Busy Wednesday.....

After a hectic day yesterday at school getting ready for a pirate party once I fetched Reece we were then told that Wednesday was ride to school day plus decorate your bicycle! Then to top it all the teachers at Bryce's school has decided that the teddy bears had behaved so well the previous week that they were having another teddy bears picnic!

So on Tuesday after picking the boys up from school we were back at the shops buying goodies to decorate a scooter (Reece does not enjoy riding his bicycle) and also to find a teddy. Bryce had told me in no uncertain terms that he was not going to school unless he had a teddy!

So we went shopping at a local haberdashery store for ribbons etc to decorate the scooter and then went running around looking for a teddy for Bryce. Now in his mind the teddy had to wear clothes and to tell you the honest truth there were not many around that had any clothes! So trying to reason with a 3 yr old about what the teddy must and must not look like, plus we only had 1 hour to get all shopping done as in wonderful Perth all shops close at 5:00pm!

Well we did we found a teddy - a sporty teddy that is a supporter of a footy team - Westcoast Eagles but not the team down the road from us which is Freemantle - Freemantle dockers - as Bryce said that the purple and white colours are for girls and he could not have that teddy! So we now have a new family member called "Rocky"!

Mission accomplished we found all we needed in record time. Whew!

So Wednesday morning once again we were up early as we had to ride to school on our decorated scooter. (Parrot sitting in a tree!) We cheated a bit and parked about 4 blocks away from school and then rode on scooters the rest of the way. Reece was very happy at the end of the day as his decorated scooter was the winner in his class! Bryce also had a great day with "Rocky".

Hopefully tomorrow afternoon we can relax - oh no just remembered we have swimming lessons!

Cheers

N

Pirate party

As mentioned in the previous post Reece had a pirate party at school today. We had survived the storm and amazingly the school has also survived the storm. So the pirate party was on! We got up early in the morning to get ready so we could get to school early for some great pictures with his class mates. All the kids looked great - each and every one of them dressed up! Just after the school bell went instead of doing the usual morning school sport the classes had a pirate parade for all the parents - the teachers were great and also really got into the mood of the day.

They had a treasure hunt, played pirate bingo had a great party with lots of sticky yucky pirate food. Not much school work done but lots and lots of fun!
Oh and how can we forget we have a little pirate in the house who had to try out the pirate outfit to see if it fit and he was so happy that his big brother allowed him to fit on his pirate outfit!

Ahoy mates!

Storm!

Heath is away in South Africa and I have been working in the mornings and then fetching the boys from school around 3pm and then spending the afternoon with them. I must say it has been great to spend the afternoons with the boys but it has been hectic as well. As it is only around the last two weeks at school before school holidays - both schools seem to be having various activities in preparation for the holidays.

It started with Bryce having a teddy bears picnic at kindy and just to make matters worse his teddy bears are still packed in boxes in South Africa - just a little too far away to quickly go and fetch. We had a fluffy monkey that looks like a confused teddy that Reece has won previously so we convinced him to take this instead - thank goodness he was convinced! Whew....

On Tuesday Reece had a pirate party at school and they all had to dress up so Reece was a bit concerned as we did not have any pirate goodies that he could dress up in so we had to go shopping..... on Monday after school.

Now Perth has not had rain for quite a few months but this Monday afternoon we looked like we may just get some rain. We have a really great shopping centre down the road from us but with the boys it can sometimes be a bit hectic as they just want to buy everything they see. As the clouds were building up I realised I had better park under ground in the centre. We had just gone into the "Reject" shop to get a couple of goodies - it is a great store for cheap party items. When we came out the store the heavens had opened and it was bucketing down outside - all was fine and well until we saw the hail coming down. It was scary enough being in the center watching the hail come down and I was so glad I was not at home on my own. So I told the boys that we would wait in the centre until the storm had passed. It was not longer than 20 minutes but when we got out there was water & chaos everywhere. Trees had fallen - there were huge rivers running down the roads.

We got home to find that we had a pond in the garage and most of the soil around the tree at the end of the driveway was down the driveway and into the garage but thank goodness that was all the damage at home. Once I switched on the tv to listen to the news we realised that we were lucky to be in the shopping centre and not outside. As the storm hit around peak time the damage to cars was huge. The hail was as big as golf balls and plenty of cars are being written off. Most companies do not even insure for hail damage as it is very uncommon in Perth to see hail - in fact they say this is the worst storm in 50 yrs! The below car is not mine but some other poor persons car! Most cars on the freeway looked like this.

I was telling my mom the other day that in a way I was very glad that Heath was in South Africa and I had to attend to the boys as otherwise I would have been in the middle of the storm on my way home on the bus or wading through the water. So all in all very lucky. Below is the road in Perth city that I would have walked through!

Cheers

N

Very Lucky........

