A Family Dinner

Well today I spent some time with my Mum who is visiting from Hobart. She has not been up in a little while as we lost Nanna a few months back and she has been around to help with Pa who has been visiting daily to fill in the time. She said that she needed a break so she caught the bus on Thursday to come and stay a few days. It was a great time to come as she celebrated her birthday two weeks ago and we couldn't be there so we have taken this weekend as a time to spoil her. This morning we went out to town and she chose a new bead to go on her Pandora braclet. Then we went and did some shopping at her favourite store, Myers! She hates the new Myers in Hobart and is very dissapointed that they are not fixing up from the fire that gutted it a year or so back so she takes great delight when she comes up here to do her Myer shopping! Ryan has a running joke with me to see how many times I have been to Myers when she stays.
This afternoon after shopping at Myers! I put a colour through and then we just chilled out. Tonight we took the family to the Riverside Hotel and had a lovely meal. I love it as they have a great playgym for the kids to play on and we can sit and actually enjoy our meal and not have to inhale and go because he is bored! After dinner we stopped at the best!!!! place for ice cream in Launceston... Mc Donalds, I know it's lame but the best one is for tomorrow when we drive home from the craft fair in Deloraine and we stop in at Andys in Westbury!

Mum is one of the better looking one's from the night so we have her first.
A tragic photo taken by Ryan, my hair got wet today so as per usual it looks tragic, Thanks Rain!

Lottie sitting back and relaxing

Ryan the poser!

Amelia waiting for her dinner

Kids Chicken nuggets and chips
Surf and Turf
Schnitzel Parmi
Parmesan Crusted Trevalla

Athletics on a Sunny Day!

Today was the Trevallyn athletics carnival at St Lenords. Amelia went on the bus and William and I met up with her at lunch time to see how she was going. I heard that she did a great job running the 100m and then she did the sack race. As it was a long time to be at the carnival she got to have a very early minute so we decided to not waste a perfect day and went to the park.

She and Will had a great time playing on the equipment and it was nice to be able to get out after everyone has just been getting over gastro. It has been two weeks since we have been able to feel confident that we can go out and play and not have any mishaps like William vomiting on me in Spotlight last week, still not wanting to go back for a while as I am very embarrased!!!!!!

Boot Camp

Well today Amelia and I spent the day at our Stake Young Women's BOOT CAMP! It was such a great day and lots of fun was had by all! When we arrived we got given a bandanna to make us look tuff! We then sat and got info for the day and what we would be doing, we started with Bonnie teaching us all about CPR. After our info on CPR we had a lovely morning tea of biscuits and apples. The girls were then split into different groups where they moved around different stations to learn about some first aid. I was teaching the girls about wounds and what to do as well as what to do when you have a sprain. It was a pity we didn't have a little longer with each group as I found that I ran out of time to show them the sprain info but just kept telling them to remember RICE (Rest, Elevation, Compression and Elevation). After our first aid stations the girls then made some damper and got to cook it on the fire. We then ate sausages and the girls had a chance to socialise. After lunch we had Simon who is a policeman and work with search and rescue to teach the girls how to do knots and use a compass, they then went out in their groups and had to find letters using their compass and it spelt the word NEPHI. The girls then got a chance to practice their first aid knowledge with scenarios. I was working with the Devenport Young Women's leader who had fallen down the cliff and had cut her arm, she even had fake blood and all! The girls then came and did their rescue with first aid and then had to get her up the cliff using one of the rope knots they had just learnt.
After this we sat ad listened to Toni as she told the girls on how to start a fire and fire safety. It was during this that poor Lisa flicked off what she thought was a bug to find out it was a leech!!!!! After a little bit of panic from some of the girls we found some salt and killed it and removed it from the group area! The girls then got to light fires and Sascha set a survivor challenge where the girls had to light their teepee fire and get it to burn a piece of string. The first team to do it won the challenge. We then had some afternoon tea and then a sit around to thank a few people and for the girls to write in their camp journal. To end the day the girls sang 'Virtue' which they have been learning and it sounded great! We then had a closing prayer and then the REAL fun began!!!! A few girls ran down to the water and filled up buckets to wet the leaders!!!!! SOme got wetter than others and poor Lisa got drowned! I managed to stay fairly dry although nearly not a Amelia got her drink bottle out and tried to splash me, little monkey! So after a long day we are finally home, and I must say that even though I used sunscreen and reapplied I am still sore from sun burn! At least the weather was a fantastic day and that everyone had a great time that's all the matters! A BIG THANKYOU to the Young Women's Stake leaders, Sarah, Lisa, Toni and Sascha for all the effort you guys put in to make it a great day!

Happy Birthday Mum!

October is a busy month for our family, Charlotte's birthday yesterday and Mum's birthday today! It is hard to think that this time last year we celebrated mum's 60th, oh were did the year go! I hope that Mum has a lovely day and that even though we can not be their to celebrate she knows that we are thinking of her. I also know that it will be hard today as this is her first birthday without her Mum and they were really close so it will also be a sad day today for her.

Happy Birthday Lottie!

