Oh My Grateful Friday….

So I am a bit late with being grateful this week, but I have a really good excuse! This week has been just crazy! God, bad, wonderful and crazy! I even missed a day blogging – did you notice?

Lots to be grateful for, and this week I am making a big effort to find the good things in the bad as well, so here goes –

First one is easy – I am an Aunt again! My brother sister-in-law had a little boy last Sunday! That makes my third nephew (not all in the one family) and I am so pleased that he arrived safely and that everyone is doing well!

Another highlight of the week was catching up with one of my closest friends, his wife and their gorgeous new baby boy! (Yes it is raining baby boys in my life at the moment – thankfully my other sister-in-law is expecting a little girl in a few months to even up the score) This little man is so cute, with dark hair and wide eyes. It was so nice to see him sleeping on his Mummy’s chest in the wrap while we ate and chatted – so content, just where he needed to be, and so nice to see his Daddy totally besotted by him! He has always been a favourite ‘Uncle’ to my girls (and Muski) as he’s always showered them with gifts and love when he visits so we always knew he’d make a great dad! Now if they’d just all move back to Melbourne so Muski and the bubba could play….

The girls got haircuts this week – so many reasons to be grateful for that. My Mum’s lovely hairdresser managed to cut their hair and almost totally disguise the huge chunks they had both cut out of their own hair, and do it without any tears or distress on the part of the girls. Miracles do happen!

Wednesday the world felt like it was coming to an end, but we braved the wild weather to dash to a birthday party in the morning and I was so pleased to see my girls being very brave and dealing well with a large group of children they didn’t know.

We drove home during the height of the major storm that hit Melbourne and despite cursing my big white van in the morning when the battery was flat yet again, I was actually thankful to be in the Baldy Boys big 4WD with that extra weight and traction control while driving through the wind. The wind and the dust storm out our way was scary… and we arrived home to find the girl’s 14 foot trampoline a mangled mess out near our letter box!

While we are all pretty devastated that the trampoline is a goner, we were also amazed that it didn’t take out any of the fences, my car, or the front gate – it must have been picked up in a freak gust, sailed over the paling fence and literally rolled the 300 metres down our driveway, smashing into the huge steal gate post which ripped it apart leaving it in a heap near the mail box. We lost trees, part of the chook house, and some damage to the shed as well as other smaller bits and pieces, but we are so lucky that it wasn’t much worse. Ironically we didn’t loose power at all – us, who can have the power drop out three times in a week for no good reason at all!

After the winds dropped a little we cleaned up as best we could then headed out through the dust storm for a few days down the coast. The drive down was eerie in the storm. It rained mud and the sky was orange but by then the wind had dropped and once we got onto the other side of the storm all was well.

We spent two lovely nights away with Grandma, my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their two boys. The girls in particular had a lovely time playing with their cousins. Despite the weather not being so great we managed a trip to the beach, a trip to the park and out to dinner. Not to mention two games of scrabble where I practically won – because you don’t count grandma’s score cause she always beats everyone!

So there you have it.. a crazy week with some high lights and low lights but still a lot of be thankful for!

What have you got to be grateful for this week?