A Fresher Start

When we started homeschooling I figured that was a fresh start for us. Then on our 1 year anniversary we un-enrolled from the Distance Ed school we were with and started going it alone. In Qld you are supposed to register with the HEU (Home Education Unit) if you aren't using a DE school. Though the penalties for not doing so are minor, usually a reprimand with "register within this period and we won't do anything" and I'm not sure if that is even followed up on. We finished out term 3 carrying on roughly with the plan we were already working on with the DE school but with a few modifications. So now, in term 4, we are starting fresh again... so it's a fresher start or something like that.

I thought I might just throw in some links here for what we are getting up to this term. If nothing else it will help me when it comes to reporting time to look back at what I PLANNED to get done.

Our overall theme for this term is The Great Barrier Reef. Our homeschool group has 4 excursions planned to Reef HQ for specific educational tours. To go along with that I'm using some great resources from GBRMPA (which for those not in the know of reef associated acronyms is Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority). If you are interested in those you can find them here. They are awesome full unit plans that are geared towards science but there's plenty of other stuff in there.

I got these decorator test tube "vases" from Kmart.

They aren't suitable for anything too serious, but they'll work for us... until I buy a bunsen burner...

For Science we are trying out resources from Super Charged Science. I'm a bit excited about these. They are designed by an ex-NASA scientist and she "teaches" via video and there's workbooks that outline the materials you need and it's done with the intention that the homeschooling parent doesn't need to be involved if they don't want to... but I love science so I'll be getting right in there with the kiddos.

For Maths they are finishing off the workbooks that we were using with the DE school. They are standard books for their year levels so I know they are covering all the relevant topics. BUT there will be a whole lot of maths involved in Economics.

For Economics (which is technically only a subject that Lion "needs" to do for Year 5, but they are all doing it to whatever level they are capable) we are using SimCity BuildIt app. The kids started playing it and I started so I could answer Monkey's questions and check it was a safe game for them to be playing (I sacrifice so much for these kids)... but I quickly realised there's so much they are able to learn with this game. So much they are learning without even realising it and so much scope for me to use it to make learning what they need to know more fun!

Then comes PE, I don't really include it as an actual subject usually, I felt like we could for this term. Much of the PE curriculum is incorporated into day to day learning with homeschooling. They research sports the like, they borrow books from the library to find out rules, they learn about general health in day to day life and being involved in purposeful discussions about food choices etc. So why is it an actual subject for this term? Because we got this...

It's a slack line! If you don't know what a slack line is then it's kind of like tightrope walking on a ratchet strap. For now we just need to learn to balance and walk on it, so there will be no tricks, but if you look up some of the awesome videos on youtube you'll find people risking life and limb doing crazy crazy stuff on their strap.

Ours is staying low to the ground for now and we have to use a helper strap which is a bit tricky to find a height that works for all 3 of the boys... though I don't think Monkey will need it for long. That kid really is a little monkey!

For English they are still using Grammar books that we've been going on all year. Gum Drops Grammar, they are fantastic and we've found some new books that interest the boys through them. English is incorporated into various other subjects and I'm writing my own plan for that but we are also possibly participating in the young writers version of NaNoWriMo. I need to decide if I have the patience for that.

Now most of that is for the big two, Lion and Dragon. Monkey is just in Prep, the first year of school in Qld and it's still not actually compulsory just highly encouraged, so I'm just keeping him interested in learning anything at all at the moment while we work on the skills that are the foundation of his future learning, basic number and letter skills and he's started to really shoot ahead with his reading after a very rough start. I find it hard to not compare what he knows to kids in a mainstream classroom... then I remind myself that I actually think those kids are pushed too hard too soon so why would I compare my kid to them? I would love to see the younger years being much more focused on hands on learning, play based learning, fewer workbooks and more reading books. He rides along when he wants to on activities and projects his brothers are doing and he does love his Maths workbook and there are certain things that at some point he needs to learn... but when to push and when to hold myself back is probably something I'll never figure out.

