Lunch with Daddy

A couple of weeks ago, the kids and I took a bus to downtown Sydney to go to lunch with Phil. Aside from Penny discovering a love for collecting beer bottle caps while waiting for her daddy, there's not a whole lot to say here other than we love him....like a lot.

Rewind: Penny's Birthday

Over the craziness of our Christmas travels, our little Penelope turned 3! Three is a big deal. I feel that's the age where they're ALL toddler--no more baby :(. Penny has been a complete delight the second she's entered our world. She continues to surprise us with her outgoing personality and zest for life.

Of course, she had to open some presents.

Later in the day, some of her cousins joined in the celebration! Some mom's do party favors and themes, I put all the kids in a room with about 10 balloons and let them have at it.

Wait, I take that back. We did play a rousing game of Pin the Tale on the Donkey.

AND we had party favors! See..??? (haha, get it?)

And of course, a little birthday cake!

My Uncle Kelly and his cute family came a little later to join in the festivities. It was so fun to see them and have them their for Penny's day. Unfortunately, I was too busy visiting and eating cake to take photos of all of our fun company.

Happy birthday Penny Rae! Oh how we love you!

My Heavenly Father Loves Me: Aussie Style

Penelope has to give a talk in primary tomorrow. I had an idea to show some pictures of her while she spoke, but needed to upload the photos to the Internet so we could download them on Phil's ipad, so I figured why not put her little talk on the 'ol blog.

Just a little side note, it was a rather fun/easy idea for those who need a primary talk for a sunbeam. Most of the photos we took today just while we were at the beach.

Whenever I hear the song of a bird

Or look at a blue, blue sky

Whenever I feel the rain on my face or the wind as it rushes by

Whenever I touch the grainy sand

 Or walk by a big gum tree

I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me

Scarf Models

Today was one of those days that instead of cleaning up after breakfast, making beds and doing laundry, I grabbed a pair of scissors and turned the leftovers of my new "sweat cutoffs" into a child size scarf for Penny. After forcing Penny to put it on--it only seemed right to match it up with a messy up-do. It was at that point the only appropriate thing left to do was a photo shoot. It was like I was caught in my own version of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" except mine would be titled, "If You Give a Bored Mom a Pair of Scissors."

So after about 10 minutes of trying to get Penny to "work it" infront of the camera... 

...we quickly came to the realization that modeling is not the career path for her.  This was how she really felt about the whole thing.

Turns out, Penny didn't even really like the scarf. Apparently, she's not as fashion-foward as her mom when it comes to making sweat scraps into accessories. I had to bribe her with an episode of Diego to get her to keep it on long enough for me to take some photos.

BUT WAIT!!

Lest we forget....Penny is not the only pretty girl in this house. Sheesh! Let alone a much more willing participant.

And even though she couldn't tell me...I'm quite certain Hazel loved what is now her new scarf. Even if it's just to chew on. Hey! Stylish scarf-like bibs for teethers! Ya know--something to soak up all that drool... it was my idea...you read it here first. Anyhow, back to model #2...

 Isn't she just a natural?

And finally, for all you men out there. A touch of masculinity. (I needed something to do with the other leg.) These, I'm sure, will be appearing soon in a store near you. But for those of you who can't wait that long, just remember, find a pair of old sweat pants. Cut them off at the knee and shove the remains over your sons head. Bada-bing-bada-boom.

Happy Australia Day!

January 26 turned out to be Australia Day. And really, who doesn't love an additional holiday to celebrate, so celebrate, we did.  We went to Darling Harbor which is right by Phil's work and enjoyed the festivities there. There were a lot of street performers along with music which meant some dancing, of course. We also explored their Maritime Museum which was pretty cool. We even got to tour a battle ship from 50 years ago. 

