Indoor tornado

As a follow-up to my previous ramblings on this topic, Olivia chose today to 'redecorate' her room - instead of sleeping. Interestingly, she did this all very quietly in what was supposed to be her sleeptime - hence the amount of work that she accomplished before I discovered it - and I wish that I could say this is the first time!
She's seen here starting to rectify the problem by putting things away - which she does quite cheerfully after the event, although the recovery work always takes a while. We continue to invest in child locks for doors and drawers on an ongoing basis...

Strong willed, yet delightful

We always thought that our eldest Ellen was rather feisty, but have since learned that she is rather calm and laidback in comparison with her little sister. Olivia has a strength of will that is deceptive to most ('But she's such a sweet little thing' - we hear a lot!), and at not yet 18 months is determined to make a mark on her little world - by hook or by crook!

A new facet of this has manifested recently with her 'stand' of defiance - which is more like a bend really. When told 'no' or to do something that she doesn't want to do - you know something really unreasonable like "Pick up that toy please", she bends over at the waist and puts her head on the ground and stands like that for 20 seconds or so (quietly - not screaming or anything) - then straightens up and takes off in another direction. Now apart from her obvious flexibility (there's not way that I could get my head down to floor level!), it's rather amusing to watch (without smiling of course!) and interesting to deal with.

The other night she had been playing up and therefore was having an early bath (on the way to an early night) - however she wasn't happy about the fact, so she was trying to put her head down (which of course meant under the water) and was getting crankier and crankier at Greg who kept lifting her head above the water again! This was a rather noisy (and wet) occasion and one of the quickest baths to date - I think we were all glad when she finally calmed down and went off to sleep. Thank goodness the girls still have their bedtime at 6pm - some days even that seems late!

Don't get me wrong - I love my girls and we have a great time together doing all sorts of fun things, but there are some days...you know the ones... This parenting thing is a lot harder than it looks!!! Worth it in the long run I know.

The photo above is of our recent trip to the beach - Olivia loves to potter around doing her own thing, and is far happier outdoors and busy, than indoors and bored (like most kids), so she likes nothing better than a good time digging and eating sand at the beach. We spent ages jumping waves (little ones of course) and finding shells - fortunately they were deemed early on not to be too tasty!

BBQ brekky at the beach

Today was my birthday, so we headed down to the waterfront at Shorncliffe to have a BBQ breakfast to celebrate with the family. The kids were ecstatic to have the new (and excellent) playground down there all to themselves for ages, and the beach to run around on (as well as eat the sand [Olivia], fall over, get wet etc.!). We had a great morning, exhausted ourselves having fun and headed back to Mum and Dad's afterwards for the obligatory cake (not that we needed anything more to eat!) and then a swim in the pool in their complex (which is like a resort pool - huge and thankfully warmed slightly!). By the time we arrived back home to the coast this afternoon we were a tired but happy family. I'm so blessed to have such a great family!
We decided to let our friends off the hook for the early morning start (up at 6am), but did manage to catch up with a few of them over the weekend by chance anyway, which was a lovely surprise.

More recent pics...

Olivia in the new booster seat and Ellen ready for her walk to Kindy...growing up so fast.

Overall update

It's been a week or so, so here's where we're at. We've had a number of people through the house in recent days, which is encouraging - it was very quiet early on, but we have a peace about God's timing for it all, so aren't concerned.

The girls and I decided to make the journey to Brisbane via public transport last Thursday afternoon - a spur of the moment decision which filled in an afternoon with some adventure for us - first up a bus trip, and then two trains, and all that in the rain. I was starting to question the wisdom of the plan when I was standing with two little girls and three bags waiting for the bus at the bus interchange while it pelted down with rain outside - knowing that we had two changes ahead of us, but the girls were excellent. We entertained people on all three legs of our trip with songs and games - as quietly as I could get them (which meant that most of the people on the carriage could listen in!), and were happy to be met by Nanna at the station around 5pm. The journey was a bit over 2 hours, so not too bad, and at $8.40, a bargain to boot. One of the more entertaining ways to fill our afternoon, although I don't know that I would make it a weekly event!

Saturday we were in Brisbane for me to catch up with a friend that I'm being bridesmaid for in a few weeks, and then on to the King Family annual get-together in the afternoon, where the girls had a great time with their older cousins. Lots of soccer and jumping on the trampoline....and tired girls for the trip home. We're looking forward to catching up with some of them again in a couple of weeks when they head up this way for a holiday...sounds like a good excuse to put our boat in to get wet for the first time this summer I think!

Fathers Day

Late I know, but we did celebrate Fathers Day last weekend, with my family all descending on us for the day. Had a roast lunch and a great time together. Some photos of Greg with his new tie from Ellen's handiwork at Kindy and with his girls...they love their Daddy.