Corymbia Festival

We went along yesterday to the annual festival in our suburb to ride the camels, rides, eat fairy floss and meet up with lots of other families from school. The added bonus was both Kate & Ella were performing their ballet dance from last years concert (Kate has danced at the festival before, but first time for Ella) They loved every second of it especially as so many of their friends were watching!
The baby animals were a huge hit too!
It won't be long before Jonah will be camel riding too!

Happy 22nd Birthday to Amie! (15th February)

It's hard to believe that 22 years has past since Amie was born! Where did the time go? It only seems like yesterday she was born on a hot afternoon on a Monday in February, in Hastings, New Zealand. Now she is a beautiful Mum to Ruby & Jonah. We love you Amie xxx

PS: I just noticed this post is dated Tues 16th Feb. It's actually still Monday 15th in WA (10pm) so it's still Amie's birthday TODAY!

Ella's Birthday Day Out at Adventure World

The entrance to the kids area

We had a family day out today, mainly to celebrate Ella's birthday this year instead of a party. We took them all to Adventure World, which was an adventure as the little ones have never been before. It was a really hot day though (37 deg) so in between riding on the roller coaster, the chair lifts, paddle boats and other rides, the girls were in and out of the pools. We stayed all day until closing, it didn't take too long to get the girls to bed tonight - they were all plumb tuckered out! What a great day!

sweet smiley Jonah

Kate looks over the park from above

Phil & Ella share a ride

One of the water slides they went on

The little girls loved this kids roller coaster and went on it over and over

Ruby on the kids boats

These fish were huge!

Amie & Ruby crash into Phil & Ella
Kate didn't go on these but went on a scarier ride with Amie that I don't have a good photo of

Ruby heads off with Phil's water pistol he won on the clown's mouths

Ooops, she lost the water pistol!

And now it's Ruby's turn to get hit in the face with the water!

Ella loved the little kids slides and pools

Kate in the middle has yet another turn on the roller coaster

Kate & Ruby in the dragons mouth


Kate & Ella peddle madly over the top of the park

The girls loved this simple ride

I love this photo of Ruby & Phil peddling over the top!

Happy 7th Birthday Ella

Ella had a wonderful day today on her 7th birthday. She woke around 6:15am ( I was up anyway as Ruby & Jonah were dropped off around 6am) and we headed in to wake Kate for the present opening. Kate had carefully hidden all the gifts in the lounge room as requested by Ella the night before. She got the DSi she desperately wanted, plus a couple of games, a new sleeping bag, a new cover for her bed and pillow, a book - Pippi Longstocking, earrings, and a watch. Kate gave her some Littlest Pet Shops for her collection, some earrings and a pair of Tinkerbell pyjamas for winter. Amie, Brendan, Jonah & Ruby gave her some Barbie skate shoes which she also wanted as Ruby got some recently. We had a lovely afternoon tea complete with the Tinkerbell cake that Ruby helped me ice today! After work Amie bought more gifts for the birthday girl - a beautiful jewellery box, another little box with drawers to keep all her treasures, and some fairy earrings. And a birthday balloon! I think she did very very well this year!

Happy Birthday beautiful girl.
We love you xxxxxxx

First Day Year 4, Year 2 and Pre-Primary! 2010

Yay, school is back!

Here they all are on the first morning, even Jonah is waiting patiently in the car for the school drop-off.

No tears.

Kate didn't get the teacher she thought she was getting (which is great in her eyes) She has Miss Robinson who used to teach Year 6.

Ella is sitting next to a Year One girl called Hannah.

Ruby sat on the mat with her friend Jack!

The School Holidays Come to a Close

Tomorrow it is back into routine. Tomorrow Kate starts Year 4, Ella starts Year 2 and Ruby starts Pre-primary. Both Ella's and Ruby's teachers have taught Kate and Ella so we are well familiar with them and very happy.

Kate is in a Year 4/5 class. There are only 6 Year 4's and the rest are Year 5's.
Kate is the only one from her Year 3 class in this class. She does know a couple of the girls though, so I'm sure she'll settle in okay. Mrs Kriegler is the teacher. She's worried though and I know she will have trouble getting to sleep tonight.

Ella is in the same Year 1/2 class Kate was in. We asked for Mrs Menezies to be her teacher, she is wonderful and I know Ella will thrive being one of the older kids in the class. She has a few friends in there from her last class.

Ruby has the lovely Mrs Morcombe that the others had in Pre-Primary. We requested her as well. Ruby will thrive in there. She will now be 5 days a week as opposed to 2 days a week last year in Kindy.

After school tomorrow dance enrollments need to be done, swimming lessons to be booked and Kate is eager to play the violin this year, so need to organise that.

Uniforms are all ironed for the week. We've made American Fudge Brownie for the lunch boxes, all the stationery is labelled - we are all set!

Visiting Amie

Today we all went into town to have lunch with Amie. The run into the city wasn't too bad considering and we made it in in about half an hour. We found a park right behind her shop which was good. We decided to go to Siennas to eat as it was only a couple of doors from Amie's work, plus they had a playground - bonus with 3 kids! Ella & Ruby had a kids meal of nuggets, chips, drink and ice cream, Amie , Kate & I shared a pizza. Kate & I both had ice cream as well but Amie had already gone back to work by then. We had to eat fast though as Jonah had had enough by then! Afterwards we did a bit of shopping and then headed home.

Australia Day - Tues 26th

Yesterday we visited some fellow kiwis that moved here from Ashburton nearly 3 years ago. We meet when their eldest daughter Jamie started in Kate's class. They live on the same street as the school, and ironically their house is the exact same design as ours. They also have a little Aussie as their youngest daughter Zoe was born here 14months ago. They also have a six year old son Macsen. So for Aussie day we thought we would join forces and celebrate life in Australia and our little Aussies. We arrived at morning tea time and didn't leave until mid afternoon. The girls enjoyed a swim in the pool. Mascen didn't swim but was busy playing on the Wii.

Getting ready for school

We had a full on busy day out today getting all the gear needed for school. We left the house at 8:30am and headed to Spotlight where Ella picked herself out a chair bag. From there onto K Mart to work our way through the book list. They had already run out of alot of stock, but that was okay as we had other shops we were going to anyway. After grabbing some morning tea, we drove to another shopping centre where we met up with Amie, Ruby & Jonah. We helped get Ruby's list done with what we could in BIG W, and a few more bits and pieces off Kate & Ella's list. Ella got some new sneakers too. Both the girls needed new school bags as their last ones had worn out after 3 years wear and lots of washing! Tried to find Kate some sandals but no luck in her size. Onto another shopping centre where after a few more shops we found everything we needed, except Kate's sandals. We'll have to look another day. We arrived home about 4pm totally exhausted. The girls are so excited, they came home put their uniforms on and played schools! Funny things they are!

A new find

I've discovered this magazine recently full of gorgeous homes and places. Inspirational gardens and mouth watering recipes. Lots of good reading with a glimpse into other peoples lives and homes. Get yourself a copy and see what you think.

Jonah's First Swim

What do you do when it's 44 degrees?
Head to the pool of course.
Jonah loved his first time in the water.
As soon as it was over
he promptly fell asleep.
All that swimming makes a wee boy tired you know!