Lucky Kid!

Last Sunday I noticed a large envelope on the kitchen counter addressed to my inlaws. Striking strange I thought so I asked Mr E if they'd mistakenly left it here.  Turns out the contents were meant for our Kookaburra and what could it be? And whom may they be from?  Well an school friend of Mr E's parents is an author.  A published Australian author who also writes short stories and novels for children and screen plays for various well known Aussie television shows - how wonderful is that! The package contained a  second draft of an unpublished manuscript for our Kookaburra to read and 'see what he thinks'. 

Tonight Mr E and Kookaburra were engrossed by the tale.  A bit of laughing and approval from them both means that they should finish it off pretty quick so Kookaburra can reply to the gracious lady with his thoughts.  Hopefully he'll remember to say a wonderful thankyou for such a privileged opportunity :).

A little pregnancy note before I go.  It really was the loveliest thing to sign in to my blog and find your beautiful responses to our happy news.  I truly love and treasure each of them. Thank you :). And I'll try to be good and post about it.  I'm not a journal keeper, although I've definitely tried, so it would be nice to have a little diary recording this wonderful time for me (oh, I think I meant us!).

Eleven

Jumping into bed with Daddy. 'Wake up Dad, it's my birthday!'

I know I should wait till the end of the day but I'm just too excited :).  Our eldest is turning Eleven today!

Dad picked out the birthday presents this year and judging by the looks on Kookaburra's face he was definitely right on the money.  I love knowing our boys so well!  We are so freaking Lucky!

He's been alternately looking forward to his birthday and also wanting to stay little but it seems this morning with his new stereo system turned up, bopping and singing along and getting into his new air-fix with his wonderful array of tools, he seems to have gotten over it ;).

CD player turned up, singing along and building.  Yep, he's a happy kid!

We'll be off shortly, down to play Zone 3 - think paint ball but with laser guns, mega fun minus the pain - maybe a game of tenpin and fish and chips for lunch.  Tonight Kookaburra has requested a Chocolate sponge cake with strawberry mousse filling, homemade pizza's and his grandparents to celebrate.

Happy Eleventh birthday Buddy.  We love you so much and are so excited to share this special day with you.

Let it Snow?!

Thank goodness it's nearing bedtime! The sweet lil puppy dog we're taking care of for my cous' whilst she's off enjoying those European delights, is spending most of the night barking at everything that we can't see or hear. After two nights of it, Mr E is thinking the dog may have a death wish but I really think that's just the sleep deprivation talking. Poor bloke even had a tumble stumble down some stairs at work. Fortunately it was stealthy and he only bruised his arm and nothing else. And that'll need to heal quick smart because we have what's called a 'Senjo' on the Sunny Coast this weekend.

Basically a Senjo is grading for our belts for Zen Do Kai and as he's been helping out another girl for the past six months in prep for her black belt red tip something or other, I'm not sure, he really needs to be able to partner her well and be able to perform his best for his, I think, brown belt. I'm pretty proud of him. Two years ago he'd only dabbled here and there briefly in martial arts but he's found a place that he likes to train and has involved us all as well.

Kookaburra is going from his yellow to orange belt and myself, white to yellow. Kookaburra's concentration and commitment is so obvious when he's training that my little heart just swells with pride. Kangaroo has only been going for a short amount of time so he won't be grading this time but his Kyoshi handled it so well regarding his not grading this time that Kangaroo is happily excited about his grading for the next time it comes around.

What else? It's been such a long time since writing anything substantial in my blog that I'm kind of stuck on the details of life and rarely get round to reflecting. Some time soon I hope. I do enjoy my blog but sometimes I feel like there is just way too much to put down and at other times there ain't nothing at all interesting to say!

Mr E's Mumma is staying with us during the weeks and returning home to Brisbane on the weekend whilst she's looking for a place to rent which is incredibly hard to do 'cause she works fulltime and the real estate agents are closed when she's not at work. It's been a month now and I hope they're able to find something soon for two reasons. Mr E's Dad really misses his wifey and the other, well, I have to admit that the impact it's having on Kookaburra who is sleeping on double thick camp mattresses on his brothers bedroom floor is not getting the best night sleep and is waking up looking ragged so consequently the flu we had back in September keeps rearing it's ugly head because the poor kid has never fully recovered from it.

So I have two tired little boys trying to contend with a very tired Mum and Dad and who still do their lesson work and keep up with our busy lives. I cannot wait until the Christmas hol's when all the extra curricula activities come to a momentary standstill out of respect for our sanity. In the meantime I'm teaching our boys to be helpful and that when it comes to chores and jobs our attitude is that even though it may be assigned to someone as their job, if we can see that the job needs doing or that the family member could do with a hand we get in their and help because we are family and we care for each other. Acts of kindness! We're also getting through our lessons quite well. Today the focus was on finishing some of yesterdays SOTW writing and then we were into our FIAR which is just plain enjoyable. At the moment our book is Katy and the Big Snow. We've focused on the weather, the water cycle, how the wind is formed, the characteristic of determination and the use of personification in literature and art. Now that we're nearing the end of the unit we can indulge in a fun game and project. This is easy as and loads of fun for two little boys. First we bought a two dollar plain, white shower curtain then gave them both a permanent black marker each (this is definitely an outdoors activity!!!!)

and we drew a compass rose in one corner and discussed the North East South West and the inbetweeners of North-East and so on until I was sure my boys understood.

