Lily's Big Day

So Lily had a big day on Friday.  Her class was in charge of the entertainment item for the school assembly on Friday.  So they all made chicken wings and beaks and they danced and sang the Funky Chicken.  It was quite adorable!  I got to go and help the kids make their wings in class a few days before the assembly which Lily also thought was great.  I'm glad that she isn't embarrassed of me--yet! :)

Here's Lily all chicken-a-fied ready to sing and dance.

And here is some of the performance, Lily is on the far left in the front row.  It's not great...the filming job, not the song!  The song and dance are fabulous!

Here's her whole group up there.

Then after their great performance, Lily received a Merit Award.  Here she is accepting her award. She's the only one not in uniform, since she was a chicken!

 Here she is with her award.  It was presented to her for settling into a new school with ease and confidence.  It also said, Lillian, you are an enthusiastic learner and a pleasure to teach.  Keep it up!

We are so proud of our little enthusiastic learning chicken! :)

Camera Clean Up

I copy this blog post idea from my sister in law, Joslyn, because I think it is the most clever way of posting the every day stuff that doesn't really go together or wasn't really an event.  But it's still part of my life that I want to remember and document.

So a few weeks ago we made a friend at Lily's school!  I say we because she (the mom) has kids for my kids to play with.  I decided to be social and have her over for a play date and it was so much fun!  Her name is Allie and she has four kids.  She has a 6 or 7 year old boy who is in the class room next to Lily's at school, which is how we met, both waiting for our kids and both the only two moms who didn't know anyone else because we had both just moved to Kalgoorlie.  Allie moved from Victoria, which is clear on the other side of Australia, so a pretty big move for her also.  Then she has a 4 year old girl, Annabell, a 2 year old boy, Isaac, and a 10 month old little girl, Natalie.  Allie is an absolutely beautiful and generous person and her children are all adorable and I am so glad to have met her.

Here are a few pictures of our kids playing together.

If you couldn't tell, they all had a great time together.  :)

Here are some other random photos of the kids.  Here is Will, still a little sleepy after his Sunday nap.  I had to take a picture because I thought he looked like such a stud.

 Here is Lily in the pool with her "freaky" hair do.  She says that when she would swim in the summer with her cousin Wyatt and she would do this with her hair, he would scream and swim away because it freaked him out.  I think she looks pretty cute!

Here is one of Will's favorite past times in the backyard, shaking this poor little tree.  I apologize for my role in this film.  Ugh, who likes to hear their own voice on camera??  Not me!

I took this picture and then realized that this is probably one of the last times that they could all take a bath together, in fact, they're probably already too old for it!  But they were having so much fun!

So my new friend, Allie, who I mentioned earlier was kind enough to come and take us shopping with her, since I don't have a car, it's hard to get shopping in since the shops all close when Cory gets home from work.  We were just having some fun going to the Op Shop, which is a second hand store. Ava spotted this amazingly beautiful hat and I knew we had to get it for her!

 Isn't it perfect???

 So then the next day, for some reason we decided to go to the other Op Shop on the other side of town, and this amazingly beautiful cowgirl hat was there, and once again it couldn't be passed up.  Have you ever seen so much pink bling in two hats?   I love it!!

 Here's both of them saying, yeehaw!  I keep trying to get a picture of Will wearing one of the hats, but he always takes it off before I can get it, as if he knows that would be extremely embarrassing.

 But here is one photo that he doesn't seem to think is too embarrassing.  Will has been spending a lot of time naked out in the back yard.

I took the girls shopping with me on Saturday because I was feeling generous with my "me" time.  Sad that my me time has become grocery shopping, but they had a lot of fun putting on some of the silly hats and things at the store.

 Happy St. Patrick's Day, early!

 And a happy Easter also!

That about wraps up some of our random happenings down under!

Valentine's Day Addendum

***Warning:  This post is full of boring videos for my parents.  Still feel free to watch and enjoy!

So we have received our first parcel!!  Yay!!  Thanks to my wonderful mother and father!  Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Rappleye!  It was so exciting to get the package, even if it was a few days after Valentine's day!  It came in the middle of the day while Lily was at school and Ava had to patiently wait til Lily finished school to open it.

Here are the kids holding the cherished package.

Here they are trying to open it.  It was well packaged.

And here they are enjoying it's contents.

And here they are saying thank you for it's contents.

Here are some more pictures of the enjoyment.

Here are Lily and Ava enjoying their hands on gifts.

 Here is Lily's finished product.

Here is Will playing with his new car and train.

Here we all are pigging out on the Oreos that were in the package!  Yum!  We are all huge oreo fans!