Rewind: Temple Square

The weekend after we arrived in Utah for a little Christmas visit we went to my sisters to eat a delicious lunch and enjoy her new beautiful home. Afterwhich, we braved the crowds and went to Temple Square. Despite the continuous effort to corral a bunch of small children, and whatever brief spurts of stress this may have caused ("Ryder! Has anyone seen Ryder?! Phil! Can you see Ryder? Oh. There he is." Now substitute Ryder's name for any grandchild on two legs and repeat that about 10 times. Throw in about three potty breaks, Penny laying down on the concrete in protest and changing a baby in the car and you get the general idea) we all ended up enjoying ourselves quite a bit.  My dad really, really wants to do this again. As soon as possible. 

I believe this last photo really captures the feelings of chaos and happiness we all experienced :)

Crinkle Nose and Cockatoos

I think it's important to note that this face...

...can turn into this face:

You've officially been crinkle-nosed!

We've all devoted a lot of time into trying to get crinkle-nosed around here. 

Another thing I'd like to note around here are the birds. There are beautiful tropical birds just always flying around right outside our widow. I was telling my mom about them the other day, so when I saw a few, I thought I'd take some pictures to show her. I grabbed my camera and went out on our back porch.

There were three yellow-crested cockatoos sitting across the street in a tree. I took a few pictures of them there, thinking I would just zoom in on them later. (Note: this IS the zoomed-in version).

I got so excited when one hopped (well, flew) over to a closer building. I kept snapping away.

I got excited again when that cockatoo took flight, hoping it would come even closer...

...wha...wo..woah... HELLO!  Look, he's waving 'hi'.

Well, hello there cockatoo.

He ended up hanging out there for a whole 5 minutes. I even called Ryder and Penny out to come take a look and he still didn't fly away. Honestly, I just think he really enjoyed the attention. Notice how he was quite fond of his own reflection....

This whole experience was actually very exciting for me. For one thing, when does anything exciting like this happen WITH a camera in my hand? For me, never. I figured it was my own silly fault if I didn't get a decent photo. Luckily, I had a lot to choose from.

Babyfood, Beachbums & Birthdays

Consider this your 3 in 1 blog special! It's almost better than a really good sale. Almost. First off...

Babyfood:

This week will mark the Hazel's 6 month birthday. And to prove it, here is our little angel taking her first whack at the world of solids.

Here's what she really thought of the whole business...

 Penny and Ryder (or shall I say Pennay and Ryda) particularly loved the idea of feeding her "real" food. Unfortunately, in there minds they were envisioning peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches--not mush, so they lost interest rather quickly.

  Ryder, however, does prove to be a big help in getting her to open that steel trap of hers. 

 Nooo mooorrre....

In the two weeks we've been at it, sweet potatoes has proven to be her favorite. Even more so than those tasty fruit combos I try to feed here because, well, that's what I would want. She is also being such a good sleeper for her mommy. Such a trait allows her to do no wrong in my eyes. Her interests can be summed with one word: rolling. This new talent has introduced her to the comfort and joy of sleeping on her tummy. I'm pretty sure she does it just to scare me, but since she can do no wrong in my eyes, I find myself in quite the pickle. 

Beachbums:

So for pretty much every Saturday we've been here, we wake up, have a brief discussion about what we should do that day. This includes items like cleaning the house, running errands, figuring out how to drive on the wrong side of the road. After the discussion is over, we lounge around the house for a couple of hours and walk to the beach. 

It's the hard knock life for us.

Birthdays:

Last, but not least, I had a birthday. Shout hooray! Twenty-nine big ones people. I'm officially in the last year of my twenties. I plan to enjoy it immensely...so far, so good. I felt quite "spoilt" on my birthday. Claire and her crew accomopanied us to the zoo where they treated us all birthday doughnuts. It was also the first time we saw their seal show, which was quite fun. There is something about seeing seals do tricks that ignites an inner childhood spark of joy. After Phil got home from work he took me out to dinner and later that evening we did cake and presents with the kiddos. Not to mention all the lovely emails and FB posts...it was a great day. I realized this is the first and only birthday I'll ever get to have during summer time. I have to admit it was kinda nice.

*Cadbury Chocolate has a rather large presence down here :)