New skills

Malakai has been determined to learn how to ride his bike ever since he got it for Christmas. We have promoted 'perseverance' and he's now confidently riding around the bike paths at the park :) I love watching him gain confidence and enjoy new things.



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More family fun :)

Yesterday we went to Tidbinbilla for a BBQ lunch and play on their nature discovery playground. It was such a perfect day. The weather was amazing, no wind and God blessed us with getting a table under the shelter (so I didn't burn at all! So rare lol).



Malakai enjoyed being pushed 'higher mummy!'



Ella was a little shy of the flying fox and big slide at first, but after I went down the slide with her she was fine. I found it a bit scary though! We helped her on the flying fox and she loved it.







Josh made new friends (and remembered their names!) and absolutely loved the flying fox.



At one point Malakai hurt himself coming down the slide, and as I went to comfort him, Josh came out of nowhere to hug him and check that he was alright. LOVE those moments :)



We went to Taronga Zoo last Sunday! I'm looking forward to posting some pics about that soon :) Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Family fun

Today we went to Weston Park and enjoyed the glorious weather. My old school friend, Kasey, came with us and we met up with grandma, granddad and aunty Shelly for a BBQ lunch.



I didn't realize the water play area was open/working again. The kids had such a great time getting wet! I remember my grandma Nonie taking me and my brother there when we were kids...



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since my last post:

~ I went on my personal retreat and it was AWESOME! Would love to plan to have one every year.


~ Malakai turned 4 :) He had some cool little friends over and enjoyed his 'Lightning McQueen' party so much he didn't get over it for days! I sewed my first banner out of some Cars fabric and it's now hanging in his room.

~ Ariella toilet trained herself (pretty much). It started the day after Malakai turned 4. And that's that. My last baby toilet trained. I'm excited and kinda sad at the same time (but not THAT sad!!)

~ We played tag team with another bug. It's been a rotten year for all of us catching things :( totally over it

~ Josh's class had their assembly at school. SO PROUD of him :) love smiling and winking at him and making heart shape signs with our hands when he's supposed to be paying attention to his teacher ;) and taking a million photos

~ We celebrated Father's Day - Aaron is such a totally awesome daddy :)

~ Aaron and I celebrated 9 years of marriage!! God is so good :)

~ To celebrate our wedding anniversary and Aaron's birthday ;) we went on a short holiday to the coast between my work days. On one particular morning, we were all on the beach and the weather was PERFECT! the sun was shining and there was no wind...we were building sandcastles and throwing the frisbee around and we were having the best time...it's one of those memories you want to bottle and never EVER forget.

~ I've had a cyst on my right thumb for several months now, the dr wasn't too concerned about it as long as it didn't change. Unfortunately last friday morning 23rd Sept it did change :( it got infected and PAINFUL and swollen :( it's a lot better now, and the unbelievable pain has gone (so grateful for THAT) so now we'll have to see about whether it needs to be removed. Interesting.

~ Mum and I took the kids to the Colin Buchanan concert on saturday (I was dosed up on painkillers and paranoid about people bumping my thumb but it was fine). We had such a good time. I love *most* of his songs and this concert was hilarious.

~ I started the Maximise Your Mornings challenge. Basically, from Sept 15 to Dec 15 you commit to getting up to spend time with God before the day. I've done this for a while now, but never as consistently as I'd like. So I joined the challenge to see if I could push myself just a little further.

So far it's going ok, despite being interrupted by holidays and infected thumbs!! Having a group to sign into each day for accountability is such a blessing and encouragement - makes more of a difference than I could have imagined :)

So now we are looking forward to my birthday (YAY! Love my birthday lol!), Josh's birthday (7!!!), Aaron having a couple of weeks off at the same time as me (which equals lots of things getting done around the house I hope!) and many other things I'm sure.

memory keeping

Every time I do another page for our photo books (which is hardly ever - as you can see by this finished one I'm only up to april 2009!) I wish I had kept better records (aka blog entries) on what we were up to...and I alternate between wishing I'd taken more photos and wishing I'd taken less. I'm pretty determined to get 2009 finished asap. I've got May all ready and waiting and hopefully in about a month I can get it printed...I'd like to think it'd be quicker but there's gotta be some report writing in there somewhere :(