Thank you, Mom and Dad!!!  We all really enjoyed every bit of this package and it was nice to feel loved even though we are so far away!  We love you!

Valentine's Day

So not much has been going on around here lately.  The kids started school two weeks ago and we have settled into a nice routine there.  Valentine's day was this last week and it was such a relief to me that it isn't really a big thing here.  I happen to really love Valentine's day.  I have always had fun letting the people I love know it in a special way on that day.  But sometimes I feel like the celebration of it has gone too far. Last year, in Lily's preschool class Valentine's day was ridiculously out of control!  Lily came home with more treats on Valentine's day than she did on Halloween! I didn't realize that so much had changed since I had gone to school Valentine parties, so I'm pretty sure Lily gave out the lamest Valentines in the class last year because I was trying to keep things simple.  Well no stressing about that this year and trying to out do all the other moms (because at Lily's age that is who is really in control of these sorts of things), because they do absolutely nothing at school for Valentine's day.  And you know what?  Nobody died or anything.  My kids still had a great day and I loved not stressing about Valentines for classmates.  Lily made a nice Valentine for her teacher and we called it good.

We still had fun though doing lovey things all day.  We ate chocolate for breakfast.  What else do you do on Valentines?  It's all about the chocolate for me! And for Will!

We also went swimming after school because it was so hot!

 Will has been using the pool thermometer as a phone lately.  He is saying hello here, isn't that cute?

 Here is Lily's happy Valentine's day swimming video.  She kept doing heart cannon balls for me.

So Ava and Lily share a room and Ava is at the age where she wants the closet light left on and Lily claims she can't fall asleep with the closet light on.  So I asked Lily to come up with a good solution that would work for both her and Ava and Lily came up with this.

A sleeping mask.  She came up with this great idea a while ago, I just finally got around to making her one, on Valentine's day.  I thought it would be a nice surprise for her when she got home from school.  So I whipped out the sewing machine Cory got me for Christmas and I made these sleeping masks while Lily was at school and Will was napping.  And, of course, since Lily was getting one, Ava wanted one too.  So Ava helped me make them and she even did some sewing on her own.

 Here's an action shot.  :)

Here is a nice drawing Lily did at school on Valentines.

 Look how Lily spelled "mom" on here.  She is turning Aussie on us! :)

We made heart pizza for dinner. I know, I know, this one looks more like a triangle.  Cory already made fun of me plenty for it.

 But this one is a good heart shape.  And it was delicious!  I love having green peppers in my garden.  Australian's call them capsicum and they grow like weeds here like zucchini grows in Utah! It's great! 

 Dinner was followed by popcorn and a movie theatre.

 Here is the feature film: Batman.

We also made heart sugar cookies and heart popcorn balls.  So many heart treats!  It was a pretty good low key Valentine's day!  I hope that those I love felt that I loved them on that day and every other day of the year!  And if you are reading this, then I love you too!!!

Starting School

Both the girls started school this week!  They go to O'Conner Primary School.  They do things a little differently here, so Lily started year one, or first grade, and Ava started Kindy, which is like preschool.  Lily goes to school all day every day and Ava goes twice a week all day!  Ah, I feel like my kids are growing up too fast.  They have both loved going to school.

Here is Lily outside her classroom when we went to find out her teacher's name and buy her uniform. 

 Here is Lily on her first day.  There is another Lily in her class so Lily gets to go by Lillian.  She says she likes it. 

 Here's Lily on her playground. 

 Here is Ava on her first day of school, we hadn't gotten her uniform yet, so what did she choose to wear?  Her yellow overalls, of course. 

 Will rocking out on the drums at the school. 

 Here is Ava on her second day of school, with her uniform. 

 Here is Ava at her classroom, she was so excited that now she got to look like everyone else. 

 Here she is playing with her classmates at the beginning of class.  She seems way too little for this, yet so ready!  All the other kids don't want their mom's to go, Ava doesn't even notice that I'm still there waiting to say good bye! 

Since I still don't have a car, Lily rides her bike to school and I run with my double jogger behind her.  It's probably only about a mile away, so it's really not too bad.  The distance isn't the real issue, it's the hot weather!  The morning isn't too bad, but the afternoon pick up, oh boy!  I am so sweaty when I get there.  I hope that the other moms will still be my friend even though I'm smelly!

We saw this on the way home from dropping Lily off one morning.  The kids thought it was great. 

 Here's Ava and Will in their deluxe "pram" as they call strollers here. 

 Here is Lily riding her bike, I took this while I was running, that is why it is so wonky. 

 Here are the girls together after school.  O'Conner is the best!!!