Harmony Day

Alexander was very excited to celebrate Harmony Day at school. He had no real knowledge about what it was about but he was very excited to dress up in so much orange :-)

The big kids had their harmony day a week later. They were at home that day so wrote a reflection about what Harmony Day means to them. This is Eliza's reflection.

On his Harmony Day Daniel and Eliza had a Fiver for a Farmer at school. They got to dress up as a farmer to raise money for Drought Angels.

A great day supporting 2 wonderful visions.

 

The Faces of Alexander

I have enjoyed hanging out with my little man on Wednesday mornings while the other 2 have been at school. He is such a cheeky little guy who makes me smile so much. At the park, Alexander commented that this part of the equipment looked like a photo frame. Why not take advantage of it.

 

Awards

This year Daniel received his last silver award at school. He is now working towards his first gold award.

Eliza also received her first award at Dance. She was pretty excited to get a Wow award. 

It was for working hard, listening and concentrating! Great work Eliza! She does seem to be enjoying dance now which is good and is growing in confidence. It's hard to know how it is going when you're not able to watch it. But she is keen to go, she enjoys dancing in her room at home and she likes to show us some of her moves so I guess all that is a positive.

Good work monkeys!

 

Sydney Swans Fan Day

On Saturday afternoon we decided that we would head into the Sydney Swans Fan Day. Dad went last year and said that the set up was good and that you could also get your Swans beannie and caps there too. The kids enjoyed dressing in the Swans gear again. 

When we arrived we climbed into a fire engine to have a look around. The fireman in there was great with the kids, explaining the different features of the truck and telling us about his experience in the recent fires. Legend!

When we entered the Hordern Pavillion and the kids went straight to the jumping castle obstacle course. They had a lot of fun!

Eliza went straight to get her face painted. Always brings a smile to her face.

Alexander and Daniel both went for a tattoo.

We went over and had our photo taken by the Sydney Swans premiership trophy. In 2012, Daniel had his photo taken sitting in it when he was a baby. We unfortunately couldn't reenact that.

We went and collected our Swans membership gear and then lined up to have a turn at handballing to Aliir Aliir.

Daniel did really well with it.

It was pretty cool to get the balls from JK.

Alexander had his best go. I loved seeing JK's responses to his handballs.

Aliir Aliir is Alexander's favourite player. When we saw that he was receiving the handballs we wanted to try and get a photo of Alexander with him. Unfortunately the players weren't getting individual photos. We told Alexander to go up and show him that he had his badge. The response was so cute! Alexander was so excited.

Then the kids wanted to say hi to Cyggy. Always a favourite for the kids at Swans activities.

Alexander also wanted to show Cyggy that he had his badge too.

Cyggy was very sweet with his reaction.

Next up we went over to the other side of the room. The kids got Channel 7 drink bottles and then had a turn at tapping as many AFL balls as they could in a set time. Daniel did the best. Eliza was very dainty with her tapping.

Then kids then had a go at doing the obstacle course.

The boys had a few extra goes while Eliza spotted Cyggy again and wanted another hug. She even did a bit of flossing with him.

We also said hello to Simon Wiggle who is the Swans ambassador for this year. He is just lovely.

Before we left the kids had another turn on the jumping castle and I tried to get a nice photo of the 3 of them. Impossible!

We also spotted that Papley was getting photos with the premiership cup (he didn't seem to happy about doing it, but he was) so we headed over to get one with him. After all, he is one of James' favourite players.

After a couple of hours we headed back home. A fun afternoon out. The kids loved it and so did we. Thanks Swans!

Alexander Reading

Tonight Alexander read me his bedtime story. It was too cute not to share!
This Little Piggy Went Dancing.

I love how he is like the other 2 and just loves to 'read' books. And I do really enjoy reading this book. He looks so proud of himself too.

More Love On Your Arm

We are up to week 6 of school and preschool and the drop offs are still up and down. After all the black outs at school, Eliza has gotten a little bit shakey with morning drop offs. Last week she was in tears because she wanted to hold my hand to school but Daniel and Alexander already were holding them so she couldn't. When the music started to lineup, Daniel went off to class and Eliza just grabbed hold of my hand, wouldn't let go. Fortunately her teacher was great in helping her swap from me to her and then head into class. The Friday she was fine with Nana and Poppy. Today she was back to being clingy. When I asked her why (this afternoon) she told me that she just loves me so much and doesn't want to leave me. That's quite sweet but hopefully she will be ok with going.

