June 2012

More certificates. We're so proud!

Dressed up for a Ball.

Hamish's first play-doh experience.

Sarah and Isabella playing.

Sammy and Josh giving Hamish tips.

The view from the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Josh trying to work out the ribbon art.

After school we got to play with freshly made play-doh which Hamish loved! I think the others loved it too, even Sarah! Isabella got more certificates. What a beautiful smile on her face! We were invited to a Ball where we got to dress up and boogie the night away. Don't we look smart! During the school holidays we went exploring Sydney. While poor David was working we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and got to play with some of the installations and even have afternoon tea overlooking the Opera House. I think Sarah and the kids enjoyed the city visit.

The cousins having lunch at Questacon.

Hand prints at Questacon.

We visited Canberra in June with Sarah and caught up with Brenton, Annabella, Lucy and Henry and got to visit Questacon and just got to hang around together. This month my little Sammy became a fully fledged teenager by turning 13! She had a wonderful pampering birthday party with robes and face masks and most importantly of all, a chocolate fountain! She loved every minute!

May 2012

Hamish and Liam playing.

A picnic at Putney Park.

Hamish is now 1! Where has that year gone?  Sarah moved in and we got ourselves into a routine pretty quickly. Here we are picnicing at Putney Park while overlooking the water.
I started helping out with writing in Isabella's Kindy class every Thursday for 45 minutes. She loved my coming in and helping and I got to know all the kids in her class really well. Isabella received a reading certificate at a Friday assembly standing next to Tom of course.

Tom and Isabella with their reading certificates.

Isabella gets chosen as the Kindy SRC rep.

Hamish and Henry had a belated birthday at my sister's house and all the cousins got to catch up. It's wonderful that they all get to play with each other!

Hamish being kept busy with food at Friday Assembly time.

In May there was time for playdays with our mate Liam. They're almost old enough to play together instead of side by side. It won't be long! At school Isabella was chosen as the Kindergarten SRC representative for her class. She got presented with a badge and got to go along to SRC meetings. What a grown up thing to do in Kindergarten! David had a birthday which we celebrated with a fancy breakfast as a family. It was delicious. Hamish got to have his own baby cino which he loved. So much in fact that when it was taken from his lips he screamed. The first time we've really seen a temper on him. We finally got a new fridge. Nice and silver and shiny! At school the duck eggs came again in the incubator and I got to watch the eggs hatch at school and the little ducklings grow into very cute and fat ducklings. I took the kids and Sarah into my school to have a cuddle outside business hours. We got to play with them without being interrupted. It was lovely. Isabella got another certificate through swimming.

Family!

Our new fridge.

Daddy and his boy!

Look at those good looking boys!

Playing on the swings.

A Hamish and Henry birthday cake!

Sarah and duckling.

Josh and Isabella with a duckling.

Isabella and another swimming certificate.

School Holidays have begun

I can't believe that so much time has passed so quickly since I last posted...

A new fringe on my gorgeous daughter.

Brotherly love. Awww!

A trip to the beach.

How can Josh's foot be so much bigger than mine?

Eating at one of Isabella's school assemblies.

Isabella with a reading award.

Hamish with his Dad. Gorgeous boys!

My Dad, Mum and sister with Sammy.

Some of the boy cousins. Missing Henry.

All the cousins and Hamish with his cake. Happy Birthday!

A play day with Liam.

So what have I been doing and what has been happening here...

I've been back at work 10 weeks and have not only survived but have really enjoyed myself in the process of remembering students names, routines, breaks and retraining my bladder to only go during recess and lunch! We decided to get an au pair instead of sending Hamish to day care or family day care as I was only going back to work three days and for us it seemed like a better idea for Hamish while he is so young. He got to stay in his own familiar surroundings, get one on one attention and stay away from sick snotty children. The older children give him enough germs to build up his immunity to bugs. We found a lovely young girl (23) from Canada using a website called Au-pair World who has now been living with us for 10 weeks. Sarah has settled into our home and is well loved by Hamish. (phew!) We've gotten into a routine that works for us and everyone seems happy. We finally got her a wardrobe and some hangers. (I kept forgetting to buy these. Whoops!)  I've finally weaned Hamish from his last feed (the night time one)  as of a week ago and of course he's just got a nasty cold. I've spent the last two weeks coming to terms with both weaning him and deciding that we're done with babies! A big step for us and a bit of a mourning period for me. No more babies growing inside my body, no more kicks, no more new baby smell, no more breast-feeding. BUT hopefully sooner rather than later, no more sleepless nights, eventually no more nappies, getting my body back, getting more time to spend together, watching the kids growing up and experiencing new things as parents of teenagers. So because I've now got my body back I've decided to join the local gym (where a friend goes already) and have done my first yoga and zumba class with a girlfriend and have had a lot of fun and quite a lot of laughs. Sore muscles this week! I've been drinking too much coffee because I can! No worry about eating the wrong sort of foods anymore and making Hamish get a sore belly or keeping him awake.