Malakai has officially stopped his afternoon sleep as of last week :( I'm so devastated. I had hoped to keep that going til preschool!! But it seemed it was starting to affect his night sleep so the decision was made. He's currently as tall as Josh was when he was 4, with still three more months til Malakai turns 4 himself. He's already expressed that he wants Josh at his preschool, 'Because I love him so much'. awwwww!! I love that :)So I recently had my staff retreat, which was unlike any I'd been to before. In the week following, our Principal announced he would be resigning at the end of 2011. He's been there for 12 years, I've never had a different principal!! So it's interesting times at work. I'd still love to do just one day instead of 2, although lately I've been working 3 days a week due to various reasons. I find that's WAY too much and will try not to do it if I can avoid it from now on.
I bought a couple of DVD's recently ;) bit of a splurge I guess. I'm still waiting for Larkrise to Candleford to arrive, but I've got this one already and just waiting for a chance to watch it. I did watch it when it aired on TV, and I really liked it so I'm hoping it's as good as I remember lol!

I'm also re-reading The Ministry of Motherhood with this bookclub. It's quite amazing that I'm up to date so far (with the book reading side of things at least!) I don't remember much of it from when I read it before, so I'm underlining a lot more this time. Writing and underlining in my books is really new to me and I still feel kinda weird doing it, but I've noticed I get a lot more out of it that way.

April/May

The kids and I at Mogo Zoo, April 2011

Poor Kai got his head stuck in this photo board thingy at Mogo Zoo! It was one of those funny/horrible moments...

Building Sandcastles at Longbeach

During the recent school holidays, over the easter weekend, we were blessed to be able to spend some time at the coast (Longbeach NSW). Although the weather was fairly ordinary (as it often is when we go to the coast!!) we still managed to have a great time. We only had to walk across the road to get to the beach :) the kids made sandcastles and flew their kites. We went to Mogo Zoo for the morning as well, but left fairly quickly when we could no longer move for all the people who ALSO decided to go to Mogo Zoo that day ;)



Over the past month we've been to the National Zoo again, to Questacon, and enjoyed having Daddy home for the second half of the holidays. I enjoyed Mother's Day...sort of! The day before Mother's Day we did a lot of yard work, then I followed that with LOTS of ironing and several hours of school work on the computer. I woke up at 5am on mother's day in tears cause I couldn't move :( after many massages, a visit to the dr and chiropractor, I'm still a bit of a mess but significantly better than sunday. God is so good though, as I was leading worship for our mother's day service and I honestly thought I wouldn't be able to do it. In the end I decided to push through and miraculously was able to do it without much pain. It was a huge blessing to me.

School is back and it's a busy term :) Josh has just started piano lessons at school as well. He had his first one today, followed by his first practise tonight. So cute! Kai and Ella want to practise as well of course. I just handed in Malakai's preschool enrollment forms this week too. It's a reminder that there is only about 8 more months until he's not at home full time anymore. The desire to homeschool is still there...we will wait and see what happens and how things go :)

it's quiet here at the moment...

dinner is done, Aaron's at a men's meeting and the children are sleeping. I have recently moved our study into what used to be Ariella's room so I'm about to do some more sorting/organising, but thought I'd do a quick blog post since I've been a bit slack lately.

I became a member of the National Zoo and Aquarium this year (Kai and Ella are cheap/free to get in since they're still under 4, and I used the coupon in the Entertainment book so the membership price wasn't quite so bad lol). So we've gone a couple of times already. God's creation just fills me with awe, and I just love zoos for that reason. I particularly love that the zoo we have here has both land and sea animals. I love aquariums. They give me a glimpse of the unfathomable creativity of God.

Josh and Kai at the National Zoo
February 2011

Josh has finished his season of playing cricket with the Milo In2Cricket program. I'm looking forward to swimming lessons finishing up and taking a bit of a break over the winter.

Ariella enjoying her play time while the boys have their swimming lessons.

