Reptile World

I had the day off work today so we decided to take the boys up to Reptile World at Gosford for the morning. It was a surprise, so we bundled them into the car and told Mitch we were going somewhere that was a surprise and it would be fun. Imagine his disappointment when we stopped at Coles on the way. After assuring him it wasn't our final stop, we set off again and soon all of the boys went to sleep which was great because they had all woken up at 5am. They are all sleeping in the same room because Poppy is home from London for a week. Going to sleep is fine, but waking up in the morning is not so good. Mitch has a clock in his room normally and knows he's not allowed to get up before there is a 6 on it. Unfortunately, there is no clock in the little boys' room so he just gets up whenever and generally wakes his brothers up too. Or they wake up and see Mitch is on their floor and think it's party time. Anyway, I digress.

We arrived at Reptile World (okay it's really called the Australian Reptile Park, but we just call it Reptile World) and woke all the boys up and Mitch was soooooooo excited when he realised where he was. He kept telling us he had been there before and had really wanted to go there again and now here he was and then started jumping up and down in excitement. We had been unsure of whether to go because the weather was overcast and a bit dicey, but his reaction showed us we had done the right thing.

We went around and saw the attractions and Mitch loved it. Lucas and Sam loved it too, which is great - last time they went to a zoo in Victoria in March they weren't really old enough to know what was going on and just cried the whole time. We saw birds and two Galapagos Tortoises and kangaroos and dingoes (for some reason Mitch is fascinated by them) and wallabies and echidnas (which Lucas and Sam especially liked).

We also saw a reptile show where Mitch got to see (and hear) a rattle snake and a Burmese Python and even got to touch an alligator's back. There were heaps of other reptiles and there was also spiders and frogs. All in all a boys' paradise of slimy creatures and creepy crawlies.
All of the boys got to pat a kangaroo too which Lucas and Sam were very excited about. The kangaroo was fortunately very patient because at times all three boys were trying to pat it at the same time. Lucas and Sam were very cute with it.


Here are some photos of the morning ...

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.
When we got home, it was time for everyone (except me) to have a sleep.

Goodbye Grampi

This afternoon Grampi Bill Youll passed away. He was at peace and apparently ready to go. We recently celebrated his 90th Birthday with the family. Here is a shot of Bill with all the grandkids and Rob at the 90th Party.

 He will be missed by all of us.

Update from Meeks

Believe it or not, this is actually the first time I have blogged (at this rate I'll be on facebook by 2020!). I thought it was time for a new update but sadly there are no photos or video today. Life has been busy, the kids have been sick all week (colds, fevers, vomitting) so there hasn't been much sleep for Dave or myself. On the up side, Marion came up from Victoria to visit. The kids just loved all the attention, cuddles and playing and it was lovely for me to have a bit of help in the first week of school holidays. We went down to Clontarf one day and Mitch had a wonderful time collecting shells with a little girl he befriended. He paddled in the water, which turned into a run, which turned into a spectacular full-bodied immersion. It was hilarious to see him fully clothed, soaked from head to toe.....until I realised I didn't have a change of clothes for him (not a single garment). Guess who rode home in the car completelly nude! The twins had a great time too. Sam enjoyed chasing birds and paddling his feet in the water and Lucas who had been miserable and crying all morning was really happy to be outside in the fresh air.
For week 2 of the school holidays, I have booked Mitch into Soccer Clinic which he will absolutley love. Mitch is also off to see "The Gruffalo" at Glen Street Theatre with Gannie and Lilly in the middle of the week which is a real treat.
Apart from being a bit sick, Lucas and Sam are doing really well. Lucas has perfected the art of kissing his mummy (video to follow soon). It's so gorgeous watching them play when they don't know you are there. Last weekend the two of them were playing peek-a-boo from behing a tree in the back garden, taking it in turns and laughing so cutely. We were watching them from the back door. One of those moment you wish you had the video camera out. Lucas just loves books, he's always bringing you one to read. Sam loves racing to the door as soon as he senses you are leaving, so he can say "bye, bye, bye" for ages, even after you've left. For a while he was saying "die, die, die" so I'm glad he's finally got it right. They have also perfected the art of the double hug (when they both come at you for a huge cuddle), it's moments like those that you forget what's hard about twins. We had their hair cut last week (quite traumatic) and they look a bit more grown-up now. What is a bit tricky, is that Lucas' hair cut has made him look a little more like Sam. Mitch has often since got them mixed up and I have to admit, I have had to resort to other distinguishing features (freckles) for clarification.
Mitch is getting so good with his drawings, he'll spend hours drawing elaborate pictures of monsters, aliens, animals, boats and helicopters (such a boy). What is really lovely, is you can now mostly tell what it is he's drawn because the shapes, proportions and features are really distinguishable. Mitch is becoming a bit of a fashionista. He often remarks on random people's clothing and will ask people if they like his shirt or outfit. He continues to be fashion advisor for mummy (who has recently bought new skirts and dresses because that's what Mitch likes) He now dresses himself in the morning with the only instruction being "long or short" and he does a good job at matching colours and patterns. Even as I was writing this last sentance, Mitch came running from his bedroom to me, struck a pose, and asked what I thought of his chosen outfit. It's all quite amusing!
Anyway, that's enough for an anecdotal update. Maybe, I'll blog again sometime.

