"It's showtime!"

This year, because of some lucky timing, I was able to tell the kids my birthday was declared a public holiday and Gympie was putting on fireworks and monster trucks and getting in lots of rides to celebrate. They were very impressed.

Another fantastic show this year - kids loved the trampolines, bubbles, teacups and jumping castle. 

The local annual show is a great family experience, but more importantly it's a chance for us to pick up all the new bugs going around and getting as many of this year's batch of colds and flues out of the way as we can. With luck, the kids will all get sick at the same time.

Birthday-wise, it was great. Lots of junk food and things to see and do. Because of all the excitement and busy schedule, and because I'm exhausted, I decided I wasn't writing much this weekend.

But here's a visual diary of a wonderful couple of days -

Looking good. Starting to see why I don't
see any action first thing in the morning.
Headphones & glasses were added by Miss2 -
probably trying to bling me up.

The birthday snuggle :) 

First things first - above photo is me standing around the McCafe van waiting for them to notice me so I can order a coffee. Photos directly below are after I've had my morning coffee. Only fifteen minutes or so of time has passed, but as you can see, the difference is palpable. 

Master7, who states he isn't afraid of heights but rather of falling & hurting himself when he smashes into the ground, would moan as the mini Ferris Wheel went up, reaching a loud bellowing peak at the top and slowly grow quieter on the way down, only to do it again as it went back up again. For five minutes all we could hear, standing below, was, "iiiiieeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaa-AAAAAA!!!!AAAAA-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeiii -iiiiieeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-AAAAA!!!!AAAAAAA- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeiiii -iiiieeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa -AAAAA!!!!AAA- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeiiii -iiiieeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ..." And then he says he wants to go on the BIG Ferris Wheel! Not on your life.

Miss8, Miss5 & Master7 answering that age old question:
"If your sister told you to jump off a cliff, would you?"

Trampolines cost us a sizable $60 (3 kids, two goes each). The carnie sent Miss5 up into the stratosphere, after which she admonished him loudly and demanded a far more sedate height (about my head height - I don't think the bungy-type ropes would have registered any use).

The highlight for Miss8 & Master7 were the inflated balls. We saw them as a fantastic way for the kids to

pick up all those hard to find bugs.

Miss5 about to freak out as they inflated her ball. 

After the trauma of the (half) inflated ball, Miss5
took a (sulky) spin on the Merry-go-round. 

No fireworks photos this year because, thanks to Miss2 & Miss5, we didn't get to see them. We did get to hear them though, from the inside of a DB shed in machinery alley, where we huddled with our two trembling little girls. I must say, the fireworks did sound stunning. Oh, well.

I'm already excited about next year :) Gympie will certainly have to come up with something special to top this birthday.

Showdown

We just returned from our first sugar hit at the show.

It took a verbal shoehorn to get them into bed, but finally the kids settled to sleep and Tracey and I were able to crack open a beer and relax (I may have drunk a lot more beer than Tracey, who in fact drank none).

We knew we'd exhausted the kids and sure enough, two hours after they hit the hay, Tracey heard a thump in  the girls' room and found Miss8 sitting up in bed, leaning against the wall, asleep.

"Come on, darling," Tracey murmured as she eased her off the wall, "you've got to lay back down now."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," replied Miss8, settling back into her pillow. That can happen, forgetting to lie down when you sleep. I go the other way - I struggle to get out of bed when I wake up.

Tonight was just the prelude to the main event. We only spent $55 in cold hard cash (food, floss and drinks) and used up 102 of our 120 ride tickets (120 tickets cost us $100). But tomorrow is going to break the bank.

I can't wait!

I had Miss2 on a short lead...

...which was hell handy at lolly stands and toy stalls

Buy now, play later

Tomorrow is the most important day of the week - the show starts!

I love the show. LOVE IT! It's bright and fun and full of sugar. We'll go tomorrow night, Friday, Friday night and even Saturday morning. We will wring as much excitement as we can from this once a year event. But we'll try do it without having to sell internal organs.

My wallet doesn't have as much fun as the rest of the family at the show. We'll be lucky to get out of this weekend for less than four hundred dollars - and Master20 and Miss17 won't even be in G-town (they're off to Perth to visit their mum).

Four show bags alone will see us $80 - $100 down. We could demand the kids buy cheap show bags, or none at all, but this is once a year. We let them choose whichever show bag they want. Just the one, but it's their choice, and ohhhhh they love it: their faces really light up. The real value of a show bag isn't what's inside it, but the joy and memories the kids get out of it.

