2014 - A year in review

As we enter into 2015, we again look back on the year that has passed and write to you now, giving you a glimpse into what has been happening. 2014 has had many learning experiences for Sonya and I but we've had lots of adventures as a family along the way.

This time last year we had survived a year of being parents of a new baby. Well we've gone and done it again. This family now totals 6 as of September 11th when Anastasia Margaret joined us to even out the gender imbalance of this clan! I'll tell you more about that later; but to do a quick head count that makes Sonya and I, Alexandra aged 6.5, Zachary who turns 5 in January, Samuel who turns 2 in January and now Anastasia.

We started this year in a fine way combining a number of significant events into a single celebration. 2 birthday boys, a housewarming, lots of kids, a number of friends and family and a great afternoon and evening talking, laughing and kids playing. A couple of days later, we started the long journey of education as Alexandra began Prep at Sunnybank State School. Despite moving to Drewvale a few months earlier, we decided to leave Alexandra at Sunnybank - a decision we have not regretted. Small school community, fantastic prep teacher and Alexandra's keen thirst for learning have made 2014 a very good year educationally for our little preppy.

First GB Church Parade for Alexandra

While we're on Alexandra, she has had quite a few adventures herself this year. She has thrived in prep making heaps of new friends (something she does very easily). She loves her teacher Mrs Bygott and has enjoyed learning to read, write, count, spell, do science experiments, learn about her surroundings in geography and so much more. Now she is excited about what Grade 1 will be like. Our challenge will be trying to get her moving in the morning so she actually makes it to school on time. Alexandra has also had some new experiences outside of school. She completed her first year at Girls Brigade, something she looks forward to every Tuesday night, doing different crafts, activities, and participated in 2 church parades. Monday and Friday afternoons Alexandra is picked up from school and escorted by a “walking-bus” to the Anglican After Hours School Care about a block from the school.
This provides another social outlet for her whilst still doing some learning and getting help with homework while her parents are both at work. We continued to leave her there even when Sonya went on maternity leave as it was easier for me to pick her up when I collected her brothers from family day care after work. 

Zachary had a year of ups and downs. His personality has continued to develop into a lovely little boy who enjoys helping, is emotive and full of energy. Challenging aspects of this beautiful little boy though have also developed as he lacks concentration, gets very whingy and clingy when he's tired or in an unfamiliar situation and still likes to "look" with his hands. He's an early riser no matter what time he goes to bed the night before and can be usually found watching TV - but never the same program for long as he goes from live tv to dvd to navigating the hard drive on his own to find something he wants to watch (usually Fireman Sam).

Being pre-prep we wanted Zachary to have more outside stimulation on a different level to what he receives at family day care twice a week, so Sonya shopped around for a kindy and settled on YMCA at Acacia Ridge. Unfortunately despite a positive start, Zachary just didn't fit in there, as things started to go wrong culminating in him not wanting to be there and only lasting less than 2 months after each day became a struggle to get him to let go of Mummy and stop crying. February and March also had regular visits to a psychologist for Zachary. We needed to find some answers to help us understand why kindy was such an ordeal for him and to try and understand more about him and his personality. An unofficial diagnosis of ADHD gave us something to work with and some tips to help manage his personality without medication. 

Browns Plains Kids Kindy Graduate Zachary

But as life has a way of turning itself around, after a few weeks at home underfoot and not getting the stimulation we wanted for him, a colourful flyer in the mail led to a look at a kindy not far from home which he has been at since early May. A completely different attitude and approach to pre-prep education has seen Zachary grow and have a great time at Browns Plains Kids and he has charmed his way into the hearts of all the staff at the centre. We were very proud to have attended his kindy graduation in December, and also his Family Day Care graduation at the end of October. 

Outside of kindy and Family Day Care Zachary has also really enjoyed swimming lessons alongside Alexandra at the Acacia Ridge YMCA for the first half of the year every Saturday morning. He loves the water and when his attention is captured will do whatever he can to please the teacher. Unfortunately the swimming coach who has taken them so far moved to another centre further away, so we're hoping the New Year may see her return so we can return the older 2 kids to swimming lessons.  

Samuel at our church carols night.

