Our Aussie Half-dozen

Our Fraser Island Camping Trip - Day 2

2012-02-01T23:02:00.000+11:00

(Monday 12th January 2011)

After a hot and humid night, during which my three youngest girls did their usual camping thing and had to go to the toilet about 6 times each, we awoke to a hotter and more humid morning. The bush flies were out in droves and we were constantly swatting them away. The campsite was infested with ant nests, so whenever someone managed to stun a bush fly it was placed on an ant nest, and the ants took care of it. Thankfully these ants were not the biting variety, although they didn't mind getting really up-close and personal. At different times we were dislodging ants from our shoes, shirts and even our pants!

The sun rises early during summer, so we were up early too, dressed, finished with breakfast, done with the chores and ready to go somewhere, all before 7am. The only problem was that it is recommended that no one drives on the beach for 2 hours either side of the high tide .... and the campsite - Fraser's @ Cathedral Beach - can only be accessed from the beach ..... and high tide was at 9am.

So, we were stuck at the campsite. After some discussion we decided to walk down to the beach so HB could do some fishing. We had the whole place to ourselves that morning. Looking north, in this photo, there wasn't anyone else in sight. The view south was equally deserted.

HB started fishing with high hopes of catching something for our lunch, while the Half-dozen either waded in the wave-wash or dug in the sand.

The bush flies had followed us down to the beach and we were kept busy swatting them, often getting 2 at a time! Rotten little vampires. After a while Mousie asked HB if she could have a go at fishing. It was becoming apparent that the fish were not going to bite this particular morning, (the only thing biting was the bush flies!), so HB let them all have a turn at holding the big beach-fishing rod.

I managed to get a nice photo of Dragon with the Coral Sea as a backdrop.

And here's a shot of Possum that same morning.

We headed back to the campsite for an early lunch and found these two large goannas searching for food. They were nearly 2 metres long.

They obviously knew that humans = garbage = scraps and we saw them patrolling the camping ground regularly, along with quite a few others. They even knew how to climb up into the garbage bins (which were set up high on pedestals to keep the dingoes out), get the lids off and knock the bins to the ground for easier access.

After a yummy early lunch of salad and BBQed sausages we put on our swimmers and sunscreen, piled into the 4WD and headed south along the beach to go swimming at Eli Creek. Along the way we stopped for a look at the coloured, sculpted sands of The Pinnacles.

Apparently, Fraser Island is the central meeting place of many ocean currents and as such has sand deposited on its shores from as far away as Sydney NSW. These many-coloured sands build up in drifts, become cemented together by rainwater, and then start to erode into these strange and beautiful sculptures. There are many such formations along the coast between this spot and Indian Head further north. Another name for them is The Cathedrals, due to their height and sculpted shapes, which is why this stretch of Seventy-Five Mile Beach is called Cathedral Beach.

It was very hot and the Half-dozen wanted to swim, so back into the 4WD we got, only to stop once again a couple minutes later ... this time at the famous wreck, the Maheno.

Originally a luxury sea-liner, built in 1904, the SS Maheno had been sold to a Japanese scrap metal company in 1935 and was being towed back to Japan by the Osaka. It had to be towed because, even though the engine still worked, the huge propellers had been removed and sold to fund the trip. This proved to be disastrous when the two ships encountered an unseasonal tropical cyclone. The Maheno broke free from the Osaka and, with no way of propelling itself, it eventually was grounded on Seventy-Five Mile Beach. It is now one of Fraser Island's most well-known landmarks.

HB and Possum, quite understandably, wanted to take lots of photos of the Maheno. The rest of the Half-dozen weren't quite so interested in the shipwreck, particularly after they discovered that climbing on it or exploring inside it was prohibited. Kitcat created a sand mermaid while she was waiting.Eventually the snap-happy members of the family were satisfied and we made the short trip the rest of the way to Eli Creek. Here is the family standing in the mouth of the creek.And here's Ducky doing one of her poses while we waited for HB to untie the boogie boards from the roof-racks. Possum went on a band tour with the school last June. They toured the Gympie area and on their 'free' day they went to Fraser Island. Possum had told us how beautiful Eli Creek was, but it is such a spectacular place it really is impossible to describe it and give it full justice with mere words.On a hot day, I can't think of a better place to relax and keep cool. The water is crystal clear, fresh and cold, and there is plenty of shade from the overhanging vegetation.We carried the boogie boards along the boardwalk, as we had been told that the current would gently carry us back toward the beach.This is the view from the boardwalk back to the beach, and the ocean beyond. You can see it was a perfect summer day.And this is the beautiful serenity of the upper part of Eli Creek. When it's packed with tourists it can be rather noisy but we were very lucky to have it to ourselves for a few half-hour stretches.Here comes Possum on her boogie board. The creek was not much deeper than waist level for the whole stretch that was accessible to visitors. There was one deeper spot, just near the boardwalk bridge, where you could swim into the current and get absolutely nowhere! Good exercise, though. The current was strong enough to take the boogie boards away, so we moored them to the boardwalk support posts.No one really wanted to leave Eli Creek, but as the afternoon advanced we had to turn our thoughts to getting back to the campsite. I imagined we would simply drive back up the beach but HB had other ideas. He decided we would take the Northern Forest Scenic Drive. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, the Northern Forest was very nice, and it was very scenic, but the 'drive' part wasn't quite so enjoyable ..... for me. HB reveled in taking the 4WD through the one-way track on this route. As can be seen by the width of the road and the high banks on either side, there was little room to pull over in the case of passing traffic.Thankfully, we only encountered one other car. We had to wait for it to navigate its way through a deep mud puddle before we could go past. I was glad to see it got through without any trouble, which meant that we would too. I tried to distract myself from thinking about the state of the track by looking at the beautiful forest. Once, Possum jumped out of the car so I could take her photo standing beside this huge tree with its moss covered bark.The canopy was very thick, which sheltered us from the heat of the late afternoon. I wouldn't like to be here during a bushfire, though!As we gradually neared the beach once again the dense tropical forests gave way to scrub and the track turned from dirt/sand to pure, fine, slippery, soft sand.
We reached the beach just as the sun was setting over the other side of the island, it's rosy rays reflecting back upon the huge clouds forming along the horizon. We actually came out of Northern Forest Scenic Drive only a few kilometres from Eli Creek. In the far distance of this photo (left) you can just make out the Maheno wreck. What could have been a 5 min drive along the beach had turned into a 45 min drive through the inland but, despite the terrors of 4WD-ing, it was worth it.We saw a large dingo on the beach as we drove the rest of the way back to the campsite. I think the younger girls considered that the best part of the whole day!