Hamish has now got a new bedtime routine that goes along with weaning him. I managed to feed him for 14 months. The same amount of time as I breast-fed Sammy. Josh got 12 months and Isabella the shortest with 11 months. It's getting easier each day to put him to bed as he gets used to the new bedtime cues. First he plays while I cook dinner. We eat dinner together and then he gets a bath and dressed in his pyjamas and his sleep sack, has warm milk, teeth are cleaned, wave goodnight to everyone and get lots of kisses, a story and then lights out. I lay him in his cot and pat him gently until he's almost asleep and then creep out. Tonight he lay down straight away without trying to get up and cried twice, I wiggled my hand gently against his back for a minute and he was asleep. Poor little boy was very tired tonight.


So far these holidays we've been to Cockatoo Island and saw art words from the Biennale which were amazing. The kids loved these and many of them were interactive. We also went to the drive-in and saw Brave. We ate over buttered popcorn, white chocolate, drank hot chocolate from a thermos and then drove home. The older two then got picked up by their dad for his engagement party. They'll stay there until the end of the week.


We got a call during the last week of term from one of Josh's teachers to tell us how well he'd done in his class. He got 100% for all his assessments for the year so far and is first in his year. We were and are so proud of him and let him choose a place to have a meal. He chose Ribs and Rumps and had a whole rack of ribs and then had room for dessert! He's a growing, eating machine at the moment!

Sammy turned 13 and enjoyed her 'Pamper' Party with some close friends. I think everyone had a wonderful time and felt really spoilt. Sammy and her friends had a chocolate fountain and went through 6 punnets of strawberries and 4 bananas, not to mention the cucumber sandwiches (high tea sandwiches - a big hit!) lollies, pop corn, mini cakes and cans of diet coke and champagne flutes (blue plastic ones) full of juice. They had nails painted, a pedicure and foot massage and a face mask. Kim (Sammy's step-mum) curled the girls hair while they were waiting.


Next week Sammy is getting braces and is so excited about it finally arriving. Her teeth are so overlapped and it will be good for her to have straight teeth that are easier to keep clean.


I will try and get this poor neglected blog up and happening again. I really do enjoy keeping a diary of my day to day goings on and it's a great way for me to keep all our families excursions, goings on, and just day to day life in one place. 

19 sleeps to go, Sammy's new uniform and Bellas birthday

Cutting the cake. What a big knife you have!

Today is a day of photos. Too tired to type much. Isabella turned five!! Big day!!
Activity today was a hot chocolate with whipped cream(from a can!!)marshmallows and sprinkled with shaved chocolate (Cadbury flake). Yummo!!

My baby is five!

Bella, Sammy and the cousins.

The cake is in the shape of the number '5'.

Sammy's new high school uniform

The cousins in their viking hats.

She looks so old! I can't believe she'll be in high school next year.

Enjoying our hot chocolates.

Cream from a can. Yum!

Melting yumminess!

21 sleeps to go and a bit of something sweet.

Overcast and ready to head to Granny and Pa's house for lunch after our gelato.

Today is Sunday and we were going to get up early to go and watch the cousins doing 'Nippers' at Mona Vale Beach. Unfortunately dear Uncle Howard cut his little finger on a wine glass and managed to sever an artery. Who even knew that you had an artery in your little finger, let alone two! So they weren't going to take the kiddies to Nippers since poor Uncle Howard needed to catch up on his sleep after staying at the hospital overnight waiting to get five stitches. Since we were up so early on a Sunday morning which for us is very unusual we decided to go and visit Palm beach instead. We found it all a bit too lah de dah and not very family friendly at all and so decided to find a nicer beach to take the kids out to for morning tea. In the meantime some massive clouds had gathered and the wind had picked up and so we ended up stopping at Newport beach for a gelato and coffee and some sanctuary from the weather.
After Newport we headed to Terry Hills to grab some baguettes, a hot chicken and a head of lettuce to take along to my parents for lunch. We had a lovely time catching up with them and then decided to head home so that we could get ourselves set up for school and for Sammy's High School orientation day which are both tomorrow being Monday. The kids were also very excited about eating our Ginger Bread house that we had decorated yesterday.
So on activity day four we absolutely demolished the Ginger Bread house! Yum!! I forgot to take photos of it so you'll just have to believe me when I said we made an enormouse mess and they absolutely enjoyed the lollies and icing and didn't mind the ginger biscuit. What did I eat while they were doing this you ask? Well I had a cup of tea and waited for the kids to go to bed and then I opened the enormous bag of 'Hershey Kisses' that we bought the other day from Costco. I couldn't help myself. It's not really my sort of chocolate, but when there's no other chocolate in the house, it will do. No offence to any Hershey lovers out there, but I am a Cadbury chocolate lover through and through and if not Cadbury then Nutella on a spoon will also quiet the late night chocolate cravings!
Not sure what our 'task'(as Sammy calls them)for Christmas is tomorrow yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out. Yes I know that I was the one that wrote out the activities and put them in our advent calendar, but I'm still excited about reading it in the morning. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!