Term 1 is finished and I'm so glad. I started off this year with the determination that as I returned to work I would NOT overload my plate. That worked ok for a while, but then some opportunities came up that were right in line with my goals and before long I found myself feeling the pressure. Add to that the fact that teaching can bring with it unexpected pressure of its own and I'm am just so relieved that wk 10 is over. Although I have a heap of work to do during this break so aside from not having to teach my class it won't be all that relaxing lol!

Josh is 6 and a half. He is my peacemaker, my sincere, thoughtful and friendly sweetheart. I enjoy him so much. I pray that God will help him to not be so easily distracted! I love having him visit me when I'm at school, he peeks in the window and makes me smile. He plays with the chess set and makes up his own rules and I love it.

Malakai is 3 and 8 months. He's serious, yet has an awesome sense of humour and loves to make us laugh. He adores his older brother and wants to learn to read because Josh is. He can be stubborn so I pray that he'll be stubborn with always loving and serving God. He loves to dance - and has an unusual style! He is clever and capable and I have to be careful not to treat him like he's also 6 and a half.

Ariella almost 2 and 4months. People often comment on how good her speech is. We have cool little discussions. Lately her favourite thing to say is that her and I are, 'Both girls'. She told me last night that I'm her best friend. I call her my 'best girl'. She gives awesome squeezy cuggles (all my kids do). She has a really cheeky streak in her, loves to see what she can get away with - all the while smiling and giving such a cheeky look. Seems that's a girl thing? I love watching her and her daddy. Sometimes if I'm feeling emotional it can even make me cry! (happy tears) After 2 strong boys she seems so EASY! I have to be careful to stay consistent with my expectations of her. She loves music and dancing as well, keeps reminding me that I told her I'd teach her some ballet lol!

Well, Aaron's home so I'll get off the computer :) hope you're all having a great weekend!

A perfect afternoon

We spent the afternoon shopping for Josh's school stuff - new shoes etc. And some 'school' stuff for Malakai ;) he feels very special with his new preschool pack from Big W. I love how he desires to learn (and sometimes wish I was more of the type to 'push' them...) and I hope we'll have lots of fun this year...my last year with him home full-time.

After rest time (and a quick trip to work for me that resulted in setting off the school alarm! Turns out I DON'T have security access to my building lol!) we all got in the pool and had such a precious time together. Malakai, who was referred to by his first swimming teacher as 'The boy who doesn't want to learn to swim' has become a fish!

He started at a different swim centre (a week late, because I forgot they started earlier than school term) and I was worried that the change in teacher would actually be detrimental because he really loved his first and only teacher. But he loved it! And EVER SINCE, every time we've gotten in the pool he's been confident, and can even swim from one side to the other (the shortest part of the pool, but still a LONG way for him!) I'm so proud and just enjoying this precious burst of confidence in my serious little fella.

Ariella is a still a fish, as is Josh. It's a real blessing to me as I've always loved swimming.

After a particularly lovely family dinner time, I was kissing Josh goodnight, and before I left him to go to sleep I said with a pretend sob, 'I can't believe my baby is all grown up and going into Yr 1!', and he said (in the cutest american accent) 'Don't worry mommy, I'll still love you, even when I go to college'. LOL!!!! We laughed and laughed and laughed!

Good times :)

at least we didn't have to pay a plumber!

We had some funky things happening when we emptied the bath around here lately...the bathroom sink would become a fountain of seriously icky watery-slime stuff. Not fun.

So I was all set to call the plumber...and remembered Malakai's 'thing' for putting stuff down the outside drain. Wondering if that would make any difference, I asked Josh if he'd check out whether he could find anything down there...




(not included in the photo is the 3rd flip flop that Aaron got out with a coat-hanger-hook and a deflated plastic AMF bowling ball - which I reckon was responsible for the bathroom sink fountain lol)

But hey, we didn't have to pay a plumber!!

what a week...

So last friday I posted the bbq disaster (I've since purchased a cover for it in the hopes that that might make a difference...?)

