Busy Weekend!

My weekend started in Friday morning as I had taken the day off work to organise Reece's party as I had not done anything. So the morning started with a bang as Reece suddenly realised that he had to dress up for school as part of book week, so we had to run around the house thinking of something that he could wear. In the end he went as a game ranger and was happy with that. His class teachers were wonderful as they all dressed up fully as part of the event. All the classes had a parade to decide on 2 winners per class. So after dropping Reece at school, I went to shop for some cake making items so that I could at least start his cake in the morning. Ideally I should have made it on Wed or Thurs but of course this did not happen.


Heath took Bryce to his sports coaching and his coach could not believe that Bryce is only 3 yrs old as he mentioned to Heath that he has not see a little one with such good co-ordination and such a youngster who can kick a ball so high and accurately. So Bryce came home with a very big proud smile and told me the story of what he was up to. Anyway in this time I had baked a big rectangle cake and was still deciding what type of cake we were going to land up with. It is a dinosaur theme so cannot be too hard. Well then I was back to the shops to buy the rest of the goodies for the party. I started making some meatballs and cooked some small frankfurters and had a disaster as I left both in the oven too long so they were burnt! So much for being prepared!


So now I am not in a very happy mood and I go to fetch Reece from school, he had a good day but was a little sad as his class teacher was leaving on maternity leave so all the kids took forever to come out of the class as they were all saying goodbye. Anyway back home I started getting the icing ready for the cake as we had now decided to make a volcano with plastic dinosaurs as the decoration. It did not turn out too badly and at least Reece had fun decorating it!
On Friday evening we went for dinner at friends down the road from us which was relief that we did not have to think about supper. Not sure how we would have made supper anyway as the kitchen was rather a mess!! We got home a little later than we were hoping as with such a busy day ahead we wanted Reece in bed early but this did not happen.....

Saturday arrived - both Heath and I did not sleep very well so not too eager to get out of bed and the boys did not sleep in either. Anyway I attempted another batch of meatballs which worked out much better and also got some frankfurters sorted for the kids. Then it was a mad rush around to make sure everything else was packed and prepared before we drove to the party place.


Reece has 24 children in his class and 20 of his classmates came to his party and then he had 3 boys from the other class. So we has 23 kids running around but thank goodness we had organised a party organiser to run the show for an hour to have a "Dinosaur dig". Reece was already a bit over whelmed by the time we got there but eventually settled down to start enjoying his day. They started off with a story and then they got all dressed up to start the dinosaur hunt in the gardens. Once this was finished they had some more stories told and then hunted for some "dinosaur fossils" in the sand. They then finished off with some party games. Just as the games were about to start Reece was now totally overwhelmed and started crying, it took us a while to get him calmed down. We then beat the living daylights out a Dinosaur pinata - it is amazing what frustrations you can get rid of on one of these! The day ended with the kids have their faces painted and cake time! Whew - it all started at 3pm and after a whirlwind we finished at 5:30pm.


We quickly cleaned the place up, before getting back home to open all Reece's pressies. I think this was the best part of the day for Reece!He got plenty of lego, books, games - spoilt rotten actually! Bryce was a grateful little helper who found that helping his brother opening presents was also loads of fun... and of course he would open the presents that had balls in ..... so he was over the moon as he is ball mad!
Heath went off to the pub to watch the rugby - go Bokke !!! (Not sure what I am doing as I have no clue how the game works - but I suppose I can support them!!!) which of course we all know by now they won... yipppeeee good day in all.


Sunday - we stayed at home - it was great! Not that we relaxed that much as the housework just never seems to end but it was great to spend time with the boys doing, well, not much. Reece had pretty much build all of his Lego pressies by the end of the day and at around 5:30 we chucked them in the bath and so they climbed out of one set of pj's into a fresh pair of pj's :)


Hopefully not such a busy week ahead - chat again soon.
Cheers
N

Six today!

