Lillian's 6th Birthday

      Did you know that Lily goes by Lillian at school because there is another Lily in her class?  Doesn't Lillian just sound so much older and more sophisticated?  Well, our Lillian just turned 6 on June 13th.  Not only is Lillian so sophisticated she is also so very smart.  She has always been a smartie pants, but she is reading year 3 sight words!  She never ceases to amaze me with her brains (which we are still not sure where she got them!) Lillian is a crafty, creative, book reading, funny, charming, endearing, sweet, loving, and spiritual little 6 year old and I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world!  We love our Lillian very much and are so happy to have her in our lives.

As far as birthdays go, Lillian's was pretty great this year.  In fact, in her prayers that night, she prayed that all her birthdays could be as good as this one.  Success!  We started the day with a snuggle in my bed telling the real live Lillian birth story.  I like to start all my kids birthdays re-telling the actual events that led to their first birthday.  They all love to hear it too.  And since the other kids are usually around, we end up telling everyone's birth story.  It's great!  Anyways, this is the first year that Lily would be in school on her birthday!  Crazy!  So Cory took her out to lunch at Hungry Jacks, which happens to be Burger King, during her school lunch.  Then right after school, I picked Lily up and we went straight away to the chemist (which is a pharmacy) to do what Lily has been waiting months to do.  Get her ears pierced!!

 Here are Lily and Ava outside of the Chemist.  Thank goodness the chemist pierced ears.  When Lily told me a few months ago that she wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday, given the town we're living in I thought I was going to have to take my little girl to the tattoo parlor or something!  :)  But the Chemist saved the day.  Very kid friendly.

 Here is Lily picking out her studs.

 Lily wanted me to get a before picture of her ear.

 Here she is getting ready in the chair.

Here is a video of Lily getting her ears pierced.  She is so cute!

Here is the finished product, freshly pierced as you can tell by the red ear.  :)  She was so brave!

Ava was the cutest little supporter.  After a little while, she asked Lily if it still hurt.  She was very concerned.  One of the girls doing the piercing thought that Lily and Ava were twins.  They certainly do look a lot alike.

 Here are the party girls at home afterwards, making the cake.

 Lily was having a very hard time waiting to open her presents.  Finally the time was right.

Look at Ava's face!  I half got this because I knew Ava wanted one and I knew Lily would share and it was for sale.  So Lily graciously gave it to Ava.  :)

 You gotta love Lily's pajamas.  It gets really cold here at night so the girls like to layer up with whatever they can find.  :)

 More presents.

 And finally, the one that she had been waiting for!

 An actual guitar! Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa Rappleye!

 Here are Ava and Lily working on the mosaic jewelry box she got to keep all her new earrings in.

 Lily decided she wanted a paint pallet cake.  For some reason I thought that using these little candies would be easier to make it look like a paint pallet, but I should have just done frosting.  They don't look like paint circles, they look like flowers!  Oh well, Lily loved it, and that is all that matters.  :)

 Here is Lily with her new guitar.  Just strumming away.

 We sang happy birthday.

 Here is Lily pretending to use her paint pallet.

We love our little Lily bug and we can't believe she is already 6!  Happy birthday!!!!!

Weekend Getaway

Last weekend Cory and I got to go to Perth by ourselves!!!!  It was so fantastic, too short, but fantastic nonetheless.  We got a later start on Friday than we wanted to, but we made it to Perth around 8 pm.  We grabbed some dinner which I thought was fantastic because I didn't make it.  I have probably been out to eat once or twice since I got here.  So it was a real treat.  It's amazing how being deprived makes you appreciate the simple things.  We stayed at this hotel right on the Swan River in Perth, which is gorgeous.  It is always exciting to be able to sleep without the risk of additional bed buddies joining you in the night.  :)

Here I am outside our hotel in the morning.  It was the most gorgeous late autumn day.

 Here we are at the cute outdoor cafe at King's Park, which is a beautiful park that overlooks the Swan River and the city of Perth.  We got some yummy muffins and hot chocolates.  It was delicious!

 Here we are at the overlook at King's Park taking a selfie.  So this older lady decided to help us out by taking some pictures of us.

 Isn't that a cool city???

Here is the King's Park Monument.  There are a lot of other statues and things to see, but we had to hurry on over to the temple.  The latest session they do on Saturdays is 11 am.  So we headed to the temple.

Here we are doing another selfie outside the Perth temple.  That is another thing that I definitely have a renewed appreciation for, the temple.  I miss seeing them all the time and being able to go more often.  It had been six months since I had done a session and it was so wonderful to be there with Cory and just feel the Spirit of the Lord in the House of the Lord.

After that we headed to the beach.  We took a nice walk along the beach.  

It was really windy.  :)  But it was a gorgeous day.  

 More selfies of us!  :)

After our nice beach walk we decided we wanted to find a fish and chips place to eat lunch at before we started on the long drive back to Kal.  It seemed appropriate.  We found a place, but it didn't open until 4:30 and that was way to late, we needed to hit the road.  We'll have to do that on our next Perth trip.  It was a quick trip, but it was absolutely dreamy.  Thank you, Sara, for watching the kids for us so we could enjoy a relaxing weekend alone!  :)

Out Bush

One sunny Sunday afternoon, we decided to go exploring "out bush."  It's what people do around here for fun. The great thing is you don't have to drive very far to suddenly be out bush. 

Here is a classic Australian gum tree.  Ava says they look like broccoli, a very accurate description.  

 Here is Will just taking off into the bush.  He was so excited to have so much wide open space.  It was kind of scary for me.  He seriously could disappear so fast.

 Checking out the abandoned and burned cars.  ???

 Here's a little video of the kids taking off into the outback.

Now I am going to post a bombardment of photos of my children.  I'm sorry, I just think they are all so fabulously cute! ;)

Love these two sisters.  Best friends!

There is so much Will in this post and it is because I am a little obsessed with him.  I love him!!!!

 Adorable guy!  Melt my heart!

 Here is Will stopping to wave me on, saying, C'mon!!

 Like I said, a lot of Will!  I cannot get enough of him!

 Cute little explorer Lily.

 Lily was the only one brave enough to climb on the cars.

 There was so much junk out there.  The girls were very concerned about this sad lost teddy bear.  They were sad for the bear and the poor owner who they knew was definitely missing him.

 Whose had enough of this guy?  I sure haven't.  Being Mr. Fix-it.

More of Lily on the cars.  Where Ava is all this time I sure don't know!!!

Here's Lily dancing on the car.  :)

Here is more sisterly love!

Here's all our kids in the back of this abandoned car.  Remember when you could ride in an actual moving vehicle like this???  I sure do!

Another moving picture.  I'm not even really sure how my phone is doing this.

Here's the whole family.  Thanks to Sara we could all be in a photo!

And Will was done. :)

It was fun going out bush, but the flies were out of control.  I thought they were bad in town, but out bush they are insufferable.  So we had to get out of there!  

It was a nice afternoon outing to the Australian outback.