Grampi's 90th and Rob's Farewell

Today we had a lunch at Mum and Dad's to both celebrate Grampi's 90th and to farewell Rob who is heading off to the UK for 12 months to continue his studies in Law.

Grampi and all the great grandkids

Uncle Rob and the twins

And a bunch of other images from the day



Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Vege Garden

One of the great things about moving into Nana and Poppy's was the vege garden. We get broccoli, snow peas, spinach and a few different types of lettuce. A bit later on we'll hopefully get potatoes, cabbage, broad beans, tomatoes, garlic, chives and strawberries. When we moved in most of the plants were quite small but due to good weather and Meeks' diligent weeding we have had a continuous crop of great veges. Mitch loves playing with his toys in and around the veges and enjoys picking the snow peas too - in fact he even helps Meeks with the weeding!

Here are some shots of the vege garden:

Mitch's soccer

On Thursday morning Mitch plays soccer at a local indoor sports centre. He absolutely loves it. He has a couple of really great coaches called Luis and Woody. They are really great with the kids. They do a number of little skills practices like kicking and throw ins and goalie throws and passing and dribbling and also a special trick each week - this week was the circular ball hop, where you hop on one foot and roll the ball around you with the other. Very tricky and to tell you the truth none of the kids could do it but they all had fun trying. At the end they all have a short game. Mitch listens really well and has heaps of fun and looks forward to it every week.

This week I was working from home on Thursday and managed to go and watch him play.

Here are some action shots:

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Boys in the bath

The boys don't always have baths together, but when they do it's very cute. They love to splash and make a mess, which this video clearly demonstrates! Mitch does most of the splashing. That's Lucas on the left and Sam on the right. Little cuties!

Boys morning in the park

First of all an apology. We've had some internet issues and have been unable to upload much in the last few weeks, so there is going to be a bunch of new posts so keep reading!

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday morning, I took all the boys to the park to play and give Mummy a chance to have a break from them all. I used to take Mitch to the park a lot but hadn't done it with all three boys, so off we went. I was a lovely sunny morning and the boys had lots of fun. Now that Lucas and Sam are walking it was funny watching them wandering around the park. Mitch of course loved climbing to the top of everything in sight.

Here is a slideshow of the morning. Lucas is in blue, Sam is in red.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Mitch playing kicks in the garden

I took some video of Mitch kicking a ball in the back yard today. He did it over and over and over again and wanted to see the video after each one. Here is a compilation:

Lucas and Sam walking video

Just a little video of Lucas and Sam walking.

Morning in the Park

We walked to Coonanbarra Park this morning our new "local" park. Mitch rode his bike and Sam and Lucas took a ride in the pram. Mitch played on the play equipment and Sam and Lucas had a little swing and then practised their walking. Here are a few shots.
Lucas first ...

and Sam ...

