The last week of January in pictures. Love Instagram!

I'm a bit late with this post, I'm afraid.  I was due to write it yesterday but forgot that we had to spend the day in the city having full medical checks for our permanent residency application for Australia!!  What a process that was!!  But I am happy to report that we are all fit and healthy with no hidden tropical diseases.  We're almost there now - SO exciting.

This week has welcomed back ROUTINE!!!  YEE HA!!  As much as I have really loved having the kids home for the holidays, I was starting to really crave routine again.  The summer school holiday really is a long one.

The last few days of our holidays were a bit of a wash out after what seemed like a years worth of rain decided to fall in a couple of days.  (My heart really does go out to all those poor families in Queensland that have been so badly affected by the rain, with some horrendous flooding).  We were lucky in Sydney to just have a few flash floods.  However living on the coast, the Ocean has given us some spectacular displays with some of the biggest waves I've EVER seen.  It was mesmerising just watching them.  Even the local surfers weren't brave enough to venture out.

A stunning display at Narrabeen Beach

Some rainy day play.  Miss H managed to stay in her PJ's the WHOLE day!  (Ahh remember those days.......)

On Wednesday morning Master J started Year 1!  They mixed up all the classes from last year so not only did he have a new teacher but a whole new class too.  He came out after his first day looking a little shell shocked, but apparently he'd had a very good day.  I had about 50 questions I wanted to ask about his day and had to be very restrained, keeping it to about 5!  Or maybe 10?  "Who was your new teacher?  Was she nice?  Who is in your class?  Who did you sit next to?  Did you recognise anyone from last year??........."  "MUM!!!  Will you just stop with all the questions - why do you HAVE to ask so many???????"  Typical boy - leaving me almost begging for information!!

First day of year 1.  He handled it like a pro

A quick swim after school.  I'm going to miss these days when the winter starts to creep in on us.

Sleeping beauty

Since Master J and Miss H have gone back to school and Kindy I've really enjoyed having my little bubs all to myself.  I'm really going to make a conscious effort to make the most it as I know it'll be gone in a blink!

Caught in a down pour after school!  Why does it always rain at EXACTLY 10 past 3?????

Poor Miss L was less than impressed at being caught in the rain.  By the time we got to the car she was actually sitting in a huge puddle of water!

Fed up of being indoors, Master J decided to brave the angry clouds take a chance of being drenched again to practice his skateboarding.

Miss H's first sleepover over.  Such good little cuties they were.

She is just so kissable!

Routine means my early morning fitness classes have resumed.  Those beautiful sunrises make all the blood, sweat and tears worthwhile!

Ouchie!!

Somebody decided to start crawling this week!  With her very first expedition just when I wasn't looking!!  Typical!!!  I popped her down on a grassy patch next to car while I opened the boot to get her pushchair out, when suddenly I heard the most awful scream!  You know the kind that starts with silence.........  I whizzed round to see that she had tried to crawl off the edge of the kerb and landed head first!  Poor bunny - I think we both had tears.  Fortunately it looked far worse than it actually was!

Did you notice that I have finally got around to getting my photos watermarked??  What do you think??    I have been using an app on my iphone called "PhotoMarkr", which lets me insert my own image as well as txt onto a watermark.  It's really good, although it would be a lot less time consuming if there was an application I could use directly in iphoto on my computer.  Any suggestions would be most welcome.

A busy and festive week in pictures. Love Instagram!

Not long until Christmas now and last week the festivities were in full swing!!  I even managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping!!

Miss H doing some Christmas craft.  She is definitely happiest when she's painting

We made some 'smartie chip holly cookies'.  Adding a little bit of festivities to the kids lunch boxes for the week.

Master J messing around with a pair of 3D glasses.  A couple of kids in his class this year have got glasses and he's desperate for a pair.  He keeps telling me his 'seeing' is a bit fuzzy.

The girls and I had a trip into Sydney on the bus this week and it was the most spectacular day.   

Sydney really is a beautiful city (a different kind of beautiful to London).  The weather was so lovely that we got the ferry home instead of the bus.  By the way - look at the size of that cruise ship parked in the harbour!  It was ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS!!!!!  It didn't look like it would fit under the bridge.