Everyone was quite tired after our day of sightseeing, swimming and driving. Just after we put the younger girls to bed a huge thunder and lightning storm swept through. HB went back down to the beach to try to get some lightning shots but just as he was setting up the camera and tripod it started to pour! It rained for a long time that night but we all stayed dry in the tent and slept well (even me! - the girls were so tired they only woke for a toilet trip 2 times that night).

Tomorrow we were going to Lake McKenzie.

Summer River Swimming

2012-01-28T21:06:00.000+11:00

After living in Canberra for the better part of a decade our family was always keen to go swimming at the beach whenever we had the chance. Once we moved to Brisbane we had ample opportunity for beach-going and took advantage of being so close to the coast.

Having moved here during the flood event of last year, river swimming was the last thing on our minds. Lately, though, when it's been hot and we couldn't be bothered with the hassles of finding parking near the beach, or didn't have time to drive all the way to Bribie Island where we could take the 4WD onto the sand, we've turned our thoughts to river swimming.

One such weekend not too long ago we ended up at this nice stretch of rocky riverside. There'd been a fair bit of rain a week or so earlier so, although the water looked murky, it was clean and fresh .... and cool! Just what we needed on that warm afternoon. The girls donned their goggles/snorkels and went straight in.

HB and I sat by the water and just enjoyed the breeze and the occasional splashes from the swimmers, until Mousie decided she wanted to use her birthday fishing rod (from her 7th birthday) and try to catch us some dinner.

HB showed her how to cast out and reel in, and then left her to her fishing. She settled down in a comfy place beside the river and waited for those fish to bite.

Unfortunately there were no bites at all! No doubt the swimmers in the area had scared away the fish. The only thing caught that afternoon was a tree branch on the opposite riverbank - when HB had been a bit too enthusiastic during his casting-out lesson!

The water visibility wasn't so good for goggles, so the girls just had fun riding their boogie boards for a while. This river had something you don't often find at the beach - an over-abundance of beautiful smooth stones! Ducky decided to use one to 'anchor' her boogie board, by strapping it to the wristband.

Then they all started using their boogie boards to ferry stones back and forth. This kept them amused for much longer than HB and I expected. In the photo below I caught the exact moment Kitcat's boogie board tipped over and she lost not only the rocks but also her snorkel/goggle set which had been fellow 'ferry' passengers. The girls then spent a bit more time trying to feel, with their feet, the lost goggles on the river bed. They were not successful and we had to leave without them. After the relentless torrential rain we've had here for the past week, I'd say that snorkel/goggle set are now being used by another child ..... probably in New Zealand!

Anyway, when we finally dragged the girls away from the river their verdict was unanimous - "We love swimming in the river ..... when can we come back?!?"

So we'll have to explore some more good river-swimming places over the next few months ...... once all this flash flooding has subsided, of course.

Random Artwork

2012-01-26T21:23:00.001+11:00

Dragon's art assignment from Term 4 / 2011. Copied freehand from the original, then finished in watercolours. He says it isn't very good, but I was impressed.

Teddy's self portrait, Term 1 / 2011.

An example of the intricately detailed abstract drawings Kitcat use to do quite frequently when she was 3 years old (this one from October 2009.)

She used to often "fold" (i.e. crush) these and stow them away in unexpected places, which is why I don't have many of them. She also use to use them to "wrap" presents for her toys, so they were usually destroyed.

Teddy drew a series of cat pictures one day in early 2011. She traced around a cookie cutter and then coloured/accessorised each one uniquely.This is Kitcat's "Evoo" (evil) drawing from August 2011, consisting of an 'evoo' cat and two 'evoo' people.

I have had this one in my diary for years - Teddy's quick pencil sketch of a rooster completed in 3 seconds flat in February 2009 (she was 4 at the time.)

Teddy often draws the most interesting and unexpected pictures. This is a picture of guitar-playing revelers at my ~~40th~~ 21st Birthday party.

And this is Teddy's drawing for Great-Grandma's birthday. (May 2011) It's a birthday sand castle with shell windows and balloons.

Another Teddy drawing (June 2011). A Queen stands with a baby princess in her arms while fireworks light up the background.