A cheeky grin and a personality to match is the best way to describe our youngest boy Samuel. His smile lights up a room and charm comes naturally to him even when he's being all shy. Samuel has had a great year attending Family Day Care with his big brother. Every Monday and Friday he can't wait to get out of the car at his sister's school and go with Maria. He has also come a long way this year and is another charmer. Maria loves his hugs and laughs at the way he calls out Maya's name (Maria's daughter who is 18 months older than Alexandra). He is talking a lot more and isn't backwards in telling off his siblings and standing up for himself verbally and physically if they're in his way or doing something he's not happy with. He has quite the temper sometimes too, but usually when he throws a tantrum its short lived but intense. Samuel's overall personality is hard to describe in words, but as he gets older the unique personality shines through. He follows his big brother around a lot and has started to refer to his big sister as "ister" his brother as "lalee" (although he now says a much clearer Zachary after our holiday in Bundaberg) and his baby sister as "stasia". We're enjoying watching the personality change and develop and are looking forward to more of his growing up.

Anastasia looking up at Mummy

So I guess that brings me to child number 4. Anastasia Margaret was born on September 11th, but not without some excitement. This is the first child of ours that has come into the world in its own time and not having been induced. In fact Sonya will tell you she wasn't even sure she was having contractions early evening on the 10th and it took a few hours for her to be convinced. She went into the Greenslopes hospital for observation and they confirmed she was definitely in labour. Unfortunately I didn't actually get to see the birth. Having been unwell most of the week, I had a bad moment where everything blacked out and I vomited everywhere...in the birthing suite. Needless to say I was ejected relatively quickly and had to change into hospital scrubs as my clothes were covered in vomit, and Sonya continued on without me. Sonya's mum was already down looking after the other kids, so she came into the hospital to be with Sonya to replace me, despite everything being over and done with before I had even managed to drive the 30min home. (The following week, after Sonya was discharged with Anastasia, I was admitted to the same hospital diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia). Anastasia has been a big hit with her siblings who absolutely love her and are always willing to help by nursing her (except when she starts crying). Samuel especially is funny when he wants to cuddle his sister as he sits down and holds out his arms and rolls his fingers back and forth to indicate he would like a nurse.

Sonya finished work just over a week before Anastasia’s arrival and plans to return to work at the beginning of the next financial year. She is still working as a Laboratory Scientist for Sullivan & Nicolaides Pathology based at Greenslopes Hospital. It’s a job she loves to do, especially as she gets out of the house and away from kids to feel like an adult again. Don't get me wrong she loves our kids, but being a full time mum can be a bit tiring. She admits when she does the weekend shifts working each evening from Friday to Monday, she does miss the kids and Tuesday is a great day for her.

Sonya got dressed up, made up and loved it.

Sonya has focused on work and kids throughout the year and hasn't had time to do too much outside of that. She does the school run 3 days a week, and has calculated that we spend almost 10 hours a week in the car just travelling between home and school. But amidst all this she has managed to squeeze a couple of visits to her parents' place in Caloundra, and tries to get to as many school/kindy activities as she can to support the kids (even becoming the proud owner of the prep class project from the school art show auction). She has also organised some special excursions for her and the kids, including a Mickey Mouse Magic show, a Peppa Pig puppet stage show, taking Alexandra to her first cinema outing, and a visit to Disney On Ice where she met up with an old school friend and her children who had come down from Mount Isa for a short holiday and a show. Sonya was also asked to be a bridesmaid/matron of honour at another old school friend's wedding in December. It’s a funny story how it happened but despite some hesitation about fulfilling that role whilst still being a nursing mother, she went along with it all and had an incredible time. The hair, the makeup, the dress...being fussed over and spending time with 2 old school friends (the bride and other bridesmaid), she not only had a great day, she looked absolutely ravishing!! (I may be biased but I know other people agreed with me). Now that Anastasia has come along, a lot of extra work goes into the baby on top of the already busy workload of 3 other kids. She's an amazing mum and I have no idea how she keeps it all together!

Thorneside UCA captured me preaching.

