It's catch up time with our Aussie Day party!

I hate January. It always goes by so quickly and is so very, very hectic in the Kulhan household with the business taking front and centre with tax reporting stuff and deadline stuff etc. I am absolutely disappointed that my birthday falls in January because I feel that I don't have a lot of time to enjoy it and that it is so soon after Christmas and New Year.

Anyway, the reason that I am blogging now is that I finally am having a chance to do so as I am almost (and I mean almost) caught up with everything and breathe again.

It has been a horrible couple of months healthwise. Syd has been sick several times - seriously twice - and Kendall - seriously once - so it has been rough. The Dr thinks that Syd may develop asthma as she seems to tbe the one that gets sick first and hard too.

Anyway, back to being caught up. So now I have a huge amount of piccies and things to post about and I don't know exactly where to start so I will start with the Australia Day party that we hosted yesterday.

So here is the low-down...

Now you may be asking - Is this the first Australia Day party that we've held since we've been in the USA? That's correct and the reason is because in Vegas, our house was too small to hold a party just inside. And Vegas in January means being inside for any festivities as the weather is not exactly pleasant (or predictable!). Also we never had any room for a jumpy castle to amuse the kids (in summer we had the pool for the kiddoes to play in but winter? Nothing...)

So, in this house we have the room for a jumpy castle and of course, the weather is splendiferous in winter and it is so easy to have the doors and windows open with the kiddoes running around in and out.

So I spent three days (in between work and kids) baking Anzac bikkies, Chocolate crackles, lamingtons, butterfly cakes and sausage rolls for 30 people. I was a little stressed but in the end I was really pleased how it all turned out. Oh and everyone loved the food except for the samples of vegemite that I gave. One friend referred to it as "burnt dirt"! Oh well, to each their own.

So here are some pics...

Here is some quick piccies of the banner and stuff that I bought and hung up. UNfortunately I didn't take them during the day so they're a little dark - sorry!

My first batch of lamingtons. So time consuming but oh, so tasty!

 The finished look - with mini Aussie flags and all...

 Now I did try and get a full pic of the tablescape but the kids kept running in and out and grabbing at the food and for some reason I couldn't get a good pic (see the blonde hair at the bottom? She already had her plate half full and we had to beg her to put her selection back so we could take these pics!)

 The butterfly cakes and the Anzac bikkies to take home. I also bought some Aussie lollies for the kids to try (minties, redskins, milk bottles, pineapples, clinkers). Everything went except for the redskins - they couldn't quite understand how to eat them.

 Had to get the green and gold in!

 Some of the sausage rolls. I'm kinda glad that there weren't any Aussies here as I'm still perfecting my recipe. I think I'm going to have to grind the pork as the sausage mince is very salty and that puts the mix off right from the get-go. But they were still tasty - just not the same tastiness that the local bakeries manage to attain back home everyday. We did think about doing meat pies but again, so labor intensive with the facilities (think a two-pie maker) that we have.

  We served sausage sangas but again the sausages weren't the right ones but the onions were cooked just right! See the vegemite tubes I handed out to the guests? I cannot believe that only two littlies and two adults appreciate the black gold that Aussie kids grow up on!

 A pasta salad and some stewed beef on rolls rounded out the savoury portion of the meal. See the Aussie BBQ sauce next to the crockpot? Well the sauce got rave reviews and was all gone by the end of the night. Lucky I bought 3 bottles!

 The backyard with the jumpy castle after the meal.

 That's Storm in the blue shirt/white shorts following Amber (out new editor) into the house. Amy (red hair on the couch) is leaving to move to Austin the same month that we are leaving here so we're thinking about having a combined good-bye party - jumpy castle and all!

 The girls wearing their Aussie shirts. (Syd did not want to pose)

 Yes, that's me on the jumpy castle. I had to do it. It was so much fun! (Mind you I am soooo suffering right now. My back, knees and neck are hurting not to mention the head bash that Kendall and I shared - that didn't seem to bother her at all!).

Both girls had a blast playing on this. They couldn't stop giggling and enjoyed falling over and playing and jumping and generally enjoying being jostled around by the big kids. Kendall cried when we took her off it.