One of my favourite of Teddy's drawings is this one from August 2011. It's Mummy (me) and Daddy (HB) as fairies with our fairy castle. I like the vines growing up the tower, and 'my' cute little wings.This is a very recent creation by Kitcat. She drew the dog and the girl, coloured them in and cut them out, then gave the girl a pretty pony tail of pink wool. (17th January 2012.)
Another recent drawing by Kitcat was this beautiful ballerina, which she made for Ducky. (17th Jan 2012.) Finally, Kitcat's scene of a crab and fishies. She drew the crab and fish, cut them out and pasted them onto the beach backgound she drew. Sh had to join two pieces of paper to finish this piece of artwork, and I had to scan it in two parts as well which is why it's a bit messy along the joining line! (22nd Dec 2012)

Our Fraser Island Camping Trip - Day 1

2012-01-24T22:54:00.000+11:00

(Sunday 11th December 2011)

HB had been planning this trip for months .... probably, I suspect, from the moment he found out he was being posted to Brisbane. Once he found out definite dates for his Christmas leave, Operation Fraser Island was put into action.

The first part of a holiday inevitably involves some time spent in transit. Some of the Half-dozen slept .....

.... while some of the others encouraged their toys to be extremely annoying. They were so annoying that they were partly banished from the interior of the Landcruiser....

.... this happened while HB was letting some air out of the tyres at Inskip Point, Rainbow Beach. You can see the beautiful, lush bushland reflected in the window.

Just minutes afterwards we were on the beach at Inskip Point spit watching the vehicular ferry/barge, the Manta Ray, make it's way back from Fraser Island.

And very soon after that we were on the barge, taking in the beautiful sights of the Great Sandy Strait and eagerly awaiting our landing on Hook Point. Here's our Teddy looking very cute, in a toothless kind of way.

Mousie, Teddy and Kitcat saw fish in the water as they looked over the side of the barge.
The Landcruiser on the Manta Ray vehicular ferry.
The Half-dozen on the barge with Hook Point in the background.

Once we drove off the barge onto the beach at Hook Point we had to decide whether to take the inland road or try the beach route. As the tide was still fairly high I was worried about driving on the beach. HB decided to follow the other 4WDs who were heading off around the point, so we did. But we quickly faced the prospect of driving through sea water to get around large pieces of driftwood and dead trees which had washed up onto the shore.

We followed the 4WD in front of us around the first clump of driftwood, through the shallow waves, only to be confronted with a whole stretch of beach littered with more dead trees. Not wanting to take the risk of getting bogged in waterlogged sand, or finding ourselves in a situation of not being able to turn around further up the sandy shore, we decided to return to the barge landing and take the inland route.

It was very bumpy! I've never driven over such deep, rutted, corrugated gravel road before. I reminded HB that all the information we had read stipulated 30km on all inland roads so he slowed down a little bit. However, a little way down the road was a 50km sign so he revved it up and we bounced and ricocheted our way along the inland track from Hook Point nearly all the way to Eurong.

All that bumping and bouncing was bound to have some effect, and as soon as we got back out on to the beach some of the girls needed a toilet break. There aren't many public restrooms on the island so we walked up into the dunes, keeping an eye out for dingoes all the time. During that time HB took this photo of our 4WD & trailer .....

.... and just after that he discovered that the bumpy drive over the inland road had caused the trailer's leaf suspension system to partially collapse, on both sides. Nevertheless, we managed to make the long drive up Seventy-Five Mile Beach, all the way from Hook Point at the southern tip of the island past Eurong, Happy Valley, Poyungan Rocks, Yidney Rocks and crossing the mouth of Eli Creek. Then we travelled a little further past the Maheno shipwreck and the coloured sands of The Pinnacles before finally reaching Fraser's @ Cathedral Beach where we set up our camp site.

The first thing we saw as we drove up to the site was a dingo trying to get into a rubbish bin - and I had thought the camping area was fenced!! We were glad we'd talked to the Half-dozen about the dingo issues on the Island, and took the opportunity to reinforce it again.

Everyone was tired and hot (100% humidity and 33°C) by dinner time, but we were looking forward to exploring this beautiful part of Queensland over the coming days.

SeaWorld

2012-01-22T19:08:00.001+11:00

I mentioned earlier that we had intended to take Mousie to Sea World for her 8th birthday, but it rained so much we decided to postpone the trip. The weather cleared up nicely so we drove to the Gold Coast the following weekend.

It was a perfect day for this kind of outing - warm, overcast, and a moderate sea breeze to keep the temperature down a bit. There were lots of great exhibits and shows and the Half-dozen (and HB too) had lots of fun on the rides.

We saw at least three different kinds of penguins. They did not look very happy in their enclosure. One was trying to rip the scenic wallpaper from the wall, so he'd obviously figured out it wasn't an iceberg! It was great to be able to see real polar bears, from above and below the waterline! Apparently Sea World is the only place in Australia to have them.

We patted manta-rays (they are very slimy) and starfish (see montage below for a photo of Dragon patting a starfish - they feel hard, like a rock.) The shark tank was a mesmerizing place. Seeing the fish so close is always a treat.

While Ducky, Possum, Dragon and HB went on the 'big kid' rides I took Mousie, Teddy and Kitcat to the children's rides. They liked driving the big-rig trucks, riding the carousel and pulling themselves up on this pulley ride.Mousie was very keen to go on the monorail, so we all piled in for a complete circuit. It wasn't as exciting as she had been hoping, but it was a good way to see the whole park. Later in the day we watched some crazy guys on jet skis do some amazing jumps and tricks.

