Finally!

We're in our new home. It's been a long journey to this point and was
very tight right up to the end, but we moved in 2 days before
christmas. Some photos of the river that is our front driveway when it
rains, Greg getting lost in the long grass that is our backyard while
trying to mow it and Ellen enjoying some sunshine now that it's
finally arrived. Lots left to do but at least we've started. Thanks
for all your interest and apologies for the delay.

The question on everyone's lips

With only a couple of days of school to go, Christmas just around the corner and a lot going on in our lives, the question that I'm asked most often at the moment is:

'Will you be in your house before Christmas?'

And the answer...

We don't know...but fervently pray and hope so!

As Greg would say - it's a 'definite maybe' at this point. The painters should be finished inside by this Wednesday afternoon, but there's still the timber floors to be done (~1 week of somewhat dry weather....not the most promising outlook given current conditions!); then final fitouts of electrical, plumbing, carpets etc. etc. and a driveway to boot (which still requires Council approval....hmmmm!). Suffice to say it will happen in God's perfect time, not ours.

As for the photos - they are purely random, but I'll get in trouble if I blog without some, so here goes...
First shot is of the raspberry smoothies that our mini-chef Olivia and I whipped up yesterday. The colours were fantastic and they tasted good too!
Second is of Ellen giving Lauren yet another cuddle - possibly the most cuddled baby we know, Lauren gets cuddles from most of the girls (and some of the boys too) in Ellen's class on a regular basis, not to mention the teachers and a random selection of the clucky mothers...and that's all before 8.50am. And here I was worrying that she would be fussy or clingy from not getting enough cuddles from people other than Greg and I now that we live away from most of our family and friends...!

Six!

That fringe!

Filling their bedrooms with balloons has become a tradition they love to wake up to...

And the most fun is kicking them all over the room and then doing it all over again...

She's six...where has the time gone??
Now almost finished her Prep year at school, so confident and bright - the first to volunteer to be on stage, coordinate a project/group, do jobs for the teacher or try something new; she's a cuddleasaurus who can happily read for hours, and has a delightful sense of adventure to boot.
We're so proud of our biggest girl and look forward to seeing what God has in store for her in the years to come...
Happy Birthday gorgeous girl - we love you lots!

The 'real' cake is happening on Saturday, but this mud cake sure tasted good - even if Mummy forgot to decorate until the last minute and the sprinkles wouldn't stick...ooops!

Mixed bag

Climbing in the tree in the backyard of the rental property in gumboots last weekend, wearing the new dresses that Nanna made them. They had a number of fantastic games that they made up and played outside whenever it wasn't raining!!

On Tuesday night Ellen's school had their Christmas concert/carols night, but as the hall is being extended and renovated it was outside under the stars - which was lovely, except on a windy night with minimal speakers, it was rather hard to hear anything! Still, what we could hear was nice, and the actions to the song were done with great fervour!!

Olivia the green reindeer waiting patiently for Ellen's performance.

After the event - I don't think Greg will be able to do this for much longer, they're growing so fast!

Ellen is in the white shirt behind the conductor in the brown shirt...really would like the new camera that we've been researching...this point and shoot that replaced our last good one is really not up to the task!

House update

Some more recent pictures of the house. At this stage the builder thinks
that we may get to move in just before Christmas....
There's been more work done since this, but unfortunately we keep
forgetting to take photos - my hands are usually rather full of our
newest family member, so the camera gets forgotten.

Yard work

The girls love helping out around the place (which we love too, for as long as it lasts!!), and today while Daddy was mowing the yard they had their first opportunity to help out in that area as well. Olivia kitted herself out in what she determined to be appropriate mowing garb - ready for anything from dress ups to a cold weather blast, or torrential rain! Have to love their enthusiasm.

Sisters...

are definitely having fun.
When did our oldest two get so big?!?! Makes us really appreciate how much growing they've done in the past few years...

Introducing...

our newest family member - Lauren Hope. She's a much loved and welcome addition to our family of girls - poor Daddy insists that he doesn't feel outnumbered! She weighed in at a healthy 4350g (9lbs 9 oz for those who prefer the old system), and measured in at 59cm long, so looking good for sports where height is an advantage in the future...
As you can see, her big sisters are besotted already.

Crazy couple...

of kids. Our girls are a delight, and as we count down the days (and now the hours) until our family expands again, it's great to reflect on the way that life has been for the past 4 years with just the two cherubs keeping us busy, before we launch into the next phase of family life that God has planned for us. The new baby certainly has two very loving sisters awaiting their arrival, who are sure to try to outdo each other in order to make the new little one laugh in days to come.
Here are the older pair enjoying a lovely spring day....cold and wet again!!

House update

A week away and the cladding's nearly done now, the pre-wiring and pre-plumbing are done and the first stages of the ducted a/c are in as well, so things feel like they are progressing.... despite the wettest August and September on record! Oh, and now our huge tank is in as well - 130,000 litre capacity, so hopefully we'll never run dry...

