Nobody wants to comment? EVER? Really? :-)

Maybe I'm just not interesting enough?  But I know there's people out there at least browsing at my blog, so I'd love to hear from you!

How am I going with my eating and exercising I hear you ask!  I'm actually doing really well.  I am still a bit undecided about which route I'll take though.  While I love the idea of 'clean eating', I really love food too, which clearly is what put me in the morbidly obese category to begin with.  I'm happy to eat healthily, but I enjoy my treats too, especially after a long day with the kids!  My foods/drinks of choice are: Skim Mocha's from a good coffee shop (this I am not willing to forego!), Feel Good Iced Coffee (this I've stopped having), Pepsi Max (I did lapse on this for a while, but I'm back to not having it again), LeRice (these are amazing, and while I won't have them daily, I do enjoy them as a treat), Sushi (this is not 'clean' food because of the white rice), bread (I don't have nearly as much as I used to, but sometimes there's NOTHING better than a Vegemite sandwich on fresh white bread) and Caramel Rice Cakes (these are to die for and great as a quick snack).  Now I don't have all of these things daily, but I generally have the skim mocha and one of the treat foods.  

Exercise wise; I have really come to the conclusion that I don't love Body Attack, Body Pump is fantastic, and I enjoy these classes!  I am happy to do Body Step, but the first 20mins or so does hurt the arch in my foot, I LOVE boxing, and am booked in to do a class of this tomorrow, but this isn't a frequently scheduled class at my gym!  Urban Rebound is great fun and only goes for 30mins, it's jumping on a mini tramp!  I can't always make it to this class, but will do my best!  As far as cardio on the machines goes, I'm sure I'll get back to them one day, but I do prefer the atmosphere of a group class, it goes quicker for one thing!  And in early Feb I'm catching up with a trainer so we can work on what I can do for weights!

Uni is back on Monday, so only 2 more sleeps until school's back for the year!  It doesn't feel like I've had much of a break, which isn't too far from reality really because I've continued to attend antenatal and postnatal appointments and a couple of births.  I love it, but I do live for the day when I can go to work, do 2 or 3 x 8-10hr shifts and come home to normal life.  Only 2 years to go, which if last year is anything to go by, they'll fly!  I start this year with 2 subjects, one is Perinatal Mental Health & the other is Physiological Adaptations in Pregnancy, thankfully I actually have personal experience in both subjects, so I shouldn't struggle too much.  Both also have case studies as assignments, and I enjoy these moreso than writing a straight essay.

Family; family is busy!  Miss 5 is about to start school, and in preparation we're working on behaviours and sleeping patterns.  Since I was pregnant with the triplets she's spent more time sleeping in our room than in her own; she has had a cot size mattress on our floor which she's slept on, but which also means she's disturbed by us, by hubby getting up for work etc.  We knew this wasn't going to work once she was at school so we've put a reward chart in to action for that and a few other things such as no tantrums each day, not annoying or hurting the triplets, putting her clothes away (she gets changed 500x per day), tidying her own room etc.  We must have been doing it for around 7 days, and so far she's going great guns!  Her reward will be a DS when she gets 200 stickers.  Doing the chart she decided to forego small rewards along the way (there's nothing she needs anyway) and save up for the DS that she had desperately wanted for Christmas, but which we didn't buy for her, hopefully this way she'll value it a bit more too!  I am having to take back her 5th portable DVD player tomorrow because they keep malfunctioning!  Talk about frustrating!

The triplets are great! Each of them had their 2nd swimming lesson today, and there's no doubt that they're water babies!  They all LOVE being in, on and under the water which is fantastic given that we live so close to the beach.  Life with them all continues to be hectic, but their little personalities make it all worthwhile (most days!)  I've just read the blog of a girl I know who has infant triplets (about 7 months) and she finds it really hard to get out, and busy in general, and she has help I think full time during the week while her husband is at work?  At that age, we had help for around 6 hours per week, but the rest of the time it was just us (me) and them!  Hubby is a shift worker, so he wasn't always around day or night, but I feel that I did pretty well!  Most days from the time they came home from hospital I got them out of the house, personally I found all of us a lot more tolerable if we went out and did things during the day! As a result they all have amazing social skills, the boys in particular are fantastic with their speech, they share with other kids, they recognise a LOT of what's happening around them and why, and I wouldn't change it for the world!  I sincerely hope that she doesn't end up feeling isolated because of it, because I know it can happen so easily!

