HOLIDAYS

Im going on holiday, im so excited im going back to the place i grew up, well the town i grew up in lol

through the work of God and the amazing generosity of my Parents then our holiday is going to happen.

Mum if your reading this we love you and we are so very very very very grateful for your help with all this and we will repay you plus interest as soon as we can. 

So now I have loads to do, loads and loads to do, heaps in fact lol got to get the suitcases ready and packed and the clothes washed and clean to go in them, get the boys stuff for the flight organized and plan everything that i need to including a lift to the airport and a pick up from the airport as well.

so must dash got far to much to do lol

Travel Plans

Well our Holiday is coming up fast we are supposed to fly out in  9 days time but as yet without return flights might have to postpone our trip and miss my sisters wedding which she and i would not be happy about. So I have to have all the family's clothes and stuff clean to go on holiday and hope we actually make it else there is no doubt going to be tears and heartache on both sides of the world. so im planning to go and we will find out Wed if we dont go as Wed is the latest we can call them to postpone the trip without losing the tickets all together.

i dont know if this makes sense but its doing my head in thinking about it im so fed up with not knowing and not having any options in front of me not having anything proactive i can do about it. We have nothing worth that much that we could sell to make up the shortfall even if we could sell it before we left. at least we have EJ's passport through now so if we do end up going that we can actually go arrrggh

Mummy Time = Training

Yesterday I decided to run the Race For Life which is organized by Cancer Research UK and is typically a female road race although men to participate. I am passionate about Research into Cancer as my Fathers Dad died following a long struggle with Cancer and I have lost friends to the disease as well and I do believe there is a cure out there for it or at least better treatments with less side effects than what is currently on the table.

I will be posting my sponsorship link here in case anyone who reads this blog wants to follow my training and sponsor me for the event, I already have 2 friends willing to do the event with me and a 3rd that is a possibility

Im going to train to run the event but depending on how my knees cope with the training ( first run is planned for tonight ) then i might end up walking the 5km with EJ in the wrap sling. 

There is more than one reason behind my desire to do the Race For Life, 1) I need and want to improve my overall health and fitness, 2) In memory of my Grandad and to raise funds for Cancer research worldwide. 3) caus its a challenge and im always up for a challenge

I do hope you will follow my progress and help with fundraising if you can afford to and I look forward to updating you all about how its going.

Lynni

Babywearing fun

Well today my new wrap sling arrived its a panel woven from  Victoria the sling lady who also trades on Facebook, I decided since EJ outgrew the soft structured carrier we had for him that we did need another option as i wasnt going to take a double pushchair on our holiday. The panel on the sling has Thomas the Tank Engine theme and Nate loves it too and I can carry him it  ( already tested a front carry with him ) its a bit harder to get the panel to display on a back carry but it is possible just a will take a bit of practic unless i use the standard rucksack carry which im not sure how long i could carry EJ for as hes quite heavy and i like having a waist support to help carry his weight.

Feeding time at the Zoo.....

Meal times in our house are always an adventure depending what we are eating the boys tend to eat almost the same as Mike and myself sometimes with minor modifications if we know they will just throw bits on the floor anyway. They are pretty hungry boys all around and eat well mostly with few exceptions as to what they will or wont eat. Nate by far is the more fussy of the 2 boys currently there was a time where he would eat anything but more recently he has been alot more picky and if i ever find the person who taught him the word " yucky" i will have a few choice words of my own to share!! 