 A couple of mummy's - Lydia (holding the beer) would have been our neighbour had we built on the block of land. However, we may not have been friends considering that she extended onto her house so that she would have a much better view of the bay and if we had have built what we wanted to build, our house would have blocked her view completely. She says we would have thrown down over it. Oh well, at least we don't have to worry about that now.

 Rudy had a blast. Both Rudy and Oscar got a fair deal of attention from everyone which was so nice. There was one child who had a very bad experience when she was one (she's now two) and was terribly frightened of the dogs though. Our dogs didn't even pay attention to her but all they had to do was walk by her and she was practically hysterical with fear! I have often said that I'm glad that we brought the girls up around large dogs as teaching them to be aware that not all dogs are friendly will be easier than trying to teach them to overcome a fear of dogs.

 Here's Syd jumping on the castle all by herself. Having a blast.....

Storm playing with some of the kiddoes.

 Kendall before telling me that she doesn't want to get out.

I'm so happy that we had the party. It was such a beautiful day and we all had a such a great time. I wish that we could have had everyone here with us to share in the day but obviously that's just not possible. I look forward to next year's as in the new house we're going to have enough indoor space to hold a killer party!

Quick update

So, so, very sorry about my lack of updates on here. I still have so many photos to post but am so missing the time to do it.

Anyway, a major reason that I don't have time right now is that the girls have contracted RSV - Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

They came down with a cold (which is basically what RSV is) just before Christmas. Christmas Eve was a shocker with Sydney being unable to breathe well and waking up at 2.30am with a temp of 103 (which quickly came down to 100 with meds and the removal of clothing). She spent the night with us and wasn't exactly tripping the light fantastic the next morning but she seemed happy but tired. She fell asleep in my arms that day (several times) and went to bed early that night.

Christmas night brought Kendall into our bed with an elevated temp and general demeanor that wasn't her. She tossed and turned so much that night that I stayed awake trying to keep her from doing her (and us) harm on the bedhead and also on us. She didn't sleep well and also fell asleep in my arms the next day on a couple of differnt occassions.

Boxing day was spent inside with the girls seemingly happier. We bought a new humidifier but both girls were still coughing and having periodic wheezes.  One of the biggest issue is the snotty noses as they are driving everyone insane right now and basically Kendall is refusing to let anyone near her nose except for a blow every now and again.

Last night both girls woke up but I managed to get them both back to sleep again. Sotmr and I managed to get some sleep too which was nice. They also slept 2 1/2 hours today which they haven't done in a week or so.

I just thank our lucky stars that we were able to get the girls into the Dr today. Both were seen and tested positive for RSV. We have nebulizers and after a rather tedious time at the pharmacy (not the most efficient place to get your prescriptions filled and then I was going to be charged $235 per child for only one out of the three medicines that they needed). Fingers crossed we should be on the path to recovery soon.

It won't be smooth sailing though as we have a small issue with the nebulizer. It scares the living daylights out of the girls (especially Syd) and it killed me to have to force them to have the mask on their face. Syd had such a look of betrayal in her eyes when she looked at me once Storm let her go. I am trying to lessen the scaredy-ness of the mask though by explaining that the medicine is called elephant medicine (you know the mask is the trunk) and that we'll watch Elmo while we dispense the special medicine.

I hope this all works and these girls feel better soon. We're off on a plane next week and they need to be able to enjoy it. I want my girls back.

Will keep you posted. (Could probably do some posting as I'm up anyway - never sleep much or deeply when the girls are unwell).

In by the hair of my chinny chin chin...

Yes, we're off tomorrow on our next mini-vacay. We're all excited as it's finally cooler and we're going to see Christmas-sey stuff and events. Yes, 6.30pm tomorrow night is the Christmas parade with the Big Guy pulling up the rear before the 30 foot tree lighting ceremony afterwards. There's the marketplatz (yes, the town was founded by a large German community) to be discovered and other assorted experiences of fun, sights and sounds.

We're actually not staying in Fredericksburg as it was crazy expensive for what you got but instead will be staying in another town about 20 miles away (Kerrville). The drive will be around 3 hours from here and we plan to pick the girls up from school after lunch but before naptime. Sleeping in the car may not be the most comfortable for them but it's the best way to kill time on the trip. I'd prefer not to put the DVD player on. You know what I mean?

Anyway....