So that's the plan for Term 4, 2015. I'll add more if I think of it. I'm not sure if this will be a regular feature, I guess it depends if I find it helpful to refer back to or not.

New Blog Header

Grannysaurus has been at me for AGES to update the header on the blog. Yes, the nearly two year old Butterfly wasn't even thought of yet didn't even feature in it. Yes, the nearly five year old was only five months old when the photos were taken. So FINALLY, now that I am trying to blog a bit more I decided that I would do my best to take/find photos of all four kids that could be used for a new header... because a photo of them all together is just not going to happen... ever. So, here it is.

Lion, 9yrs 3mths; Dragon, 7yrs 3mths; Monkey, 4yrs 9mths; Butterfly, 1yr 11mths.

Now I've got another 4 years before I need to do anything about updating this one... right?

The tape I used is by Hummie of Hummies World

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.

I'm totally not making excuses here, but....

Do you ever have those days where you wake up and immediately think "I've got this"?

"Today I will get the kitchen sparkling, I'll vacuum so the carpets won't be coated in tissues that the little one tore up a few days ago, I'll scrub the floor so it won't feel kind of... I don't know, kind of sticky but kind of gritty as well and theres another feel to them that defies explanation, also I might whip up a batch of healthy treats made with beetroot and flax seeds and my kids will totally think they are delicious and chocolate and be completely fooled and while that's baking I'll blog a bit of what we've been up to."

Then the little one starts hollering over the baby monitor "Muuuuuuuumy".

Next the 4 year old comes racing into the room dobbing at world record speeds with the brother he was dobbing on hurtling in at break neck speeds behind him explaining why it totally wasn't his fault that he smashed the 4 year old in the face with his foot and it was really all because...

Then someone starts asking for breakfast and then for me to find them paddle-pop sticks and masking tape.

They all follow right at my heels as I go get the littlest from her overnight prison and check for poop before I hug her (that girl has Houdini poop, it escapes that nappy like nobody's business).

At this point, I'm still thinking "I've got this"... but my list is more along the lines of "I will feed them a decent meal for dinner... in 12 hours... if I survive that long... if THEY survive that long... it'll be bedtime just after that, I can make it... it's only 12 hours..."

So, uh, not making excuses or anything... but we are all still alive here, and that's about where things are up to at the moment.

Here's a cute photo of the kids from the start of January.

Butterfly 18mos, Monkey 4, Dragon 7, Lion 9

We tried and tried to get them all to look in the same direction at the same time.

Butterfly did NOT want to conform... which is totally her little personality.

The Reluctant Reader

My Lion is not that keen on reading lately. He's a great reader and is reading at a level where his books actually contain drama and excitement (the ones we buy, not the school readers. Those are still dull as dirt) but he just doesn't want to read. As a keen reader who struggles to find time to read, I find that very hard to wrap my head around. So this afternoon I told him he needed to knock over another chapter before he got any tech time. Oh the moaning, the complaining, the drama, how could I be so mean?!?! According to him yes, his book was exciting but not this particular bit so he had lost interest. SURELY you still want to get through the boring bit because you still want to see the book wrapped up and resolved?... Nope, it's just boring right now. But leaving it sit aside won't get you through the boring part... Nope, he thought the magic pixies were going to come and take care of that.

Okay, time for an MRI, Mummy Reading Intervention.

Hot chocolate for him, coffee for me, deck chairs on the patio, page for page taking turns to get through this chapter.

It was lovely, but he was right, that bit was boring. Half way through the chapter things took a turn for the better. Our hero was no longer searching aimlessly, he was running out of time and was hot on the trail of the Spinosaurus.... He gets closer and closer, anticipation is building, he pushes through a crowd, looks over the fence and THERE IT IS!!!

"End of chapter 4, can I use the computer now mum?"

"What? Don't you want to see what happens? You can't leave it like this can you? It was just getting interesting!"