I was looking forward to the shows, and the sea-lions did not disappoint. The fish detectives set out to discover who was overfishing the bay. During their investigations on the wharf Clyde, the sea-lion detective, had a bit of an accident. The human detective exclaimed, "On no Clyde! You've been compacted in the Fish Compaction Contraption! And you've changed species too!" as a much smaller seal came back through the door.

At the end of the show, to everyone's amusement, a pelican chased away the bad guy.

I've always loved to see dolphins, and the dolphin show was one of Mousie's favourite parts of the day too.

At Castaway Bay, while Dragon, Possum and Ducky went back to experience the thrills of the big roller coasters again, the three youngest girls had lots of fun exploring the giant tree house/fort.

When we reunited, everyone got thoroughly soaked on the pirate ship water-canon ride. Just as well we'd brought a change of clothes to wear home!It was a great family day out, and we are looking forward to visiting Sea World again soon.

Mousie's Birth Story

2012-01-20T21:04:00.000+11:00

Mousie was an answer to prayer. After having Dragon in 1997, I felt like we should add another child to our family before the end of the millennium. HB disagreed and for a while it looked like we would be a typical family of mum dad, daughter and son.

When Dragon was about 3 years old (2000) I started babysitting a friend's baby boy two days per week while his regular babysitter underwent surgery, followed by a lengthy recovery period. The little boy I looked after was the cutest baby in the world (apart from my own, of course) and his cheeky little smile started to soften HB's heart.

Then, in October that same year, our dear little niece was born 6 weeks premature. She required corrective surgery during the first 48 hours of her life and was in the NICU for a while. I still remember the first time we took Possum and Dragon to visit their little cousin. They had to take turns going in to the NICU. Possum went in with HB and when they came back out I took Dragon in to meet his newest cousin. He stood on a chair beside her humidicrib, had a really long look at the tiny baby girl sleeping there, then turned to me and whispered, "Mummy, I think that is just a dolly!"

And she was as tiny, sweet and cute as a doll baby. When we went back out to the hall where HB and Possum were waiting HB had little tears in the corners of his eyes. After lots of cuddles with little niece E over the next few months HB said he didn't want to have one more baby - he wanted to have two more! My friend's cute baby boy and our dear little niece had given HB a big dose of cluckiness!

I was pleased about this as I didn't like the idea of an odd number of children so we got to work on making our #3.

Ducky was born after a particularly long and uncomfortable pregnancy. I was diagnosed with severe Post Natal Depression after she was born. By the time I had recovered, nearly a year later, I felt ready to put our plan into action and get baby #4 happening. But HB had changed his mind. I think it was the issue of my health that weighed most heavily on his mind, as well as the responsibilities of having another child. It seemed that he would not budge on this decision. Yet I felt like our family was not quite complete. I wanted one more baby.

After much thought I shared my little secret with four very close Christian friends. Imagine my surprise when each of them confided that they too wanted to have another baby but in each case there was some obstacle in the way. So we all started praying for each other regularly. After 7 months of praying together all four of us were pregnant.

Perhaps this was not such a miracle for the women in this group who simply had to convince their husband that another baby was a good idea. One of my friends, however, had been warned not to try to have another baby due to a medical problem. During the 7 months we prayed together her blood results steadily improved (after staying static for over 4 years) to the point where her doctors said she was able to try to conceive again, although they warned her it was unlikely to happen due to this problem she had had for so long. She fell pregnant within months and went on to have a healthy little girl.

But this supposed to be Mousie's birth story, so I'll return to topic.

I sometimes read about women who love being pregnant and who have truck loads of energy throughout the nine months ... women who don't have a day of sickness and have no trouble sleeping, and who don't know what the words 'back ache' mean. My friend (whose baby I looked after in 2000) was one of those. She worked up to the day she gave birth, and even finished up her last few clients while in the early stages of labour. She had boundless strength and patience, and looked absolutely stunning in a figure hugging dress even at 9 months!

I am most definitely NOT one of those women. I had all-day sickness and lethargy for the first 4 and a half months. Once my appetite returned the last remnants of my energy went on holiday (and never came back!!) I couldn't sleep longer than 2 hours at a time. I craved coke and chocolate constantly ..... and jelly beans. Pregnancy is just no fun. I couldn't wait for early February 2004 to arrive.

Christmas fell on a Thursday in 2003. I woke early on the Monday morning with an incredibly awful itch in my hands. I went to the basin and washed them in cold water but the itch wouldn't go away. Fearing some insect had crawled in the bed and bitten me, I smothered my hands with StopItch cream. But the itch wouldn't stop. I got an ice pack and wrapped my hands around it but the itch stayed. Strangely, once I got up and started doing my daily chores the itch subsided a bit. I couldn't see any bite marks on my hands. There was no rash. It just felt like it was itchy under the skin. I thought I might have had an allergic reaction to something but couldn't figure out what! As the day wore on the itch wore off ..... until that night! The same thing happened again, only this time it was my hands, feet and huge big belly that were itchy. I hardly slept all night and the next morning I called the doctor as soon as I could.

Of course, being so close to Christmas there was only one doctor on duty and I couldn't get an appointment until the next morning - Christmas Eve. By this time the itch was driving me insane. It was still subsiding during the day but kept me awake all night. The doctor was completely baffled - both by the mysterious itch and by my desperate pleas for help. He could see that I was very distressed but couldn't work out what to do for me. I was told to put calamine lotion wherever I felt itchy. I was itchy everywhere by this stage - even my fingernails and eyeballs itched - so I figured I would have to bathe in calamine lotion. HB had a better idea. He took us all to the pool. The cool water helped ease the itch a little, but I was dreading the thought of the night ahead. Then HB's mobile phone rang as we were getting ready to leave the pool. It was the doctor ( it was after-hours by this time) telling me he had stayed back at the surgery and done some research about my itch and said I should go straight to the hospital emergency ward. He wouldn't tell me what he thought was wrong, but said he would call ahead to make sure I didn't have to wait for hours.