What I wanted to do was get the last mini-vacay piccies up before we left. I promised (well kinda sorta) so I want to follow up on that. What I didn't realize is that we have not pulled off any of the photos off the new camera since buying it and that was quite a while ago. It took it's time in downloading and boy do I have a bucketload of piccies! I'll post some random piccies soon as some of the pics involve events that I have already blogged about so it'll be a collective.

Sorry. I digress again...

So...New Braunfels.

Firstly, the reason for going? Storm misses sausages and sauerkraut so when we found out about Wurstfest it was on like donkey kong!
Secondly, it was a chance to get out and about and since (supposedly) the weather was going to be cooler and it was in the hill country we thought that it would be just downright lovely to get outta town!

Anyway, it turned out that the sausages and sauerkraut were ok (not necessarily fantastic) and it was a lot hotter than I had packed for.

But it was nice to get away and see something different. Anyway, to the photos (I know you're dying to see them...)

We got there late in the afternoon, light was fading and we just walked along the Guadalupe River in a park they have there. Saw lots of deer and played on the swings/slide trying to burn off energy before dinner. Dinner was at "Oma's Haus" where the decor and fare was fairly average.

The next morning we found out that Wurstfest was starting later in the morning and since we were meant to catch up with friends later that evening at Wurstfest we thought that we would hit the Christmas Shoppe at the Schlitterbahn water park and then go on the train in Lando Park.

You can imagine what is was like with 2.4 year old twins in a Christmas shoppe. It was all hands on deck! We only managed to get piccies once we got to their courtyard.

 This swing caused a multitude of issues as both girls wanted to sit by themselves and swing themselves and then of course, they didn't want to leave. Tears, drama, meltdowns. What fun!

 What a cute smile (again, before the tears!)

 We parked and thought that this was the way to the train (through Wurstfest) but oh, no. Luckily it was a lovely day and actually worked out well going through the day versus the night. We got a text from the friends that we were supposed to meet that night who told us it was crazy busy and since the girls weren't feeling that well (remember we were all affected by colds at that time) we wouldn't have ended up going that evening anyway.

So, we got a piccie taken by a guy in lederhausen!

 The hall where the food and drink was.

 The main hall where the drinking festivities were going to be held.

 The girls were tall enough to go on the carousel. Sydney was nervous at first but ended up loving it. Kendall was just thrilled by the whole thing!

 Eating the "Five sausage stick" in the entertainment tent. There was a huge oopma band (sorry don't know the right name) to the right of the picture playing at we ate.

 Kendall fascinated by the band.

 Syd just wanted to dance...

 The next morning we found the train around Lando Park.

 Ok, change of pace quickly. Here shows the view that we had from the train on one turn - yes, those are not crows - vultures! Huge.....

 Beautiful area with duckies.

 Later that day we caught up with friends in San Antonio. One of them brought a puppy. Syd went bananas over this cutie...

 She loved walking her. She was the right size.

 Very relaxing lunch in the park.

 Kendall loved walking the maltipoo that another friend brought with them. The girls so loved it as neither dog pulled them over (like Rudy and Oscar sometimes do)

So after this we got home to a very happy pair of puppies who could smell "those other dogs" on us. We had fun but I just wish we hadn't have been sniffling and coughing the entire time.

November was a really rough month for us (me and the girls) healthwise. Just plain ol' rotten. We're on the other side now though. Yay!

Fingers crossed that our trip away tomorrow will not take as long to blog about.

Still waiting.

I am sorry but obviously I am still behind on posting about our recent weekend away. It's such a shame as we are leaving on Friday for our next weekend away so I hope that I get my butt into gear and get it going, don't you?

Well, to recap I have had a trip to the Drs this week. Unfortunately, the sickness that has plagued us here at Casa de Kulhan spread to my ear and throat and I have had a rather annoying earache that presented itself in all its glory on Thanksgiving Eve. I didn't go to the Dr until the day after Thanksgiving when Ibuprofen wouldn't make a dent in the pain. I'm waiting for the antibiotic level to build up in my system as Day Two is proving to be as painful as before Day One. Not happy. It's lucky that I am quite adept at Cyber shopping.

