Ballerina

Well we are nearly finished our first term of ballet and Liana still loves it. Unfortunately, her wonderful teacher, Miss Mel is leaving at the end of the year.

Liana had her first performance at the local arts festival the other week. I think she did great especially considering she only had two lessons to learn the dance in!!

Here are some photos of the big day. Liana is the second from the right with the purple wings!!

We Must Be Doing Something Right!

You have to love a picture of a little one falling asleep with a book in their hands.


Notice the nice ripped off piece of wallpaper in the background...hmmmmm......

You Know it's Time for New Dress-ups When.....

...your little boy wants to dress up and he can only choose between being a ballerina, a princess or a fairy!!!!

In my defence, up until this week he has had absolutely no interest in playing dress-ups. However, suddenly he has decided that it is fun. So today we had ballerina Liam complete with ballet shoes and then Fairy Liam.

He dressed himself in the fairy outfit and ran out all excited to announce to me, "Look Mummy, I booful!" How could you not love that?

So, any suggestions for easy to make, cheap boys dressups??

So here are some photos of my booful boy and his big sister. I must say I do question his choice of accessories. I don't know if a wrench and drill really work with choice of clothing!!!!

Little Ballerina

So, Liana has been desperate to start ballet for the last 6 months. No idea where she got this obsession from. We have never talked about or watched any ballet. Anyway, the dress ups were no longer enough, it had to be "real ballet". So last week she had her first class and absolutely loved it. I'm still undecided if this is a good or bad thing!!!!!. Her first words when she came out of the class were, "I looooove Miss Mel, can we do this every day?" and all week, "Is it Saturday today, Mama?"

So $140 later here she is in all her pink glory, minus the ribbons on the shoes that I am yet to sew on!!!









OOPS!!!! Can't figure out to turn them around, but you get the general idea!!

Best Friends

Well, it has been a while since I posted on this blog but htere is nothing like cute photos to inspire me back into blogging!

Liam and Jack have been best buddies since the day we brought Jack home. I quite often find them cuddled up together on the lounge and more than once have had to kick Jack off his bed at night!

Liam must really love Jack because he doesn't share his blankie with anyone but was quite happy to use it as a blanket to keep Jack warm the other day

We Have a New Puppy!!!!!!!

We had to get rid of our dog because she was getting jealous of the kids and had taken a nip at them a few times. Being such a big strong dog we just couldn't risk it. Luckily we found her a nice child free home where she would get all the attention she needed.

So......now we have a brand new puppy!!!!!!!!!!! He is sooooooo cute. Liana has named him Jack. He is an American/english staffy mix and the most placid puppy I have ever had.

The kids just adore him and he is keeping me company while Paul is working. Although he does have to kick him off the bed when he gets home!

Jack has taken a real liking to Liam. Not sure why as Liam jus wants to sit on him all the time. Maybe it is because he is small too and reminds him of another puppy. He is certainly as unpredictable!!

Here are a few photos and I am sure there will be many more to follow!!!

How Not to Play Hide and Seek....

My poor baby was staying over at her Nanna's having a great time playing hide and seek with her Aunty and her neighbours. Unfortunately Nanna has a lot of stuff under her bed!!!! Liana didn't quite make it under the bed but instead managed to hit her head on the corner of an open drawer. OUCH!!!!!

A few hours later and some purple glue, care of the doctor, she was back home. Liana had a great time being the centre of attention while the doctor glued her back together. (What a great invention that glue is. So much easier than having to try and stitch a 4 year olds head!!) Meanwhile I was waiting at home with Liam pacing the floor imagining some huge gash in hear head and Nanna was stressing out about how daddy would react!!

Here is the patient in all her glory. She loooooooves bandaids and bandages so has just loved wearing this all week!!!

Oh, and I had to include the cooking photo just because!

What About Liam??

Well given that he is only just two and a boy, any attempt to have him sit still for more than 5 secs ends in disaster. That being said we have started using the preparatory "curriculum" from Letter of the week. It is simple, it is fast and best of all it is free. Each week we learn a letter, number, colour or shape, a nursery rhyme and have a different theme. We have also added a bible verse written to music from hubbards cupboard. So far we have done this for 2 weeks. Amazingly Liam now correctly identifies A and B. He can say both nursery rhymes, sings both bible verses and actually sits still long enough for us to add the new "thing" to his poster every morning during circle time. It is quite cute watching Liana trying to revise his poster with him during the day while they are playing. iN fact I think she makes a better teacher than me. Liam is so eager to please his big sister that he answers all her questions and does pretty much whatever she asks...as long as it doesn't take any longer than 2 minutes!!

