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!

Super Brother To The Rescue!

Now that I can post photos again I am going back through the albums and seeing what needs to be blogged.  In amongst some photos from Easter I came across this little group of photos that I wanted to share... I thought the event deserved a post all it's own.

My little Monkey, not quite 20 months old at the time, decided to wade himself out into the water.  He was doing fine, stopping and steeling himself as each swell came along.  Just as I was about to let Wolf know that he might need to be stopped before it gets too much for him he got into trouble!

He could still touch the bottom of the sand with his hand and could just keep his face above water during the swell but he couldn't right himself again... and he was ready to panic.  Wolf moved into action.  But so did someone else...

A little yell came from my sweet Lion... "Don't worry, I'll save him!" and he started madly paddling towards him on his boogy board.  Wolf beat him there but Lion was only a second away.  I was so proud of my big boy, ready to rescue his brother in an instant.

Sunday Snapshot

By the thousands of emails* I've been getting I can tell that Sunday Snapshots have been greatly missed so a snapshot of one day from our week is offered for you this Sunday night...  (because that is all I can do after the bedtime routine fell in a stinking heap tonight).

"It's all in the Genes"

Why, yes, we do make cute kids around here.

I dragged the boys to the beach for a few (4) hours on Friday.  Aunty Em was getting her hair cut at about 2pm so in the interest of working on my list I thought we would meet her for an icecream lunch before her haircut.

It is at this point in the conversation that I will point out that it's mid-winter here, and we were going to the beach for icecream!

It was lovely weather, PERFECT beach weather.  Crazy southern folk would probably even have gone for a swim but not us, way too cold for us tropical frogs!

Anyway, once I started thinking about heading down for icecream I figured since it's holidays I might as well take the kids for a play for the morning.  So after Monkey's nap we took off and had a great morning.  The boys took two army men and a plastic tree each and dug trenches in the sand and played wars or something.  Dragon buried his men at one point and they were never able to be found again.  Lion kept his but as we were finishing up on the beach and heading for a playground he was washing one in the ocean and let it go.  It was whisked away by the tide and he wasn't able to catch it.  I agreed with him that it was sad but I wasn't in on his plan to come back that night and walk the ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE STRAND to see if it had been washed back up.  He eventually gave in to my offer of going down just before we leave to check where it washed away.

This was how Monkey would concede to experience the sand.  Well, like this up on his tippy toes and fingers or standing holding on to my legs like in the top photo.  I guess he just didn't wan to get that cute Dalmatian nappy dirty.  Although, every now and then he'd look at me in disgust with sand on his hands as if pleading with me to do something about them.  I just dusted them off and he went back to grabbing handfuls of sand to eat.  I have never had a kid that just wanted to eat sand, its gross and inevitably ends up in sandy puke all over me.

Dragon had to come running over to us every now and then to remind us that he loves us or to remind Monkey that Dragon loves to annoy him or to accidentally flick sand all over us...  He was having a great time.

Eventually we wandered down to find some public loos.  I decided I couldn't wait until icecream time to eat so I started talking lunch thinking I'd grab a scoop of chips for us to share but Lion told me there was a man down the end with a caravan that sells stuff.  Turns out it was a hotdog guy with a cart... probably the only hotdog guy in our town.  I got one plain one for the boys to share and one for myself and tried to turn off that little voice in my head whispering screaming FOOD POISONING FOOD POISONING FOOD POISONING!  Oh, and the little voice telling me that it's just wrong to have a naked hotdog... seriously, I like my hotdogs to have skin on them!  He was marketing them very much "American Style" all with names of US or Canadian cities, American flags here and there, so is this the way you guys do hotdogs? Skinless?  Naked?

Anyway, the boys did like theirs! (mine was yummy too, I enjoyed it more retrospectively when I decided sufficient time had passed for me to be safe from food poisoning).

Eventually after another play in the park we headed back to meet Aunty Em and get some icecream (I had caramel swirlysomething and vanilla) and then popped back down to the beach for Lion to check for his army man... IT WAS THERE!  Yes, it really was!  After I spent the morning preparing him to never see that army man again it had washed back up and nearly 4 hours later it was sitting there waiting for him.  Dragons were gone for good.

On the way home we Dragon whispered "I love my Aunty Em" "Yes, Dragon, I love your Aunty Em too" "No, Mum, I love my Aunty Em" he whispers again "Yes, sweetie I know you do" Louder this time... "NO, Mum, I love my ARMY MAN, I'm SAD that he is LOST".  Okay, not the touching moment I thought we were having.

*okay, lets call that creative licence, it may not be thousands... or any at all... but I know you have missed it.