Well that scared me a bit. We raced home from the pool and HB stayed with the children while I drove myself to hospital. They were waiting for me at emergency and I was taken straight to the maternity ward. Midwives hooked me up to all the monitors to check the baby while obstetricians asked me thousands of questions (many the same, over and over) about my itch. The whole time I was getting more and more upset. I wanted to know if there was something wrong. I wanted to know why they wouldn't tell me anything. I wanted some sleep. I wanted to prepare for Christmas.

Finally, after consulting for ages, the medical team came back to me and said they needed to take blood for some tests. Then they said I should stay in hospital overnight for observation. When I told them I had to get home to help Santa fill up Christmas stockings and wrap gifts they very reluctantly said I could, as long as I came back on Boxing Day. When I asked what the problem was, they said they still didn't know.

Due to the holiday period I found, when I went back to hospital the day after Christmas, that they had been unable to test the blood samples. But I finally was told that they suspected the pregnancy was affecting my liver which in turn was affecting my blood which in turn was causing me to itch. The junior doctor who saw me that day said it would take about a week to get the blood test results back from Sydney.

So our family, and my itch, all went away for our summer holiday to visit family and friends in the Newcastle region. On Sunday 11th January 2004 HB called our home phone to collect any messages. There were two from the hospital, asking me to make an urgent appointment with the senior obstetrician. On Monday morning I called the Canberra Hospital from my mum's home in Port Stephens. They made an appointment for the following day, so HB and I bundled 20 month old Ducky into the car, waved goodbye to Possum and Dragon who were staying behind for a bit more holiday, and drove back to Canberra.

When we saw the obstetrician he explained that I had Obstetric Cholestasis. I was told that a side affect of this condition was that my baby could be stillborn. They wanted to induce labour that week and before I knew it I was booked in for Friday 16th January 2004. I was given strict instructions to monitor the baby's movements and chart them on a graph. If I didn't feel the baby move for more than a certain length of time I was to try and wake it up. If I couldn't wake the baby was to rush to the hospital.

I couldn't sleep much due to the itch and was completely exhausted by that stage. Then, the night before I was to be induced, our smoke detector decided to play up. It beeped at odd intervals all through the night, causing me to check every corner of the house for a fire! And because it was a hard-wired detector we couldn't even take the batteries out to make it keep quiet!!

Poor HB, who is used to getting a decent night's sleep, was worn out by the time we had to go to the hospital the next morning. We took Ducky to the neighbour's house where she would play with her friend until Nano and Grandpap arrived with Possum and Dragon later in the day. Then we got in the car ..... only to find it had a flat battery! HB had to get out jumper cables and get the car started, and we were off to the maternity ward.

The midwife hooked me up to various monitors to keep check on the baby. A student doctor came and put a cannula in the back of my hand (that hurt!). Then the doctor came and broke my waters and started the drip. I was then told that the purpose of the drip was to get the baby out as quickly as possible. I couldn't move more than a metre away from the bed because of all the wires attached to my body. And once the picotin drip got working I had a very uncomfortable labour. It was just awful and I will always remember Mousie's arrival as being the worst birth experience of the whole six. Once the contractions were regular and strong I pleaded with the student doctor to turn the drip off. But she had strict orders from the head obstetrician to leave it on and keep increasing every so often.

It wasn't long before I needed the entonox (gas and air) and breathed it in like my life depended on it. But these contractions were so fierce that even with the entonox I couldn't breathe through to the end of each one. Soon I was sobbing my way through contractions, unable to even think about breathing and relaxing. I begged for an epidural. The midwife laughed. She said there wasn't any time for that - and took my gas mask away!

I thought I was going to die without the gas. Even though it hadn't seemed to help much earlier, once it was taken away realised that it had been taking the 'edge' off the contractions. It was just that, due to the ever increasing doses of picotin, the 'edge' was a lot sharper than in my previous labours.

After what felt like hours of pushing and crying (but was actually only 10 minutes) the student doctor announced that she could see a head with lots of dark hair. One push later she told me that my baby's head and right fist was out. No wonder it was so painful!! The baby had come through the birth canal with her arm up next to her ear!! Ouch!!

A moment later our Mousie was born. She was a huge baby, especially considering that she was about 3 weeks early. She weighed a whopping 4.2kg and was as fat as a butterball.

Here's a 'nice' photo of Mousie when she was just a few minutes old, all covered in gooey vernix. Being born early, she had much more than Possum, Dragon or Ducky. (The midwives had washed my first three babies within hours of birth, and I wondered why Mousie was left unwashed for the two days I stayed in hospital. Apparently new research had brought forth the information that the vernix should be kept on the baby as long as possible as it helps moisturise the baby's skin and also has antibacterial qualities.)

This is the first photo of our four children all together. The three eldest all look so pleased.

And this is Mousie after we took her home, gave her a bath and put her in the bassinette which her three older siblings had slept in when they were newborn babies.

Possum was so pleased and proud that we trusted her to pick up her little sister. (Ducky, in particular, and Dragon were only allowed to hold her while seated and supervised!)