Here is a picture of our learning poster for this week and our activity for the letter B.

The Birthday Photos!

Happy Birthday Little Man!!

Today my baby turned 2!!! A bittersweet day. My little man is growing up but he will always be my baby. We had a Thomas the Tank Engine Fest with Thomas toys and Thomas cake. Liam had an absolute blast as did Liana. To celebrate we went to an indoor playground designed for 0-6 years old with 2 of friends and their little ones. I will post some photos of the birthday boy tomorrow once I dig the camera out of the birthday stuff!!!! But for now here are some pictures of my baby and the boy he is becoming.

Liana's 4th Birthday

Well, I finally got around to it. It is only 2 months after her birthday, but better late than never!! Liana had a great time at her party. She loooooved her princes dress and castle cake. the kids were all wonderful and everyone enjoyed playing and making and eating! So here are some pictures of the "GREEN PRINCESS PARTY" with the birthday girl and a few of her friends.

Birthday Blues (or greens in this case!)

So Christmas is over and I am already planning Liana's birthday. In fact, I sat down on Christmas night after Paul had gone to work and made up party invitations.....sigh.... 2 weeks to go. Oh, I just loooove having her birthday so close to Christmas.

Anyway, Miss Muffet has requested a green princess party - interesting combination don't you think? Have you ever tried finding a green princess dress?? Don't bother unless you plan on paying in excess of $80AU for a custom one. So I resorted to looking for green fairy dresses on e-bay. Given that we only had 2 weeks I figured I should only buy from our state. Anyway I found two YAY!!!!!! But wait, when I showed Liana she quickly announced that they weren't green???????? They were dark green and she wants light green....sigh....so its back to the drawing board.

Now don't even get me starte don the birthday cake!!!!!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!!!

Christmas Photos

We've just had some Christmas photos done by a friend of ours. Thought I would share a few of the cuter ones!

A Star Is Born!!!

Liana has been learning Suzuki violin this year and today had her very first performance, a christmas concert. I was worried how she would go as she is not always co-operative in lessons, especially the group lessons. I needn't have worried though. The only problem we had was keeping her off the stage when she wasn't performing!!! She had an absolute ball.

At the end of the concert the littlies played bells while the older children played Christmas carols. Liana was VERY enthusiastic about her bell playing to the point where she was even standing up playing solo while all the others were sitting quietly during the slower carols.

The photos are not great as the lighting was bad but you get the idea. I will post some better video footage when we buy a lead for out new camcorder - YAY!!! Another new toy.

Just Like Daddy!

A subscription to the local toy library has been the best investment in toys this year. The kids love going and choosing new toys every few weeks and deal with having to return them far better than I had imagined. Our latest acquisition was this awesome fire engine. Liam would spend all day in it if he could. I think he has seen his Dad talking on the mobile in the car waaaay too often though!!!

There Were Ten In the Bed...

Well, I have finally got back to my blog.....and figured out how to download the photos for my first entry. It's about time!!!!

Tonight I went to check on Liana and found her in bed with all her teddies and dolls lined up in a row. All carefully covered and on pillows. If you count them, there are 10 in the bed - hence the title.

I had to include a photo of Liam asleep too. Just so he didn't feel left out!

I am determined to keep up with my blog this time. I have lots of photos to post and will include some of the lapbooks that Liana and I have made while reading out BFIAR books. We just finished one on Corduroy so I will post some pics of that tomorrow.

My Baby is Growing Up!

Well, my little baby really isn't a baby anymore!! She had her first night away from us on Wednesday. We planned for her to stay the night at her Nanna's but really no-one thought she would last. We were expecting (and kind of hoping secretly I think) to have to go and rescue her at bedtime or in the middle of the night at least. But, no, she surprised us all and went to bed and slept through til 7am!!!! She woke up quite happy and didn't even want mum and dad then. When we went to pick her up she was sooo excited. I think it was more traumatic for us than it was for her! She really isn't a baby anymore.

Waterfalls

Well, I've had this blog for about a month and am yet to post so I thought I'd better start now or I never will!! So here it is my first entry.

We've been having quite a bit of rain the last couple of weeks, which we desperately need, but isn't great when you are stuck at home with two kids. Yesterday was a beautiful day so we all went for a nature walk (ala Charlotte Mason) We went to the waterfalls not far from us and had a little hike along the creek it empties into. Jsut beautiful with all the recent rain we've had. The kids had a blast and I think Liana would've stayed there all day. I think we will make this the first entry into our new Natural Journal for Liana.

Now to see if I can post some pictures from the day.