"So can I have a go on the computer now?"

*sigh* "Go ahead, that was the deal"

I wonder if I'll ever find out how it ends... Anyone have any help for this reluctant reader's Mummy?

Two Lego Reviews - Boys VLOG

Lion decided he wanted to do a Lego review on his new Lego set.  I filmed it on my iPad, and once it was done Dragon decided he wanted to do one as well.  I filmed one on the iPad but didn't upload it.  About a week later Dragon wanted to try again, so this time we tried setting things up a little better and used a proper video camera.  He was pleased with the results.

-Enjoy, Wolf McT.

Video 1: Lions Lego Review - Chima Raven Set.

Video 2: Lego Frog Rush Game Review.

Collected Twits

Lion was after a Jedi name, so I  was looking through my Twitter as I had won a prize for one I made up.  While doing this I revisited a lot of old tweets about my son's exploits over the years and wanted to collect them in one place.  With twitters 144 word limit communicating an idea becomes a discipline, one which I have not mastered to well.   Here they are in historical order, with some explanatory notes.


One of my first tweets appeared on 5 Dec 09, which was:

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind

Apparently this was too cryptic so I followed up with:

Exploding bums and projectile vomit. When raising 3 little boys there's never a dull moment. Thankfully the wife cleaned up most of it.

Lego for Christmas, 28 Dec 2009

"Some men will build, others will delight to destroy those things" must be my sons motto as soon as i finished his lego model he 'exploded' it

The Airplane family, 27 Jan 2010, Lion 5 years old

My son (Lion) has told me that we are an airplane family today.

Which meant we had to talk in airplane.  "Tchk, I love you Daddy, roger, over Tchk".  "Brummm"

Bong goes my day, 28 Jan 2010, Dragon 3 years old

Met family for lunch, asked son what he did today his response... Bong!

Happy Valentines day, 14 Feb 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

Never thought I'd be telling my boys "Don't pull apart the furniture" A new era dawns for me.

I came home to these two trying to remove the fabric off the arm of our couch with plastic tools.

Dragon Swimmer, 27 Mar 2010, Dragon (3)

My son (Dragon) is swimming and giving me some classic lines: the water is up to my monkey! Dragon swimmer super hero to the rescue!

He was wearing a monkey t-shirt at the time, and was so proud that he was in deep enough that the monkey was getting wet.

Hammer time, 25 Apr  2010, Dragon (3), Monkey (6 months)

I just told my son not to hit his baby brother with anything.  His reply But Dad it's only a hammer.

A inflatable hammer, but still...

Punching the air, 2 May 2010, Lion (5)

Classic line by my oldest son (Lion) tonight:  If I have a nightmare tonight I will punch it...

Lion no longer talks this way, it is normally Dragon who has decided that punching is the answer to every problem.

Swedish Chicken, 13 May 2010, Dragon (3)

My 3 yo son is flapping his arms saying Bok bok bjork...  He says he's the Swedish chief. Sounds more like a swedish chicken to me.

He was in the middle of a Muppet marathon that day. We have the DVD of the first season, and the boys love it.

Strange Motivations, 16 Jun  2010, Lion (5)

I find it surreal that the threat of 'not going to school' is the biggest motivator for my oldest son

Even now, he is motivated with if you don't XYZ, you may not be going to school.  With me I would have thought 'Yay, XYZ are not going to happen then.'  With Lion, XYZ are done in a flash. 

Can you speak Mon Calamari too? 3 Sep  2010, Lion (5)

having an interesting week, as oldest son has decided to talk in 'octopus'. I'm not fluent in octopus so blub blub blurble dont make sense

Even his school teacher had to take Mummy to one side and say 'Now normally we like to encourage creativity, but speaking Octopus the whole day is very distracting to rest of the class."