That seemed to mark the beginning of a week that continued in like fashion. I don't have pics of the oil-spill-scare-that-turned-out-to-be-seasol at Jeanette's house during the ladies morning tea but it was a good one for getting the heart rate up. It's just been one of 'those' weeks. Bit of fever/vomitting, bit of cold/flu, toddlers being toddlers and I start thinking the old familiar thoughts...'that's it, I'm going back to work full time!'


This happened when I was foolish enough to not strap the children into high chairs while I made an important phone call today.


My blessings are asleep and I am enjoying a few moments of peace and I wander in to look at my quilt top that I fought with earlier this week (lots of seam ripping and re-sewing - I should have known better this week!) and then I scream (with my mouth closed because there's no way on God's earth I wanna wake up those babes!)


Someone's been practising their cutting...I HAVE NO IDEA what I am going to do with that now :( and I'm so disappointed. But aside from being quite a shocker of a week, there have been a couple of really nice things - one in particular that I'll blog about soon.

God is good, and faithful. And His grace is sufficient for me in this season. It's when I fail to avail myself of that grace that I start to feel like I'm spiraling downward. But you know, I'm just really hoping next week will be better!

This happens everyday...

well not THIS specifically... but inevitably, following the instruction and input from God, (like the last post) I walk away from that and find something that 'tests' what I've just received (usually within seconds). The minute I walked away from publishing that post I found my babes outside with the BBQ fat tray...not for the first time. Oh how I need help with self control during these moments so that I won't yell because I'm really frustrated.

The best thing about this morning is that I didn't yell.

I'm not HAPPY about it, I think you'd have to be a weirdo to be happy about that mess! But, with God (and with baby steps) perhaps I'm moving toward a little more self control with reactions. A little more 'stooping without sighing' (or yelling!)

lately...

• Josh seems to have just clicked with reading! SO exciting!

• Malakai adjusted to sunday school better than I anticipated - YAY! He seems to really enjoy it...not that he says all that much about it lol.

• I went to our national women's retreat with Mickey Mangun from the POA as the main speaker. I was looking forward to this retreat in a similar way to the previous national retreat, and I wasn't disappointed AT ALL. Praise God, by His mercy I was changed that weekend, and I hope to never be the same again (in a good way lol!)

• While I was away, Aaron did the most FANTASTIC job with the kids. They didn't even miss me :( here he is doing devotions with them, using The Message devotional bible for kids...they drive us nuts with searching for 'manty' the praying mantis throughout this book but it's a lot of fun :) this is what they were doing when I arrived home monday night after shopping in Bowral on the way home ;) nice!

• We've been getting more formal about 'chores' around here too. Josh is a great helper, and often gets upset if I don't let him help. He makes his bed by himself every morning and does such a great job! He also keeps his room really neat and tidy. But other than that, it's been a kind of 'help when mummy asks' thing more than consistent chores. But now that Malakai's 3 (he loves to help too - gets a little obsessive lol!) I'm thinking of using a system. While I figure out which one will work for me (a chart WILL NOT work for me cause I'm hopeless at updating them) they've started with emptying the dishwasher, dustbusting the kitchen floor, feeding the cat, putting the rubbish out...and I'm thinking of more!!

• Aaron went to Bundaberg for our AYM weekend this year (the weekend straight after I was away, which also happened to be Father's Day) and he had an awesome time. I really wish we all could have gone, but it's such a long way :( He took some extra time off work when he got back and we had a mini holiday...and it was SUPER FANTASTICLY AWESOME :)

Spring has begun...in theory anyway

So I'm hanging out for spring, and dying to do some spring cleaning...but the weather doesn't seem to realise it's spring already :(

August flew by. The second half of the year always goes faster for us as all the family birthdays start from July (Nanna) and finish in Dec (Ariella). Plus our anniversary :)

Malakai is 3 now. It seems to be a bit of a milestone birthday around here. Both Josh and Malakai started swimming lessons at 3. Our church starts sunday school at 3. Malakai has grown, and overall just seems so much more grown up now. But he still likes me to hold him 'like a baby' when I wrap him up after a bath.

