This is Our Thing ...

The thing we love to do most as a family is go to the beach!!!

Ad is happy, the girls are happy and I'm happy just seeing all of them happy!

The beach has always been in Adams life ever since he was a grommet so as soon as the girls were big enough he couldn't wait to get them down there.

This is the view looking back at the seaside town of Coolum. Since we have moved house we have a new beach we go to now, at the end of Pita Street, Peregian Beach. Madison loves it, the ocean with lots of dogs, heaven!!

 


 

Madison loves the beach, its on her top 5 list of things to do. She doesn't ever tire of the waves and the water. That's why we would have many meltdowns when we would have to leave to go home. Thankfully as she is getting older it doesn't happen as often, and I repeat often, as she will still let it rip every now and again!

Madison loves that feeling of the waves pummelling into her body. It's a sensory thing. Ever since she was very little she has always loved swinging, spinning, running and banging into things, squeezes, jumping on the trampoline and of course the waves at the beach as well as other stuff.

When she does all of these things it helps her to define her body in space and it provides feedback to into her muscles and joints. You would think all of those things would hype her up but they don't. They actually calm her by getting that deep pressure to her body and this is very important for Madison.

I was watching an interview with Temple Grandin, a very well known lady who has Autism. She actually made her own squeeze machine and after she uses it she would feel a lot calmer and can cope with this crazy world much better. When Jaimee was younger she wanted to make her sister a squeeze machine, she even drew up plans for one too, god love her!

Madison never rocked back and forward, just liked to run and bang into things, like the lounge or humans. But she really enjoys the office chair at the computer now so she can move about how she wants to. She does hand flap every now and then, a lot more when she was little, it's more of a side to side action instead of up and down. She will do this when she is either really overwhelmed or extremely excited.

I could probably write a whole post about the girls and their sensory issues, so I think I will do that. Everyone one's got a sensory thing, mines fluffy socks, uhhh so snuggly and comfy, when I put them on at the end of the day it's just divine.

Do you have a sensory thing? Have a think about it, I bet you do.



  

 

The girls found this little lagoon to play in and float around.

 

You can see Adam in the background mucking around on his board. Even when there are no waves he still manages to find something.

Poor Jaimee is being very patient waiting for a go. I tell you, Jaimee has got to be the most patient kid in the world, she puts up with a lot and rarely complains and the girl does a lot of waiting around in this family.

Come on Daddy!! Hurry up.

 

Still Waiting ...

 

And still waiting ....

Jaimee watching over Madison making sure her little sister is ok and having fun, doesn't matter where we are, Jaimee is just like that. So sweet!

Finally Ad gives up the board so Jaimee can have a go. Thank God, that took forever.

Adam has been wanting his girls to be his surf'in buddies for along time. It has been tricky with the whole OCD and the Autism thing but with lots of patients and time he is finally getting his wish.

This is were it does get tricksy though as Jaimee, just being Jaimee, wants to be able to surf perfectly from the first go. She does get pretty upset and down on herself when it's not going how she wants it and just wants to get it, well, perfect!

That's just not surfing either that is all things in her life, I say with a big sigh... It gets complicated explaining how we live in a messy and not so perfect world. That we all just have to do the best we can with what we've got and try not to worry so much when things in life aren't how we want or how we expected them to be.

It wont matter though, I can talk about being "Not" perfect till the cows come home but she will still want things to be "just so" and how she wants them to be. Which is fair enough because we all want that, don't we! I guess it's the pressure that she puts on herself that I want her to be free of and the intense disappointment.

The biggest thing of all is she doesn't want to disappoint her Dad or anyone else for that matter. It's an OCD thing and a PDD thing! All this gorgeous girl wants is her daddy's attention like any little girl. Jaimee tries her hardest to please him all the time, ( and everyone else ) which must be exhausting for her.

Adam is great, being a blokey bloke he sometimes needs a little help understanding the teenage girl thing. Although, he does all right and will give her the right advice and attention she needs.

The pressure is off though and it's all about having fun, being happy and carefree down at the beach. That's why we love it so much.

On this day there were many different types of beautiful butterflies playing around us, it was awesome. I have a thing for butterflies and this one made me chase it up and down the beach while I crazily tried to get photo's. 

 

Madison doing her art work in the sand, she did the love hearts and wrote her name. She will always write her whole name not just Madison, too cute!

 

 

 

Treasure

 



My Favourite photo, just perfect!

Madison found a little rock pool to explore & play in, she was there for ages.

Talking about the surf, perfect Dad & daughter moment! xx

Treasures at the beach. A few of my favourite things shells & driftwood. There was a lot of pumice stone washed up on the shore too.

This was a perfect morning at the beach. We were down there for about two and a half hours and it was a gorgeous day. The sunshine was so nice on our skin and there was only a slight breeze in the air, just enough so it wasn't to hot and it had that awesome smell of the salty ocean.

No sooking, No wingy whiny peoples and best of all No meltdowns. We didn't even have to fight about bring anyone else's dogs home with us, yes it was an awesome day. Madison was happy to get dressed after her 10 minute warning and the count down. Jaimee was surfed out and Ad & I were just so amazed and ecstatic at how the morning went, we were whoohooing all the way home.

