Tuesday, March 18, 2014

February Happenings

 So February was all about getting settled into the school routine.  I think all the kids have had some adjusting to do.  I didn't think Will would have so much trouble adjusting, but he really misses his sisters.  Some days after drop off, we'll be driving away from the school and Will will say, Oh no!  The girls, they're lost!  Or he will ask if we can go to friends almost every day, because he is lonely.  Poor guy!  I really do wish that Ava was still home part of the time.  They get along so very well.  And I'm sure I will really be wishing she was around more when I have this baby too!  Will could really use a mate!

Anyways, here are some pictures of some of our activities in February.

The girls adopted Aunt Shelece is always spoiling Lily and Ava.  One Sunday, they came home with some awesome outfits for Ken.
 If you recall my awesome handiwork for apparel for Ken when all he had to wear were swim trunks.  Well Shelece saw this and was prompted to buy new clothes for Ken!  Hahaha!  His hair still hasn't improved, however.  :)

I finally went to my first appointment with the gynecologist here in town when I was 28 weeks pregnant.  It was a bit different than a doctors office in America.  First of all, there was a dog in the waiting room.  And no, it's not this lady's dog.  It's the doctors!  Besides the dog, there was some very interesting decor around, mainly pregnant women and babies.  Some were nice, but some were just down right creepy.
 Here's the strange statue out front of the office.  A little on the creepy side, I thought.
 We went to back to school night and Ava's painting about what she did during the summer was very interesting.  It says that she saw a unicorn in Perth.  Not only did she not see a unicorn, but we didn't even go to Perth.  But that is okay...I love it!
 Ava got her very first Goldie.  Which is a little certificate for good behavior.  The teacher will mark which category the child did well in and usually put a little write up about how fantastic your kid is.  She was very excited.  You get to write your name on the bottom half and return it to go into a drawing for prizes.
 Lily received a Merit Certificate at the very first assembly of the year.  So Will and I stayed to watch, but Will thought playing in the somewhat muddy dirt was more fun.

 There's Lily holding her certificate at the front of the assembly after receiving it.
 She got the award from her teacher for her great effort in sounding out words.
 Valentine's day was really low key this year.  I really don't have much energy for things like that this year.  But lucky for me, if the girls want something special to happen they usually make it happen themselves.  Lily and Ava set up a restaurant for themselves and got dressed up in fancy clothes.  Al I had to do was take their order and serve them their food.  They enjoyed it and it was easy!
 Here are the girls all fancied up, eating their awesome dinner.  Haha, we had like no food in the house that day.  It certainly wasn't anything fancy, but the girls liked it so that is all that matters.

 I should have got a picture of Will.  The girls didn't think he could behave at a fancy restaurant (and they were right)  So he became their pet dog!  Haha!  Cory came home from work in the after noon and took me to lunch, which was a super nice surprise that never happens, but Will had to come too, and yes, he kind of did behave like a dog!  :)  Just kidding, he was alright, just very excited to be out of the house, like me!

Here's the beautiful and very Valentiney table set up.
 They don't do Valentines here at school like in America but we did make some Valentines for the kids teachers.  We made chocolate heart suckers and chocolate dipped strawberries and oreos and some homemade heart cards.  I should have taken a picture of all our chocolate making. It was quite professional if I don't mind saying so myself.  The girls also made Valentines for each other and everyone in the family.  This was my favorite one I found around the house.
 It says, To Ava From Lily You are one big character.  Hahaha!  What a crack up!

Like I said earlier, Will has been lonely with out his big sisters.  So we have been setting up play dates quite often.  Here we are at Hammond Park, and this is the closest I have ever seen the kangaroos to the fence, ever!  So Will got some petting action in.


 It's a cute little thing, isn't it?
 After school one Friday, I had to go pick something up in a part of town we hadn't been too before.  We spotted this park and decided to stop and try it out.


 The kids had a great time!  :)
 Ava got invited to a birthday party for one of the boys in her class.  It was at McDonald's so of course Ava wanted to go, since I never ever take them there, and if I do it is just for a 30 cent ice cream cone, never for a meal.  Turns out that Ava was the only girl there!  She didn't seem to mind one bit.  I'm not sure if she knew what Star Wars was before the party, but she does now.  That's all those boys seemed to play on the play place.
 For some reason lately, Lily has become obsessed with cats.  She keeps telling me how much she wants a pet cat, and lucky for her there happens to be a stray cat that just won't take the hint to go away. So it hangs out in our back yard often.  But, of course, that isn't good enough for Lily, she wants a cat that can come inside.  Well too bad for her, that will never ever happen.  I'm sorry, but I do not love cats, and I definitely don't want one in my house.  She was devastated when I said she would have to wait until she had her own house or apartment to get a cat.  Anyways, the point of all that is the girls made this crazy cat cake at the end of February to say happy birthday to Gabby (it was her birthday that day), Angela and McKall.
 So at the end of February, my nesting instinct started to kick in a bit.  And unfortunately for Cory and our bank account, it kind of went into over drive.  Since we had never really settled in when we moved here and we have just been using free furniture and what not, I started nesting whole house wide, instead of just a baby's room.  One new thing that I purchased on this rampage, and have been feeling really anxious to get for a while was a piano.  I have been wanting the girls to start learning for a while and when that nesting instinct kicked in, I thought why not.  The girls have been loving it!  Now, if only I could actually get all that sheet music I need printed off.  Lily has been taking lessons off of you tube, and then she teaches them to Ava.  It's worked out quite nicely.  But we definitely need music that we can start reading as well.
 On the first Monday in March, it was Labor Day here in Australia so that meant, no school!  And it just so happened to be really warm also.  So we had a few friends over for a swim.  There is Lily in the water with Lach and Annabelle.
 Here is Ava and Will all done swimming.

