Showing Uncle Bradyn Hammond Park

A few weeks ago, we had a bit of rainy weather, so it meant that the work at the mine where Uncle Bradyn works had to be put on hold.  He was quite bored so we thought we would take him to Hammond Park since he still hadn't seen a kangaroo yet! 

The kids had fun showing off for him. 

 That's Lily at the top of the tarantula, and that's Will at the bottom.  He kept getting himself high centered on the ropes. 

 He wasn't too keen on being up there with nobody holding his hands.  Look at his face!

 Model photo shoot! LOL!

 They each took turns being eaten. 

 And here are the kangaroos. 

 Will loved stealing Bradyn's hat. 

 The peacocks were showing off that day too.  I have never seen them fan their tail feathers out before, and we have been to this park a lot. 

 Will kept asking to get his picture taken at every lamp post. 

 We finished off the afternoon with a performance on this stage looking thing.

So it wasn't really that exciting but at least Bradyn can say we has now seen a few kangaroos. 

Young Women in Excellence: Oh, the Places You Will Go

We just recently had our Young Women in Excellence night and it could not have been a better, more rewarding experience than it was.  I savored every minute of it and I was bursting with pride over what our beautiful girls have accomplished over the year. 

The laurels chose a spectacular theme.  "Oh, the Places You Will Go" based on the Dr. Suess book.  The book itself has such a great message not to mention how much fun it was to come up with decorations to go along with Dr. Suess art.  Here are a few photos of the event. 

 Here is the whole group of young women who were able to attend right before we sang the musical number.  It was such a great night.  I truly love serving in the young women's program.  It is such an inspired program for our wonderful youth.  Our Heavenly Father truly loves us so much. 

At the end of the program, Bishop had to give some closing remarks and he talked about the origins of the Personal Progress program.  It was so funny and interesting to see just how much the program has changed over the years.  In the beginning it was called the Beehive Girls.  And some of the goals were just a testament of how different our lives are than those early saints and just how much has changed in the world.  Some of the girls favorites were: learn to care for a hive of bees successfully, plow, plant and maintain an acre of crops, and everybodies favorite, keep the house free of flies or destroy at least 25 flies a day.  Haha, so funny.  That last one is actually still quite applicable to summer in Australia.  :) 

I am so glad I could take part in such a wonderful evening and can take part in such a wonderful program.  I love our young women. 

Normal November

The month of November felt far from a normal November to me, besides the fact that we just did normal everyday life things for normal every day Australian life.  But for me, that attitude of gratitude was missing from our November since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here there was no out side focus on gratitude and I feel like I failed to put an inside focus on it either.  I have vowed to do better next year in trying to over emphasize an attitude of gratitude for the month of November.  Because for me I think it really contributes to the feeling of the month and prepares you for the holidays with the right frame of mind.  It really felt to me like something was missing and it was sad that I didn't take the chance to help my kids see how much they are truly blessed with throughout the month.  Anyways, enough of my guilt ridden rant, lets get on with the normal happenings of our month. 

 This is a morning we stopped off at the park after dropping Lily at school.  Ava decided not to get dressed in time to go this morning.  So she is in her pjs. 

This is a family night when the kids were building the city of Enoch. 

 Here is the City of Enoch right before it got taken up to heaven to be with our Heavenly Father.  Look at Lily and Will, twinners!

 After the city of Enoch was finished they decided to build the tower of Babel, okay, not really the tower of Babel, just a really tall tower. 

 We did a lot of playing outside and swimming this November. 

 Lily always stays in the longest and sometimes is the only one who swims when it really isn't quite swimming weather.  She just loves it that much.  :)

 Ava can be quite anti-swimming some days.  I sure hope she gets over that or it's going to be a long summer for her. 

 So she plays fetch with Lily in the pool.  :)

 Ha, love this kid!  Such a crack up!

 Lily and Ava planned a girls night for us one Sunday night, all on their own.  Complete with hair make overs, as you can see, and cupcakes.  I love them!!!  It was seriously so fun! Love Ava's super huge bite taking face!  hahaha!

 Ava was missing home so she pretended to fly home to America one day.  :/

 Haha, so one day I left Will in his room without a diaper on in the middle of a diaper change for just a minute.  When I came back there was pee in his little toilet!  I was so excited!  I keep hoping it is a good sign, but we will see.  I'm not quite ready to go there yet as a parent, and it is never a good idea to toilet train until you as a parent are mentally prepared.  January when the girls have no school and we won't be going on any more trips is my goal month.  Wish me luck!

 Mr. Fix it!

Christmas decor started going up all over town, which the kids found quite exciting!  :)

 These decorations are at our favorite, Hammond Park. 

 We finally decided to give our cute long haired boy a hair cut.  It is just so hot!  And it was getting out of control. 

 Look at this sweet Willy Wonka do Cory combed Will's hair into before he started cutting!  And don't mind the total disaster behind Will.  We had a dishwasher leak and tons of mold in the walls!  And anyone who knows Cory knows that it will probably look like that for another few weeks or months.  ;)

 I could not believe how much this kid started to look like my nephew, Trevor, once his hair got shorter and shorter!  It is Trevor Jr. right there! 

 We celebrated Uncle Bradyn's birthday.  I love this photo!  Everything about it! 

 Lastly, we have been blessed with an amazing adopted aunt out here, Aunt Shelece.  She took my girls on a shopping date and got them these beautiful dresses for church.  Aren't they gorgeous?  We love Aunt Shelece! 

So that was our normal November, or most of it.  Next year we will work on doing some gratitude traditions.  It's not too late anyway, I'm just going to try and push gratitude all year long! :)