Girls day out

Our last day in Brisbane we spent visiting the Museum and the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), which were both fantastic and had heaps of activities for the girls to keep them busy. They were transfixed for the half hour 'show' on liquid nitrogen - so were Mum and I. Who knew that liquid nitrogen could be so entertaining! The presentation was lots of fun and full of facts - which they were both able to recall afterwards, so it proves the point that a love for (or at least an interest in) science can easily be developed early. Both the girls managed to create their own inventions, complete numerous crafts and managed to fill our backpacks with them before we had lunch and headed over to GoMA.
There were lots of interesting things for the girls in GoMA too, and Mum and I had to drag them away in the end, but we were running out of time to fit in a trip to the park at Southbank before catching our bus home...just in time before it started to rain.
A great day, and something that we look forward to when we head down for our school holiday visits - thanks for joining us Nanna, and for being a packhorse for all of our lunch and craft throughout the day - it wouldn't have been the same without you!

Cladding begins...

The cladding started to go on the house this week, which starts to give a feel for what it's going to look like. Not the final colours of course, but still another step forward. Predicting rain for the start of the week though, so this will slow down and work will shift back inside again. Who would have thought we'd be having this much rain in one of the two council areas still drought declared in Qld!!

Kindy photo 2010

Hard to believe she's only 4 sometimes...so tall, so confident and so very ready to take life and throttle the very last drop out of it! Look out school, here she comes...

This is our gorgeous girl number two's kindy photo. We had to miss the actual day due to a nasty gastro bug, so caught up with the photographer at her studio, and this was the result of about 20 seconds of the photographers time...I think I should take some lessons in how to take a good photo!

It's a wrap

The girls love exploring the new house, particularly while there's no walls to get in the way.

The view from Ellen's room

No, we're not finished, but the house did get it's lovely blue wrap recently, and yesterday they started installing some of the windows...funny what feels like progress. The girls seemed a little worried that it would stay that colour - if it's going to be a bright colour, then pink is their obvious colour choice instead!

Funny old Father's Day

Daddy was spoiled today with many different things - lots of handmade goodies from the girls, his favourite Canadian breakfast and then after Church we also had to head out to the girls hockey club break up celebration. Despite the inclement weather, it was rather fun, and as you can imagine, the girls were very proud to receive their first ever trophies.
We spent the rest of the afternoon being lazy as a family together, watching a movie and playing a board game. This is one of the girls favourites, as it asks the participants to do a number of physical challenges - the last photo above is the girls trying to 'wheelbarrow' Daddy around the room....less than successful, but hilarious to watch!!

Fairytale ending

Ellen's Prep class had a celebration morning to mark the end of their section of studies on fairytales. We were invited to go along, dress-up and participate. There was a modelling parade of costumes, Royal disco, lots of songs and dances for us to watch, some Castle aerobics (seriously - they do aerobics as a class a couple of times each week apparently), a few games (pin the lips on the Frog Prince, and Pass the Royal Parcel etc.) and a couple of other activities as well, and then we all enjoyed a Royal Feast together. I don't know how the teachers have the imagination, time and energy to do it all, but it was fantastic! Ellen was in charge of leading a group in singing a round together, so she was rather chuffed at having a leadership role, and took it very seriously! No shrinking violet there...

Ellen chose to go as 'Alicia' from her favourite fairytale story The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Olivia selected 'Tinkerbell' and the only thing we could find Mummy (that she would fit in in her current very pregnant state) was to be a pirate from Captain Hook's crew out of Peter Pan...I was not allowed to attend without dressing up too apparently!

We got ourselves a roof!!

The weather has been glorious for the past two days, so we were fairly confident of a roof as we headed up to the house today - still nice to actually see it though...
And yes, that is short sleeves that the girls are wearing...is this finally the end of winter?!?! I hope so - I'm such a cold frog!

Wind delays

The unseasonally wet August and the seasonal wind has meant that there has been slower progress than the builder had hoped for the past few weeks, but they did manage to get some of the roof on last week, so here's some pics of the next stage in the process. We had a lovely picnic out there on Saturday and were joined by two different lots of family/friends to pass the time, so that made it more fun.
As the due date for the baby gets closer and lots more decisions are starting to need to be made on both fronts (house and baby), I'm rather looking forward to finishing up work in 3 weeks time...of course my rather uncomfortable state is also playing a role in my feeling that way I'm sure! I don't know how I'll fill my free time, but I'm sure it won't be difficult...

Tulips no less

Monday was our 7th anniversary, and Greg completely surprised me with some flowers (something previously unknown in our very practical approach to life). The girls were ecstatic, and are still commenting on them every day when they are sitting at the table. We did manage to get away for a meal alone together over the weekend, and then on Monday we had a special family dinner together with a few favourites on the menu...we're all rather partial to seafood, so a homemade marinara followed by an apple sponge for dessert...an odd mix, but it worked for us!
I thank God daily for my husband, how He brought us together and what He has done in our family since...simply amazing!

The zoo

We were fortunate to be able to go as a family to Australia Zoo on Saturday - our last major 'family date' before the next bub is likely to arrive, and a popular choice with the girls. We had a great day, saw everything that we wanted to - except for Bindi. The girls were very keen to meet her, and despite our repeated warnings that she probably wouldn't be there, they held high hopes...
Still, getting to hand feed an elephant was pretty exciting instead! A visit to the zoo wouldn't be proper without photos with Cameron the Crocodile either - they're not so scary when they're made of concrete!