Dragon, although he really wanted a little brother, was very much 'in love' with his gorgeous little sister. She was such a cute little fat butterball.

And this is one of my favourite photos, Ducky (not quite 2 years old) looks like she's holding the camera which took the photo. In reality she is trying to push away HB (who is operating the camera) because she wanted the baby all to herself.

I've had this birth story in my blogger drafts for ages, but I thought since it was Mousie's 8th birthday earlier this week it would be a good time to publish her birth story.

Mousie's 8th Birthday

2012-01-18T20:45:00.003+11:00

Mousie celebrated her 8th birthday this week. She waited impatiently, with her toy dog Barney, behind the biggest of the birthday gifts on the table while HB and Dragon got dressed for the morning's big event - present opening!

Actually, Mousie had already received a birthday gift. Just the previous Monday evening (when we were still visiting Grandma, Nano and Grandpap in Port Stephens) Mousie was given this bag which contained a pretty pair of swarovski crystal earrings, an outfit for her Baby Emily baby born doll, a cute little mouse knick-knack for her collection, and a card containing a lot of money!

This was Mousie's favorite birthday card, from Nanna and Grandad. What little girl would dislike being compared to an angel? Not Mousie! Mousie had lots of fun opening her gifts. She received lots of books because she is my little bookworm. Frequently, when I check on the girls as they are playing, I can't see Mousie. The first few times this happened I began to run around looking for her. Now, I just look in the corner of the rumpus room - or on her bed - and find her engrossed in a book or ~~two~~ ten.

Mousie was also given a big toy mouse, which matches the little mouse she found in her Christmas stocking. She loved her new outfit (which she is wearing in some of the photos)and the Littlest Pet Shop vehicle which has a special place for each of the animals. A new lunch set to take to school, designer PJs and a whole set of Fairy Flower chapter books from Nanna, and more money for distant relatives finished off her gift opening.

We had our usual party morning tea of chips and lollies and the girls all had fun playing inside together with Mousie's new toys, and their other new toys from Christmas, as it was raining very heavily outside.

We had planned to take Mousie to Sea World for her birthday but the weather was too disagreeable. We intend to make the trip another day before school resumes. Mousie didn't seem to mind too much, and her alternative birthday outing was lunch at Hungry Jacks. Since we rarely buy fast food this was quite a treat for the girls, especially Mousie who was given one of the plastic ~~pieces of junk~~ toys because it was her birthday. And the fun they had playing on the genie playground outside was incredible!! (They had it all to themselves, possibly because of the wet weather.) Maybe it was even better than Sea World?

Mousie asked for pancakes for dinner .... plain pancakes with maple syrup topping. Easy! And her birthday cake was also made to order (by me). She wanted an old english toffee ice-cream cake with caramel ice-magic topping. It was very yummy!

Here is a collage of photos from Mousie's birthday.

Happy 8th birthday to our beautiful girl .... we love you!

Bribie Island Photo Album

2012-01-01T22:38:00.000+11:00

A couple months ago HB bought a permit which allows us to drive onto the beach on Bribie Island. The first time we did this HB had the day off work and just he and I went to check it all out. We drove onto the beach at Woorim and headed north. In this photo you can just make out the city of Caloundra way in the background (on the mainland) and also the building which used to house The Northern Searchlight (left of photo, behind the Landcruiser).

Along this part of the beach are a couple gun placements and other old, ramshackle buildings which were once a part of Queensland's defence against the Japanese during WWII. The Northern Search Light shack is as far north as 4WDs are allowed to drive along the beach.

After we had a swim, without having to keep an eye on any children, we went back down the beach a little way and drove back through the inland road. This was very unpleasant as the road fluctuated between being deep, soft sand and bumpy, corrugated gravel and took a long time. I was very glad to be back on the bitumen at White Patch.

The following weekend we began a series of Saturday trips to Woorim Beach, Bribie Island. One day we parked in the shade of this beach she oak.

This was before I insisted Dragon have a haircut.

There were blue bottles lying along the beach at the high tide mark. We didn't want to risk a blue bottle sting, so we decided to have a quick dip in the freshwater lagoon which was only metres from the waves.

The water was a dark brown colour, stained as it filtered through the local vegetation on it's way to fill the lagoon. The younger girls were not worried by the colour, or the rather organic smell, and had a great time paddling around. Possum was much more wary. She doesn't like swimming where she can't see the bottom.

Turns out she was wise to be cautious because not long afterwards the pink-zinc lagoon monster came drifting along......

..... and attacked this unsuspecting ducky! (Lucky it was only a tickle attack, and in shallow water.)

HB wasn't happy with the flat water alternative and soon managed to coax the Half-dozen into the surf. I was still worried blue bottle stings, but they all seemed willing to take the risk.

Kitcat wanted someone to help her get past the breakers. Dragon tried to help by teaching her what to do, but in the end he became so frustrated with Kitcat's ineffectual efforts that he just picked her up - boogie board and all - and carried her over the waves!

Once she was 'out the back' of the breakers HB took over and helped her catch a good wave, which she rode all the way to the sand.

I'm pleased to report that no one was stung by a blue bottle that day - not even me. (And that's only because I stayed out of the water. With my track record I knew that any stinging creature in the ocean would seek me out. I must emit some kind of underwater signal which communicates 'sting me' to any passing jellyfish .... or something.)

As I mentioned, we made several Saturday trips to Bribie Island. One time I managed to snap this action shot of a wave crashing around Dragon. (He still hadn't had a haircut by that stage either.)