When you have to get somewhere though, crawling still works best:

Moved

Well it has been a long time since I have posted anything. It has been a very busy time. Here are the headlines:
- We've all been sick multiple times
- Sam and Lucas have started walking
- We finalised the sale of our house and moved out
- We moved in to Nana and Poppy's house while they are over in the UK
- I went to my first AFL game and watched the Swans get trounced by the Cats
- Mitch officially doesn't have diabetes

There is the executive summary! Read on if you dare.

It feels like one or more or all of us have been sick for months. There has been colds and coughs and tonsillitis and ear infections. Just when it looks like we're all better it starts again. We're sick of being sick quite frankly!

Sam and Lucas have both started walking. They still crawl a lot especially when they want to get somewhere quickly, but are doing more and more walking. Lucas did it first and then Sam followed. Both of them are at a fairly similar standard now and are both able to stand up by themselves from flat ground. They are both still very wobbly and cute and have this look of wonder on their face when they do it. It is gorgeous to watch. I haven't really had a chance to take video of it. I think Meeks has but I haven't had a chance to pull it off the camera yet. They have both started saying a few things too which is very cute. They like to say things like "ta da!" when they do something clever or "uh oh!" when they knock something over. They also both like to say "Hi!" when someone walks in the room. Lucas also says, "p-boo" when he's playing peek-a-boo. I'm looking forward to hearing more of their cute little voices.

There were some last minute shenanigans on the sale of our house which caused us more stress than is already associated with selling a house. Basically we sent through to our Bank the form which said "Yes we're going to sell our house" and apparently we didn't fill it in properly. That was on May 26th. Rather than telling us or our Conveyancer about it and getting it fixed up quickly, they apparently did nothing. Last week, less than a week from settlement, when our Conveyancer tried to book them in for the settlement they decided to tell us it was filled out wrong and therefore the settlement couldn't go ahead. What followed was a flurry of phone calls and a number of outright lies on their part trying to cover their own incompetence, but ended in them pulling their finger out (actually I think our Conveyancer pulled it out for them) and getting the settlement completed on time. Our Conveyancer (Austates Convenyancing - ask for Mary) was brilliant throughout the process and was forceful and tenacious in kicking their sorry backsides. Anyway, we got there eventually.

We moved out of our old house and into Nana and Poppy's over the weekend and it was a long and arduous process. Our movers (Tae Guek) were also brilliant. They finished so fast it ended up costing about half what we had been quoted by other companies. Unfortunately that was only half the problem, there was still a lot of cleaning up to do at our old house and organising at Nana and Poppy's house. It was a big job deciding what we needed over the next 6 months and what we wouldn't. Things we didn't need went into Poppy's shed (which is chock full, I will have to take photos). The pile of things without a home is gradually decreasing in size and at the same time the house and shed are filling up further. I think a couple more days and it will be finished.

We are so grateful to Michael and Lorraine for letting us live in their house. We'll try to leave the house in as good condition as we found it.

The boys have had a few difficulties adjusting, Sam and Lucas are not going to sleep well, although it's difficult to tell if that is because they are unfamiliar with their new home or just because they are, as earlier mentioned, sick. Mitch has been okay going into a big, big bed, but he has been waking up due to a nasty cough.

On Saturday night, I used my birthday gift from Meeks which was a trip to Sydney Olympic Park to watch the Sydney Swans play Geelong. My friends James and Phil came along with me. James being a Swans supporter like myself and Phil being a die hard Geelong supporter meant whatever the result someone was going to leave happy - everyone had their money on Phil being the happy one. We had dinner before hand which was delicious, the seats were awesome and had a great view of the game, James had brought lollies and chips and we were all ready for a great game. Unfortunately the Swans got smashed. I can't remember the final score, but it could have been a lot worse if the Cats hadn't switched off in the last quarter. Hopefully I'll get to go again and actually see them win!

On Monday, Mitch had an appointment at the diabetes clinic at the hospital with a specialist and basically he doesn't have diabetes at this stage, which is a great relief to us. We had been told previously that he most likely didn't but there were still a few anomalies in his tests so there was some lingering doubt. Those have been cleared up which is a great relief.