Well, that's me done for the day! I've downloaded the latest episode of The Biggest Loser US and have another episode of 'One Born Every Minute' to watch while everyone but me is in bed!

If it helps to give me a topic, feel free!  I'll try to discuss anything that anyone suggests :-)

Christmas, Kids, Kilo's and Craziness!

My Dad is from a large family, my husband is from a large family, and we've created what these days is considered... a LARGE family!  Day to day having 4 kids is generally great, we get 4 x the cuddles, 4 x the love, 4 x the tantrums etc.  But at Christmas all chaos reins supreme!  The amount of presents the kids received was extraordinary! And while both they and us certainly appreciate that so many people care enough to buy them gifts, I fear that next year I may have to speak up and ask that changes are made to the gift giving process!

We all know that kids love toys, but they have a favourite that they find and they play with that frequently, they certainly don't have more than a few favourites, and when they get new presents, maybe only 1 of them will join that exclusive group.  So, I have a kitchen table FULL of toys which remain in their boxes, we have 2 drum kits, 2 sets of boy babushka dolls, 3 play doh sets etc.  Miss 5 got a number of presents valued at $20-$30 which she'll open and put away and more than likely forget about because she has so much 'stuff'.  She did get a 2 wheel scooter which is her favourite present, but the rest she's shown little interest in.  Now what she really wanted was a DS, which we were happy for her to have, yet finances didn't allow for one.  But, if each of the people who bought her the smaller gifts had put that money in, she could have got what she 'really' wanted and would have used until it wore out!  Like I said, I'm not ungrateful at all, but 4 kids with 4 lots of presents that are given for the sake of giving a gift, and they don't need so much STUFF! 

One of the things I want to teach our kids is how to value things, how to appreciate the things that you have, and when they have so many things that's a really hard lesson to teach!

So, I'm thinking that next year, I ask each family group to put in what they would have bought, perhaps buy 1 x $50 present for Santa to hand over, but then also have 1 more expensive present that they will get good use out of!

That's the Christmas part out of the way!  Now on to kids!  3 x 2yo's all in cots and eventually someone had to figure out how to climb out of the cot, and my 6pm-7am sleeping patterns have been thrown in to complete and utter chaos!  Day naps are slowly becoming a thing of the past, and this Mumma is going a bit crazy!  I'm not sure where I went right tonight (though hubby is on an afternoon shift?) but they were all asleep in their own beds by 6.17pm! After about two weeks of 8-9pm sleep times and it's a rare treat!

KILO'S, KILO'S, KILO'S, KILO'S & KILO'S.  Yep, add them up! There's 5 of them!  5 have gone on since I went to Port Douglas 1 month and 3 days ago.  Life has been out of control, watching what I eat has gone by the wayside and exercise had become a thing of the past.  But when I hopped on the scales on Wednesday morning (I decided to get Christmas Day out of the way) and I saw how much I'd actually gained, I decided it was time for drastic action!  Boxing Day was watching my food intake, the following day was going to my new gym for a Body Attack & Body Pump class, yesterday was good eating again and today was 30mins of Body Step, 30mins of Body Pump and 30mins of Body Combat!  I'm bringing sexy back!

In February(ish) I'm due to have surgery for my abdo separation and removal of the excess skin, I'm not ashamed of my body, it's carried my 4 children (3 at once), I've done remarkable things. But the abdo separation is a medical, stability, necessary surgery, and the excess skin is a bonus of that!  But having a very good friend who is an amazing photographer, I'm actually thinking of asking her to do a 'before' photo shoot (in underwear) so that I do have a record of what I achieved all on my own before surgery, the scars that came about from surgery that saved my life, and stretching of the skin that is a result of my babies going from embryo's to healthy little babies!

Craziness! Well, life in general is crazy, but I'm doing my very best to be as organised, motivated, calm, serene, happy and active as possible!!