Sunday 29 June 2008

Party Aftermath = Sugar High

There's always a sugar high for my kids after a birthday party - so after the PINK party we loaded the kids in the car and took off to the beach - our favourite beach, Bronte Beach. Not as touristy as Bondi so lots of room for the kids to run up and down the beach PLUS a big grassed area to play soccer or footy...which is essential when trying to get rid of excess energy in young children! Mike and the kids went for a swim in their wetsuits in the FREEZING water (since it is the middle of winter - the freaks) while I stayed nice and warm taking photo's on the beach...they weren't allowed to swim in the surf since 'apparently' the beach was closed to swimming due to dangerous conditions...and I say 'apparenty' because of course there must have been at least 40 surfers out....but this is what happened to at least 2-3 of those surfers during the short time we were there....



...so the kids went swimming in the ocean baths instead.











Layne must has run up and down the beach at least 10 times....which was great...I kept telling her I wanted more photos...until she told me she couldn't run anymore...hmmm...I was certainly satisfied...Jake...well he and Mike entertained themselves by trying NOT to get wet in the waves...Mike promising me that they wouldn't get wet and he'd put the wetsuits on later when they actually went in....well THAT didn't quite work out did it! Jake had to ride home in his undies and my jacket....it quite funny really.

Attn: GIRLS ONLY PARTY!!!!!

The Birthday Girls Name:
The Theme: a PINK party!

The required dress code...pink ...of course!


The Venue


The balloons being the favourite attraction


This is how the Birthday Girl's brother handles the akwardness of being the only boy at a girls party....shows off of course....

...like how cool would it be to gather all the balloons and then go outside and watch them go into outer space??? ...hang on...oh yeah....lets get my basket and put some teddys in it and make an hot air balloon!!! ....I just might need a few more balloons....like 60 or more!


Some of the favourites on the menu



Some of the little Princess's




The Craft activity: Paper flower necklaces

BUSTED!!!

The Birthday Girl taking a sneak peek at the birthday presents...caught on camera!
Completely random...

What was my husband doing at the kitchen bench that warranted him a little fan club???
Last but not least....

Trying desparately to blow out the candles on her 'purse' birthday cake while still continuing to eat her biscuit...if you know Layne...you'll realise how typical this is...the girl can EAT!!!!

Monday 16 June 2008

Flying High...

This year have been somewhat of a rollercoaster for our family...last November Mike was asked to consider a position in Singapore within the company he works for. Mike served his mission in Singapore so he was excited to say the least. I had to do some hard core research first before I began to feel comfortable with it...since we had a son starting school in February...there was more to consider than usual. Singapore is an extremely expensive place to live especially when having to send your kids to intertnational schools and since Mike's company usually only does permanent moves - nothing would be financed by the company...so after waiting 7-8 months they finally gave us the financial package....which we promptly declined. I was somewhat surprised at myself to say the least...because after all the waiting and preparing and effort I put into research etc to do with moving...I thought that I should have at least felt like SCREAMING! (This isn't the first time this has happened to us!) But funnily enough both Mike and I just shrugged our shoulders and were like...whatever!...haaa there were no tantrums, PMS or screaming....in fact there has been no emotional display whatsoever...we were just happy to get on with our daily lives - where ever that was going to be!


Because of not knowing what we were doing we hadn't been able to actually plan a holiday so far this year...we have HEAPS of frequent flyers so we had been tossing up different holidays....should we take a trip to the snow (NZ), Fiji, the U.S???? but we were always undecided...within 2 weeks of us declining the offer to go to Singapore we FINALLY booked our holiday!!! So now we are showing alot of emotion....we're sooooo excited!!

I'm also feeling some anxiety to do this trip since we had to leave the kids behind...for 3 WHOLE WEEKS! I've never been away from both of them at the same time for more than 2 nights! But I'm not going to think about that for now!

So this is what we'll be doing and seeing during the month of OCTOBER!

First Stop





PARIS, France



Second Stop




Cairo, Egypt
Third Stop



Italy
Fourth Stop


New York
Fifth Stop


Chicago - the windy city!

Now it took us 3 days of hard core negotiating with each other to actually decide where we were going to go...I was willing to spend only 2 days in the States and the rest in Europe as both Mike and I have both lived in the States before...BUT Mike would have none of it...he wanted to spend practically half the time there...
In highschool more than half of my allotted units were History units...especially Ancient History - if I had gone to uni back then it would have been to become an history teacher...I LOVED ancient history...it just fascinated me. So of course when trying to plan this trip I was wanting to go to ALLLL the places that I had studied in highschool...Mike on the other hand didn't seem too interested in those places - he wanted to reminisce and go back to the places he grew up in...Germany, France, Switzerland....he wanted familiarity...he wanted 4-5 star accommodation, I wanted to Backpack through Europe....so the places I wanted to go were places like Egypt, Athens and the Greek Islands, Turkey, Middle East, Rome, Prague etc....of course the list went on....I figured since he kept the America leg - I could choose the Europe/Middle East leg...haaaaa I'm constantly amazed at his talents in the area of 'persuasion'!! The boy is gooood!
All in all it ended coming down to what flights were available and how much time we had...and Mike has promised me that in the next few years he will take me to Athens and the Greek islands since that was the one that I had the hardest time giving up!

Sunday 8 June 2008

Tedious...

So awhile back I decided to start scanning our wedding photo's and making digital copies...not that I particularly like my wedding photos but I figured for posterity's sake I would concede....it's been a bit tedious and I go through apathetic stages of whether I really want to bother - I think a big part of it is all the annoying things that come to mind...like why oh why did the little rosebuds I put in my hair not stay LITTLE...and instead decided to bloom throughout the day which - of course - I was oblivious to it. But then you come across a photo like this...and suddenly you don't notice it anymore...
...that's my youngest sister...I guess she thought instead of TELLING me about the stupid damn rosebud she'd just simply go one up - she competed with the rosebud!
....Back to the rosebud...I've always wondered why Mike never mentioned it...well, no, that's a lie...I don't wonder...I know what he had his mind on...and I'm not going to say anything more about that!
Back to the rosebud...you know when there is something embarrassing about the way you look and they seem oblivious to the fact that maybe they should actually tell you...????
I'll never forget sitting down with two of my sisters at a church function a couple of years ago...our kids running around having fun...my younger sister started talking and immediately my older sister and I informed her that she had something green right smack on one of her front teeth...and since we had only just sat down BUT hadn't actually STARTED eating - she immediately realised that it had been there for a while and her husband had NOT told her!!! I can't really tell you exactly what happened next but it involved Ember & I acting out conversations she'd been having with other people...one of us being Alison and the other being the one that couldn't stop staring at the 'green' tooth...we nearly wet our pants laughing (because we just find ourselves so damn funny!)...while our husbands stood from afar watching us, they have a name for it when they see us like this - the silly hour - it means when we've lost all self control and it won't get better until they separate us...
They wandered over obviously curious to see what had us in stitches...so the three of us performed our role play for them, needless to say all six of us laughed till we were in pain because our stomach muscles couldn't cope with the workout they were getting!
I love that about our husbands...they totally get us!
Disclaimer: DAMN is NOT cursing/swearing down here...so don't go sending me comments telling me what a potty mouth I am! ha...take that!