So that is a big catch up. Annemieke has sent out a big email with her new email address and our new home address and phone number. If you didn't get it and want the details give us a call or leave a note on this post and we'll get it to you. We're changing our email addresses as we are no longer connected to Optusnet. That is inconvenient, but a fact of life. Our mobile numbers remain the same. It has been a very busy and stressful last month or so and we're glad we're almost out of it. We're looking forward to a slightly less stressful couple of months before we make some more decisions about what we're going to do when Nana and Poppy get home. With any luck the Sydney property will crash and we'll be able to buy our dream home in a good suburb!

PS: The next post will have more photos and less talking I promise!

Dedication

A lot has happened recently and I have been very slack in making Blog posts.

On Sunday we had a Dedication at church for Mitch, Lucas and Sam. A Dedication is when we, as their parents, stand up in front of our church community and introduce our children to them and thank God for them and essentially dedicate them and ourselves to God, stating our intent to bring them up to know Jesus. It gives the church community an opportunity to pray for us and our kids and for us to thank them for their prayers and ongoing support of us. Neil, the Senior pastor, prayed over the boys with the congregation. Normally it's done one child at a time and before they're one, but we were a little slow in deciding to do it so we did all three of the boys at once.

The Dedication was part of the church service, so after the service had finished we had a little party at Lorraine and Michael's house (which is where we will be living in a little over a month). I didn't get any photos of the dedication (I was up the front, so it was a bit hard). I took quite a lot of photos at the party though. Here is a selection:

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

Meeks made a beautiful cake which you can see in the photos. It is still being eaten :)

News

No photos today. I took some over the weekend, but haven't really had a chance to process them yet. I just thought I'd give a little progress update with the boys. Youngest to oldest!

Sam is now able to stand up by himself. He can't go from sitting to standing, but if you help him up, or he helps himself up on a chair he can stand up. He can't walk yet, so he sort of stands there looking cute until he wants to go somewhere at which point he lowers himself down and crawls off. It looks like he wants to walk, but can't quite get his feet moving yet. Sam and Mitch like to play this game called "Hello under there!" where Sam gets into the Downward-Facing Dog yoga position and Mitch peeks in underneath and says "Hello under there!" which makes Sam laugh and he crawls off to somewhere else and does it again. The game continues until Mitch or Sam or both get bored of it. Sam has a nasty cold at the moment and lots of snot. It doesn't help his sleeping and as a result, neither Meeks or I are getting very good sleep.

Lucas can't do the standing up thing yet, but he is a born climber. He climbs up on the to the arm chair, which Mitch wasn't able to do until he was a bit older. He also climbs up onto Mitch's little table by climbing up onto one of the chairs. He either then sits on the table looking very proud of himself, but not really knowing what to do next or climbs from the table onto the couch. He can't get down from any of those places other than head first in a hurry. Not good. Yesterday we went to a park in Berowra and he climbed the stairs of the play gym and went down the slippery dip, fairly slowly face first. Not the safest way to do it, but he had fun! Lucas also has a cold and isn't sleeping well either.

Mitch is going well. He loves playing little lego (as well as big lego which Sam and Lucas play with). Little lego is just the right size for Sam and Lucas to try and swallow, as as a result Mitch has to play with the little lego in his room with the door shut. On the weekend Mitch and I made a little lego town, complete with police station and a tire shop, tall street light with antenna and a couple of other buildings (I have some photos for later) and the next day we made an office complete with workers sitting at desks with computers on them, filing cabinets, printer area and a break out room with a microwave, and fridge and table (no photos though). Mitch also makes the most fabulously creative cars with wheels all over the place. Mitch is currently healthy which is great! We're trying to move him towards not needing a nappy at night time. He has a dry nappy a few night's a week, but he's still not getting himself up to go to the toilet at night. At the moment he goes to the toilet before bed and I get him up at around 10:30pm when I go to bed. If I leave it to much later he does a wee in his nappy, but once he does one at 10:30 he seems to be dry until the morning. We might try and go without this weekend and see what happens!

