SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

Normally one for loving any school holidays and all that it entails - this one is killing me slowly.......

I love having all my children at home with me and that is when I feel the most at ease (in a strange sense of the word) when they are all around me. I love all the extra children that find their way to this house too...... the comings and goings and all the noise BUT for some reason this week has been driving me mental. You would think the older and more independant they got, the easier it would be for me.  Less services that I would need to provide to keep them all happy....it just doesn't seem to be turning out that way. Instead I find the mess that is created by their independance and the different activities they are now interested in requires many more services than those needed in previous school holidays. Not only am I the cook, cleaner, nurse, taxi driver, art and craft teacher and entertainment, I have become so much more....... the bank, computer technician, negotiator between the two groups of children and their widening age gap, counsellor, Video rating mediator and dog walker (as he has now learnt how to get his lead down from its hook and throw it repeatedly at my feet until I give in)....... The grass is always greener as they say........and I think back to the days when they were all just pottering around the house playing with thier Barbies and happy with the Wiggles on the TV.  But on this side of the fence the kids can make me a cuppa, pack the diswasher and walk up to the shops by themselves.
Perhaps I should stop complaining............. "can someone buy me a cappacino on the way back from the Video shop please!!"

The Sydney Royal Easter Show

Off to the Show tomorrow with the Hubby and 4 kids in tow.......and yes they will be dragged around and made to look at every single decorated cake in every finger smudged, face smeared glass cabinet!!!! Hope to have my socks knocked right off at the brilliance of some of our Cake decoraters.
Will let you know.
X Nadia

Holidays

Its 12:30 am and I'm writing this as I sit in my bunk bed in a room small enough to be a bathroom. I am sitting on about 10,000 grains of sand and am literally surrounded by my children. At least its quiet.........our 14 children can make quite a noise, when they are pumped on sun, surf, sand and sugar!!! Add this level of excitement and the noise it creates to the other 13 kids (toddlers) my Mothers Group and I are sharing this South Coast bunkhouse with and you have my summer holiday!
The closest I have come to cake in the last week is my bright white, sand encrusted cake of soap. Embedded with finely crushed shell-like sand, it rips shreds from your sunburned limbs and guarantees to make a mess of your softer bits!
I have a week and half until school resumes and all four kids head off to school. For the first time in 12 years, I should be able to get my work done in normal peoples, daylight-working-week-hours. I am looking forward to getting organised and focused and planing some amazing cakes for 2012. I am so excited about having the time to write in my blog everyweek and am generally pumped about having a lot of fun with Cakes by Nadia.
See you in a few weeks at the Sydney Entertainment Centre for the ABS Bridal Fair.
X Nadia