June Happenings 2022

 June has been a busy month, particularly with birthdays, focusing on Daniel turning 10!

I enjoyed the Biggest Morning Tea at church with some of my neighbours. A great idea to support a wonderful organisation but also to have the neighbours join us. So glad that Andrew has the perspective that we are a team and we support others in our team so it was great that I could go.

Jenny flicked through some old photos and found similarities between Alexander, her and Oscar as babies. There are some Gower genes there (even though there is big similarities between the Noble kids.

Eliza and Alexander enjoyed playing AFL on the SCG under lights.

We went to the Bluey concert in the park, something that was postponed because of Covid. It was a beautiful day outside and the kids really enjoyed dancing with Bluey (although it was only for a short time). They loved the face paint and decorated canvas bags too.

 

Musical Statues with Bluey

Uncle Howie was working the gig. Very cool to see him for a bit of it.

Daniel still isn't too big to curl up on our lap

There was a nature tent and Eliza was able to pat a stuffed echidna.

We went for a walk to one of the lookouts after the concert. Beautiful view over the beaches.

Our kids had their first Cross Country carnival at school.

For my birthday, I loved having Mum's Chinese cooking for dinner.

Alexander drew a picture for me of Mum's shop.

Alexander and Eliza drew pictures of Mary Poppins after enjoying the musical.

Both boys got player of the match on the same weekend. Very proud of them!

At times I write a note in the kids' lunch boxes for them to find when at school. I had the gorgeous surprise of having a couple of notes in my lunch box when I got to work. Too cute!

I do love how Daniel enjoys helping Alexander's reading. Often he will ask if he can read to Alexander at night. This week, Daniel was happy to listen to Alexander read his reader.

One afternoon I had a delivery out of the blue of a donut box. What a sweet treat from the friend who had been praying for me as I started work. 

Alexander is doing well with his readers. I do love that he snuggles in when reading.

James and I enjoyed a night out at Hot Potato Band. It was a long time waiting for them to come on stage and the band before I wasn't too excited by, but Hot Potato Band music is so much fun!

The kids had a W themed Mufti Day at school. 

Eliza went at Watermelon.

Alexander went at Water.

Daniel decided as he went to bed that he wanted to go as a weather gauge, with a dial that could spin to point to the different weather choices. What a choice for the night before. I told him that I would do my best and headed upstairs to see what I could do with my felt and an old shirt. I was quite proud of my creation and even made a twisting arrow. And Daniel loved his shirt so that's great.

Eliza performed her first drama performance. She did a great job being Prime minister. I love that Nana and Poppy were able to come and watch her.

Then Alexander was able to come and do his performance. He did a great job as Lenny.

A very proud Eliza came to watch Alexander's performance, as well as Nana and Poppy.

End of Term 2, I loved reading Alexander's reflection. 'This Term I learnt high frequency words. I enjoyed drama. I love it.'

Jens and I love a good reenactment photo.

To end the month, Daniel started to be quite sick. He had a fever, which isn't a good sign. Especially with Covid around. He then told me that he was feeling very cold, even though it was a warm day. Another not good sign. We did a RAT which came back negative but with so many symptoms, we didn't trust it and got a PCR. The result came back without Covid, but showed he did have the Flu. Poor kid. Amazingly the flu didn't spread (which was a great thing because we were heading to Daniel's party at Luna Park) but he was quite unwell with it.

Eliza's AFL Gala Day

It has been so wonderful to see Eliza embrace and really enjoy AFL this year. She has made some lovely buddies too who she has really enjoyed playing with. 

Today the Under 8s girls had an AFL Gala day, a chance for them to go and play some proper games against other clubs and just have fun. It was brilliant. The girls started by doing handstands and cartwheels as warm ups - my boys have never done that. I loved it!

They did a few drills to warm up and then they had their first game. The game is such a different pace to the boys game. The girls are a lot more tentative, hesitant to run. A lot of the natural instincts just didn't seem to be there. But between the first and the last game, the girls grew so much in skill and confidence which was great to see. Eliza did such a wonderful job too with having a go. She also has such a beautiful heart that she saw that teammates didn't have much of the ball so she'd pass it to them so they could go for goals, or have a turn at hand balling and kicking. I was so proud of the way that she played the game.

Here was her first kick at goal. She did score a behind but I loved that she gave it a go and got close.

She also did a great job of defending. Again, quite funny watching the girls play as they would just run to the goal line to defend whenever the opposition got the ball. Wasn't be best way to defend, but they gave it their best go. As the games went on, Eliza started to get the hang of running towards the player.

Here Eliza passed the ball to another team mate so that she felt included too. I really do love the way she sees others and tries to include them.

In the last game, Eliza started to get the hang of playing. She scored quite a few goals in the game and it was great to see her improvement and her confidence increase. I also loved the support from the umpires (who were Auskick people), in particular one of the girls who gave Eliza high fives after her goal or a good play.

Kicking a goal

Such a fun morning. 

As we headed home Eliza said 'Mummy I loved today! I want to keep playing AFL'. What a great experience for her and I hope she continues to enjoy playing it.