I know that I am a day late as I was sick I was unable to do anything so we are having a little party tonight to celebrate. It is hard to think that 11 years ago little Charlotte came into the world, it only feels like yesterday, my how time flies! It had been 11 years of ups and downs but we have learnt so much and are grateful for all the lessons we have learnt. I must say that we have seen some progress in Charlotte over the last year, she has started to smile more and even manage to laugh, we have also seen her be a little more interactive and notice that she gives a little more eye contact now. I still see her looking at us out of the corner of her eye and her quick look away when she knows that we are looking at her but I see that is her game sometimes.

I hope that you enjoyed your day yesterday, at school they had some balloons and games and sang Happy Birthday during PE. Tonight we will have some cupcakes and some games, I just have to make myself make them today!

Tamar Wetlands Walk

Today we spent time as a family so we decided to go for a family walk to teh Tamar wetlands. We packed a picnic lunch and we set off for our walk to the island. The kids loved that we saw lots of birds and even managed to see some baby swans as we walked out to the island. We even got a chance to take some photos, which we have been trying to do. I haven't had a chance to edit them so they are raw, hopefully I will get to them before to long so that I can print some of them off for our photo frame that I am putting together, so far I only need another 2 pictures but now I am thinking that I may have to get some more frames so I can fill them in as I love some of the pictures.

Stop now, potty time!

Well we are going to introduce William to the potty!!!! On Saturday we went and brought a potty from Target and we are now just getting him to sit on it, we tried him yesterday when he was watching some TV we didn't have anything in it but at least he gave it a go! I am waiting for the star chart that I sent away for from huggies so that we can get him more interested in being rewarded fro doing good things on his potty!

Sunshine Saturday!

Saturday was such a lovely day weather wise that we went out and kicked the footy and ran around with the frisbee. We even saw some dos that Will fell in love with! Bring on more of teh warmer weather I say!

A winning combination!

As most people will know I LOVE to cook!!!!! So when I saw that the show was coming up I decided to suss out about entering some of my cooking into it. Well I had three entries, the first was my Kiss Biscuits, which I tried a new recipe with. Second was my Rocky Road and then third was my granola slice. Well I actually came first in two out of three, which wasn't bad. I Won the kiss biscuit section and the rocky road section, my slice go nothing BUT I was not overly happy with the slice either so I didn't expect to get anything. So I am looking forward to picking up my cooking on Saturday and getting my lovely blue ribbons, not sure what I am going to do with them BUT I can now say that I havea winning combination. It was really funny as Ryan took some of the kiss biscuits in to work on Wednesday and he had a few people make comments on where that can pick up a wife that can cook, and that I spoil Ryan. I actually just love to cook BUT hate to clean up, so Ryan does a little bit of it for me, I se it as a trade of for him getting some great food and I get to create, again another winning combination!

A day at the Show!

Ryan had the day off from work today so we decided to go and hang out at the show! We thought that seeing both the girsl were going with their school it would be a good opportuinity for us to let Will have his first show experience! He was just so interested in everything that he saw. He was so slow as he was takingit all in! He had a go on the jumping castle and a go on the mickey mouse clowns where he won a little bear. We also checked out the animals and he even patted a blue tongue lizard! He was not afraid of anything. Ryan had a go on one of the CRAZY rides as I call them and I was just happy to sit back and enjoy the lovely weather. We vowed NOT to buy show bags as they were sooooo expensive and we stuck to our plan and as a result saved heaps of money. That is one thing I think is bad about the show the amount families spend to go in and then have a ride, play a game and then buy show bags! We actually did pretty well with spending under $50 as I am trying to be very savvy with money! Any way we had a great day and I am sure that we will have some very tiered little people going to bed early tonight, me included!




We let Will have a go on the jumping castle and it was a HUGE hit!!!! The best things was that their was not time limit so he had a great LONG bounce, and while he bounced we sat back on the grass and enjoyed some sun!

The RSPCA was a hit for Will he loved the computer, and helping to fix up all the sick dogs!

Will was reall good he walked most of the way around himself just had a few little shoulder ride!

The animal nursery was fun as will kept asking the animals what were they doing and what where they eating! I was just waiting for one of them to go'Well Will we are eating...'!

We found the government tent that had some FREE things for kids to do, I love things when they are FREE!

Ryan was the daredevil going on one of, what I call, scary rides!

We managed to bump into Amelia and her school group that were also at the show, and suprise suprise we found her in with the horses!

How cool was this dude!

How cool is this!!!!!

Need I say anymore!!!!!

Elder Keaton Visit

We had a Elder Keaton serve in our ward a while back and he rang about a month ago saying that he was about to finish his mission and that his Mum, Dad and sister were coming down and that he wanted to come over so we could meet with them. Of course we said yes and yesterday that dropped around. They are such a lovely family and we can see why Elder Keaton was sucha a great missionary. His mum Jean is known for some wonderful art that she does and we were even lucky enough to have Elder Keaton to send us some of her special pictures. To see some more of her art check out her her site keaton prints.

Santa has come early!

I recently purchased this cute little Christmas toy from Avon and they kids LOVE it, so much so that I have not been able to put it away as they love to play with him. He sings a song and has a message in the front that writes up Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and it is really cleaver as it is a little fan tyoe thing that runs it.