For me 2014 has been pretty full on as well. My role at Vision Radio changed a couple of times this year, switching departments twice, but I am settled back into the newsroom permanently. My job now basically involves assisting in the preparation of news bulletins, contributing stories, doing social media engagement and still being on call to read and write bulletins. I am much happier being back in the newsroom than I was in the programming department, but as I say sometimes, it’s my own silly fault for being an all-rounder. The powers that be know that I can do many jobs within our media content department and know that I will do them to the best of my ability. Outside of work, life has also become busier. My church roles have had a significant shake up with my acceptance as a candidate for Minister of the Word within the Uniting Church. On top of that, I completed my Bachelor of Theology at the end of Semester One this year, and was also commissioned as an Accredited Lay Preacher within the church in June (on the anniversary of the formation of the Uniting Church no less - I was kinda chuffed at the idea of that).I have had numerous opportunities to exercise my preaching and worship leading, with many positive comments flowing back, not only to me, but to the ministers of the congregations that I had been invited to. Whilst this is nice, it also affirms to me that God has indeed called me to this type of ministry and I look forward with anticipation and trepidation where this will lead me next.

There have been a number of other activities I have crammed in this year too. We were folding and delivering the local paper in our area for the past year, but have now decided that it's too hard to work it in and around a new baby and our already tight time schedule so we decided to give this away. 
I whisked Sonya away for a few hours in February to celebrate our wedding anniversary with a visit to the Outback Spectacular whilst Sonya’s parents babysat. I also took Sonya to an orchestra concert that an old friend of mine was playing in on the Gold Coast. It’s something that Sonya loves and obviously the opportunity to go to this type of concert is few and far between so it was great to be able to do that for her, while some church friends babysat the kids.

I attended Easterfest again this year, this time not only as a media person, but I was also a part time media chaplain. This was very different for me and it took a bit of getting used to as festival chaplaincy is more of a ministry of presence - meaning a lot of just being around and being seen, something I wasn’t used to at this festival. I also had a flying visit to my 11th Bundaberg Relay For Life to be the MC. I think I was there for a total of 36 hours or less, up all night and then straight off the plane in Brisbane to Sonya's cousin's engagement party. By the time I got home late that afternoon I was exhausted and slept very well that night. My other 2 major adventures; flying to Canberra to cover a UCA reconciliation event on the lawns of Parliament House... Whilst only there for a day I couldn't pass up the chance to have lunch with Sonya's Aunty Margie and visit the Australian War Memorial. I also flew to Melbourne for a mate's surprise 40th birthday. His wife had cooked up an 80s themed party and he had no idea it was a surprise party (not just dinner with some close friends) until he got there! A great weekend and I wished I had more time to spend there with my cousins.

As I say every year, for some of you, we don't get much of a chance to catch up with you throughout the year, so we try to give you a glimpse into our increasingly busy lives. Hopefully you've enjoyed our 2014 biography and please remember to drop in and say g'day if you're ever in our neck of the woods.

Family photo after preaching in Maryborough Sunday after Christmas (source: Rev. Kate Dix)

Sonya’s Supplement

Well once again we seem to be running out of room, so a brief rundown from me is all that will fit. You have just read about our growing family, Matt’s church journey, and our increasingly busy lives, so it would come as no surprise that I am constantly re-assessing what I can do to streamline tasks and budgeting the finances. And you can see that family is number one in my book, and I am so proud of what my family have learnt and achieved this past year. I am so happy that I have been blessed with my “2 pair” of kids, 2 blonde and 2 dark haired, and 2 boys and 2 girls, just as I had planned it :) The kids are growing so fast, and the prospect of having 2 in school in 2015 seems to have come quickly and yet not soon enough lol. I am currently breastfeeding, potty training, running the house, and seem to run out of hours in the day all the time as I am quite independent. But I would like to take the time to thank our parents and our church family for all of their help this past year particularly with babysitting or assisting with the older kids, in particular around the time of Anastasia’s birth and Matt’s hospitalization and church synod meeting, we would not have survived without you. So I also reiterate Matt’s comment of our “do drop in” policy, as it is much easier to have a disjointed conversation in person than it is on the phone (chatting in between child rearing supervision and instruction sometimes lends itself to a mother feeling like she has Tourette syndrome). I know that it has been hard keeping up with others at this point in our lives. So I too hope that this letter keeps you up to date, and finds you and your family well, safe and healthy, and all the best wishes from our family to yours, all our love. 

Matt, Sonya, Alexandra, Zachary, Samuel and Anastasia.

Portrait shoot at Berrinba Wetlands with Essence of Time Photography