Anzac Day 2014 *catch up*

*Catch up post* (yeah right, like I could ever catch up from how far behind I am)

Anzac day each year we go down to Anzac Park in the city at dusk for dinner and a wander around looking at the monuments and memorials (and a chance to get a few more photos of the kids). This year was no different except I had a most adorable little assistant who got me all excited for my future shoots by wanting to carry my tripod for me...

I'm thinking that I might need to do a little more training with my little assistant. Like maybe teaching her the difference between a tripod and a camera...

The boys all had their scooters to get around on but they were going too fast and weren't keen on having their photo taken. Thankfully Butterfly decided that she needed to let me get a photo of SOMEONE on a scooter. Lucky her Daddy isn't that hard to convince when she asks him to help her have a ride.

The fountain was *mostly* doing everything it was supposed to. All it's colours worked and most of the different squirty bits were squirting like they should. The kids were, as usual, fascinated with it, especially Butterfly. I think this is one of my favourite photos of the kids. Though the one I took shortly after this of Lion's silhouette coathangering Butterfly's silhouette as she tried to get away and climb down into the fountain is pretty good too.

Left to right, they are Butterfly, Lion, Dragon, Monkey.

Then, as Wolf was loading the kids into the car, I stood and waited for the lights and fountain to go through their changes for one last photo. As it finally changed to where I wanted it a group who had obviously been revealing since the pubs opened decided to jump in and try to photobomb it. Thankfully there was one soberish one who pulled the most insistent one away leaving me with just enough time to snap a couple of shots.

A walk in the park

Here is the last of our ANZAC day trip to the park. We tried to get the boys to have their photo taken in front of the memorial but only Lion would cooperate. He wouldn't take his helmet off though, "Army men wear 'helments' mum".

He was facing me telling me something of great importance when I took this photo but that boy moves FAST! I like the shot I got though. This helmet was a gift from a guy that owns a skate shop in the same complex as the shop Wolf manages and I used to work in. He thought it was great that I ended up with a daredevil son and gave Lion a personalised skateboard and this helmet for his second Christmas. Yes, Lion was only 15 months old at the time. Skateshopman thought it was great. Lion thought it was great. Mummy McT will concede that it was very thoughtful of him to include a helmet for Lion's safety.

Lion had a blast being free to ride his bike along the paths on his big boy bike.

Lion started up here and felt that he had to assure me that "I'm not afraid of heights mum".

And of course, monkey see, monkey do.

I was trying to get a photo of the boys in this lovely garden path area but they just would not stay still! Too much to do, too little time.

Arty Farty Anyone?

We took the boys to ANZAC park this afternoon and since I got a gazillion photos I thought I would post the arty farty ones all together since they don't require my brain to write anything much to go with them. We didn't get down there till about 5pm so the light was fading fast and the sunset decided to do it's pretty colours RIGHT BEHIND THE CASINO! That is just the way it works I guess. I have posted some other arty farty photos of the memorials here ages ago.

The Eternal Flame at sunset.

(mummy brag coming up... I'm quite proud that without being reminded what it was about Lion told me that the flame never goes out because we will never forget the people that died fighting for us to be safe)

Wreaths resting at the memorial.

ANZAC memorial.


Wolf and Dragon in silhouette against the marina.

Boats on pink water.

Pink reflections. Including the stupid ugly casino.

Some more sunset.

Um, it's a bollard. Nothing much more to say for this one :)

That's it for tonight... I might just grab myself one more ANZAC biscuit before bed. Maybe two.

ANZAC DAY

Today is ANZAC day so with no trading allowed for the morning we had a day with Wolf home. Lion's understanding of ANZAC day is getting there. "It's for our Army men who died when they were fighting for keeping 'Ourstralia' safe... And to say thank you to the ones that didn't die"

"MD was laughing at kindy when we were doing ANZAC day (they had a flag raising, sang the anthem and played the last post) and I told him 'it's not funny, it's happy, but it's not funny, you should stop laughing' and MD didn't but the teacher told him it wasn't about laughing"

And another gem from Lion "Army men are allowed to fight. We're not, we have to let the army men fight. It's good if no one is fighting so they don't have to fight but they don't get in trouble for fighting like I do"

So after breakfast this morning we dressed our own little Army men, put on their WWI pins that grannysaurus bought them and sat down to make some ANZAC biscuits. Usually I would make a big batch in the Kenwood mixer but it's being mixer-sat by Aunty Chimera at the moment so we pulled out the big christmas cake making bowl (which thankfully I didn't remember to buy the fruit for soaking in it yet) and figured we'd try a double batch in that.

So we mixed the dry ingredients...

Tasted the dry ingredients...

(because you never know, all that flour and rolled oats may just taste yummy)

Mmmmm, the wet mixture tastes REALLY GOOD. I love it that ovens kill all the germs.

Roll it into balls and eat some more mixture and roll a few more balls...

Get told LOTS of times that you have to wait till the bikkies are cooked!

Mummy flattens all the balls a bit and then you come along and flatten them a lot bit more.

Bake in a slow oven for 15-20 minutes and then let them cool on the trays but don't be content waiting, come back into the kitchen every minute or so and ask if they are ready to eat yet and can you have one and get upset when mummy says they are still too soft and go and occupy yourself for another minute before you come back and ask again.

Have a couple with a drink of milk for morning tea. YUMMY!

A bug just flew in my ear...

It's going to let me write in the body of the post if I have it on the HTML tab up the top. It's ANZAC day tomorrow. We'll be making ANZAC bikkies tomorrow morning, i cant get out of that since i sent wolf to pick up golden syrup on his way home when i discovered after a gazillion $'s of groceries this morning i realised i forgot to buy more. and I've booked wolfs laptop so I can do a real post. What an exciting day it'll be. We won't do a dawn service this year but I think when the kids are a bit bigger well all drag daddy out of bed to go to a dawn service at ANZAC park. I'll blog more about lions understanding of it all tomorrow.