Literacy & Numeracy Week

Daddy and Lochie doing an activity together

Jason leading one of the Numeracy activities which involved fly swatters - the kids loved it.

Lochie measuring a picture with blocks and then counting them.

Lochie proud of his painting which was of the rhyme I saw a dinosaur walk through the door.

Ahoy there me Mateys

Zach had a Pirate Day at Kindy recently and luckily I remembered that last year one of his pajama tops for summer was a pirate top so it just still fit and with a pirate hat from the dress up box and pants from the hand me down pile from Lachlan we have one very cute pirate.

Kiwi Cousin Visit

Enjoying lunch down at Shorncliffe Beachfront

All the kids lined up for a photo.

Recently my cousin Bryce from New Zealand came over for a holiday with his lovely wife Kelly and their three kids Holly, Jamie and Owen. My sister Ros and her family happened to be down for the weekend from Toowoomba, and so with other relatives Susan and Denis and my Mum, we all got together for a small family reunion down at the Shorncliffe Beachfront on the most beautiful sunshine day and had a great time catching up. The kids didn't stop running and playing on the great playground they have down there and even when we headed back to our house for dessert and coffee they still didn't sit still - it was great to see considering they had only just met - I can't wait to take my kids over to see my other cousin's kids in NZ who are also similar ages. Maybe one day...

Father's Day 2010

Opening Presents - obviously Jason was thrilled with what he got from his expression.

Daddy and his two boys - Zach wasn't really in a photo friendly mood at the time.

Not great photos unfortunately but I couldn't let the day go without blogging about it so here we are. We did have a great day and caught up with my Dad (Grandad) also to celebrate his Father's Day as well. We unfortunately did run out of gas on the BBQ at a crucial moment but we won't talk about that - thank goodness we have a frypans and meals can be continued inside!

Fathers Day Night

Daddy and Lochie at School on Fathers Day Night

Lochie with his creation which he made on the night with the construction toys

Lochie and the rest of the class singing the Fathers' a song to end the night.

Lochie's class had a Father's Day Night to celebrate Father's Day and had a sausage sizzle and many activities in the classroom that the Dad's could do with the kids. They also gave the Dad's a present which they made in the class which was a tie with their face on it. Lochie was very excited to take Jason along to the night.

A riding we will go

Lochie having fun at the bike park.

Daddy pushing Zach around on his bike. Thank goodness he has now progressed to riding his bike by himself - hooray says Mum and Dad!

Mummy's turn to push.

Daddy and Zach having a rest and watching Lochie riding his bike - I love this photo of the two of them together.

It was a little while ago now, but we headed down one weekend morning to a park that has a bike path just set up for kids to learn how to ride on it. It's great and has stop signs and round abouts on it - it's supposed to teach them a few road rules before they take to riding their bikes on the roads. The boys had a great time and Jason and I were pretty worn out pushing Zach's bike around too as he hadn't quite got the nack of pushing the peddles around just yet.

Grandad in action

This is my Dad - Grandad to my kids. I don't get many photos of him but I took this today at Zach's birthday and said I would put it on my Blog and so here I am putting my words into action. This photo makes me laugh as it just captures so much about my Dad - his cheekiness especially - love you Dad!

Zach turns 3!!!!!!

The very much talked about and anticipated (in Zach's words) "Froggy cake"!!! It's the first time Mum and I have ever attempted to use fondent icing - we were pretty proud of our efforts and even gave each other a high 5 after finishing the cake - Zach loved it and even cried when we cut it after blowing out the candles so we must have done a good job.

Zach having a great time at his Birthday morning tea with the family - every time I asked him if he was having a great time, his answer was always a very Zachy - Yep!

Zach trying on his new helmet he received from Aunty Ros and Uncle Greg and the girls. Uncle Greg is in the background reading the instructions on how it works. Zach loves it because it makes car noises and comes with a steering wheel so he can pretend to be a race car driver.

The four cousins together - what a mad, crazy, very loud bunch, and we're about to add another one when Ros has her new baby in Oct - hope it knows what a crazy family it's about to enter into. I love it!

Jones Family Get Together

My Mum's side of the Family (the Jones Family) usually gets together at Christmas time, but with the family getting bigger every year and Christmas time being so busy, we decided that we would try getting together in the middle of the year instead so we headed to my Uncle Noel and Aunty Wendy's place at Bribie - it's a favourite for the kids as they live right on the canal and have a pontoon so the kids get to feed bread to the fish and ducks if there are any, and this time Uncle Noel had put in a crab pot, and you can see from the photo above, Ros, my sister is holding two crabs which were caught out of the pot. They were too small to eat so we threw them back but the kids were still excited that they got to see them.

