A lovely day

Yesterday was Mothers' Day. I had a lovely day with my family. Max and Jemima came in with presents and cards and special drawings Andrew had 'secretly' commissioned the children to do before bed. We had pancakes for breakfast and all went to watch Max at his swimming lessons. In the afternoon we drove up in the hills to my favourite little cafe where they make THE best hot chocolates in the world using hot milk and grated Lindt chocolate. Absolutely heavenly. Mum and Dad and Paul came over for dinner and I didn't have to clean up a single thing. That's my idea of a lovely Mothers' Day.

I took some photos at afternoon tea. Jemima experienced her first babycino and Max was allowed to have a hot chocolate just like Mummy.

Kids + Water = FUN

Andrew and I took Max and Jemima into Southbank today so that they could have a play in the fabulous new Aquativity Centre. It's strange to see this in the middle of the city, but it's such a wonderful addition to Brisbane. If you're ever up here, you HAVE to go. The kids had a ball and we had a chance to try out our new camera.

Photos from Rachel Richter

One of things we were looking forward to while we were here in Brisbane was our photo session with Rachel Richter. I know so many people who have had her take photos of their family, including Jan and they have all been wonderful. We were lucky enough to have 2 sessions with her because the wind and light wasn't ideal during our first session. We tried to get some shots of the 4 cousins together which was a challenge and in the end the 'outakes' are my favourite.

Almost time to go home

We've had a lovely time up here in Brisbane with our beloved family but it's almost time to go home. Andrew gets back from his trip overseas tomorrow morning and on sunday at 4am we begin the long drive home to Melbourne . It's been lovely to spend time with Jan, Col, Ella and Hudson, and it will be so sad to say goodbye. Thanks goodness for blogs, Skype, webcams and the internet. Hopefully we'll be up again before the end of the year and maybe they'll find an excuse to come home for a visit before too long.

The kids have had a ball together even thought at times they have driven each other absolutely mad! Jemima is besotted with Ella and Hudson and her Auntie 'Dan' and Uncle Col, although she is yet to say his name Max just enjoys being the eldest, the biggest and the loudest!

Anyway, enough waffle from me. Here are some pictures from the past week or so.

Photos by Max and Ella

I was taking some photos of the kids as they were playing outside this morning. Max and Ella decided that they wanted a turn to take some pictures and so began our photoshoot. They took turns photographing each other and Jemima and Hudson too. Some of the photos were quite good, so I decided to add them to our Blog.


So here they are, photos by Max and Ella...

Hello from sunny Brisbane!

I'll warn you now...this is a long entry!

Well, here we are in sunny Brisbane. At 4am on saturday April 14th we put the kids in the car and began the 2 day drive to Brisbane to see Jan, Col, Ella and Hudson. It was definitely worth the drive to see the looks on the kids' faces when we pulled up in the driveway. Ella was so excited to see Max that she climbed up into the car to hug him before he was even out of the carseat. Huddy and Jemima had a cute little cuddle too. It was priceless. Jan has some pictures on her blog.

The kids were fabulous on the trip up. I really think leaving super early is the key and it's much easier if the drivers get a good night's sleep the night before. We stopped the night in Dubbo on the saturday and then left at 4am again. By 4.15pm on sunday we were pulling up in the driveway and it gave the kids some playtime before dinner, bath and bed.

Last week was a very busy week. We tried to do lots of family things with Andrew before he had to fly to the US yesterday. He's not back until May 3rd, so it's just Max, Jemima and me here for now.

Monday we took the River Cat ferry up the Brisbane river to Southbank where the kids had a play, we all had a wander and some lunch and then caught the ferry home again. Tuesday we caught up with some friends and their kids at the park and after 4 hours of non-stop playground exploration, we headed home for afternoon sleeps.

On Wednesday we drove up to Eumundi to go to the market and it was fabulous. Max and Ella had their faces painted as a Tiger and Batman. Ella had never had her face painted before and I think she was absolutely thrilled with the end result. Max chose Batman, no suprises there at the moment. He was SO excited when he saw his face in the mirror.