Beach Baby

We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two... except for Wolf... and it was only for a day... and not really much of a holiday, just a few hours away from regular life... eh, scratch the song, it’s just not going to work for this post.

I took off up to our family beach hut for the day yesterday with the boys, Grannysaurus, Grandad and Great Grandma. We popped in to visit family friends who live in the area for morning tea and then headed to the beach hut for the rest of the day. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of the big boys because I took all those ones on Mums camera. I do have a few of a certain little Monkey’s first trip to the beach! Lion and Dragon were both at our beach hut before they were two weeks old so this is quite a wait for little Monkey... and I think he liked it.

This beach is wonderful, it has just the right mix of everything you need and no one to share it with! While the grandies and the kiddies had a nap/rest during the heat of the day I headed down the road a bit to take Monkey to visit Aunty Em who was having a holiday with ALL her family nearby... and we may have stayed a bit longer than we intended since it was stinkin’ hot and their cabins were air-conditioned.

When it did get cool/shady enough to go down to the beach Monkey and I spent most of our time in the shade to protect his fresh new non-sunscreen wearing skin and let the grandparents (great grandma had gone home) deal with the big boys.  Dragon and Grandad took a wander down to the point and trialed a nearby playground and Grannysaurus and Lion took on the stinger enclosure.  Now don't think I was shirking all the hard work in this deal... Noooo, Monkey and I worked on his kissy face.

Unfortunately it was hard to get a photo with one hand and keep a hold of Mr Wriggles with the other.  He is really good at it but he has to be in the right mood or it just ain't happening.  Oh, and just in case you can't tell, he's VERY serious about kisses!

Monkey had his first feel of sand between his toes and I think the only reason he like it is because he made it into something close enough to work for mummy to do... he would keep his feet still JUST long enough to let me cover them up then he would kick it off and wait for me to do it again... possibly he just kept freaking out when his feet kept disappearing... who knows.

Most of the time he wanted to be sitting in my lap or carried but he did get his feet wet (photos on mum's camera) and he did have a little lay down on a beach towel just chillin' in the afternoon cool.

Now, just because I can't get enough of those sweet little beach baby toes here's another photo...

 Now I need to plan when we can go back as a whole family for a few days... We are a big family with four generations and one beach hut so if you don't book in early all the good weekends are gone!

Did you know???

That smoke, dust or steam in the air makes the moon change colour? okay, you most likely did but if you are old enough to read this without help then you dont count. I just wanted to brag that Lion now knows about why the moon changes colour. And if you ask him he says it so matter-of-fact that you would never doubt it even though it is coming from the mouth of a three year old. We'll just add that to his adorable little explaination of how a car engine works. Oh he's so intelligent... and i'm not at all biased.

Grandma and Grandad took Lion and his big cousin M up to the beach hut today to see Great grandma. it's an easter tradition, Great grandma goes up there and we all make the pilgrimage to visit for at least a few hours. This year we had mountains of cleaning planned so it was great that the grandies could take lion and we got cracking. Aunty J even took Dragon for a couple of hours so Wolf and Mummy McT could go and have lunch together. YAY! anyway the moon colour conversation came up in the car on the trip back and Lion Proudly informed us on his arrival home how the moon changes colour.

Then we had to decide where to put out the easter baskets... Mummy sort of might have influenced his decision a little. I am guessing that had i not intervened they would have been put in his room or the lounge room so that he can get them first thing in the morning and eat all the eggs before the rest of us even woke up. probably not much chance they would have been put on top of the tall-boy in mummy and daddy's bedroom well out of reach of Lion paws but there they are and he thinks that it was all his decision. As I am a mummy for longer and longer i start to wonder how many of the things i thought were my decision growing up really were my decision...

the bunny is a bit tight this year. thankfully they arent up to comparing their bunny's leavings with other kids bunny's. I dread the thought of all that chocolate in the fridge until i get sick of it and let them eat it all in one go and just put up with them on a sugar high for 24 hours (or more). The bunny decided not to do it this year, they are only getting a couple of pieces each and I have, I hope, given enough hints out that I really hope others do the same. They are getting a box of duplo to share with the money great grandma gave them for easter instead of buying them more chocolate! I was very happy with great grandma!

well, off to bed now. Dont forget in all that chocolate that JESUS IS ALIVE!!!!!

Beach Wedding

Here's a lovely photo of the boys taken at a beach wedding we went to recently. They were all dressed up, the sand was cool, the water blue so I thought a picture of Lion and Dragon sitting on the sand together would be nice. As I was getting the shot set up Lion lost interest and wandered away. "Lion jump down there and give dragon a nice big hug."




Granddad saw it coming and I was lucky enough to have captured this action shot before Dragon's snout was firmly planted in the sand. -Wolf McT