Uncle Noel was also very gracious in letting the kids have a go at fishing and the kids were surprisingly patient for their first go. Above is Lochie fishing with Uncle Noel keeping a watchful eye.

Zach was the only successful fisherman with no thanks to me. Every time he tried to pull his line in I kept telling him to just leave it until my brother-in-law Greg asked if someone had checked his line and low and behold he had the one and only fish of the day on his line - I will definitely keep my mouth shut next time.

This photo is of the original Jones's - My Aunty Narelle, Aunty Wendy, Aunty Judy, Uncle Graeme and of course my wondeful Mum.

A High Tea for the Girls

Just before my Birthday I happened to win some tickets to a afternoon High Tea at one of the Luxury Hotels in the City. Of course Jason wasn't interested in coming (thank goodness as there were no other men there at all) and so my Mum and I headed off for a girls afternoon. We didn't realise it due to how I won the tickets (it was through the local radio station - I just had to say the words 'High Tea' in a posh voice) but the High Tea was actually to support the Jane McGrath Foundation which raises money for Breast Cancer Nurses so it was for a really good cause and we not only had a scrumptious afternoon tea, they also sent us and everyone else who attended home with a goody bag full of samples of different products. I love my Mum and so spending the afternoon with her was great and on the way out we also scored this free photo of us to remember the day together.

Lochie's First School Sports Day - Go Zeus!

Lochie had his first School Sports Day recently. His team is called Zeus and as you can see from the shirt he is wearing, they are the maroon coloured team. The first part of the day was a number of activities which they competed in for 5mins before moving onto the next activity. The second part of the day was the running races. Lochie had a great day and did his best at everything which is great.

Lochie getting ready to start his running race. He was happy that Daddy was able to come from work and watch his race.

Auskick Boy

Lochie wanted to do Auskick after school. Auskick for those who do not know is basically AFL (Australian Football) broken down into basic skills to teach kids how to play the game so they become interested in the game and I guess the organisers hope one day the kids will want to actually play AFL as a sport. Lochie played Auskick for 7 weeks for an hour after school on Fridays. Jason was great and was able to get time off work for a few of the weeks to come and do it with him - Parents helped the kids to learn how to kick, bounce the ball, pass the ball. The first photo is of Lochie defending the goals in the last game of the Auskick season at school. It was a parents versus kids game - thank goodness Jason turned up as the parents would have had no help if I had had to play - I am a spectator of sport not a player - no ball skills in my genes that's for sure.

Lochie going for the ball with his friend Mr H and Jason in the background.

Daddy and Lochie having fun during the game.

Lochie about to kick the ball in the game.

Mooloolaba Family Fun

Recently we were able to get away for a weekend of family fun. My sister Ros and her family were heading to Mooloolaba Caravan Park to road test their new caravan they had just bought and so we decided to invite ourselves along for the weekend and booked a unit to hold us as well as my Mum and Dad for the weekend as well. It was a great unit and although it was the other end of the beach it was only a 5min walk along the beachfront from where Ros and Greg were camping. Although it was June and obviously not the warmest weather, the kids still enjoyed getting into their togs and playing in the sand and the rock pools in front of the camping ground were just magical for them to play in. Ros's inlaws had also camped with them and her father-in-law Arthur helped the boys to make the most awesome sand castle that even had a tunnel under it and then proceeded to have a river flowing out from it that the kids could float leaves or small sticks down it - the boys thought this was so amazing and even both had a go at using the real shovel to dig the river tunnel longer. We were also supposed to have a get together with our friends Andrew & Bec and Phil & Kerri and all their kids during June and so since Ros and Greg would be down this weekend, we all decided to get together on the beach for afternoon tea on the Saturday afternoon - the kids had a great time playing in the sand and at the playground nearby.

And yet another Birthday passes by...

Well this time it's my turn. Yes, I turned 37 this year - it's still mid thirties isn't it. Sometimes it does feel older, but only sometimes...

Not many photos were taken to mark this remarkable day so here are only 2. Above is the cake my wonderful sister won for me from the local radio station 96.5 by entering me into their daily Birthday draw - they even rang me up and recorded me so I ended up on the radio.

I had a lovely day having morning tea with my lovely Mum and Zach and then we headed off to dinner with Mum, and my brother Steve to Lonestar as Jason was able to get home early which was great. The only problem was that we ate too much so by the time we got home no one wanted to eat any cake, so just for the boys benefit we put candles in the cake I won, sang Happy Birthday, and then pulled the candles out, and put the cake back in the fridge to eat the next day instead.