Christmas on Mars. 11 Sep 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

explaining how far away Mars is to my sons told them if we left now we would be there for Christmas. Now my sons are convinced we are spending Christmas on Mars

Two tweets in one day.  It was very dissapointing for them to realise that we would not be going to Mars anytime soon.  Some nights, they still gaze up at the stars (normally Venus) and say "I wish we could have gone to Mars."

True Story. 29 Sep 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

sons are cranky with me because they believe I am withholding critical information in regards to their time machine.  "Dad it has to work!"

Too much Calvin and Hobbs and Star Trek I think.  They had a cardboard box and an old radio I let them pull apart and were getting frustrated that I kept feigning ignorance on the inner workings of a time machine.  How do I tell them that robots from the future would come back in time and try to kill us if I allowed them to create one?  Because I know one of them is going to create a killer robot soon, no point in giving it a time machine as well.

More to come....

You Give Me Fever...

Scarlet fever, not quite what the original artists had in mind when they wrote the song. Two weeks before school started back for the year we had the two big ones knocked out with Scarlet Fever. It was the first week of Wolf's holidays and we were quarantined. This was our big week, the week we had planned to do adventuring every day, maybe an overnight at the beach hut with a trip out to Mt Fox. To say I was upset was an understatement. I was cranky, frustrated, upset, annoyed... I'll stop short of pulling out my thesaurus.

This was our first chance since Butterfly was born where we had Wolf and the boys off school and work at the same time. I was sooooo looking forward to this, so were the kids. Wolf's usual lack of enthusiasm for anything that might be considered "social" or "adventure" was being ignored and we were going to go and make some fantastic memories and he was going to have fun once he was out there... I knew he was!

I may sound a little callous, my kids were kinda quite sick, after all. But they weren't acting it. Knowing that physically they were still up for all this stuff and within 24 hours of the antibiotics we were seeing improvements in their physical symptoms, but we were still on a 5 day quarantine and I would NEVER willingly put other people in danger. I knew that for my normally healthy kids with no other problems that scarlet fever is pretty much a non-event if caught quickly but for others it could easily be life threatening. There are so many other health issues that can cause dangerous complications so I was not going to break our quarantine, at home we stayed. Slowly but surely the state of the house and our moods went down hill.

One of our precious friends delivered us a meal one afternoon, along with it she brought some chocolates and treats for the kids and a book that made me cry and a gingerbread house kit! She had bought it on a whim when she saw it on sale post-Christmas and hoped that it would fill in some of our house-bound time. Well, wouldn't you know it, the boys reminded me I had completely forgotten that in our pre-Christmas craziness I had purchased a gingerbread house kit and it was still sitting somewhere in it's box. The weeks before Christmas were a little crazy... I cannot even remember why, I think the baby was sick, or I was... or someone was, we've had a lot of sickness lately.

So one afternoon we sat and we decorated. Lion and Dragon took one house and Monkey and I took the other. It was fantastic! I remember buying the house thinking "Boy, I'm going to regret this!" and "This is going to end in fights and arguments and this is such a mistake." DID NOT HAPPEN. Partly, I am sure, because we had two kits but mostly it was just good kid-friendly fun. So, without further prattling on, here are the photos...

Monkey turns into such a ham sometimes, it's rare for others to get to see it or for me to catch it on camera so I LOVE this photo. Monkey and I decorated this masterpiece.

These adorable boys melt my heart. They decorated this incredible masterpiece. I piped the loops on the roof shingles, they did the rest of the piping and decorating, I was amazed at how well they handled the piping bag and how they carefully selected each decoration using the box for inspiration then adding their own touches.

Monkeys and mine on the left, Lion and Dragon's on the right. 

This wall and roof section was all I was allowed to design, Monkey is quite the artistic director. From what I have heard from photographers he has a career in food styling ahead of him if he keeps his opinionated ways.

This was a gingerbread man. Monkey kept calling him his dude. "I am going to eat my dude first".