However, we did manage to get Santa photos done. Now I know that I have just prattled on about how much pain the ear was causing me but I was doped up on the pain meds and able to not lean over too much. But I digress... The kids freaked out about the big man. Yes, not happy at all. All it took was one look at Santa and Kendall said no with Sydney at least agreeing to hit the line. It was when we got to the front of the line that Sydney proved to be rather adept at trying to run up our bodies to get away. Yes, I liken it to when you try to bath a cat and luckily Storm was with me to help cope. The only way that we could get anything resembling a photo was to sit beside (Storm with Kendall) and on Santa's lap (Me with Sydney). Both girls look rather disgusted and unamused in the pic. I am planning on scanning it in shortly. Probably tomorrow.

Thanksgiving was spent with our neighbours next door. They had their family over and us all over which was a nice way to spend the day. It was really nice to not have to drive. They deep fried the turkey (tasted good! and I DO NOT like turkey) and had all the usual sides (green bean casserole, yams, mashed potato, gravy, pies etc) which was lovely. We ate and frank until we were all full. The kids (theirs and ours) played nicely and so did the dogs (yes we brought the boys over and both Rudy and Oscar played with Jax for hours!).

Anyway.

So next weekend we're off to Fredericksburg for their Christmas festival. We're arriving in time for the Santa parade and the lighting of the tree. Looking forward to it a lot as (finally) the weather will be somewhat winterish/cooler and feel a little like Christmas. I was getting worried that we'd have an Aussie Christmas day where we wake up, unwrap presents, eat breakfast and hit the breach before coming back for a cold lunch and a nap in the afternoon before hitting leftovers. Ahhhh. Sorry - memories. I must admit that Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas unless it's cold.

So the tree is up and all is decorated and blinged out in the Christmas fashion. I love it. We're watching Hallmark and LMN movies with all sorts of Christmas themes (corny but fun!) and I have the pine tree/clove/cinnamon scents going through the house.

So Syd is trying to climb out of her crib. Yes, I am trying to keep them there as long as possible but I'm afraid it will not be long until she's successful at escaping. I am so dreading it.

Anyway, I have to run and get some more ibuprofen so I can sleep. My ear hurts more when I lay down.

I will get the piccies soon - I promise!

Back online - well sort of

The sickness has not left the Kulhan household. Both the kids and I are still struggling with sore throats and earaches on a variety of levels. When I picked up the girls from daycare yesterday I was told by the teachers that Sydney had not stopped coughing all day. Poor love couldn't even drink her juice on the way home from school as she kept spitting it up with every cough. So I ended up taking her to the Drs yesterday (new doctor as ours - which I hated - weren't working) . They tested her for RSV and the flu which thankfully came back negative for both but ending up prescribing a steroid and antibiotic. She's still having coughing moments so the meds are taking a while kicking in. She did spend last night with us and it was rough for all involved. Poor love.

I just hope that Kendall isn't going to be as affected as Syd was but I don't hold out much hope.

Anyway, back to posting piccies.

Halloween:
As I wrote in previous posts, Mum bought the girls some harem costumes when she was in Turkey earlier this year. The girls loved them a lot with the jingling coins on the fringe of the hats.

We went trick-or-treating with our next door neighbours, Corey, Amanda and their 2 year-old Kady. Kady was dressed up a Little Red Riding Hood and was quite happy to be pulled around in their little red wagon like ours.

Unfortunately, Kendall was in a difficult mood. She wasn't happy posing for pics and had a couple of moments wanting to be "that child". There was a breeze that night which made the girls rip their hats off due to the wind blowing the veil back into their face. So we only managed to get a couple of pics that are actually decent.

Here is a pic of Syd with a face on. BTW - Don't you love that Oscar is coming around Corey's car in the background? He was loving just running around.

 Syd and Kady posing.

 Me struggling with Kendall. She was in such a foul mood.

 All three girls took quite well to going up to the houses so much that by the third house there was no hesitation and even the occasional knocking on the door/ringing the bell. We couldn't get the "Trick-or-treat" chant out of them - oh well, maybe next year.

 I wanted to get in the piccies of my recycled halloween deccies. Yes, the milk cartons that were drawn on and then had the lights placed inside actually looked quite good. The only problem was that some of the lights failed. So it should have had a bucketload more impact. Shame.

I'll try and get the pics of last weekend's trip to New Braunfels and our Wurstfest experience online soon. We're off to Fredricksberg in a couple of weekends for their Christmas parade and Santa visits so I need to clear the memory card. We've also got the trip to Greenville, SC a month after that so we've got lots of piccie opportunities coming up.