HB took a couple nice photos of birds of prey patrolling the beach. I'm pretty certain this one is a Sea Eagle ....

.... but I'm not sure of this one's name. It must be some kind of bird of prey.

HB also took the opportunity to shoot a few portraits. Here's Teddy playing on the sand.

Here's Mousie relaxing with her boogie board, sporting a cheeky grin. What are you up to, Mousie?

And I like this photo of my cute little Kitcat. Looks so sweet, doesn't she? She is sweet .... at times.

HB is very proud of all his little surfie chicks. They all love the beach and are very enthusiastic boogie-boarders.

Ducky, being so slim, often beings to feel cold well before any of the others. She usually just removes herself from the water and practises her ballet on the firm, wet sand.

And I often catch her by surprise! Her she is saying "Huh?" after I called out her name to snap a candid shot.

She also does a bit of gymnastics ....

Dragon doesn't mind riding the waves when they are big enough to carry him a good distance. He has recently professed a dislike for beach-going, but he usually enjoys himself once there. (Apparently he doesn't like having to deal with the sand.)

Ducky love boogie-boarding. Being so light means even the smallest waves can give her a good run.

Ducky giving the 'thumbs up' after a nice, long ride.

HB loves the surf. It works out quite good for him that Dragon doesn't really like the beach much anymore ..... HB gets to use Dragon's boogie board.

Kitcat is fearless in the surf. She has learned very quickly how to catch the little breakers, and goes back again and again and again.

Every so often she gets pumbled rather badly, so she then takes a few minutes break and has a look for pippis along the water line.Mousie also loves the waves. She is a natural at catching waves, and she also goes back again and again for more.Quite often, she catches the wave while the others are still waiting, trying to get on. Mousie just seems to know where to find the best spot.Here she is on another wave, dwindled greatly in size as it has nearly reached the water's edge.Possum enjoys going to the beach and likes boogie-boarding. She's using Ducky's board in this photo.

Possum also likes to pose for photos, such as this one where the water is splashing up everywhere.

As surely as the day follows the night, with our girls sand-castle building follows boogie-boarding. One day all four younger girls teamed up to make a huge sand city. This is just part of it.

Kitcat is showing off her part of the sand city in this shot.
And here's Teddy in the process of extending her section of city wall.

And, once again, it is inevitable that sand castle building will be closely followed by shell collecting. How else can a sandcastle (or sand city) be suitably decorated? Here's Teddy searching the high tide line for appropriate treasures of the sea.Teddy, Kitcat and Mousie pose for a photo with their sand city. Each is holding a live pippi in their hand, which they decided would be the lucky residents of their masterpiece.

Teddy decided to have one last swim before heading home. In the background is a container ship heading north from the port of Brisbane, and the low silhouette of Moreton Island on the horizon.

By the time we had packed up the beach was almost deserted .... just a couple other 4WD's in sight. There are often many other vehicles and the traffic along the waterfront can be quite busy!One final shot before we leave - Our Aussie Half-dozen (plus boogie boards) standing on Woorim Beach, Bribie Island.

(All photos from October - December 2011)

The Nutcracker

2011-12-29T16:19:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned in this post, Ducky and I went to see a production of "The Nutcracker" the week before Christmas.

Ducky was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet none other than the Sugar Plum Fairy herself.

She was also very happy to be able to purchase a Nutcracker ornament for the Christmas tree.

As the girls scrutinized the other ornaments on our tree they gradually discovered that we had all the major characters from the Nutcracker cast hanging on the tree, and we hadn't even realized it! Here's Ducky's ballerina ornament, who they decided was Clara.

Another of Ducky's ornaments was decided upon as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

They also looked carefully and found the Mouse King too.

But Teddy thought Mousie's mouse ornament was too cute to be the Mouse King, so she drew one of her own and hung it on the tree.

Kitcat thought Teddy's Mouse King wasn't nasty enough either, so created another one which she deemed mean and scary enough. Here it is placed carefully on a branch.

There followed a brief period of much Mouse King drawing, until I had to declare we had enough mean mice on our tree and, thankfully, one warm evening not long afterwards the ceiling fan managed to blow most of those terrifying paper mice away.

Our First Christmas in Brisbane

2011-12-26T02:22:00.001+11:00

Christmas Eve brought with it the expected high levels of excitement. Teddy and Kitcat sprinkled their Reindeer food on the front lawn in hopes of luring the Six White Boomers quickly.

After putting out bread and a bucket of water for the Boomers in the pergola, a mince pie and milk for Santa, and hanging the special Santa Key on the door, we set about finding a place to hang the Christmas stockings. The older children found their places quickly and Kitcat had to keep hunting for her spot. She soon found an unoccupied hanging place......

.....which everyone thought was pretty funny.This was the final placement of the Half-dozen's stockings.

The girls were so excited I didn't think sleep would come easily, but surprisingly they were all fast asleep within a half-hour. Santa arrived soon after that, and Santa's helper (aka Mum-me) was able to get to bed at a reasonable hour. I thought the early night would mean an early rising but surprisingly, again, we weren't awoken by our girls before 6.30am. (The girls next door, however, woke me up at 5am with their squeals of delight. Santa had left them a new trampoline, which their dogs ripped apart before the end of the day.) When everyone in our house woke up the Half-dozen set about unpacking their now-bulging Christmas stockings.

Everyone had fun discovering the contents of their stockings ..... even Dragon, despite him yawning in this photo.