They then drew roads and built the necessary infrastructure for a city out of mega blocks, like the Police Department, Fire Brigade, Council Depot, Schools and shops, electric company and so on.

Once this was all ready they got out their little cars and planes and then let it snow!!!! Shaving cream snow!!!!!




They dug their way out of disaster which did get very slippery and resulted in sliding and silliness. Kookaburra was quite serious about the 'job' of bulldozing a clearing through the city like Katy did but little Kangaroo thought the texture of the shaving cream was a scream and just wanted to play.


He tried throwing great globules of the stuff at his brother only to find his 'snowball' stuck to his little hand.

For ages he just picked up handfuls and would clap his hands together to see the shaving cream fly off into hundreds of little puffs into the air. He really had a wonderful time, as did Kookaburra who joined in with the merriment and as I took my inexhaustible supply of photos I reflected on how incredibly lucky I am and how much I want to hold my boys so close and love them up.

Kids Big Day Out

The holidays had nearly passed us by and we were yet to hang out with our Cool Cousins in what has fast become our holiday tradition. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen as Kangaroo has become quite sick since last weeks visits to the water park, coughing and spluttering and now sneezing and wheezing. Kookaburra too has caught whatever nasty illness this is and has begun the deep wet bark that according to the Doc is croup. It would have been nice if she had of diagnosed that in my younger son last week rather than three doctors visits later. Unfortunately my wee men are now taking steroids and ventilam to end this horrid bug. But I digress. Our holiday tradition is to have, what I've coined, 'A Child Led Day' or in their terms, 'Kids Big Day Out'.

The gist is that the kiddos take one supervising adult and mosey on into town, usually on foot, with their backpacks on containing plenty of water, morning tea and pocket money - enough to buy odds and ends from the op shops, cheapy stores and pool their money together enough to buy some lunch. They have the option of going pretty much anywhere they want - the pool, park, museums, cinema, shops, lolly store, op shops, garage sales, river, anywhere they can calculate they can get too and still be able to get home. This is a fledgling idea that is still developing. The first time it happened was brilliant! The kids dressed up as ladies and gents and played tourist through our little town visiting the museums and even stumbled upon a workshop for some foreign dancing (I don't recall which now *such a terrible memory sometimes!) which they had a ball participating in. The following occasion we were down one crew member due to illness and then the kids independence was impeded because of torrential down pours and unfortunately, in my opinion, it became a bit of a bargain hunting spend fest. Great for their math but not really the point of the exercise. I want them to discuss and make decisions and eventually be able to, very independently of me but still with supervision, be able to leave home, plan together what they'd like to do with their day, problem solve on the way and then find their way home, whether it be by foot, bike or bus. I'm giving them a chance to safely practice their independence.

And develop their special friendships.

So we headed off this morning on foot to meet the Cool Cousins in town who, like us, had a doctors appointment to attend (this was before it was figured upon that my boys have croup).

There was, of course, the mandatory lolly store stop. Two dollars goes a long way if you're careful! Then Princess Calamity managed to split the bottom of the sole of her sandal so we needed to purchase new sandals before continuing on - she's my sweet Clam' for a reason! Lots of chatting and lolly munching followed. These guys were so happy to be out and all together. The poor doctors surgery was inundated by my crew and my doc was bemused at least with four children sitting on her consult rooms floor whilst she examined the fifth. The nattering noodles go off at tangents discussing the random things that children talk about to the point where our Doc has joined in too. With the croup now diagnosed - I have my doubts though but don't really know what to do :( - we left for the chemist across the road to fill our scripts and chose to kill some time at the cheapy shop. Naturally :S. A few dollars later and we have the best buy of the day, I feel, Princess Calamity's two dollar fifty pair of sunglasses which had me laughing for the remainder of the excursion. Too cool for her own little socks this kid.







They ate pizza in the park and watched a maggie feeding her baby.




But we were still sick and we really couldn't sustain the pace any longer so we all thought home on the bus to watch a movie would be just perfect.




What does Princess Cupcake get excited about?...... 'No Seatbelts!!!!!'

uh, okay :)






It really warmed my heart to see these guys holding hands.





It was still a bit of a walk from the bus stop home and they decided they'd like to call Grammy Bear from the public phone booth for fun.



and as the nursery is just around the corner from our home, we made it our last stop before home. The plants are a surprise for Sunday. Secret squirrel okay.

Before we made it in the door everybody had to say hi ya to our little green tree frog who resides in our mail box.

A movie and a little play and then it was home time. We love our cousins and are so lucky to have them live right here in the same little town.

So that's our Kids' Big Day Out. Independence and new experiences, and beautiful memories. Hopefully, next time, we'll all be well and the sun'll be shining bright on us again.