While we were at Eumundi, Max discovered the Bungy Trampolines. We've seen these before in shopping centres but he has always been too little to have a turn. You can imagine how excited he was when he found out he was big enough this time! It took a little while for him to get the hang of having to push off with his feet when he landed, but he finally mastered. Boy was he tired when he got off!

On Thursday we went to MovieWorld. Max was excited about this visit before we even left Melbourne. Whenever we talked about coming on holiday Max had to add "...and I'm going to MovieWorld". We had a great day. There is so much to see and do and both the kids were able to go on the junior rides. Jemima went on lots with Daddy and Max was able to go by himself most of the time. He was very excited at the thought of seeing ScoobyDoo...until he came face to face with him and the rest of the Mystery Gang. Luckily for us the characters were fabulous and they got down to Max's level to make him feel comfortable. He gave Scooby a big cuddle and had his picture taken with everyone. The professional ones they take there are much better than my little snapshot, but you get the idea. He saw Batman and Robin too, and they were just as wonderful with the kids but I guess that's part of their job really. Just between you and me, Batman was very cute.

We had a photo session on friday afternoon with a local photographer, her name is Rachel Richter and she's fabulous! She took some family shots, some of the kids and some with Ella and Hudson as well. Jan and Col had a session with her a couple of weeks ago, that's the second time they've had Rachel photograph the kids. Rachel has some shots of all the kids here.

Our weekend was pretty busy, we had a huge get together with some wonderful girls and their families. I've known them since we were all pregnant with our first children and we met through an online forum. Over the years the relationships had blossomed from online dialogues to lunches, playtimes, girls nights and an awful lot of love and laughter. Each year we have a National meet up. It was in Sydney the first year, Melbourne last year and this year it's here, in Brisbane. We had a great time and it was lovely to see everyone, especially those who had travelled from far and wide.

Andrew left for America and the UK yesterday. We won't see him until next week when he gets back. Thankfully we get to stay here in the sunshine and have a break, not quite a holiday but definitely a break from the day to day stuff at home.

Happy Easter

Well the Easter Bunny paid our little house a visit this morning much to the delight of Max and Jemima. We can began a new family tradition for our Easter egg hunt and it worked brilliantly. Easter Bunny left a trail of wool for each of the kids to follow and along the trail he left lots of little eggs and a few surprises. At the end of the trail there was a special treat, this time it was chocolate rabbit, and big egg with smarties inside and a DVD to watch on our trip to Brisbane next weekend. That's a whole other blog entry!

Jemima did so well. I really thought she'd lose interest in the egg hunt after the first 2 minutes and have a tantrum over wanting to eat the eggs NOW. I was wrong. She followed the wool trail with me, through the loungerooms, out the front door, around the back and up onto the deck and picked up the eggs along the way and put them in her basket. She dropped the basket a couple of times and eggs rolled everywhere, but she patiently picked them all up again before continuing on her adventure.

Easter Bunny was very sneaky with Max and took him on quite a hunt. His piece of wool started in the loungeroom went up the hallway, out the front door, around the side of the house, down the steps, over the driveway, around the garden and up onto the deck. It took him about 20 minutes to finish his trail but he loved it. He was so excited.

It was a great way to allow the kids to have fun during the egg hunt without one of them taking over and finding more eggs than the other. I think the Easter Bunny might just do that again next year and he'll probably have to get sneakier and sneakier. One of the great things about Easter Sunday is that is ok to eat chocolate for breakfast Max and Jemima were allowed to choose one thing from their baskets to have now and save the rest for later. Max isn't silly, he chose the biggest egg he had in his basket but he did share it with everyone...even Jemima.

Mima was happy with a little egg and she devoured with absolute gusto. Gosh that girl loves chocolate, like her Mama. I don't know how someone can get SO filthy with one little egg, but Jemima can manage it.

Hope everybody had a Happy Easter. xx