Grace under pressure

What happens when you have 3 kids and you need to go to grocery...

they chuck a tantrum? wrong!
one poos and you need to clean them up. WRONG!!!!!!!!!
they start fighting and starts to cry!!!! wrong....

oh all that happend on other days but not today,..it is something NEW,....

we all go out blissfully and Jerome and Jorel in great fighting spirits because they had long afternoon naps... so the door shuts behind me and i did verify with Patrick if he has our house keys --- he loudly tells me yes!

I then follow down the stairs with my 2 year old hung on on my left hip....
Patrick forgets something and dashes back to the flat with our keys, comes back down seconds later to tell me the house key wont open our door,..

Heart starts to thump -- man are we gonna get locked out?!!!-- Only had one diaper, wipes and 3 bottles of milk for the boys in my bag,....

I then try it myself and realise, darn the knob wont open with the key - it clicks and turns but it won't open.. verdict the kids must have played with the door and they must have turned the button too far for locking and had done so we cant open the door without a key. The door opens with one key in my batch, the knob and the deadlock,..

So i come down to tell Pat....I was ticked alright! His darn solution is to be Tarzan and climb up the window and destroy the screen to go in,.. I was thinking more locksmith or find a person who can pick our lock... grace under pressure alright,.... we were near arguing but you know after 8 years we never ever get to boiling point now -- we get inis but not so much we ruin our day,..

Patrick the smart one remembered a key duplicate place in Blacktown - and $6 later we had duplicates... Walla! We go home and open our door,... we then ended going to grocery and to cap off our evening -- a massive storm hit as we took the kids in to the car! Talk about timing !

The kids loved the fast swift movement and pouring of rain on our windshield,.. and so thats all in days work in the YAP household !

Scrap with V

So glad to have stumbled into Scrap with V site and so priveleged to be a member of their design team.

The girls here are fab and so talented,.. some of the girls are getting published in Australian Scrapbook Magazines as we speak!

So visit this site soon and Vanessa (the sweet owner of the site) has ordered up a storm from the CHA 08 new releases,... so we are all raring to see that come into the site soon,....

I am excited to start designing and sharing ideas with all my fellow DTs.
Here is the link to the site: http://shopping.scrapwithv.com.au/

Little boy extreme!

Jerome Matthew turned 4 on the 4rth February,... He has improved heaps in the tantrum dept but we do have our days when CONTROL isnt a word I can enforce. Last Sunday we didnt make it to church bec of his little episode. Its something about doing anything he doenst want to and him reacting extreme about it. So we proceeded to the mall bec we were late for the mass service and as we left an hour later -- I had to carry him from the mall to the parking lot. Patrick cannot deal with this physically with his bad back of course -- so super mom had to cart him. He kicked and cried the whole process only for him to nap as soon as we got home...

He then woke up happily -- na parang nothing happened ha! And we decided to fulfill the promise we gave the kids to ride on the train. 'Simple pleasures' and the boys were so behaved when we got on Blacktown and arrrived in Parramatta. We let them play in a free playground in the mall and I hurriedly tried to catch Lincraft (darn it was closed already!). I then got Patricks cheapo pasta (from the pasta shop --- regularly 6.50 BUT was only $4 because they were closing)... I came back with Jorel and Jerome was still in the best of moods haaaay extremes I tell you ! We got back home again and he wanted to ask me if I had fun but really he wanted me to ask him that question......

I pray the LORD will let him mature especially in school. I was told the by his Teacher Mrs Wyzbee that he is so well behaved in school,..you can imagine how much I sigh with relief hearing that,...

Here's pic of him a little scrawny but so heavy... he eats the most compared to the 2 boys but doenst put on anyway weight - must be him being so active and energetic all the time....

Unsuccesful driving test

I failed my practical driving test in the last 3 minutes of the exam -- why? A sign that says 'road works at 40km -- man where is the road work oh my gosh!,.... its funny the instructor said sorry that I failed but she had no choice because its her job to follow the guidelines of the test.

I dont feel bad about the fail -- I know I did great and the instructor told me so -- but an overspeeding is an auto fail on the test,....

I feel bad because Patrick will have to readjust his sched to pick up the boys at 2:45 to be at school at 2:55 pm. Thank GOD he just works across our flat and the school is like 3 minutes drive only. I pack his lunch now for work so he can duck out at that time of the boy's dismissal time.

I have given Patrick a responsiblity that should be mine to take and this FAIL means 6 weeks no solo driving on my learners permit. DRATS! Its a setback alright but they say to fail is to teach one a lesson. My lesson is --- to not breathe normally till the testing officer says I passed. bwahahahahaah!

I wil try to rebook my driving test on the 17th March to an earlier date so I will call the RTA office weekly to check for cancellations. It is my hope that it will better news hey, next time round.

finally scrapping... here's my god daughter Raphaella's bday layout at one!

Isnt she lovely... such a sweet girl --- my goddaughter is making me clucky for a little girl now!

My god daugher Raphaella Ysabel turned one and I had made my first layout in months for her. Her mom Aileen loved it so I am thinking --- its must be good hey? I am so challenged by girly layouts I tell you.

I realised though - even if scrap styles are changing I am gonna stick to the same way I scrap --why because it makes me happy and I am not stressed by it all,.. this layout only took 40 minutes to finish.

Here are old friends who I have met some 15 years or so ago.. most of us are moms now,....

Here is Aileen and my best friend Catherine.The girls there are Aileen's daughtersAJ and Raffy and Catherine's Caitlin who is my god daughter too...

The DG (domestic goddess) survives first day of school

I was so lucky Patrick accompanied me to school with the 3 boys in tow,... Jacob on first day resisted and so the Principal helped me and she carried the boy in to the kinder room. Next stop was pre-school where Jerome couldnt wait to go into the classroom as I signed him in and got his name tag on him and we found his cubby hole to put his bag in. I gave them breaky of fried rice and thank goodness they ate. I have to replace the lunch meal cause I knew that they will not eat in school (true enough they only ate the biscuits I packed). There is a peanut allergy scare there in school so they are not allowed to bring peanut butter and even nutella which are my kids fave,... sad,... Jacob, I was told, cried at recess and at lunch time loooking for me,.... however Jerome was way fine,.. he didnt even show signs of separation anxiety, he was happy in his new environment.

The second day was harder though because I was alone this time round. I had to make the 2 older boys stand on the sidewalk while I hung their back packs (no yaya to carry it for them) and I took the Jorel off the car seat. I opted not to stroller and not to park at the back of the school but the pedestrian crossing stressed me so much. The passing cars where conscious of school zone but I really was frantic to get the kids crossed and with them walking hands clasped together. And we made it. I had this funny feeling people were looking at me as I carted off the 3 boys from pedestrian crossing into the school grounds. Something about '3 boys against one mother' they they must have found amusing. I will use the parking at the back by next week because it so close to the school property and even if they run off-- am confident no car will be around to give me a fright.....Jacob made the assembly line better yesterday but he had this face that said to me, 'mom dont leave me'. He carried along that worried look as he walked up the steps to the classroom however I was comforted he was good that day from teacher's feedback. Picking up wasn't too bad. I just can't park so good..

gosh its my test on Tues to convert my license, I pray i pass then my husband and I will have gone thru all rigors of migration into this country. After the license, we can breathe easy then.

Its a brand new week nest week. Good luck to me! whew!