Still sick, Pj party and art

Above: Raven's art, rainbows and monsters.
Below is Monika's 'rainbow'.

Labyrinth's monsters.Following two are Kai's psychotic army dudes.

Below is Dante's fish and rainbow:

PJ Party! Actually, this is quite normal with the exception of Monika who sleeps in mum and dads bed still (AP). The children don't like the idea of having to sleep separately, and who can blame them, that's how they all started, with cuddles from mummy and daddy.

Individual photos of each modelling their new sets of PJs! Raven is a monster (he's monster obsessed lately), followed by Monika in her cat paw sleep set, Labyrinth in fashionable punky pink, and Kai and Dante chose the same PJs, it was two in one set, this is the army set, the other is red with black skulls.

Nearly recovered from our nasty 'flu. No, not the wiglet 'flu, just the nasty one that's doing the traps at the moment. We got the new pj's for them and they were all so excited, roughly all cost about the same, less than $20, but it all adds up when there are 5. Monika got some new skirts too, she seems to be outgrowing everything and all her trousers are either too little or too wide around the waist (Raven had this problem too, inheriting from Kai who was very fat, while I'd never say Raven's been fat, he was definately wider around the waist than Monika. So while I'd love to save money and be eco-friendly with hand-me-downs, its isn't all that practical.

We also had a pizza night, and have been loving the new movie we have (not yet released in Australia, just the US) of Coraline. Seriously, Monika has never had the time of day for any movie, sure she watches In the Night Garden or Dora/Diego she wont sit still long enough to watch anything else. She is only 22 months, of course, and each were different at this age, Raven loved TV as a toddler, and Labyrinth was soothed by RAGE when she was a wee 2 month old. But Monika is very different. However, Coraline has most certainly changed this. Its a longish movie, but she sits completely enthralled by it over and over again, we've only had it since Friday and she's watched it with the same enchantment every day plus twice today. I don't know what it is that is so fascinating to her but there you go. All of the other children love it too, hence why it keeps getting turned back on. They first watched in Saturday with their pizza.

Raven has been suffering, and they are concerned enough at the hospital to be bringing forward tests and so forth, so he has to go for the bloods and stool samples again on Monday so the test results will be ready by his next appointment. He has some kind of autoimmune disease, (probably coeliacs - though we could all be wrong and it could be more serious... whatever he has I have and everything points at Coeliac's Disease, really. Taking into account the changes I've had since going GF.)

Other than that, I've been reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman chapter by chapter to them, immersing them with singing and reading picture books to them everyday, doing random maths and they've done some art. We've gardened, cooked, done chores, and recovered from our illness. Why is it our holidays seem to be when we're all sick???

We also invested in a Swiss Diamond fry pan with lid (on sale at Habitat right now the Swiss Diamonds are well worth it) and a George Foreman griddle/grill to avoid using dangerous fry pans - we had a sunbeam banquet fry pan that had non-stick which just lifted off, nasty. We'll get a wok if it doesn't work out for stirfries, but a real one, seasoned. We are determined to eat healthily and that includes our cookware. We've long since came to the conclusion its worth saving up and spending the extra money on something that doesn't need throwing out every six months. They really do pay themselves back, in countless ways, like less waste (good for ol' mother earth), financially eventually, and of course, our overall health!

Reseaching lots at the moment and we might be able to move along faster in our attempt to become hippies living naturally off the farm and building our own home. YAY!