gums and he is justifiably annoyed at the world.  Life is tough at 16 months.

This is what a fair proportion of each day has looked like........

Not my usual happy little chappy.  With all the teeth coming through (slowly, so very, very slowly), we just hoped the teething misery would pass and things would go back to normal.  Aside from the all day misery, the nights were getting worse.  Screaming for hours on end and refusing to sleep anywhere other than on me.  Every day was more red cheeks, swollen gums and his little hand poking at his mouth.

A couple of weeks ago it was at the point of ridiculousness and I was sick of the non-stop screaming, non-sleeping and misery. Anto was away interstate for work and I think I spent the entire time he was away with a baby strapped to me in the ergo or laying on my chest sobbing. I took him to the doctor, just in case something else was wrong, and sure enough he had ear infections in both ears.  Some antibiotics, some better pain meds and things looked up for a few days.  He actually slept in his cot for at least a few hours a night (there might have been a whole night in there somewhere), and the days were better too. Some smiles, some playing and he even started talking again.

The teeth were obviously still bothering him, but it was more periods of unhappiness than the all out full scale misery of the past few weeks.  Of course Astrid picked those few days to come home from preschool with a nasty virus that made her truly miserable for about a week.  This is what an extremely over-tired and sick three year old looks like........

An Astrid ear infection and chest infection was the result. A whole heap of antibiotics later and some rest and she was on the mend within a week.  Of course the rest of us all went down with the same virus. After being happy for about 1.5 days Søren was again sick.  We had several days of him stuck to me like glue.  There were lots of very long walks in the pram or with the ergo so he could nap on me.

Apparently napping in your cot is not preferred when you are a sick Søren  At night the teeth and chest were bothering him and most nights he would wake screaming at some point and end up in the portacot sleeping next to us.

Come last Monday we knew Søren was very sick when he slept in (in the portacot, mind you) until almost 9am and then refused to do anything other than lay on me.  Lucky his big sister was also happy to give him big get well cuddles.

The rest of the morning was spent with a Søren sleeping on me until we could take him to yet another doctors appointment.  It seemed that poor Master Søren had also managed to get his sisters virus and another ear and chest infection.  More antibiotics and a big day of sleeping only on Mum......

Luckily big sister was visiting Grandma and Grandpa for the day, so I had plenty of time to sit on the couch or bed with a snoozing baby.  I got nothing done, but at least he was cute (and quiet!).  You know he is sick when he stops moving and stops eating.

Of course, one of the joys of parenting is that they give you all their germs.  It's inevitable when you get sneezed and coughed on all day, and given unlimited snotty kisses, that you end up sick.  Anto and I spent the whole week also very sick and looking after sick kids.  Astrid is now mostly better, but Søren is still not all that happy.  He is almost over the latest virus but the teeth are taking their sweet time.  All we can say is lucky they are cute!!!!  

Favourite Photo Friday - 6/3/15

I'm finally getting around to posting at least a couple of photos this week. The blog has been sadly neglected of late.  It's been a house of teething, illness, over-tiredness and general misery!  Very little has been getting done, let alone photo taking and blog postings....... I guess that is the reality of life with small children.

Between all the unhappiness we did have a nice play in the paddock with our alpacas last Sunday. It was the first day of Autumn and we were enjoying the 30 degree afternoon sunshine.  Here are a couple of my favourite pics from that afternoon.

Søren - happily playing in the long grass, 16 months old.

D7000 with Nikon 85mm f1.8
ISO 125 focal length 85mm

Exposure: 1/800 @ f2.2

Astrid - laying on the picnic rug enjoying the sunshine, 3 years 8 months old.

D7000 with Nikon 85mm f1.8
ISO 125 focal length 85mm

Exposure: 1/800 @ f2.2

I have plenty more still to edit, and a few more blog posts about what we have been up to the last few weeks.  We are off overseas on holidays in a couple of weeks so I will attempt to actually post some photos this coming week.  We've also promised a trip to the balloon festival to the kids, so if they are healthy (and weather dependent) I hope to have balloon photos soon too!