The boys were all better soon and we planned to move as many of our activities to the next week... but it poured down all week. Like flooding type rain, not the sort of thing you can brush off and go out anyway.  Oh well, we'll just do them all when it's cooler later in the year, I wasn't looking forward to the sweltering heat anyway. Lion did have a reoccurrence (or something similar) in the first week of school that required some stronger antibiotics to make sure we knocked it out but they are the picture of health now.

Dragon Starts School!

Dear Dragon,

You started something big.  Really, it's been quite huge!  Your first day of school EVER!  Everyone assured me it would be easier sending you off for your first day than it was to send Lion because I had done it all before.  They were wrong.

I was a mess.  I didn't cry when I dropped you off... but I was a mess.  I took you shopping for your school stuff with Lion WAY back in December.  We were so organised!  Except for the stuff we meant to get somewhere else and with all the time and holidays that elapsed we forgot about until the few days before school started... oops.  But that didn't matter, we went out and bought hats and those hard to find books and had a little time with just you and me in the last days of holidays and it was lovely... and reminded me that it wouldn't get to happen very often any more.

But that first day, that was a great day!  Daddy had made sure his holidays lasted long enough that he would get to be part of the first day of school for you... and you checked over and over and over that morning that he was coming to school too.  You woke up early that day, but you always do.  You and Lion played or watched TV or something... I'm not sure what you two do in the mornings, I know that you have both finally learnt not to come and wake me up over and over and over.  At 6:15, just short of my alarm going off you turned up beside my bed.  "Mum, Mum, is today the day I start school?" "Yes, it is my darling".  You climbed into bed with me, or rather JUMPED on the bed and just about knocked me out, and gave me a massive hug and made sure I knew just how excited you were!  How could I want to keep you home with me when you were so excited about going to school?

The night before I had made sure everything was ready.  I had a table set up in the lounge room with all the school supplies you boys needed and your new shoes and your uniforms and I had your lunches in the fridge ready to go.

all ready for a BIG first day for two precious boys...

You ate your breakfast FAST.  I don't think you've ever managed to eat breakfast that fast with no reminders to keep going.  You didn't need to be told, you just put your dish away and went and grabbed your uniform.

[This is the point where writing this, nearly 6 weeks later, I started crying and had to go and do something else for a little while]

so many books for a prep boy.  Covered with pirates and Lightening McQueen.

I helped you to get your uniform on, new socks can be tricky to pull on until they have stretched a bit.  You looked incredibly grown up all of a sudden.

looking so smart in your formal uniform

We were just about all ready to go to school and it was time to get some photos happening.  Your natural clown personality combined with your absolute excitement meant that we got some very funny photos of you an Lion.  I had to do a trade with you, if you let me take the photos I wanted then you and Lion could clown around for some photos too.

one of your clowning photos has become one of my favourites

We arrived at school bright and early.  We tracked down each of your classrooms, we found Lion's first, his was a multi-age class with prep/1/2, I had to double check that list to make sure you weren't in that class too!  I then went off to check the lists on all the prep room doors, I thought I would start at the classroom where Lion was for prep... it was the one that you were SURE you would be in.  I was so relieved to see that sure enough your name was on the list.  More than having been Lion's classroom, I think the attraction was the Teacher's Aide that is in that room... Mrs Ch and you really hit it off when Lion was in prep, I knew for sure that this was going to be a great year for you now that you were in her class!

Lion ready for his first day of Grade 2

I went back to where you were waiting with daddy and gave you the good news.  Now that you knew your classroom it seemed to all get a bit more real and you went a bit quiet.  Eventually Lion's classroom opened up and we took him in to get settled.  We found where to put all his belongings and store all his books and we all gave him big kisses and cuddles to help him through his first day.  We kind of knew his teacher from previous years and I had only heard good things about her, I wasn't sure about the big difference in ages in the classroom but I knew that his teacher, Miss R, was going to do her best.