We chose to do Baby Led Weaning with EJ mainly because i couldnt be bothered with making endless piles of puree for him and the more we looked into BLW the more it made sense, Basicly as I understand the concept then if a child's digestive tract is ready for food then its brain has learned how instruct the child to pick up chew and swallow food and to gag and spit out things to hard or big to swallow. so following that idea we allowed EJ to explore foods by giving them to him to hold from 5 1/2 months and he soon figured out how to get it into his mouth the chewing and swallowing bit came in time. we started with finger foods of cooked and raw vegetables and by 6 months we were giving him pasta spirals with sauce ( messy business at first ) and other pieces of our meals to try in large enough peices he couldnt fit into his mouth in one go but had to nibble the end or side of. He had his first Roast dinner shortly afterwards and gobbled it up, the chicken had a few trips in and out of the mouth till he had it chewed down to a point he could swallow it. From then we just stopped making food for him and gave him whatever we were eating , when we have curry then he gets peices of the meat and vege from the curry some rice  and some Naan bread on his tray and he picks it up and eats what he likes with his hands or we load spoons for him and either he takes the spoon from our hands or from the tray. When we eat pasta I do try to make sure we use penne or pasta peices rather than spagetti as it is easier for both boys to manage ( not had much luck teaching Nate how to twirl spagetti on his fork yet ) but they can cope with spagetti it just takes a bit longer for them to eat the meal. EJ has recently figured out how to take the food out of the bowl without upturning it onto the floor and waving it around his head so often gets a bowl of his own before this his dinner got put onto the tray.

so that brings me to tonight..

Well tonight i decided to get the camera out and film the boys dinner time or part of it anyway , mostly to show off how well EJ is doing with BLW, of course Nate wanted to be part of the action so he has his own staring moments

FYI. The meal is Potato&Pumpkin Mash with Carrots caus i managed to trick them into eating Brocolli with their chicken nuggets at lunchtime and they have had fruit as well today to make up their 5 a day.

Please excuse the mess my house appears to be in its not that bad normally lol

Work from " Lynni's Design"

Hat made for friends lil girl 9-12month size

Earflap Hat for friends little boy 12-18month size

Baby girl booties for a friend 6month+ size

So what was I doing prior to Christmas? I was knitting lol, making presents this time around as I had been gifted some nice wool very kindly by friends and had plenty of time on my hands since moving and getting rid of the TV. I looked at patterns online for inspiration but altered and adjusted them to suit what I wanted so my work is unique and free from copyright so I can repoduce these for sale if people are interested, i'll have to find a good wool source as the boys hat is knitted from materials i salvaged from another hat and ive run out of the feather yarn for the girls hat but have plenty of other colours in acrrylic yarn i would have to buy in 100% but a good Baby A-yarn is just as soft and wearable imo.

Natural Housewife

Hi all

it would seem Im turning totally green mama , lol with Breastfeeding, baby wearing, and cloth diapering to name a few lol, my poor kids have had to put up with Mummy being odd and strange and live through my mistakes and mess ups as ive learned things and changed the way ive done things.
i hope to post more about it soon but got to attend to my lovely wonderful kids for a bit now.. Ciao

Trusting.....

Ok , I got to hold my hands up and admit defeat here.. theres nothing else that I can really do right now I have tried all the options open to me under my own steam so now ive got to let God do the work and guide me as to what is the right thing to do as personally i dont have any bright ideas left anymore.

So whats happening i hear you ask...? Everything and nothing all at once ( to coin a phrase ) we are booked and ticketed to go to NZ for my sisters wedding and then to Australia to live with my parents while we save up for our own place and pay things off. Problem being that Mike feels a Call to be here ( we dont know when hes supposed to be here but definately seems to be the UK hes supposed to be in ) anyway with that being the case then we dont quite understand why God provided a way for us to get flights halfway round the world but not back again. We are struggling to understand why the providence doesnt seem to be there for getting my UK citizenship sorted out and all the other paperwork/documents that need sorting so we can even leave the UK to start with? so its a live by faith moment , putting our trust in that God will provide our needs and lead us in his paths whatever that may be

updating

im really bad at keeping up with this , im so sorry lol
NEways , EJ was born 26/03/2010 at 6.58am, safe and happy and hes now a bubbling moving  teething weaning 7month old.
 its kinda hard ot get my head around how year has gone with everything happening, check out the Odendaal Blog for updates on the family now i'll just probably use this one for stuff about me

News update

Hi again,
Been to the hospital today for my second scan its called the Anomoly scan and they basicly check that the baby is growing well and is healthy and all the organs are there are look ok. Baby wasnt co-operating today though so we dont know if we are having a boy or girl  so a surprise bump for us unless we get another scan later ( not normally given another one ) or pay for a scan at some point.
Nate wasnt being very good sitting still while the lady was measuring the baby but the baby wasnt being helpful and letting her get good pictures either to do the measurements from.
Nate is walking around alot now which is great hes doing well and im proud of him
I have been trialing Eco-disposables on him for the last few days and found a brand I like but now need to find a place to buy them and hope they arent alot more expensive than normal disposables although i could get them for nights and going out and go back to using cloth nappies in the day it would just mean i have to be more organized.
thats all for now folks,