I still cannot believe that Reece is 6 today. He was so excited to turn 6. He asked me this morning "Mom am I really, really 6" and I told him "Yip, you are 6" and he even asked again "Are you sure mom?". So cute!

So anyway he is 6 - he got his pressie over the week-end as we ordered a bicycle. He had been quite deprived of riding a bicycle in SA but then again he was not really that interested. Here in Oz there are so many parks for him to ride in that he sees many kids riding - he actually asked for a bicycle! So he got it on Friday and was over the moon and could not wait to get to the park and ride but the weather has been really bad so we have to race to the park while the sun peaks out and then run back home again as the good weather only stays for short periods at a time. So above is a picture of Reece riding his bike taken at the park down the road from home. The sunshine is deceiving - it was freezing!

Today for his birthday we wrapped a small pressie just so he had something to open and once again he was over the moon - in fact we could have just given him a balloon and he would have been very happy. He was not expecting anything else for his birthday as we had told his bicycle was for his birthday. He is very into Lego at the moment and we got him a 3-in-1 set of different types of aeroplanes. So he got home from school today and then started to build it. We took him and Bryce out for an ice cream down the road and kept on asking when we are going home as he wanted to finish his plane. He ran straight to his room and about an hour and a half later he came out with the aeroplane finished. He was really proud of himself and I actually could not believe he had done it himself but he did.

And of course we cannot forget about little Bryce - he had just as much fun with his brother celebrating his birthday! He also got a bicycle and I could not believe that within one day he had grasped the idea and was on his way to the park to ride. So any moment he gets he nags us to take him to the park.Bryce is going to a playschool from tomorrow for about 3hours 2 days a week - Heath cannot wait to have some free time. Bryce is a bit sceptical about this but I am sure he will be fine. When they first moved to Oz he could not wait to be in school now that he has spent so much time with his dad he does not want to go anymore. So he will start off for 3 hours 2 days a week and then once he is used to the idea he will go for a bit longer.

Bryce is also playing kiddie sport on Friday mornings and is loving it so we are eventually getting settled and getting the kids a little more organised.

Now I have to get us all organised for Reece's party which is on Saturday. We were going to have it in the park but as there is a possibility of rain so we have moved it to an environmental centre. He is having a dinosaur party and cannot wait. So the rest of the week is now getting this all organised - sigh....

So love to all. Chat again soon.

Cheers

Nicky, Heath, Reece (who is really 6!) and Bryce

Big long Update!

Well I cannot believe it has been forever since I have updated the blog but life at work has been hectic and the last thing I felt like doing was working on a computer when I get home at night. So what has happened in our lives in the last couple of months:


I have been to Singapore and back twice, in the end I spent three weeks in Singapore which started out as two weeks. The first week did not go so well, as we did not finish what had been planned. The second week was great and the third week was to catch up on the first. My project is going live in November so we are now ramping up big time and it has been hectic. Some days at work I realise that I have only had about two cups of tea and just never seem to get a chance to get to the loo.... well thank goodness I do not drink more tea....!!!! I have been to Singapore a couple of times already and cannot wait to take Heath and the boys as I am sure they will love it. It is not really the kind of place I could spend weeks and weeks on holiday but about 4-5 days and I think you would have got around most of the main sites. Life in Singapore revolves around shopping, ummm shopping and umm more shopping.... oh and sorry food! There are plenty plenty shopping centres and each time I go there it there seems like another one has been built. So I had one weekend in Singapore this last trip and a couple of us on the project went to the zoo - it was amazing, the best I have been to so far it would have been even better if Heath and the boys were with me. The rest of the weekend I relaxed as much as I could and then browsed around - you guessed it - the shops!


Well in the last week that I went back to Singapore Heath and the boys flew off to South Africa for 4 weeks as it was school holidays here and Heath needed to sort out a couple of things with regards to the house etc in SA. We still have not sold the house and there is a possibility of renting it so hold thumbs! They all had a good time, apart from Heath getting sick in the first week and Bryce for a couple of weeks and it was apparently freezing cold which I am sure all of you in sunny SA already know.