*That class has since been split up as school numbers increased over the first two weeks and Lion is now in a straight year 2 class with a fantastic teacher Mrs R*

We took you over to your classroom and it was just getting opened up as we arrived.  I hadn't checked on the door when I found your name who your teachers would be so I was surprised to find that over the holidays the teacher who had been in that classroom for what seemed like forever had decided it was time to retire and it was a new teacher, Mrs Cr.  Thankfully Mrs Ch was still the aide.  We got all your books and paper and pens and things put away.  We found where to put your hat and your bag and your lunch and made sure you knew where everything was then we got your name tag on and started to try to settle you into one of the activities that were happening.  Did you want to play with the puzzles... no.  Did you want to read in the library corner... no.  Did you want to do the connector activity on the table... no.  You wanted to cling to us.  Daddy tried to see if he would have better luck convincing you to try an activity... no. I asked if there was something else you might like to do, you walked straight over to Mrs Ch and asked if you could colour in and could she clear the table (it was holding some of the supplies brought in) for you to do some drawing.  That's my Dragon, organising things to run his way right from the first minute of school.

jumping right in and organising the classroom... That's my Dragon

We left you drawing and doing your best to ignore the friendly little girl, J, who came to sit next to you.  Little did we know that she would become a firm friend and the topic of conversation many many times over the coming weeks.

Daddy took Monkey and I out for a coffee and we did our best to not talk about what had just happened.  I could feel myself getting upset whenever it came up but I hadn't shed a tear yet... I had tried my best to stay excited for you all morning.  Eventually we got home, Monkey went down for a nap, Daddy was doing his own things and I was left to think about my morning.  It didn't take me long to be a crying mess.  I missed you.  You were usually my company while Monkey slept, even though you were supposed to spend that time playing quietly in your room you never failed to appear at my elbow every 2 minutes to ask for this or that or tell me something of vital importance.  Your absence was very noticeable.  I watched the clock, I counted the hours, then the minutes until I could leave to go and get my precious boys from school.  I do that most days, I miss you and Lion while you are at school.

I must have looked at this photo 100 times during the day

FINALLY we left to go and pick you both up.  I collected you from your classroom while Daddy collected Lion.  You spotted me as soon as I walked in the door and started to hop up and down on  your bottom, Mrs Ch saw me and said that you could go and you were up like a shot and walking as quick as you could to come and give me a hug!  We gathered your bag and headed over to Lion's classroom.  I started asking what you had done today... "nothing".  Oh, it's going to be like that.  Thankfully by the end of the week you were a little more forthcoming with information about your day but never very much.

You are settling in well at school.  Your teachers say you are a pleasure to have in the class.  You are making so many friends and I can see you growing up more and more every day.  I am so proud of my Dragon, I pray that you will keep up this excitement for school and be a wonderful student through all your school years.

my precious school boy & I

I love you a lot,
Mummy.

Lion King Giveaway

A loooong time ago in a lounge room far away, a package arrived.  That package was long anticipated... Mummy got VERY excited, very very excited.  Her boys could completely understand why... TNT!  Mummy had a box full of dynamite!... hang on, what?  No I didn't.

Rewind.

Way way back my Lion King obsessed Lion started asking questions... "Mum, when will I get my own Lion King DVD?"... "Mum, you said that I could have a Lion King DVD sometime when it got near my birthday, is that soon?"  So... since I have contacts, I emailed my insider at Porter Novelli who do the PR for Disney DVD.  "Soon," she said, "very soon."

I emailed her back to let her know that my kids back-flipped and somersaulted and did hand stands and danced a jig ON MY COUCH... FOR 10 MINUTES!!!  She thought that perhaps they might be interested in checking it out and having a little party to go with it.  Well, in the interest of making my furniture last a little longer I said they'd love that and decided not to tell the kids about it.  So, sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and then the package arrived!  Y'know the one that I was writing about at the start?  Yeah, that one.    After I calmed them down and told them that TNT was the courier company and there is no way on earth that I would get a delivery of TNT and even if I did, they cannot use it to blow up the gully, try to start a landslide... or anything else for that matter.  I know, I might just be the meanest mum on earth!  Anyway, then I told them that it was FULL of Lion King stuff... including the DVD!