 This is Ava in her classroom at school drop off.  She always loves to play with the baby dolls.  I hope that is a good sign about what a great helper she'll be with the baby.  :)  Sometimes Ava will even put the baby up her shirt to be pregnant like me.  Oh dear!
 Here's another bit of Ava's school work that I was noticing at school drop off.  They were being tested on how well they listened to the story of the Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly.  They were supposed to retell the story to the teacher and she wrote down what they said. Well that is Ava's retell in the middle there.  Look how much longer it is than all the others?  Hahaha!  Ava pretty much retold the entire story, sometimes word for word!  Oh, she sure is one big character.  ;)
That is about it for February.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Back to School

February 3rd, 2014 was the girls first day of school.  Lily started year two and Ava started Pre-Primary.  Lily's new teacher's name is Miss Blackwell and it is her first year teaching.  She is so young, adorable and enthusiastic.  After the first day of school, Lily said to me, Mom, Miss Blackwell is so much prettier than I thought she would be.  :)  Ava's teacher is Miss Perrot.  And she is also young, adorable and enthusiastic.  :)  A major plus about living out in the desert is that in order for the teachers here to complete their certification, they have to teach two years at a "country" town school.  And well, we are considered a country town because we are in the middle of the bush and no one wants to live here.  :)



Year two, baby!  ;)
Look at that face!  It's saying, "Mom, (sigh) enough pictures already!"


Here's Lily all set up in her new classroom, which actually happens to be her same classroom from last year!  Her old teacher moved classrooms and now Lily gets to go to year two in the same old room 7.
Here's Ava in her new classroom.  Lucky for Ava, she has five other kids from her previous class in her new class, including her best friend, Sonya.  :)
A couple days later we were walking Lily to her class and Lily and Ava were holding hands.  It was so cute, I tried to capture it, but they kept turning right when I would snap a photo.

Love those little school girls.  I know we're going to have a great year!!  :)

Weekend Getaway

The last weekend before school started we decided to make a quick trip to Esperance.  The weather forecast predicted 90% chance of rain for everyday of the weekend, but I didn't care.  This was our last chance and so we decided to risk it.  And I couldn't have been happier that we did.  We couldn't have ordered a better beach weather weekend!!  Plus it was so nice to get out of town before we settled into a school routine.

We also talked our very best friends the Himes into going with us.  We had so much fun hanging out at the beach, playing games and talking with them in Esperance.  Even if their kids are 19, 17, and 13, it still worked out perfectly.

We drove down on Friday.  We got kind of a late start so we didn't make it there until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, plus Friday was the one day that the forecast was actually right and it was overcast and eventually rained.  So we just played at a park across from our accommodation and got pizza and called it a night.

This was a giant whale shaped jungle gym.  The kids loved it!






 The Esperance clock tower.




 Will loved this playground.  He was all about army crawling under all the play structures that he could fit under.  He even got his shorts snagged on a chain bridge and was hanging there trying to figure out how to get himself out of the situation.  It was pretty funny.  He is such a boy.

 Speaking of boy things, Will loved this little train track.  It was so fun to walk along.



That night, it poured!  There was a steady down pour going on and I was super worried that our weekend trip was going to be ruined and Cory was going to curse me for dragging him to Esperance on a rainy weekend.

The kids woke up so early the next morning and the sun was shining and it was actually really warm!  Even at 6:30 in the morning!  It was a miracle!!  ;) So since the kids were up so early, we decided we might as well hit the beach and get as much beach time in as humanly possible in one day.  We were at the beach by 7 am and you can imagine that we were the only ones there.  It was a gorgeous sunrise at the beach!



 Will got busy straightaway building castles.





 Ava was loving the water.  Can't keep her away.




 Exploring in the rocks, one of Will's favorite past times at the beach.  On this outing to the beach, he wasn't too keen on getting in the water, but by the afternoon visit he had figured it out and couldn't be kept out of the water.



 After a bunch of swimming, digging and rock climbing it was time for a snack break.

 Then we got a call from our friends, the Himes, that they had arrived so we went to meet them at the hotel and pack a lunch for the second beach visit of the day.

The second beach we went to was one that you could drive 4 wheelers and motor cycles on and we just happened to have some with us.  Ava figured out that she could wear her floaty and the waves would give her a ride and she did that non stop.  Lily was a huge fan of the 4 wheeler and even drove it herself.  Will was wary of the 4 wheeler at first, but once he gave it a try he couldn't be kept away.  He would cry when it wasn't his turn.

 The girls are so excited to see Gracie.
 Grace and Lily giving the 4 wheeler a go.


 And they're off.  Pretty soon, Lily was driving all by herself.  Then she had to drive Will around which she didn't love as much, but Will did. :)  Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the cuteness, because it was pretty cute.

The kids loved building sand castles with Uncle Troy and Arlo.


 Cory offered to help build the castle when Troy and Arlo went back to surfing, but the girls said, nah, Uncle Troy would be back soon! :)
 I mean, look at this amazing beach??  It really doesn't get much better than this!
We swam and surfed and boogie boarded and 4 wheeled all afternoon.  It couldn't have been a more brilliant day to be at the beach.  Not a cloud in sight!  It was just what I had hoped for in a getaway right before school started.  :)

We went back to our lodging and grilled up some steak and had a great night chatting and playing games.

The next day we wanted to squeeze in a little more beach time before we had to head back to the dessert.  So we headed to our favorite location, Twilight Cove and got some more wave riding, rock climbing and sand castle building in before we drove the 4 hours back home.





Oh, it was a gorgeous weekend.  I wish I could go back right now!