Easter egg hunt

On Easter Sunday, the three girls were treated to an egg hunt in the yard at my in-laws place. The kids do love an egg hunt. Who doesn't? All that chocolate for a reward. Mmm... There was the usual mad rush around trying to get as many eggs as they could get their little hands on.

A little bit of comparing to see who did the best.

And then of course, proudly showing off the haul.

If you are wondering about this photo, these are empty capsules for Amelia's enzymes she has to take whenever she eats anything with fat in it. One part of having Cystic Fibrosis means that Amelia cannot digest fat which is why she must take these enzymes. Amelia has one capsule per 4-5 grams of fat. I saved most of the capsules for the day to see how many she had taken. I think we are about 5 short. She would normally have between 10 and 14 in a regular food day. Easter Sunday she had approximately 20 and most of that was for chocolate. After studying the nutritional information on Easter eggs so much now, it almost makes me feel bad about eating chocolate. Almost. :-)

Celebration Saturday Part 2

After our picnic in the park was over, we went for a short walk to the Chinese Gardens to explore. After living in and around Bendigo for most of our lives, we had never been to visit here before. Always the way though isn't it? We will have to try to visit some more attractions around the place. The kids love exploring.

There is the Chinese Museum there too but we didn't go in this time. The kids would like to go back again though. It houses the Dragons that are used in the Easter Fair parade.

 

I loved these paper cranes made from old catalogues.

And this guy looked really angry but I loved the texture of the carved stone.

We wandered back past the park and spotted these bats that are famous for being pests there. I couldn't believe how noisy they were. The girls thought they were cool but kind of creepy. I am glad we weren't any closer to them I must admit.

We walked up to the old Post Office building which now houses the tourist information centre for Bendigo. Inside there was this exhibition of dresses made from farming waste that is a feature of the Elmore Field Days (a farming show) every year. As you can imagine, Esther, Ellamay and Amelia all thought this was great. It reminded them of the dresses we saw at Floriade last year.

They were made of things like old bags, fencing wire, shell casings, weed matting, bird netting, electric fence tape and my favourite, the yellow dress made from plastic banana bags. I was annoyed when I got home because I realised that I didn't get a picture of the whole dress only the back lace detail. How cool are they though? To be made of rubbish but too look kind of pretty... not that you would really pick them to wear out to party but you know what I mean.

After all this exploring it seemed like a good time for ice cream so we packed up and went to McDonald's and had ice cream and a cuppa. The kids played on the play ground and we sat and relaxed. Then everyone had frozen cokes and more playing.

By the time we went home, everyone was worn out. What a day though! To me, it was perfect. Lots of fun, lots of time together and lots of treats. We don't know what the future will bring. Our plan is to always celebrate moments like this.

They will celebrate your abundant goodness

and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

Psalm 145:7

Celebration Saturday

I am finally posting about last Saturday's celebration day. If you missed the post from last week, we had Celebration Saturday because Amelia had results back from her specialist saying she is the healthiest she has ever been in her life! Perfect excuse to celebrate, don't you think?

We went to Bendigo and had a picnic in the park. It is such a beautiful park. We had our wedding photos there (almost 11 years ago) because the park has such beautiful trees and the autumn leaves are divine. There wasn't lots of leaves on the ground but they are starting to fall.

The kids had so much fun running around doing cart-wheels and flips and pretending to be super heroes.

We took bubble mixture and there was lots of bubble blowing. It was a perfect day for that. Quite breezy so the bubbles travelled all the way across the park and everyone looked to see where they were coming from.

Even Tim joined in :-)

I managed to take a couple of hundred photos of the day but the kids didn't stay still long enough to set up for a family photo that I could be in. I love this one of the 3 girls. They were playing trains and stopped long enough to pose for me. Little posers :-)

This is the cake I made for the day. I had grand plans of icing it with chocolate icing and decorating it with a little paper sun and making a little "HOORAY" banner for it. I ran out of time though. And you know what? It didn't matter. We stuck the sparklers in and the girls cheered and were just so excited that we were celebrating, stuff like the way the cake is decorated is so irrelevant. It took Tim using half a box of matches and some careful cake box placement to get those sparklers to light. When they were lit the girls started singing a song they made up as they went along about how great our family is and how happy we are. After all this time of stress and being unsure about how things were with Amelia, it felt so good just to forget all that and be excited about that day. That day. That time. Everything was well and happy and perfect.

Things will change in the future. We know that. But at the moment we are going to keep being excited about this time of great health.

I have another photo heavy post about our Celebration Saturday with the second half of our adventure so stay tuned :-)

Rough places smooth

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;

I will turn darkness into light before them

and make rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do;

I will not forsake them.

Isaiah 42:16

I found this verse the day we found out Amelia's cystic fibrosis diagnosis. I had not much idea of what CF was. I knew it wasn't good. This verse has helped me through the last 3 and a half years of Amelia's life. We have had our ups and our downs along the journey. We have worried and been scared. We have also had fun and gotten a huge amount of joy from having Amelia in our lives.