Well... we needed to organise a little party!  We had the Disney Singstar PS2 game to rock out to and no one to rock with.  After a few failed attempts, vomiting bugs, party guests leaving town, we FINALLY managed to pull together a little group of buddies to play the game and watch the movie... and have a heap of fun.

Dragon sings his little heart out!

The movie is just as you remember it... only better!  Really, I get sceptical about these movies being re-released that are supposed to be clearer and smoother and whatever... but it really is.  Having watched The Lion King over and over and over wherever we could track down a copy I had it well stored in my mind to be able to do a comparison.  The voices are sharper, the field of grass flicking in the breeze is clean and crisp, it's fantastic!

Cousin Wilbie is serious when it comes to Karaoke.

We had little competitions to win cute little baby Simba plush toys, we ate worms in dirt (lamingtons with gummy worms shoved in them), ostrich nuggets (that looked suspiciously like chicken nuggets), cheese, crackers, all sorts of yummy stuff.

It did occasionally get a little tricky to see what you were supposed to be singing while you were wearing a Simba mask!

Again, this Karaoke is serious business!

Musical statues and a dance-off... sounds like a good party to me!

We were very happy to have some special visitors with us, you haven't met them on this blog before.  They are this crew.  Dene, Rachel, used to be my youth group leaders a looong time ago and Dene was in our wedding party (and Rachel was indispensable to us that day as well, she took care of so many things we had forgotten to organise).  Together with their kids Eliott and Simeon, they are preparing to head off to Japan as missionaries.  They had a short stay in Townsville where we managed to fit in plenty of time to catch up and hang out and have Lion King themed parties.

Sooooo, here's the really exciting part...

The crew at Porter Novelli have let me have a fantastic Lion King prize pack to give away!  Soooo, if you would like to win this fantastic prize pack below then please leave a comment on this post telling me in 25 words or less, what your favourite kids move of all time is and why.  Mine is Mary Poppins... no, actually it's Anastasia... or um... well... I hope you can be more decisive than me!  So, go on, let me know!

I was not paid for this but I did receive a Disney DVD, The Lion King pack from Porter Novelli and Disney DVD along with a gift card to supply our party.  All opinions expressed are entirely my own... and my kids.

Competition runs until 7pm AEST, Friday Dec 23rd 2011 and is open to Australian residents only.  Please make sure you comment with a valid email address (if you are a noreply@blogger.com address please include an email in your comment), if I cannot get hold of you I will have to pick someone else.

My blogger account has not been notifying me by email of comments to my posts but I promise I will check regularly to make sure all comments are included!

You can't put this on facebook

Okay, I'm pretty careful about remembering that not all my facebook friends have little kids and even fewer have such a male dominated family.  They may not want to know all the gross stuff that goes on in our house that although funny, is still poop related.  As such, some things just don't go on facebook... this one had to be shared.

Monkey is getting better at manipulating his big brothers to get his way.  He's learning from their cues what his appropriate response should be.  This afternoon he walked into the middle of their room and filled his nappy.  From the gagging/choking/gasping for air sounds his brothers were making I'd say it had a good odour to it.  Their crazy reaction made Monkey's day!  He'd walk towards them and their increased wailing and backing off would just encourage him to go and try it on the other one.  Their passionate plea of "go out to mama, pleeeeeeease" was just more than one little Monkey could handle.  All of a sudden I heard the door close and his little giggle as he trapped his brothers in their room while it steadily filled with the stench of a thousand rotting eggs.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of his masterminding or horrified that my two year old has figured out for himself the basic concept of playing Dutch Oven.

Excitement!