Alexander has also been up and down. Last week he was pulled off me both days in tears, but quickly settled after a few minutes of me leaving. Saturday morning he went to bed and was saying he didn't want to go back to preschool. Then this morning he was totally happy with going to preschool, was fine with drop off and was all smiles as I left. I just can't keep up with the kiddies.

One thing that has happened is that the heart on the wrist has spread to the whole family. 

The other 2 kids couldn't cope with missing out on having one so they asked Alexander if we all could have a heart on our wrist and he was keen for it. So most preschool days we all have our hug hearts on our wrists. So what you can to survive :-)

Hopefully they both settle with drop offs on a more regular basis.
 

Friends with Holiday Houses

Anne and Angus bought a holiday house 1hr up the coast at the end of last year. I have seen photos and the place looks amazing! I have heard about their adventures up there - fishing, the beach, kayaking, crab catching, prawning. It just sounds lovely. One Thursday at Mother's Group, Anne and I were chatting about our weekend. She was headed up to the holiday house with the family and we had a quiet weekend with nothing on besides Preschool BBQ and church. Anne then suggested that we could go up after the Preschool BBQ, have a sleepover and then we hang out until after lunch and head home for church. James and I chatted and we decided that we would be up for the challenge. 

We headed to preschool BBQ for dinner and enjoyed face painting, playing and chatting. It was really nice to catch up with Anna, Neil, Emma and Mikey as well as to meet Gus (Alexander's little buddy) and his parents. 

We then headed home, did teeth and the kids got into their pjs. We hopped into the car and headed up north. Eliza had a little nap in the car and Alexander fell asleep. Fortunately he transferred when we arrived and went straight back to sleep. Winner! Eliza and Daniel were both quite excited and so were quite awake, plus sharing a room together. Flynnie hadn't gone to sleep yet so was very excited that we were there so he kept coming out of his room too. 

In between kids coming out to say hi, say they can't get to sleep, say that Flynnie came into their room, etc. we had a lovely time sitting in their lounge room chatting, sharing a drink and chocolates. It was just really nice to sit and catch up together. We were going to do prawning but with all the storms the water was pretty gross with a lot of weed there so it wouldn't have been nice prawns. Eventually all the kids were asleep and we were growing tired so headed off to bed. Unfortunately sleep wasn't the best over the night. Eliza and Daniel basically tag teamed going to the toilet, calling out and just waking us up. I was basically up each hour. Fortunately they didn't wake everyone everytime. 

Daniel and Lachie were up at 6am and Ems was up at 6:30. Anne and Angus hadn't told their kids the surprise of our kids being there. Flynnie knew because he was still awake when we arrived and Lachie woke before we had head to bed but Ems was quite excited about her surprise and was even more excited once Eliza woke up. The view from their place is gorgeous! So relaxing.

The morning started with Angus, Lachie, James and Daniel heading out on the kayaks to check the crab catchers. They have 3 out there. The night before Angus caught a massive mud crab! This morning they caught a blue swimmer crab.

Lachie picked up the crab

He taught Daniel how to hold it. Proud of him having a go.

The younger ones enjoyed watching them all out on the water.

Cheeky boys

While Angus made the kids some breakfast James went to get coffee and Anne and I went for a lovely kayak. It was so peaceful out on the water! A perfect escape.

Angus then took Daniel, Lachie and James out on the boat for Daniel to do fishing for the first time. He was so excited about it! I didn't know how he would go with being on the boat and it being a slow process to try and catch a fish but James said he did pretty well.

What made it even more excited was that Daniel caught his first fish with the last piece of bait. Great work Daniel! He did have to throw it back though because it was too small.

While they were on the boat, Anne and I took Flynnie, Alexander, Ems and Eliza to the beach. The girls enjoyed playing in the water with the boogie boards while the boys loved playing on the sand.

It was a struggle to pull the kids away from the beach! We headed back to their place for lunch - sausages, fresh crab meat (yum!), salad and bread rolls. Perfect and tasty lunch. And then we packed up while the kids enjoyed an ice cream.

It was such a fun weekend! We will definitely try and head back up there with them and stay for a night or 2. They are such wonderful friends and I just love watching the little friendships grow between each of the pairs of kids. The friendships are forced, they just connect.

So overall it was a success, even with many wake ups in the night. And the kids have now had their first sleepover at a friends place. Pretty special!