We had his party at a local indoor playground, Kid's Rampage, because unfortunately the weather isn't always predictable on his birthday. Of course the day we had it, the weather was PERFECT! More like spring than we've seen so far that's for sure! But the party went well and I didn't have to do any organising or cleaning up and that suited me really well this year. It was great seeing Kai playing and interacting with his friends. It's so awesome when they start to play with each other as opposed to playing next to each other.

For his home/family celebration on the actual day of his birthday, Aaron and I made a Very Hungry Caterpillar cake. We bought Kai the book and soft toy for his birthday (yeah, pretty shocking that we never had that book before hey...) and I think he really loved the whole theme.

I've started at the gym, doing a pilates/yoga kind of class. It worked out cheaper to join the gym than pay for classes at a separate studio because Aaron's work has a corporate arrangement and I can join through that - praise God! I'm starting really, really slowly and just taking it easy on my shoulder and neck. My first class was last night and altho I wasn't absolutely hopelessly out of shape, I could tell how far I've let myself go (having three kids will do that I guess!). Feels good to be stretching again.

Malakai is scared of dogs. At my uncle's 50th last year he tried to pat one of his dogs and it bit him...plus the enormous dog from the neighbouring property was bigger than him. He gained a healthy fear of them at an early point in life.


I was hoping he was getting more confident around them, but unfortunately this afternoon as we walked to school to pick up Josh he was attacked by a very mean little foxie. We could hear it growling as we walked along the path, and I thought if we could just get past it while the boy held onto it we'd be fine. Unfortunately the boy tried to get up and take it home just as we were walking past, and it chased Kai and tried to bite him!


I don't think it actually bit him, but it was pretty close. The boy's brother came along at this point and managed to pick up the dog and take it home (and apologise). Kai and I were both pretty upset, poor little fella! I'm so disappointed, cause I really love dogs and I think it's sad that he's had such a negative experience with them so far in his short life :(

Aside from that he's growing like a weed. He's 2 and 8 months and has officially moved into size 3 clothes. He (like all my children) is strong willed and can tend to be a bit bossy, but he is very thoughtful and loves to help any way he can. When I tell him I love him he responds with, 'I love you too Mister Mum' said so fast that you almost can't understand him. His favourite foods include sultanas, licorice and pretty much anything that I let him feed himself :) he likes to kiss and cuggle Ella especially when she doesn't want him to. He loves to go on the swing and slide at the park.

I want to cherish the last few months before he turns 3 because although there are a lot of challenges with this age, he'll never be 2 again and I want to really treasure the special elements of him at this stage in his life.

procrastinating again

• we went to sydney on mon/tues this week for Aaron's hearing aids. We decided to make it into a bit of a family trip, even though it was really short. After the appointment on the monday morning we caught the bus from the motel into Darling Harbour and went to the aquarium :) I'm not sure which part the kids loved most, the bus ride or the aquarium!

• After the follow up appointment on tuesday, we went to Ikea. I had done some research into what we could do (furniture-wise) to make the study a combined guest room/study that would actually be an ok place to sleep. I had my list of things to get so it would be less tempting (and time consuming - I could spend ALL day at Ikea!). We made some changes while we were there, but I think both of us are pretty happy with what we ended up with. Unfortunately I am now in the middle of unpacking the furniture that is in the study at the moment...and realising JUST HOW MUCH you can jam into one room and not even realise it.

• Of course, now I want to repaint the room as the previous paint work is pretty bad. It seems logical to paint it while it's nearly empty, but my impatient self can't wait for all this to happen lol. I'm procrastinating at the moment cause I'm kinda over the whole packing up thing. There's a part of me that just wants to chuck it all out! And it's at war with the part that wants to keep things 'just in case'. Not fun in my head right now.

• Josh's school had grandparent's day on the last day of term 2. It had a multicultural theme and Josh's class did the mexican hat dance. They looked so cute. Ella and Kai loved it, and ended up dancing to the songs - to the amusement of all the grandparents nearby!