I just got an email saying that there is a super awesome parcel on it's way to me!  Do you want to know what the best bit for you is?  It's for a FANTASTIC GIVE AWAY!

But that's all I'm telling you right now.

So, what else has been going on around here in my bloggy quietness?  Lots.  That is partly to blame for the quietness.  It's been a busy two terms at school and last holidays we were so busy with endless invitations to here and there that we didn't get much of a break.  Now we are in our second week of these holidays and I am feeling refreshed and ready to face the final chaotic term of school.  I made a purposeful decision to stay home a lot these holidays.  As much as possible to do things that included all of the kids and to spend lots of time just being together.

But, leading up to the holidays we did have a little bit of fun...

Lion's school does a school concert every second year and in the other year the do something on a much smaller scale.  This year they presented a Food & Dance Fiesta!  Each year level presented a dance and there was all sorts of food for sale and the year levels all manned stalls selling different things.  The year ones all had to bring in cupcakes to be sold at their stall which was a raging success.  Lion's class danced to "boot scootin' baby".  I was thrilled when the classes came out in lines and Lion was right at the front down the end where I was standing (I had Monkey in the pram so I could only get to the ends).  Then they decided to do a re-shuffle for some reason... Lion ended up at the back, in the middle, behind some rather tall kids.  I got rare glances of him and managed to get a couple of photos that weren't real good but hey, we got a record of the event.  After the first time through they had to come and get a parent to dance with them.  Unfortunately with Monkey in the pram (against his wishes) and Wolf at work, I couldn't be the one to go and dance with him.  He had taught Dragon some of the moves so I encouraged (bribed with an extra cupcake) Dragon to go and dance with him.  You can imaging how much of that I saw with all the parents of the kids in the front two rows dancing in front of my tiny little boys.  Oh well, I was proud of both of them for getting up there... even if I couldn't see most of it.

We went down to The Strand Ephemera to check out some of the artwork on the day before Father's Day.  The kids had a ball but I was suffering with sinus headaches from a horrid sinus infection that just wont go away.  Some of the art was good... some was just really really poor.  These are two pieces that the kids particularly enjoyed.

Last week (1st week of school holidays) Wolf had the Tuesday off so we took of up the the beach hut for the day with Grannysaurus and Cheetah.  We played in the sand, swam in the ocean, boogy boarded, went to Frosty Mango (Aunty Chimera and Little Bear joined us for that)... we had a generally awesome time.  Not many photos were taken because the photographer was having too much fun!  Mum did grab a few on my camera while I was in the ocean though.

I was so proud of my kids... and Cheetah.  We'll start at the oldest...  Cheetah had never ridden a boogy board before and was struggling to catch a wave.  Even after I explained when to push off.  I had a thought... I don't use the top of the wave to tell when to jump, I use the feeling around my ankles of the water rushing back out to sea as well as the look of the wave...  As the next lot of "big" waves were starting to roll in I quickly explained how waves work and at which point in the waves life you need to push off and all of a sudden he was riding like a pro!

Lion was dumped wave after wave.  He saw a particularly big wave coming and got a gleam in his eye... He caught it and it took him two metres and dumped him.  HARD.  His little head popped up from under the water, he spat mouthfuls of sand and sea water out and looked at me.  I thought he might be about to cry... his little voice spoke up... "that. was. AWESOME".  He grabbed his hat, wrung the water out of it, put it back on his head and took of to find his next wave.

Dragon is usually a one wave boy.  He gets dumped once and that's it.  He's sitting in the shallows and wont try again.  He was dumped over and over and over and he just kept going back for more.

Monkey is also a stick to what he knows kinda kid.  Especially in the ocean.  He got out there and was riding the boards with no one holding on to him (much to mummy's horror), he was jumping waves and pretending to fall over... he had a blast!

So there's a little of what we have been up to.  There's still so much more to share... but not today.  I hope there are still people reading this little old blog... it'd be a shame if there was no one to win the fantastic prize I'll have to give away soon!