To keep our costs down this year we've embraced the buy now, play later philosophy: we have a family pass and ride tickets all ready to roll, and they haven't even finished bolting the ferris wheel together.

The cost of paying individually to get us into the show would have been $140. If we showed up tomorrow and bought a family pass (2 adults 4 kids) at the gate we'd be paying $75. That's $65 worth of hot chips and fairy floss to share around.

But wait, there's more.

By pre-purchasing our tickets we've only paid $70! That's another dagwood dog for dad, and half price entry.

We've also prepaid our ride tickets, buying $120 worth of tickets for $100: Another $20 towards a show bag? Something like that. This is my kind of bulk buying.

All up, $260 of retail value for $170, meaning $90 bulge in my wallet.

But wait, there's more.

It seems Nanny & Poppy are buying our family pass and giving the kids $20 each for a show bag!! Score! (You didn't have to do that. Love you guys).

So this time tomorrow night me and my happily bulging wallet are going to be so gee'd up on a sugar high I may not sleep till a day after they've packed up the teacups and moved on.

Only one thing left to say - BRING ON THE SHOW!

We help a single mum in Ghana expand her retail yam business

Tonight Miss8 decided who we were going to help with our 31st KIVA loan. It took only a couple of minutes to come across Mary from Ghana. Miss8 was especially taken with Mary because she has four children she's raising alone. Also, she's selling big potatoes.

KIVA is a great way to encourage kids to think of people outside of their sphere, and how those people live. Tonight we discussed South America, Asia and Africa as we scrolled through the loans on offer.

"Mary sells tubers of yam at Adum Banso near Takoradi. She has been in this business for 3 years now. Mary is divorced and has 4 children. As a single parent, she uses her income for the general upkeep of her children. Mary will use her loan to purchase more tubers of yam to sell. With the new profit, she will expand her business."

Our KIVA account is now up to US$226 (added another couple of dollars tonight). With this money we've made 31 x US$25 loans - a total of US$775 we've loaned out to people whose circumstances don't usually allow them to access loans.

What I personally love about KIVA is I choose who I lend too (country, gender, sector) and I know every cent I put into this gets where I want it to go. And then, as the loans are repaid, I get it back to do it all over again!!

Free Trials of the KIVA experience are now on offer. No hard sell. No cost. No risk. If this sounds like something you might be interested in, scoot over and give it a go. LINK TO KIVA

We help a photographer in Senegal buy a camera

Looks like we're helping this guy just
in time - his photo is all blurry.

It's the 15th!!

Which means the repayments from our previous loans start to trickle back into our account.

The beauty of this sort of charity is it helps people who are prepared to help themselves - it's the old 'give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for life' scenario. So they borrow money off you (you choose who) in US$25 increments (lots of people contribute to each loan to make up the total) and they pay it back in line with their agreed repayment schedule. Then you lend the same money out again.

If you're already involved in KIVA and have loaned out some money, chances are there's some in your account ready to be loaned back out, although if it's under $25 you might need to add a couple of dollars. Most months we add a few dollars - our KIVA account has about $220 in it now.

Tonight I've decided to help a family man named Kaba to upgrade to a better digital camera. He's a photographer so it's important part of his business.

Here's what Kaba's application had to say:

"Kaba is a professional reporter-photographer. He has been in this profession for a few years. This career is very profitable in his community and allows him to earn income that enables him to take care of the needs of his family and to save a part of his profits. He is married and father of two children. In order to acquire more powerful equipment, he is asking for a loan of 250,000 francs to buy a digital camera. His ambition is to open a photo finishing lab."

I especially wanted to help Kaba because he's a photographer like my lovely wife and it's the first time I've seen anyone on KIVA asking for a camera. It grabbed my attention.

If you'd like to try KIVA for yourself, they're again offering FREE TRIALS. Just click the link and pop over. THE LINK :)

Brothers & Sisters

I'm the oldest of three. As you can see from this photo, I had
great legs and my posture is beautiful. Shame I look like I've
just stepped out of a closet. Kerri has an Abba-inspired outfit but
Shane is letting us down. A T-shirt. What was he thinking?
And barefoot to boot.

Sharing a room with a younger sibling can be frustrating, but also lots of fun. Our oldest two shared for years before finally being allotted a space of their own. They never seemed to mind though. Neither do our youngest, who are currently split between two rooms - in fact they frequently request to all 'sleep over' in each others' bedrooms for fun.

A friend of Tracey's grew up sharing a room with her little brother, which meant long after their parents had put them to bed she could get in the last word.