• I've been slowly adding more to the kids rooms. Malakai has these awesome alphabet cards along the top of his wall now - they run the whole top of the wall, mainly to keep them out of reach for this season of his life ;) I'd love to do them in a square in the middle of this wall someday. I found them here and finally got around to putting them up last week, along with the aeroplane wall stickers I've had since he was a baby! (and his name's back up too - love those letters).
  

• I finally took the change table out of his room too, and it made it feel so much bigger :) His poor car rug is currently awaiting a thorough cleaning after his last picasso effort :( I've got some pics of Ella and Josh's rooms I'll get around to posting one day...
  

• I am learning how to do a toddler's hair now! I've never been very good at doing other people's hair - especially when they're moving around...so it's a learning curve. Add to that the fact that Ella has curly hair and mine is dead straight and it's been interesting.
  

• ok...so the boys are occupied and Ella's in the study 'helping' me so I'd better stop procrastinating and get back to sorting and packing :) hope everyone's having a great week!
  

never

ok...lesson learned:

never blog about how you've had an awesome week and your children have been great, cause then when you go into school for reading they will get into food dye powder in the back room and it will subsequently get ON EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH FROM THAT POINT ON. Which was a lot of things, just for the record.

He is now soaking it off in the bath, which is a lovely shade of blue...

oh.my.goodness

what an awesome week :) starting off with a public holiday (Aaron home!!!) and a really nice morning at craft on wednesday with both kids who were just amazingly great and let me even get some scrapping done...which leads me to one of the best things this week, getting organised to start teaching scrapbooking classes again :) !!!!!

I went into a local scrap shop about a month ago, and as I was leaving the owner asked if I would be interested in teaching some classes for her. I was a bit reluctant cause I really haven't been seriously scrapbooking for ages...maybe 2yrs or so? But I thought it'd be such a great way to get back into it so I emailed her after talking to Aaron about it and said I'd LOVE to!

So I've started off with a class that comes from an Aussie Scrap Source kit...a nice easy way to get back into it. I'm halfway thru the 4 pages in the kit and am loving doing it again. It's hard not to feel overwhelmed with all that I feel I 'should catch up on', but I'm trying to simplify my approach to scrapbooking in general, starting with NOT allowing myself to feel pressured and bogged down with scrapping every birthday/major event etc.

My awesome week continued with a catch up with someone I haven't seen in ages :) and paint and play with Malakai this morning. He is just blooming at the moment, his gorgeous personality is really coming out and I'm enjoying him heaps. He uses the word 'awesome' all the time...I might ask him if he wants to do something and he'll say, 'that'd be awesome'...I wonder where he picked that up from?!

Ella is doing her little cowgirl walk everywhere now and is pretty awesome herself. The only thing I'm unimpressed with her about is her ability to suss out when I'm sneaking naughty food and insist that I share :( the boys were fairly oblivious to my frequent sneaks of chocolate behind the pantry door, but Ella is WAY more clued into that sort of thing! RATS! But it makes for some special times too. She loves to wear shoes now, says 'cuggle' and 'share' but doesn't say no much, yet...her favourite naughty thing to do is go up the stairs and get into the cupboards, particularly the onion/potato cupboard and the basket of paints (thankfully she hasn't opened them yet!).

Well, the kids are sleeping, I'm off to help out at school in an hour so I'm going to keep scrapbooking while I can. Hope everyone else had a nice week too ;)

Milestone!

Josh began kindy on Tuesday the 2nd Feb 2010. Aaron had the day off and we walked him to school together and got him all set up. He was so excited! He said goodbye, and into the classroom he went. I couldn't believe it was finally time for big school (and to be completely honest, I STILL can't believe it).

~ Malakai and Josh on the second day of school. Kai had to have a school bag too, and a hat :) ~

Aaron and I went to the parent's morning tea after that and then came home. I was really emotional about the whole thing. I managed to hold myself together in public but I was pretty sad that the season of having Josh with me full time was over. I missed him! I still do.