Anyway, that is all the news for now!

The boys playing in the sun

The weather here has been foul of late. It feels like it has been raining for weeks. This morning, there was a break in the rain and the sun came out for a while. It was still too wet to play outside, but at least the boys got to play inside in the sun. Here are some pictures. Sam is in the dark blue top, Lucas is in the gray.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Hair cuts

Lucas and Sam had their first ever hair cut today. They were looking a bit shaggy so it was time to get it done. We went up to Hornsby and had it done there. Lucas went first and didn't enjoy it. He cried most of the time. Sam went next and didn't cry at all. Quite illustrative of their different personalities really.

Anyway, here are some photos of their new hair cuts. Lucas is in red, Sam is in blue.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Little boys

It's been a while since I put up a post about anything to do with the boys. So here goes.

Lucas and Sam are growing up quickly. Both boys can walk around now if you hold one of their hands. They're not quick and they're not terribly steady, but they think it's great fun. They're not up to standing up by themselves or walking by themselves yet. Aside from that they furniture surf like professionals. Lucas also likes climbing up on things like the couch and recently Mitch's little table. This is obviously a concern because he hasn't figured out how to get off yet, so if one of us isn't around watching, he will fall off.

They have started saying a few words like "Mum" and "Dad" and they also say "Hi" and "Bye". They have also starting repeating back animal noises like "Woof woof" and monkey noises and cow noises "Mmmmm".

Here are a few photos of them together

 

And one of just Sam:

And one of Lucas:

Unfortunately we're still having issues with the boys sleeping at night. They still wake up multiple times which makes it very hard for both of us, although mostly for Meeks.

Mitch is a good big brother. He loves his little brothers and loves pre-school and riding his bike. Here is the three of them together

And as a final shot, Poppy has been making us bread lately and last night he out did himself and made a crocodile out of bread!

Thanks Poppy!

SOLD!

Well it's been a whirlwind week with a crazy last 24 hours.

We had a couple interested in the house after the first Open House last weekend. They came back on Monday night to see the house again. Meeks had a slow cooking curry on which filled the house with beautiful smells and we put the fairy lights on on the deck and well ... it must have done the trick because we spent the rest of the week negotiating with the buyers and agreed on a price yesterday which we were very happy with and I think was fair in the current market. We finally officially exchanged fairly late in the day last night (Friday).

It is a huge relief to us that it is all done and dusted. Only having to have the house on the market for a week is a huge blessing. Having to pack all the kids stuff away every time we had an Open House and clean up was quite tiring, mostly for Meeks admittedly.

Then as an added surprise this morning, we were sitting inside enjoying not having to worry about cleaning up for another Open House when we heard a huge bang outside. We ran out and found that a truck going past had caught the power wire going to a post next to our driveway which runs power to the house at the back. As the truck drove on it pulled the wire and snapped it and also pulled down the pole and the pole crashed onto our fence and broke it. The truck disappeared off up the road oblivious to the chaos behind it. Anyway, after visits by the police and power company, the outcome is that we have a broken fence and the people at the back have no power until they get someone in to fix the post. They're not home and she's very pregnant, so they could even be at the hospital. I'd hate to come home to that.

For Sale!

Ever since Lucas and Sam wereborn we knew it would only be a matter of time before we had to find a bigger house. Through a series of events we have decided to sell our little house. Here is the web page on Domain. It will be hard leaving here. We have lived the majority of our married life here (only just) and there are so many memories. It is the first place we were abl to make "our own" by renovating and decorating as we liked it. It is where we brought all of our boys home to and it has been the only home they have ever known. We're going to make a video with Mitch so he can have something to look back on as he grows up so he can remember it.

The market is pretty strong at the moment, so we're hoping we'll find a buyer who takes a liking to our house's charms and offers a good price, but at the same time are trying to be realistic about what we will get for it. Fingers crossed!

Laughing boys

Lucas and Sam are starting to interact more with each other and it causes some very cute moments like this.


Sorry about the terrible camera work.