Sweet Nick

I love 3-year olds. Tomorrow is Andrew's birthday and Nick helped me wrap presents. Then we hid them in the spare room.
Nick: "But Mum, if Dad comes in the front door then he will go in the spare room and see the presents."
Mum: "It's okay, I hid them in the cupboard."
N: "Oh, good."
- Then at dinner:
N: "Dad, we wrapped your presents and we hid them in..."
M: "Nick, don't tell him where they are, it's a surprise, remember?"
N: "I won't!" ..."Dad, we hid them in the spare room in the cupboard so don't look in there."

Too much excitement for one 3-year old to keep to himself.
These are the days I will miss when they have passed.

Women

Spending 3 days away with 11,000 women.
Exactly what the doctor ordered.
I'm by myself and yet in the company of many women who are determined to be the change in their world.

Thank you Jesus for refreshing my heart and changing my perspective.

Too much

Building [part of] a house is too much for me. Someone help. Oh that's right, lots of people are helping. Doing loads more work than me actually. Why is this so hard for me? I'm off to bed after hours perusing websites for which dishwasher/oven/stovetop/rangehood, etc, etc. Seriously... why is it that I can live in many different houses over the years, mostly happy with whatever appliances are there, but then choosing our own becomes this pseudo-all-important-yet-actually-quite-important task?? Just have to choose and focus on the big picture. That's my midnight conclusion. Goodnight and good luck to me. Ha.

front of the house

School for 2

2 kids in school every day. Bit strange. They love it, I'm still adjusting. Kinda miss them. Love seeing their smiling faces when they see me after school.

Oh Dad, don't kiss me!!

Nick has exhausted himself every day, 

seemingly quite thrilled to have the house/toys/mum to himself!!! :)

The days before school went back...

We didn't get much done in the weeks before school started. The house has
been a terrible mess, I felt like I was constantly packing and unpacking for
weekend trips to Bruny... but we did have fun amidst the chaos, although
I kind of broke down a few times, feeling overwhelmed by constant
kids/entertaining/cooking/cleaning, but now school is in full swing and
the house is coming back together and really, what did it matter anyway?!!
Of course photos don't show a complete picture of life,
but it's probably a good thing that the camera doesn't come out
to memorialize the times I lost the plot!

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Homemade cookies and cream ice cream, yum!

 

Little brother just hanging around wherever his big brother is...

The bird thinks she's human and loves to play around the kids.

Hanging with Aunty Sharon

More bike riding at a cool bike park with stop signs and even a traffic light!

Having Opa and Grandmarie over for dinner.

The kids had fun showing their 5 year old books.

Goofing off in the rain at our new house (more about that later, we haven't moved yet)

bruny bruny bruny

Now back to school we go!

Goodbye Summer holidays... :(

Finally he gets to swim

Nick has spent 2 1/2 years watching from the side
as Daniel and Laura have swimming lessons. 

But he's standing a bit taller these days,
seeing as now he's really grown up and all,
getting to go into the pool by himself!!

Bikes

Daniel got a new bike 

(Ryan, I secretly suspect he was thinking of you when he chose orange! :) 

 So I actually got a bike too and we went for a ride along the river.

Laura struggled towards the end, but she made it the whole 6 kilometers. In hindsight probably a bit much for her induction into bike riding, cause today (2 weeks later) we were talking about going to a bike riding park and her eyes get big and she says, "is it going to be a long ride?"

So hard

Always hard to say goodbye.

But let's just go to the airport and play card games for awhile and pretend we're not leaving.

I'll never know how it's possible to be ready 

to go home but not want to leave.

Love you guys.

And there you have it.

Daniel, looking at a navel orange, casually says, "this looks like it's having a baby. See, that's the baby's head."

 Okay Daniel, well you're not going to find any argument from me there...

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In other news, I think perhaps in 7 years Daniel has changed less than I have. ;)

Great Grandparents

I remember visiting my great grandpa when I was young.
He told the same stories over and over about his life when he was younger.
I remember that it was slightly uncomfortable but at the same time
kind of intriguing. I don't know what my kids thought today,
and they took awhile to warm up, but it was sweet for me to see them
doing something that I so clearly remember doing.
And even though my Grandma and Grandpa are 92 and 93,
they didn't tell the same stories over and over!
(Grandma was more interested in my iPhone, amazed that zooming in and out didn't ruin the photo. Cuteness.)

Laura loved Great Grandma's china doll, can you tell?