As I had already been away for two weeks and was only back for the week-end before I flew out and they flew out it felt like forever before they were back home in Perth again. They were in SA for 4 weeks so of course in this period I was just miserable as I missed them all so much, plus in Perth the weather was miserable cold, wet and rainy so this did not help my mood so therefore no blog update.


Anyway I was very happy to see them back a couple of weeks ago. Reece went back to school and so we are back into the school mode again. He has been accepted into year 1 for next year so at least one less thing to worry about, so we are happy about that.


We also heard that Bryce has been accepted into kindy from next year which we are very happy about but he is over the moon that he is going to school again! In kindy they only go for two days a week so we have to choose between Mon & Wed or Tues & Thurs. We have also enrolled Bryce into a little sports program where he gets to try out various ball sports to see which one he enjoys. If he sees Rugby on TV he tells me mom I want to play "rr-be" and then gets very upset with me if I change the channel..... but he is also very happy to play soccer but he likes the idea of rugby as he can kick the ball "very high in the sky" as he tells us. Bryce is also becoming a budding little chef. He cannot wait for us to start making supper as he just wants to help with everything - quite sweet but sometimes quite a mission getting supper cooked in time....


Generally since the boys have been back from SA most week-ends it has been raining so mostly we have snuggled up at home and tried to relax as much as possible. The boys got little scooters and have been driving us mad pushing them around the house and every little opportunity that the sun shines - could be a max of 30 minutes we race down to the park and then they get rid of their energy.... well some of it!


Oh and to top the busy working weeks I am trying to organise a party for Reece. I cannot believe that he is turning 6 already! He is so excited and is counting down the days. We have planned a "Dinosaur Dig" whereby a party organiser comes to the party and runs everything for us so not too much for us to do. With kids parties here most of the time they are in a park and the kids are so busy playing that they do not think about eating so generally most moms do not put much out for the kids to eat, just a few small snacks for the parents who stay (which is normally not that many) and that is that. Very simple actually - well I say that now.....wait till next week.


Lastly I have to tell you all about my first experience of shopping from the verge. Now in Australia they have a "Verge collection". This is your opportunity to chuck out anything that does not work or anything that you do not want anymore. So instead of taking your stuff to a dump or a charity you will put this on the verge. You are only allowed to do this about 1 week before the collection takes place. Then everyone in the neighbourhood or any in general can come along and "shop for free" from your verge. Well for me this was a very weird experience but anyway another South African woman who lives down the road from me asked if I would like to walk around with her and check what the neighbours are chucking out... not too sure about this I accepted ... we went around the corner when I saw a microwave - "which I have been shopping around for @ the shops of course!" it looked in very good condition so we decided to keep on looking and come back on our trip back home. Her little boy found a scooter and a couple of fun toys..... on our trip home we picked up the microwave and took it home.(giggling like two naughty girls of course). I seriously felt like I was stealing ... but anyway once I got home we cleaned it up and switched it on.... so I now have a working microwave in my kitchen for FREE. I have heard of many youngsters in Aus who find all that is needed to kit themselves out in a home once they are leaving home.... all for FREE.


We have also been really bad in taking pictures so hopefully with the next post I will have some new pics of us.


Lots of love
All of us
N H R B
www.heathandnicky@blogspot.com

40th Wedding Anniversary

I know I have been really bad updating the blog and I promise I will start updating it again but today is a very special day for my mom & dad as 40 years ago they tied the knot.

So mom & dad we are really sorry that we cannot spend the day with you but we will have to make up for it when do get together. Heath was thinking of sykping early this morning but not sure that you would have been impressed being woken up at around 2am in the morning!

Have a FANTASTIC day and hope that you have a great day with many many more great years ahead.

Lots and lots of love

Nix, Heath, Reece & Bryce