What's funny...

...watching both D & L eat an entire raw carrot each while watching Bugs Bunny! ...a 4-year old running to the bathroom pulling his pants down prematurely while telling himself out loud, "make it, make it, make it!" ...a 2-year old using the word "otherwise". "It wouldn't be good if he wee-d on the floor, otherwise we might slip."

Little Milestones

Nick is now 4 months old, and his big brother started Kinder yesterday (that's the australian word for preschool). Daniel loved it, and really didn't look back, barely even said goodbye to me (he did do a 3 year old preschool in the U.S.). Laura would have stayed if I had let her. I told her we could go get her a lunchbag too, and go home and paint too, all like Daniel. She felt proud after that. But everything we did at home had a mention of Daniel in it, from the painting (I wrote her name on a painting -and she wanted daniel's name on it too), to lunch ("I'll save one for Daniel"). She misses him. Not the sad teary kind of missing him, just a natural tendency to include him in everything since he's normally there. Very sweet. I think she and Nick will become good friends during the time Daniel's at school (2 full school days per week), so it'll be fun for Laura to get to be just the big sister. They wear uniforms here at most schools. Kinder/Preschools are often actually at a school, so they wear the same uniform as all the other kids. He is pretty obsessed with any clothes that are dark (to be scary) or stripey (to be a tiger), so the uniform didn't get a huge reception, but he wore it without too much issue. After school he was sitting on the porch waiting for me to unlock the door, looking pretty spaced out, and I asked him if he was tired. "Yeah, but I sure did love it mum." Gotta love that. 4 months old and able to hold himself up much better for these photos now. Very proud of himself for being able to roll onto his tummy and look around! Falling asleep copying Laura's doll... Yeah, smart kid, waving at 4 months. :) I'll take the smile behind the blanket though! The kids with Big Opa and GrandMarie (great grandfather and grandma)

A morning's entertainment

Spray water bottles - who knew?!

Random

It's so lovely to watch sleeping kids, particularly when these 2 quiet times [pictured below] started with, "I'm definitely not going to sleep, mom." (a sleep is actually rare now, but I love the way he just can't help himself sometimes). This is how I found Laura one night at midnight. She hadn't wanted her jammies on, so I guess she was trying to prove the point that she could indeed sleep in her dress. All power to you girl. She must really love him if she shares her dollies with him. And the best part was her sitting there chatting away to all of them... For our 10th anniversary we had 3 nights away (thank you Oma!). we brought Nick, but then the place we stayed -surprisingly- offered to watch him during dinner! So we enjoyed 3 dinners **in a row** without kids. Luxury. The first night was our actual anniversary - pictured is dessert. Yum. I reckon Nicholas is the happiest of all our kids as babies. He's so ticklish, waits for people to look at him, and loves cuddles. Gotta love that. Parents are probably the only ones who can love this type of picture of their kids... but I really do love it.

how to -

- undo the benefit of a babysitter for the morning: lose your credit card. - get your child to have a longer sleep: change the time on the clock to say 2.00 when it's really 2.30 because he always gets up 'when the clock says 3' - get him back in bed when he says that daddy's clock says 3: hmmm. ummm, just look at my clock daniel, okay?!! - unpack quickly: still figuring that one out

120 months

It's been 10 years since I married the bearded Australian that I met in Hawaii. He's lost the beard (most of the time), and I've lost most of the blonde - such is life!! Happy 10 years my favourite man! The first picture of the two of us 3 and a bit years later Feel free to look at recent posts for more current versions of our former selves... :)

Brotherhood

The first is Daniel at 2 months, then Nicholas at 3 months. Can't really deny the brotherhood can you?!!

3 months old

Doesn't seem much different to the 2 month picture, but he's now developing a laugh, loves to watch his brother and sister jump and play around him, and cries to get attention!!

Mini Me

Just for the record, I don't do matching. Honestly, I don't.

Goodbye Gold Coast, Hello Tassie Summer :(

Actually, the weather isn't bad in Tassie, but I heard there was snow on the mountain here over Christmas (which, for those of you in the northern hemisphere, is SUMMER!), so that just made us all the more glad to be on the Gold Coast watching amazing summer thunderstorms at night: Anyway, we had a night swim with the kids on the last night. They loved it and are still talking about it! Heading back to Tas. Looks like #3 is learning to travel! :) On a brief 3-hour layover in Melbourne, we caught up with Daniel and Kathryn and I hopped on Dan's motorbike for a quick half hour joyride! Woo Hoo!!