What I have learnt this past weekend....

You can lead a man to water, but you can't make him paint. Hi Honey! We are making snail pace progress on the painting. We can only really do it late at night when all the kids are in bed. After a long day at work for hubby, and a long day at home with the kids, neither of us want to paint. But it must be done!

I will say it again, and hopefully this is the last time... "The painting will be done by THIS weekend" Fingers crossed.

Pictures of houses on the net may appear larger, smaller, nicer or worse than they seem! We looked at a few houses, well ok, about 10 houses on the weekend and some of them looked very different to the photos. One house that seemed ok on the net was awful in real life. The photographer had obviously taken the photo from far away, giving the illusion the front area was larger than it was. This trick also aided in the viewer not being able to see the house as clearly.

Paint peeling off the boards, holes in the side, yuck.

Another house that did not seem that appealing in the photo was actually quite nice.

So, when house hunting, take the pics with a grain of salt.

Thanks to sites like realestate.com you can browse everywhere, and at any time in the comfort of your own home.

Then you can go looking with your list in the car. With 5 children, this is a huge help!



Children are smarter than you think. I say this often, but also need to remind myself a lot. Children are fantastic problem solvers. Team them together and they work together to get what they want.

Locked the back door so they can't go out there in the mud? Easy. One child will sneak out the front while another gets your attention. The others wait patiently at the back door, waiting for number one child, who has climbed over the side fence and gone to the back door to open it with the keys. This way, you won;t hear the clanking of the keys.

Unluckily for them I am quite experience in this area and could see what was going on, all without moving from my seat.

The other trick is the get down low and sneak quietly past mum and then two children will 'try' to open the pantry very quietly, boosting one to reach whatever goodies are on the top shelf. They learnt quickly that a chair makes too much noise getting it in front of the pantry.

Nope, I can hear you, out of the kitchen!!

Cherry tomatoes are different from grape tomatoes.

Foods that are wheat free can still contain gluten, and foods that are gluten free can still contain wheat! I am dairy and wheat free at the moment, to try and pinpoint bubs eczema. Do you realise that almost everything has either wheat, dairy or both in it?!
Again thanks to the Internet it is not as ad as it could be. Supermarkets have a pretty good variety which helps.
It doesn't help the cravings for bread, cakes, and CHOCOLATE though. But, for our children, we will do anything :)