"It's your birthday tomorrow," she told her little brother one night. "I wonder what you'll get?"

So did her little brother. Sleep is pretty elusive when you've a head full of potential new toys. Finally her little brother dropped off to sleep. And in the morning.....

Their mum came in and woke them up, demanded they get up and then promptly left the room. No singing of happy birthday, no presents and no birthday hugs and kisses. In short, worst birthday morning greeting ever.

"You don't love me!" he called after his mum and started to cry. I mean, what mother would forget or ignore her own child's birthday?

Well, not his one. Turns out it wasn't the little fella's birthday after all - his big sister was just having some fun.

I wonder how much longer it was before they got their own rooms.

Mothers. Enunciate. In Public.

A special Mother's Day treat.

Bill Cosby taught me to laugh at my parents. In private, obviously, when they weren't there.



Still as funny today as thirty years ago.

Enjoy.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Tracey put this collage of today together, so naturally
she hardly features in it at all. Or maybe that's because
she spent most of today in bed or sipping tea.

Having taken on all of Tracey's usual duties for today I'm afraid I don't have time to sit down and write too much.

Around here, Mother's Day isn't so much about telling Mum she's special (we do that all the time), it's about living a day in my wife's shoes and understanding how being a mother is hard. At least that's my roll. The kids' roll is to follow me around all day with the same inane demands they usually level at their mother.

Today the kids and I let mummy sleep in, gave her breakfast in bed (porridge, fried egg, ham, toast and tea -(all prepared by the kids), waved her goodbye when she went for a coffee with her sister and mum, cooked her and my parents a spectacular lunch (pancakes, scrabbled eggs, crispy bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and her favourite spicy mint potatoes) and I even cleaned the toilet.

We were blessed with a visit from Great Grandma Mac today too, which was just lovely. I even managed to trick her into smiling for the camera. Yes, that's a smile.

Tracey did, however, manage to capture me ever so briefly
sneaking in a nap by camoflaging myself on our bed with
the cushions and pillows. Worked too - I heard Miss5
come looking for me and leave with no clue :)

Have just finished lunch dishes and now I need to start dinner, sweep the floors and burp the baby.

I intended having the kids out of their PJ's by lunch, but now I'm thinking if they stay in them it will save time tonight.

And what is it with cups and the little buggers needing a new one for every mouthful of water? Do the kids think I've got nothing better to do with my time than to wash them up? From now on the kids can drink straight from the tap, as nature intended.

Glad this is only once a year.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there. I hope you were as spoiled as you so richly deserve.

So that's what Mother's Day is around here, as opposed to Father's Day, which is about kneeing Dad in the nads when you wake him up and liquid lunches.

Now roll on Father's Day cause I need a beer  ;)

Wave At The Bus: The 170 Costumes

This man is a legend. Other fathers watch on in awe. He humbles me.

Dale is a stay at home dad who, after his son heads off to catch the bus, dresses in a different costume every day and then stands outside the house and waves at the bus.

Miss17 has informed me if I'd pulled this stunt she would have put herself up for adoption on the grounds of (my) insanity or (her) embarrassment - whichever they'd accept.

I've a link below to Dales's blog and a video of 170 of his costume changes.

Dale, you rock! And hunt! And fight crime! And do spells! And play ball! And rule the seas! And you wear a mean tiara!




Wave At The Bus: The 170 Costumes: Here's the quick video view. For links to each wave (in order), keep scrolling. Don’t sell yourself short, every day is worth a view (we...

Bulk buying our fruit snacks

We have devoured four boxes of mandarins in three weeks...and I came home with two more boxes (18kg) tonight.

Mandarins have been so cheap the last couple of weeks - these two boxes cost us a total of $24. Of course the real cost of all these wonderful, delicious mandarins needs to take into account our increased grocery bill because the flip side is we've been plowing through the bum tickets.

We encourage the kids to snack on fruit, and they really go with that advice when grapes, bananas and mandarins are in season.

Buying our fruit by the box means we don't have to put locks on the fridge - they can eat as much as they like.

We have a mate who goes to the Brisbane markets for local restaurants and businesses, and he picks us up a box or two of whatever we need, fresh, at fantastic prices. Some weeks its potatoes, some weeks apples, this week mandarins :)

Hit up your local green grocer for a great price on a box of fruit. Don't think you'll eat your way through a whole box? Go halves with a friend. Or thirds with two friends. You'll get a heap of fruit, cheap.

SAHM Bulk Buying ebook (which I wrote :) thank you, thank you very much )