Monday afternoons...

Monday afternoons the kids do bowling. League bowling, if you can believe it! Its one activity that both boys and girls and older and younger children can do together. And at the end of their 10 week mini-season... this happened!

Very proud children with a trophy for their Highest Scoring Game - 70 for Angus and 83 for Lexie. A very proud mummy and daddy were at the presentation ceremony to see the team presented with their trophies. Jassy and Zac were there with Katie and Jerry too. As you can see, Angus was about ready for bed!

A very wet trip to the farm with friends.

We took Jassy and Zac (and Katie, their mum and Rolfy the dog) up to Mashado for a weekend a few weeks ago. It had been raining before we left home, and by the time we got to the track, things were rather flooded! Dunc filmed the above clip onthe way home on Sunday. Friday night the creek was a good 6m wide! We were very glad to be in Dunc's new 4WD, and happy to know Katie was driving a Kluger. It was only later we discovered it was not the 4WD version.

The kids had the usual fun at the farm. Who needs toys?
The children played so nicely together, and of course the quad bike got a good workout too.


It was very wet on-and-off so not so many walks were had. But everyone seemed to have fun. Rolfy the dog had an absolute ball of a time. He may not see so well due to old age, but he could still find the kangaroos! Even Katie had fun on the quad too!

Can't wait to get back up there.

"Take an English friend to School" day.

If such a day existed, Lexie would be well prepared! Neave spent a full day in Prep at an Australian school and it sounded like both girls had a ball. Although it was a Monday... which is lunch order day. Lexie's favourite day, but Neave was looking forward to eating lunch bought from home since lunch at school is normal for her! Oh well... maybe next time.

Our trip to the snow.

Kind of ironic to be writing this post on a 30 degree day, but I really must get this up. Our annual trip to the snow was a truly fantastic 4 days this year. We went to Falls Creek with the 2 other families from Mother's Group once again. This year was extra exciting because Angus was able to go to Ski School instead of Ski Creche!
Both kids enjoyed their lessons and Lexie's skiing is going great guns. She can make a fantastic snow plough and made her own way down the mountain after her lessons! Angus is also supporting his own weight and is very good at keeping his balance. He got a little assistance down the mountain:

As you can probably tell, the weather wasn't ideal. It was quite foggy and uncomfortable at times, but we were able to get a few good mornings of skiing in. The mountain was 'closed' due to high winds on one day, so we had some snowball fun and played on the playground and had a yummy lunch. And made the traditional snowman of course!

Angus and I on the toboggan slope. We got to the bottom and landed with him laying on top of me. "I just want to stay here forever Mummy. We can watch the clouds go by." Ahhhhh. I think he was just too tired to walk back up the hill!

We had a heap of fresh snow on our last night. It was so wonderful to wake up and see a fresh coating on the balcony and trees. Dunc had fun with his new car too!

Sorry for the delay... been a bit distracted lately!

Our wonderfully close-knit family has been dealt a few blows lately.

Grandad has been in and out of hospital for a few weeks now. Thankfully he is now home and well on the way to recovering. He has tried many different wards and beds at Cabrini hospital, and a taken a ride or 2 in an ambulance as well. After weeks of knowing he had a "massive infection" but not knowing where or what sort, it was discovered that it was infact in his heart. He has been in a general ward, ICU, the cardiac unit and I'm sure I've missed a few moves in there too... 42 days of antibiotics applied through a central line later, and we are all hoping that this is the end of it and Grandad will be up and about and feeling fine soon!


Our gorgeous, snuggly, cuddly Nouky Noo from England has copped a shocking blow. A few days after Catherine and the girls returned from their trip here, she was taken to hospital due to continual vomitting in the morning. Eventually a CT scan revealed a Brain Tumor. Further tests showed it was not a nice tumor in not a nice location and Anouk has been through surgery to have most of it removed. She now faces 7 months of chemotherapy and what is sure to be a horrid time ahead. We are being kept sane by following her blog as we really feel the distance. :(
http://anouksprogress.blogspot.com/
The children are interested in every update and Dunc and I love the opportunity to have a sneak peek at how they are all going. It makes it slightly more bearable.