Lucy Elizabeth Alexander

A beautiful 7 pound 12 ounce baby girl by the name of Lucy was born to my dear big brother and his lovely wife Annabelle. We of course had to go and visit!! All of us HAD to have a pic taken with her. After we had visit we went to the war memorial. The kids weren't very excited about going, but I think they had a good time and found it interesting.

Lucy is Here!!!!

A brand new 'Alexander' has come into the world. Her name is Lucy. We've been told that she has dark brown hair and of course is beautiful!!

I'm looking forward to seeing her this weekend!!!

: )

First Week Back at Work!!

Well the first week back at work and of course it feels like we haven't been on holiday. I suppose that's always the way though...

The last weekend of the school holidays was spent preparing an hour long presentation that I had to give the teachers at my school. I was nicely surprised that the talk went so well. A few of the teachers came and personally thanked me for the talk, saying that it was really interesting and that I spoke very clearly and confidently. My principal came up and shook my hand after I gave the speech and said, 'well done!'. I was quite chuffed with myself. Dave was also very proud of me. : )

Now the reason that I've made time to get on today is because...





there is a new family member. Brenton and Annabelle welcomed their first child this afternoon about 4:00p.m. the 24th of July. Her name is Lucy. I got to hear her first cry over the telephone and it just made me want to cry. What a wonderful thing a new baby is. Such a miracle!!

Dave has already booked accomodation in Canberra for tomorrow night. So we're going up this weekend to go and see the brand new baby 'Lucy'. I'm so excited and of course so clucky and a little sad at the reminder that our baby would be due about now.

Will post some beautiful pics of the baby when we get back. : )

The First Week of the School Holidays

Well its the end of the first week of the school holidays and of course it feels like its gone far too quickly. So I've decided to write down some of the things that I've done and hopefully this will make me feel like the holidays have gone on and on... lol I can only hope. So here goes:
* I have just about finished covering the dining room chairs. I've done 4 complete ones and half of the other two. Just need Dave to help me finish them.
* Sammy has had her best-friend Brittnie sleep over.
* Josh has finally had Michael over to play and was even invited to go out with his family to watch a dance recital.
* I've been to a jewellery party at Sandra's home. Brittnie's mother's house. I bought quite a bit of very nice jewellery!!
* I've had my mother's group over to our house. There were 6 of us altogether and of course 6 toddlers. Very noisy, but great fun!!
* I finished sewing the last three badges onto Sammy's brownie guide sash.
* I've done a bit of programming for school. I've nearly finished the spelling program, the homework sheet and I've also found a school assembly item and then completed it and typed it out.
* I've finally babysat for Lisa and Howard and let them go out and have a nice date night.
* Dave and I went to GoldClass movies and watched 'Get Smart'. A really great way to watch a movie!! My dear Dave's hand in mine, sitting on reclining chairs, being brought yummy food and then having a nice glass of wine.
* A date with Dave. We went to a beautiful Italian restaurant. The food and company were divine. : )
* Went to 'ClownTown' with Lisa, my mum, the nephews and of course Isabella. Great fun was had by all. Took lots of photos!! Then my mum and I went to 'Dominies', the teachers resource shop. It's so much fun to look around and so hard not to spend lots of money. I thought I did well by leaving having only spent $130. Well done me!! Then I took my mum out to lunch. It was lovely, and Isabella behaved quite well too!!
* Went to Ikea and bought a new cube to go in our wall unit. It makes such a difference to the mess of the shelves. It all looks tidy again.
* Today I'm going to the beautician at 3:00 for TWO HOURS!!!! It's my mother's day present that I'm finally going to use. Decadence for two hours!! I can't wait!!

Well I have done quite a bit I suppose!! Still a week of the holidas to go too. A few things I have to do, but also some relaxing and FUN!!!!