Charlie and Lola at the Opera House

We went to see Charlie and Lola's Extremely New Play at the Sydney Opera House.  It was a puppet show all about the seasons and how everything changes from spring to summer, autumn to winter.  It was so well done and absolutely captivating.  I think I enjoyed it as much as Miss H.  I loved seeing her little eyes absolutely glued to the stage and hearing her laugh out loud at all the funny bits.  If you get a chance I highly recommend going to see it.  You can get tickets here.

Master J's as a reindeer in the Kindergarten production of 'fly Rudolph fly'

This was the cutest production I have ever seen.  Look at those 4 cheeky little reindeer!! When I first asked Master J what part in was playing in the Christmas play a couple of months ago, he informed me very proudly that he was reindeer number 16!  Too cute!! (and Mr D and I did have a chuckle).  They had me in stitches the whole way through the play.  They were just SO excited to be up on stage having all the mums and dads watching their big moment (along with a lot of waving, whispering and giggling).  I have to take my hat off to the teachers for organising and producing it, as every one of them remembered their lines perfectly!

Having a chat with Santa at Miss's H's Kindy Christmas BBQ.  Miss H asked him for a new lipstick because "mummy threw my old one away Santa!!"  Ooops!!

And the sand munching has begun!!!

Miss H having a wonderful time at the beach whilst Master J was at Nippers training on Saturday afternoon.  It was a King Tide this weekend, and the tide was SO far out that the beach seemed enormous and it was perfect for the little ones to play in.

Crazy King Tide!

It was a King High Tide on Sunday morning and it caused a bit of chaos at the swim club!  The water was so high that it swamped the pool and went right up over the stairs where we usually sit and watch the races.  Master J and his friends did so well swimming with the huge sets of waves crashing over them.  He won his race too - so proud of him!!!

Relaxing by the lake on Sunday afternoon while mummy does her Candy Bows market stall.  

watching the ducks x

The crab and the slap band

One afternoon this week I decided to take the kids to the beach for an ice-cream after school.  It was the most spectacular day.  The sky was as blue as the ocean and for those of you that know me well will know how that makes my aura all smiley.   It would have been shameful to go straight home (and I couldn't face another afternoon on the school playground with a couple of whingy kids).

School pick-up can be pretty hit and miss depending on how tired Master J is or what kind of 'mood' he's in!  Some days he doesn't stop talking.  Enthusiastically telling me every single detail of what happened during the day (mostly involving events that happened on the playground rather than the classroom).  Other times he is like a bear with a sore head and the most I get is "Mum, will you just stop asking me SO many questions!  You ask me about my day EVERY day and I told you everything yesterday already!!!"  On days like these, the best thing to do is just head to the beach!

You can't beat ice-cream to get them all smiling (well, Miss L smiles at everything at the moment) Oh and take note of the red slap band on Master J's wrist.

After having ice-creams and a quick play in the park we went for a walk along the boardwalk to the tidal pool for a dip.  (I always have towels in the back of the car, just in case!  Miss H is known for stripping off at any given opportunity!)  

Master J had one of those slap wrist band thingies that he had got from the school canteen earlier in the day.   You know the ones? - where you slap them onto your wrist and the curl around quickly? (I loved them as a kid).  Anyway he was was so attached to this thing and was slapping it on the railings watching it wrap around all the way along the board walk.  Until suddenly - he missed!!!!  and the bangle fell down into the rockpools below.  Seriously you would have thought it was the end of the world.  He howled so loudly I could almost see his tonsils!

Missing slap bangle is somewhere down there......

Realising the seriousness of the incident (in his 6 year old world anyway), I offered to climb down and get it, but as I learned over to see exactly where it was, a rather large crab walked out from under a rock with the bright red slap band in it's pincer!!!  Seriously, I kid you not!!  I mean what are the chances???  I thought it was hilarious and burst out laughing thinking that he would see the humour in the situation and stop crying.  But Oh No!!  He only howled louder  -"Stop laughing at me", he managed to get out in between sobs!  Clearly I made a very delicate situation worse, and there was no way I was going to wrestle the crab to get the bangle back either (neither was he, I might add).

Sometimes it's so hard to put yourself in their worlds and take these kind of 'incidents' seriously.  Hopefully one day he will see the funny side!

Oh and all was solved by the next day when I gave him another $1 to buy a new bangle from the canteen.

I couldn't resist adding this photo.  Miss L loving the swings (before we met the crab and everything went pear-shaped)