A couple of weeks ago I had a very blonde moment and knew that I should not have got out of bed in the morning. I got ready for work even though I was NOT in the mood and raced out the door as I was eventually very late. As I was so late I needed to catch two buses into the office instead of my normal one. I climbed on the bus with all my bags and then got off a couple of stops later without.... wait for this.... my handbag! Yip - I left my handbag on the bus!!! How stupid could I be???? (okay no one needs to answer that). So you can just guess I had left my wallet and mobile on the bus BUT luckily I was still holding onto my bus pass so I could at least continue my trip to work!!! I was so shocked I had no idea what to do.... so I climbed on my connecting bus to the city and then I went to the transport office to tell them. Well, did I feel stupid telling the guy that I had left my handbag on the bus. He was not so friendly to start with - but in the end he was telling me " Once he had a couple report that they had left their parents who were french and did not know a word of English on the bus" - not sure if this was to make me fell better or worse!

Anyway in the end he could not get through to the lost property office and gave me the number to try. So by the time I got into the office and close to a phone it was close on 4o minutes that my handbag had been driving around alone! I called lost property only to hear a very big sigh from the woman on the other end telling me I would be very lucky if I would ever see it again - which I knew but the least I could do was give it a shot!

Now as my phone was on the bus travelling around in my bag and I currently was doing support at the head office I had to give Heath's number as a contact. This meant I had to also phone Heath and tell him how blonde I had been! Thank goodness I did not have any bank cards in my wallet as these had been left at home.... what luck!

At 3:00pm I phoned Heath to check if he had heard from the bus lost property dept and can you believe it my beloved handbag had been FOUND! I had to fetch it from the head office the next morning and I also could not believe that EVERYTHING was still in there!!

Very very lucky!!! Now each time I take the bus I double-check, triple check BEFORE I get off! Hopefully my lesson is learnt.

Cheers
N

Just look at this face!

I have one little boy who just loves fruit and cannot get enough of it and that is Bryce and then my big boy Reece only like apples! At least he eats some fruit. Now Bryce will try anything when it comes to fruit and we have to keep an eye on him otherwise he would eat it all day. Below are some pics taken in Feb where he is munching on a bowl of cherries. I think I had about 2 cherries and he ate the rest!

Action of the weekend!

This last weekend Heath and I had planned to take the boys to the zoo on Saturday. They were playing so nicely together that when we told them our plans they told us "Aaaaarrrrrr.........Not today as we are building our house and would like to stay home today...". Well Heath and I were a little shocked to hear this from a 6 and 3 yr old. So we potted around the house for a little before deciding to take a visit to a small village called Leederville. The boys of course were not too happy with us but we wanted to get out the house for a bit. Leederville is well known for all of the various restaurants in the area and there is normally a market on Saturday morning. We wondered through the market the boys played a bit at the kiddies play area and then had their faces painted. Bryce was a little brown bear and Reece a Dalmatian. We did not have a camera with us to take pics but they both looked really cute. We found an Italian restaurant for a small bite to eat and once again the boys found a play area and we had to pry them away once we were ready to go. We then had tears because now they did not want to go home as they were having too much fun.... we just never seem to do the right thing!

So on Sunday we did not tell them that we were off to the zoo we just packed a picnic basket, some books, cameras and zooted off to the zoo. Once they were there they were over the moon. We had a great day playing in the kids area, walking around the various areas looking at the animals, eating, playing some more, relaxing and reading until around 4pm when we climbed into the car for home.

They had tired themselves out so getting them ready for bed was not such a hard task and they were both fast asleep by 8:00pm.... an absolute miracle for this household!

The week ahead is a busy one with parent teacher meetings, work functions, friends for dinner. It does not stop over the weekend either as the boys are starting kidz sport on Saturday, Reece also has a birthday party on Saturday and then Reece & Bryce are going to give soccer a shot on Sunday. Gonna need another weekend to relax after my weekend!

Cheers

N

Boys 1st day @ school 2010

Well today was the day after a very long 6 week Xmas holiday. Whew! - cannot believe we all made it in one piece. Reece went into Year 1 and Bryce started kindy today.

Reece was not worried at all to be in Year 1 and actually in a way told us to 'leave now' so that school can start. He was really so excited to be back at school with all his mates. He had a great day and cannot wait to get back there tomorrow - he has a great teacher so looks like he has a great year ahead!

Bryce well .... Bryce being Bryce woke up a bit grumpy this morning and was not happy to be starting school today. He wanted to be at Reece's school and did not want to go to his own school. Well surprise surprise when we got to the school and his teacher started chatting to him he was like butter he just melted. We had to spend the morning with him and they have also split the arrival of all kids in the first two weeks which makes it easier on them. All in all he had a great morning but I cannot say he is jumping with glee to be back there on Wednesday. He is back to his normal day care tomorrow and as he knows it he cannot wait to get there.

Cheers

N