We went down to Melbourne last Thursday for Amelia's latest clinic visit with her team at the Big Building. It was an excellent visit. We had some results back at the start of this week showing that Amelia is absorbing her enzymes properly and after all this time she is the healthiest that she has ever been in her life. 

In. Her. Whole. Life. As you can imagine, we are pretty excited about this. It is a relief to know that for the moment, things are great. We don't know how long things will stay this way, but we are going to celebrate anyway. We are going to go out this weekend and do something together as a family. We are going to breathe in the fresh air and laugh and enjoy life. Who knows what will be in the future? But for right now, I am enjoying the fact that my family is healthy and happy. Life is good.

They cried out to the Lord in their trouble,

and he brought them out of their distress.

He stilled the storm to a whisper;

the waves of the sea were hushed.

They were glad when it grew calm,

and he guided them to their desired haven.

Psalm 107:28-30

I will be sure to share what we get up to on the weekend. I hope there will be lots of photo taking to remember this great occasion.

Button sorting on the pump

Even though I try to have really super fun activities for the kids to do while Amelia is on the pump in the afternoon, it is hard to come up with something new every day. Especially if it is getting late and I need to be getting tea ready and kids bathed and what not. Our afternoons and evenings are crazy trying to fit it all in. Anyway, fortunately for me, buttons are still fun.

They sort them into colours using their tea sets.

They like to pick out their favourite buttons and talk about what they would like to use it for.

And anything that keeps Amelia happy while she has her medicine can only be a good thing. Not that the little monkey will keep the mask on!



Stormy weather

What a week it's been! Lot's of stormy weather here and some drama thrown in for good measure!

Last Monday, Amelia was taken to hospital in an ambulance after complications from a bowel obstruction. I stayed in hospital with her for two nights. We made it home Wednesday night. She was put onto lots of medication to clear the blockages.

That is a very short explanation of our drama. Amelia is doing a lot better this week. She is having her moments but we are hopeful that she is really on her way to recovery now. It was a horrible thing to go through but now at least there is progress. People finally listened to me and we finally got some action.

I am very proud of my little family after this week. Amelia was a super brave girl. Esther and Ellamay were super brave girls too. And Tim was a wonder husband and dad (as usual). We survived a hospital admission for Amelia. We have been dreading it. She will have to have one eventually for a (CF) 'tune-up', which means having IV antibiotics. That will probably be a much longer admission. We did survive this one though. And at the moment - that's all that matters.

Aside from having to take all the medications that she is not use to, Amelia thought hospital was a bit of a holiday. We got to have tea parties and ride the tractor in the play room and go for a walk to the cafeteria to buy potato chips and apple juice.

We are so thankful for all the help people gave us and messages of support.

Echidna crafts

When I googled echidna crafts, there really wasn't much to pick from. Apparently, echidna's don't inspire crafts. That's okay. We will have to come up with a few of our own. For next year, I might broaden my search to include hedgehogs - which of course and not at all the same animal but with a few tweeks things could be adapted for our purposes :-)

Anyway, here is a paper plate echidna that Amelia and I made last week. It is a paper plate cut in half and then stapled together. We painted it brown and made a pointy nose from an egg carton and the spines from fringed paper. Amelia decided it needed a googly eye and also decided it needed a tail. Echidna's do not have long tails like this, but she thought it looked good so we went with that :-)

Another paper plate craft now. Esther came up with this one all by herself. She made a paper cone nose and stuck paper spines all around. Amelia wanted one too so Esther made the paper cone for her and she worked on the rest herself. I think maybe a little brown paint would've made a bit of difference. They look a little... creepy. But they are very proud of what they made and that they did it all by themselves. It was a late in the day - should be going to bed not crafting craft.

I made some paper cut outs of echidna's too, (which I don't have a photo of because for some reason it won't load up). I had the girls draw on them what they were thankful for and we strung them up on the wall at the end of the dining table. I will take them down and put them into my scrapbooks (at some stage) and we can see what the girls were thankful for this year. It would be a good way to record each year what we are thankful for.

Stick around for my echidna stitiching project...

Echidna Day

James the Echidna

On Saturday, we are going to celebrate our 3rd Echidna Day. It is our homemade celebration day to remember all the good stuff and a day to count our blessings. Here is the story.

The 16th October 2007 was a breezy spring day. Tim went off to work and I was home with Esther and Ellamay (three and a half at the time) and Amelia (five weeks old). I was talking to my mum on the phone about what the kids were up to and no doubt about how much sleep we were all getting. I looked out the kitchen window just in time to see an echidna come from the fence across the yard. I couldn't believe it! I told Mum and said I'd better go. I took Esther and Ellamay and we crept outside to investigate. (I should point out that yes we live in a rural area but it isn't common to have an echidna wander into our yard!)

We found it under the bush by the back door. It was so exciting. I had never seen an echidna before. And of course the girls thought it was amazing. It buried its head under the leaf litter and didn't move. We stayed back and watched. I rang wildlife rescue and they said they only move echidnas if they are in trouble. The echidna would leave when it was ready.