Wow what a change

Well time has really gone on, Im still Happily married and now Mum to one darling 16month old boy and pregnant with our second child due in March 2010,
I still havent made it back to NZ for a holiday in the 4+years ive been in the UK now however my Mother did come over here in June 08 when my DS( darling son ) was due, I stopped working as a Nanny/Au-pair and trained as a Driving Instructor just to fall at the last hurlde with the exam on teaching ability so never gained my qualifications I did get 7 months work on a Training license which was helpful as my husband had to take the timee off work to study for his final year of Uni and to care for our DS who was just very young at the time.
Currently I have no plans to find work as it would cost us more for childcare in this part of London than what i could earn on even a higher than basic rate salary. I have had thoughts about training again in something else following the arrival of this child perhaps as a Doula ( mother support for labour and birth ) or even start my own Cake making and Decorating business as the trend here in the UK seems to be to buy cakes rather than make your own when a loved one has someting to celebrate.

My friends back home are keeping in touch better now we have internet at home ( not a new thing ) and since the worldwide popularity of Facebook then there are plenty of of ways too keep up on the news so i have found out about several marriages and children born to friends that 15 years ago i wouldnt know about as none of my family passed on the message. I have a wonderful new second cousin on my dad's side of the family who im dying to meet and will be becoming and Aunt for the first time hopefully about 6wks after becoming a Mum for the second time as my older sister is expecting her first child 6wks after me.

Married

Well time has ticked by and I am a married woman now :O scary i know it has taken awhile to get used to it but with it nearly having been 2 weeks now it is getting more normal. its easier to wear my engagement ring now caus my wedding ring keeps it on my finger lol.

I am trying to organise a party for couples and another for singles between now and summer so we get to see our friends agian but it isnt working as well as I had hoped it would so i guess we will end up having to have people over in groups of 4-5 at a time to make it happen.
I also am working on the budget and things so we get a decent amount of good food around so we are buying less and less takeaways over the next few months.
mike has gotten the xbox through the post now and he is always playing every chance he can im happy though that he didnt manage to get in any time with it this morning so we got to spend some time together since we both have been rather busy this week and have found it hard to get quality face to face time with each other around work and uni etc.....

thats all for now but i should mangage to get this updated more often now lol

Wedding 19 days away

Omg i cannot believe that its only 19 days till the wedding and i still have so much to do with everything , I am not sure if I will make it to Half term club this week just because i need to get the stuff done for the wedding. anway no time to keep blabbing i have to get stuff done before Mike gets home,

i'm 21 and the COA is here

Well Ive been 21 for 3 days now and its the day of the night of my birthday party and although i have to go to work this afternoon then it all should be great fun tonight as we are going to the only Kiwi/New Zealand resturant in the UK and then going out clubbing afterwards.

We are trying to get the wedding stuff planned too as the Certificate of approval has been returned to us along with our passports and we have set a date, so by the evening of the 10th of March i will no longer be called Miss but instead Mrs and will have broken the hearts of several of my male friends and aquaintences lol

anyway gotta go there is alot to do today

Lynette

Bored

I dont wanna go to work :( It looks like its gonna rain the min I step outside and I dont like it when it does that strangely enough.
I have to drive Laetitia to her play rehersal tonight and then take the car back to their house so Jane can go pick her up when she is done, I am broke till after work tonight when I get paid cause there have been expenses this week like a phone extention line caus we altered the configaration of the room so the bed is tucked away in the corner and we have room to get a drop leaf table and some dinning chairs so we arent eating christmas dinner off our knees agian this year. That is unless we get invited over to someone's house for Christmas but that would need someone to take enough notice of us to remember that we are without family in this country.
I have to get the bank cheque done on monday and send it to NZ via registered post so it gets there for my family and I will package it with the cards and the ginger thins.

Anyway I best get dressed and ready for work now.

Lynni