And then we have Fred. He was desperately ill after he and Dad got to the boat in QLD and in the end he flew home while Mum flew up to help Dad get back home again! Fred arrived in quite a state and required surgery for a stent in his bile duct within days. We are waiting on test results as they spotted a tumor in/near his pancreas during the surgery. He has had an MRI and we all have our fingers crossed for good news now.


On a more minor note, we found out today that Angus will require a short trip to hospital to have his tonsils removed. He snores rather loudly and when he has a minor cold, is prone to sleep apnoea. According to the specialist, his tonsils are rather enormous. He has a gap of 1cm between them, when ideally they like to see 4 - 6cm. This gap would narrow to .5cm at night, so its easy to see why he might stop breathing when his throat is swollen! So we are off to Mitcham hospital on the 23rd of October.


In amongst all these happenings, we've gone on our annual trip to the snow and have been up to the farm with Jazmine and Zac. I've been meaning to update with posts about that, but just haven't felt like it with everything else that's been happening. I'll be back some happier posts soon!

Day trip to Mt Baw Baw with the family!

Well it was supposed to be a quick day trip to the snow at Lake Mountain on the one day that Danah, Karen and I could all make it. Due to some warmer weather, Lake Mountain had no snow, so we had to drive a little further for the "white" stuff.



It had been an extremely windy night and there were very large trees down all over the road up. It was an interesting drive to say the least - over, under and around some massive gum trees. It took us a little while to actually locate the snow - we had to walk up to the ski slope rather than the toboggan one. We got a good hour or so of slipping and sliding fun in before we got too cold and hungry. It was a fun morning and was a great trial of the kid's new ski gear!

1200 trees...

1200 trees seemed like a heck of a lot work, and Rich and Cath had come all the way back from the UK to plant them! We had a heap of people at Mashado all raring to go. I was a little worried when, by 11am on Saturday, not a single tree had gone in yet, but it soon became apparent that the setting out and prep-ing was the hard part. Once we started planting, things fairly zoomed along!

There was plenty of time for rest and relaxation and the kids had a ball as per usual. There were a few issues with Fred and Angus both believing the quad bikes was theirs, but all else went swimmingly!



We can't wait to get back up there and check on the trees...

Big Boy Bed!

From this:

To this:

Angus has absolutely loved sleeping in his racing car bed. But since it takes a cot matress, and he's well and truly 3 and ahalf now, he was growing out of it. Quite literally! We thought it was time for a big boy bed and our "Prince of Darkness" chose the black one. He will always choose black for anything he has a choice about!

He LOVES his new bedside table and light too. It makes it much easier for him to read in bed at night. He has taken to reading a book or 2 (or 3 or 4) to himself and then putting them away and turning the light off and tucking himself back in! He is such a little cutie. Even when he isn't ready to sleep, he will look after himself in his room.

Sleep well in your big boy bed, beautiful boy!

Spooky six year olds...

Lexie turned 6 the other day - my how the time flies! She chose a Spooky Dinner Party from 5.30 to 7.30 on a Friday night and was able to invite 11 friends. Angus had a couple of his friends too, so we had 15 children all up. A bit of present opening...
A bit of craft for the girls...
A bite of Duncan's delicious pizza and fairy bread for dinner...
And some spooky ice cream cake and spidery cupcakes for dessert!
And I will leave you with a picture of our adorable little boy who informed me at 7am on the day of the party that he wanted to be a cowboy that night! Some quick calls to Spotlight and Lombards to locate a costume in the right size, and a quick drive by Dunc who luckily had the day off work, and we had ourselves a little size 3 cowboy. (For all of about an hour until he decided he wanted to be spiderman afterall!)