So we watched. The girls pretended to take photos with their shoe 'cameras'. Amelia slept through all the excitement. We came back inside to have our lunch with the promise of more echidna watching after. By the time lunch was over, the echidna was gone. We spent the rest of the day on a grand adventure in the back yard trying to find the echidna. Ellamay named it James "like on Top Gear" (one of Tim's favourite TV shows!)

On October 17th, again Tim went to work. After everyone was organised and Amelia was asleep again, we went out and checked for James. I had to come back inside when the phone rang. It was the doctor. "We have some results back from Amelia's heel prick test. I'm afraid it's not good news. She has Cystic Fibrosis."

Our world turned upside down with one phone call. The weeks after are a blur of medical appointments and grief. My mum suggested that perhaps God had sent that echidna the day before the news so that we would have something happy to think about during all the overwhelming worry and uncertainty.

So we choose to focus on Echidna Day. To get through a difficult anniversary.

This Echidna Day I am counting my blessings. I am so thankful for our little family. I am thankful we have made it through another year of joy and trials. We are blessed in so many ways.

This photo was taken a few days before Echidna Day.

I have a few Echidna Day activities to share. Come on back and see what we have been making. :-) Have a great day and I hope you will join with us and count your blessings too.

Bubbly Volcanoes

Amelia has a cough again. Back to pink medicine (antibiotics) and trying to get her doing more physio. The newest physio method we are trying to introduce is blowing bubbles. We have tried on and off for the last 12 months but she hasn't been interested. Tim tried it with her about a month ago and we called it Bubbly Volcanoes and suddenly it's fun. We are not calling it physio either which I think is helping.

We fill a 2 litre bottle almost half full of water, add dish drops and then put the tubing down into the bottom of the bottle. Then she blows bubbles. We tell her to make the bubbles come out like a volcano.

It is excellent for improving her lung function and helps her cough (which is a good thing - to help move the troublesome mucus).

Physio is an important part of treatment for Cystic Fibrosis. We try to encourage Amelia to be as active as possible. Running in our house is not banned. Tickle torture is a regular game. Jumping on beds happens often and the dancing and prancing around - that is inevitable in house full of little girls. One day soon, (maybe around Christmas time), we will get a trampoline. That will be fabulous physio!

The physio method we have used since Amelia's diagnosis at 5 weeks is called percussion's. We make a cup shape of our hand and firmly pat on Amelia's chest, sides and back as she is lying down. This takes 20 minutes. It helps loosen and move mucus, which is the most important thing. We have done this almost everyday (sometimes twice a day) since she was 5 weeks old.

The bubbly volcanoes will eventually replace this method. This will be much better for everyone. She will have to blow bubbles for 10-15 minutes at a time. That is some serious lung function!

Amelia on the pump

Amelia has to do this twice a day. It is part of her treatment for CF. She has a strong dose of saline solution in the pump (nebuliser) to help break up the mucus build up in her lungs and help her to cough. That is beneficial to her health. Not very fun though. Asking an almost 3 year old to stay still long enough to be on there is a stretch so we have to find fun stuff to entertain her.

I love buttons and turns out so do our kids! Amelia sorts them, stirs them, pours them and, much to my dismay, throws them. But it keeps her happy.

Until she gets sick of that mask on her face and then she pulls it off and that is pretty much the end of it. Amelia needs to be on the pump for between 5-10 minutes at a time and even though that doesn't seem long, she needs a lot of entertaining in that time.

Aside from button play, we do drawing with "Mummy's special pens", box constructions (which really just involves Amelia sticking heaps of sticky tape to random cereal and biscuit boxes) and of course, the glitter glue.

Last week we went to the big building (Royal Children's Hospital) again for Amelia's regular check up. It was our best visit ever, I think. The specialist said that we could take Amelia off the antibiotics she had been on for about 3 months (HOORAY) and that we can gradually take her off the pump. On top of that, Amelia's health generally is great at the moment and she has put on about a kilo in a couple of months. Winter has been a lot kinder to her this year.

I am playing catch up with house work (blerk) today and also trying to declutter our bedroom. Have a great day.

Glitter glue

At the entrance to the shopping centre I often go to is a Riot Art and Craft shop. I hate it. Mainly because I can't walk past it without going in for a look around. The other day I went in to see what was on offer and was completely overjoyed with my discovery.

This glitter glue was on sale for $2.99 a bottle, down from $9.99. GASP!

I already had these two which I had bought on sale a few months ago but not as cheap as $2.99. The reason this discovery was so exciting is because when Amelia has to go on the pump, we use glitter glue to entertain her. She can use it and make beautiful sparkly pictures and there is no water or paint that can be split on the carpet or worse still, the pump itself.

We were using these great packs (above) and some different cheap stuff (which didn't work very well) but it was a rather expensive exercise. Last winter, everywhere I went I was on the look out for glitter glue. We would often use a whole packet of glitter glue in one session on the pump so my supplies weren't lasting long.

Great timing for a bargain as Amelia is just starting back on her saline treatment again (finally) so we needed to stock up. So it's back to finding glitter all over the house, on clothes and all over the basin in the bathroom! Everyone needs a little bit of sparkle though, don't they?