Love the beach!

Steph

x

Adventures at the Op Shop ...

 

So on the weekend I felt we needed to get out and about, do something, together, anything!! Jaimee had been couped up all week, home from school with a nasty throat virus thing, yik! Madison would have a better weekend if we can break it up a bit with some kind of outing and Ad is always up for anything.

We hadn't been for ages so we headed off to one of the Op shops on the coast. I love going op shopping and it's something that interests everyone in our little family. You will always find something out of the ordinary and a bit exciting at an Op shop. Yes there may be a fair bit of crap too but that's when I have to put on my sorting brain and decipher, do I really need that!!

The big charity shop at Kunda Park.

You see I am trying to change an old habit. I am from a long line of hoarders, my mum is going to kill me, but it's true, hahaha, she really is going to kill me. Don't worry mum, we haven't put you on a reality TV show yet so you must be pretty safe, so far :) I'm trying to break the cycle, my little sis too, although Bek is very good at getting rid of stuff already, huh, maybe she has already fixed 
her habit! 

My habit is nothing like what you see on those TV shows, mum or nan's either. Although the old ducks are from an era of the depression so it is understandable that they would keep and reuse what they have. Which is a really good thing in this day and age.

It only becomes a problem I think when you don't get rid of things and keep adding to the pile of stuff. To mum's credit she did recently have a massive sort out of her worldly possessions and was very pro active in the throwing out and giving away of items, so proud. So if she can do it I must be able to too!! There is hope yet. Adam will be so pleased, bwahhaa!!

I have had a massive pile of stuff in the middle of our garage for awhile now and was going to have a garage sale, great idea but in my to hard basket. So to Ad's dismay I actually re-used some of the furniture, although I did tell him that I had just saved him lots of dollars because I wouldn't have to buy new stuff, so he was happy again then. I boxed up a lot of things and gave to the girls schools, lots of bits to charity and of course off loaded a bit to Bek, Hehe!

I am all about recycling, up-cycling and re-using and saving the dollars where ever we can these days. I have been keeping track of what we spend over that last few months and it does come as a real shock as to how much gets wasted. That is a story for another time though!!

In that pile of stuff was an old desk I had actually had when I was about 15 years old. Jaimee has had it in the past but then she wanted an upgrade to something a bit more modern being in high school now. We have this great big window looking out into the backyard and we have nature reserve behind our home. Perfect spot for me to sit and write on my blog. So I will be busy up-cycling my old desk in the next few weeks but I am going to need something to go with the desk.

So I was on the hunt for a chair, something old school, a bit vintage. I guess I did have an ulterior motive behind going on our Op shop outing! It was a good outing too, haha.

Madison found something cool and her size, she had fun for ages with the pool table. See the bowling balls behind her, she must have picked up about 3 or 4 of them. Jaimee was juggling the bowling balls there at one stage trying to prevent Madison from dropping them on her little toes.

She is a good big sister and kept putting the balls back on the shelf as fast as Madison was getting them off the shelf! Lots of giggling go on from Madison as she thought it was a great game, while Jaimee was looking at me to be saved. Poor kid!! There was also a dart board there which was fun but a little bit too intense, we moved on pretty fast after the darts.

 

 

 

 

Ad is always on the look out for golf bits and books.

Jaimee was checking out the roller blades and ice skates.

 

 

Lookie, lookie what I found, Awesome!!!

Madison loves looking at all the toys and often jags something cool. Awesome find, the hippo off Madagascar.

 

 

Adam trying to keep up with Madison

 

 



 

 

Perfect hiding place, under a petticoat. 

 

 

Jaimee found were the jewels where pretty quick.

Indiana Jones, I found your hat, were are you!!

 

 

 

I'll just put it there on that big dolls face!! I see something else I like.

Thought these were cool, my sis fishes for these and I though my friend Denise would appreciate them too. 

 

See this little square retro table, I would have brought that home with me if Adam wasn't with us, damn! Those canisters on the other table are so gorgeous I could have had them too. See, I need my thinking brain cause I run into trouble fairly often, I get too swoony over vintage things. 

Love these old suitcases, mum use to have one like that green one. We use to catch the train when I was little to Gloucester to visit Nanna & Grandad with it.

Love the camping table too. 

Look what came home to live with us! I found my new chair, to be fair I had my birthday dollars from Bek, so Happy Birthday to me again.

Love it so so much. 

 

We had a fun afternoon out, I think we were there for an hour or so. Madison loves the op shops and when we got home she wanted to go again. Me too but Ad can only handle one shop at a time, haha!

Madison was awesome while we were out, no dramas, no meltdowns, no banging things, no throwing stuff. It was a very cruisey afternoon. Which makes it just that little bit easier to get out the door next time for a family outing.

Don't you just love the chair, I wonder what it's history is, who had it, we're they someone famous or important. Love the endless possibilities and the romance of an old fashion story that could go with this chair.

So happy, it doesn't take much, just a day like this!

Steph

x