I was grateful for a friend who told me yesterday that she still has moments when she finds it hard. While they're at school it's just such a big chunk of their life that we are not a very big part of. I've even contemplated homeschooling! I've been annoying his poor teacher by hanging around (thankfully she's a friend of mine, but I'd better not push it too much!! lol)

These photo's are from the second day of school (wednesday). That's how bad I was on the first day, I TOTALLY forgot the camera. That probably contributed to me being emotional lol!! I couldn't believe it. We got photo's of Josh and Kai together on wednesday tho, and Josh wanted to ride his scooter to school. We had done a quick visit to the school on monday and Josh had ridden his scooter then and really impressed me with how good he'd gotten while we were in Sussex (his cousin Tom also had his scooter there and they'd ride them all over the place together). So I said yes.

Super cool Malakai who likes to wear his cap backwards :)

We all set out towards school, the kids and I and even Nanna came that morning. Then we realised that we'd forgotten Josh's school bag so Nanna went back to get it. Kai had run on ahead of Josh and I (with Ella in the pram). So when we got to the little hill down to school, Josh did what he'd done on monday, and coasted down the hill toward the underpass.

Except he hit a patch of dirt and the scooter slid out from under him and he smashed his face into the concrete. It was one of those awful situations where you can only watch it happen and feel so helpless and surreal. There was blood everywhere, and all I could do was tell Josh to run home to Nanna while I got Kai piled on the top of the pram and run home with the pram and the scooter as best I could.

It became very clear when we got him slightly cleaned up that he wouldn't be going to school that day :( he ended up missing 2 days of school and was so nervous about going back that we had to make a visit to the school on the thursday afternoon to show him it'd be ok. His lip was enormous. I didn't think it was possible for a lip to swell up that much without bursting! I wasn't surprised he thought the kids would make fun of him, it looked terrible. Poor guy.

But by friday he was better enough to go back, and I was so grateful to his teacher and our head of welfare because they just made it so easy for him to transition back in. Jenny (the head of welfare) even wrote him a little book and they read it in class. Josh proudly showed that book to his daddy and granddad that night.

Since I remembered the camera that day I have this pic of Josh JUST before he fell off. I have a picture of his lip as well, and I was going to post it but thought it was just a bit too graphic and awful looking :(

Here's Kai just before we left for school. He's so cute!

Thankfully we're now just finished week 4 and Josh is loving school. He's made new friends (they call each other 'buddy' and give high fives, so cute!) and has even been allowed to ride his scooter to school again (we prayed together just before we left tho - I was a bit nervous!)

So there's Josh's start to kindy!

where did january go?

I used to think January was typically a little slower than the rest of the year. A bit of a reprieve before life got busy again. Not so this year! We've been busy having a ball :)

Last year I decided I wanted to get the most out of the little time I had left before Josh started kindy. I had a list of places I wanted to go...and it didn't happen quite the way I'd planned. But that's ok. We still managed to make it to the National Zoo and Aquarium while Aunty Shelly was visiting. I love seeing all the animals thru the eyes of my children. I'm always a little speechless in the aquarium. God is such a creative genius!

We also made it to the National Dinosaur museum. And Questacon :)

Then we headed to Sussex Inlet for the final week before Josh started kindy. My grandma has started a tradition of hosting an annual family holiday for her 2 children and their families. Last year we went to Forster. Both of these places we'd never been before. Everybody LOVED Sussex. It's so amazing with all the canals...quite unique. It was here that we discovered Ariella is a thrill seeker!

The kids with 2 of my cousins.

While we were there we were blessed to have a friend of my uncles take us out for a spin on his boat. Ella was in her element! He was going VERY fast...it was exhilarating (for Ella, terrifying for me!)

She was so into it that she was ready to leap right off the boat. I had to hold her down with both hands!


Unfortunately then we got stuck on a sand bar...and all of us had to get out and wade to the beach in our clothes. It was one of those occasions when it could have been a total disaster but ended up being an adventure and a good story lol.

Kai enjoyed climbing a tree once or twice...

...and ella enjoyed eating some sand during her first swim at the beach.


My uncle hired this tinny out for the week while we were there too, so we thought we'd take the photo opportunity...of course Ella wasn't too interested in staying in this boat either - the water is obviously more fun!

And now Josh has officially started kindy...but that deserves a post all on its own ;)