Dear little dog-crazy Teddy found two puppies in her stocking. The little grey one is a Christmas ornament which yaps "Ho ho ho .... Merry Christmas" when squeezed.

Teddy here is carefully stashing the surprises from her stocking into her Santa sack for safe keeping.

There was a duck wearing a tutu and ballet shoes in the top of Ducky's stocking.

Santa had put a little pink kitten and a Reindeer ornament in Kitcat's stocking.

Mousie discovered the cutest little mouse toy, with a giraffe in a handbag, at the top of her stocking.

Possum found a cute little Panda in her stocking.

When stockings were empty it was time to open gifts from Santa.

A combined gift was this backyard tennis game.

Kitcat had asked for a toy kitten, and she received this very sweet, handmade, one-of-a-kind fabric cat.

Mousie's delighted whoop of surprise could have been heard throughout the neighbourhood when she unwrapped her very own Prince Tad.

All Teddy's wishes came true when she unwrapped a parcel of some of the sweetest little baby born doll clothes ever seen, like this Christmas Fairy outfit, for Baby Molly.

Ducky was ecstatic to find a Littlest Pet Shop set in her present from Santa.There was just enough time to search out the Santa tins each of the Half-dozen had hung on the tree (which contained jewellery and hair accessories for the girls and a mini torch for Dragon) before we had our traditional Christmas breakfast of fresh fruit salad and croissants. Then it was time to get ready for church. The girls still like dressing in their Christmas outfits.Here's my pretty little Mouse wearing her Christmas dress and her new cross pendant (from her Santa tin.)

After church (which was so packed that they had to bring out extra chairs for the aisles and the children had to sit on the floor!) we came back home and Possum wanted to hand out the gifts she had bought for us all. She had carefully shopped and thoughtfully chosen a present for each of her siblings, for HB and for me .....

..... and we were all delighted with her choices. Coffee for HB, clothes and lollies for Dragon, a bikini for Ducky, book for Mousie, jelly beans and a 3-pack of classical guitar CDs for me, and two cute little puppy toys for Teddy and Kitcat.

Teddy also received a toy border collie (which she named Shep) from me and HB, so here she is with her new family of puppies. The tiny brown dog, from Possum, moves its head when patted/stroked.

Here's Teddy cleaning up just some of the ripped wrapping paper.

Of the all her Christmas presents, this is what Possum loved most ...... I hope the Blues can manage to win the State of Origin again one day!

This is as close to a hug as Dragon would concede for his big sister.Possum's other favourite gift was this pretty blue dress.

HB took this photo of the Half-dozen smothering me with Christmas hugs, kisses and presents. I AM in there somewhere.

So I returned the favour and photographed the Half-dozen showering him with Christmas gifts .....

..... and Christmas kisses. Except Dragon. A thumbs-up was as far as he was going to go to show affection for his dad - at least for a photo he knew would be published on the blog.

HB liked his big tin of Darrell-Lea licorice. Mousie was hoping he'd open it right there and then and start sharing!

The rest of our Christmas Day was spent preparing a delicious BBQ lunch with salads and potato bake. I also made our favorite Christmas punch to drink. Possum and Kitcat wanted me to capture the moment of a Christmas cracker popping but I didn't quite get it. I did capture their lovely smiles, though.

During the lazy afternoon Possum and I made a special treat for Nano. We usually make her dark chocolate peanut clusters, but I couldn't find unsalted peanuts in any supermarket. Instead we made up our own version of White Christmas/Rocky Road. I was a bit skeptical as to how this would taste because the pistachios were salted, but WOW! it was so good.

Mum-me and Possum's White Christmas Rocky Road
1 Cup each of shelled pistachios, craisins (dried cranberries), mini green and pink marshmallows, rice bubbles and dessicated coconut.
Mix together well.
Melt a 375g packet of white choc melts in a double boiler and pour over the dry ingredients.
Mix well again, then spread out in a baking-paper lined lamington tin.
Place in fridge and when set hard cut into squares.

We finished our Christmas Day by having pavlova for dinner, because we were all too full from our yummy lunch to eat anything else!

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day too.

Christmas Activities

2011-12-24T17:13:00.006+11:00

At the end of the school year the girls brought home many, many, ~~too~~ many bits and pieces of craft. It would not be an exaggeration to say the house was flooded with Christmas crafts, plus all the other school work. One of these items was this large paper Christmas Tree made by Kitcat. She cut it out freehand and then decorated it with tinsel and ribbon. It is half her height.

Kitcat is always the most prolific artist amongst the Half-dozen. This is the lovely Nativity Scene she created from her own pencil drawing and stickers she received from her Sunday School teacher.

This is Kitcat's Santa drawing which she brought home from school.

And I love this version of the Nativity by Kitcat .... especially the emu family! (Very non-traditional.)

This is something more traditional ... making truffles for Christmas gifts. These looked very pretty in their Christmas bowl and wrapping. We made a couple of these for some very good friends.

And although Gingerbread houses are a very traditional part of Christmas, we've never actually made one before. We have done a Gingerbread Sleigh & Reindeer, and our traditional Christmas Eve Cookie Christmas Tree, but these were our first Gingerbread houses. We were very fortunate to be invited to a dear friend's home to do this fun Christmas activity. She provided the way-too-tasty gingerbread, we brought along some lollies and icing, and everyone had a great time putting these cute little houses together. Afterwards, the girls had a great time swimming in our friend's pool.

I like the funny snowman Teddy made for the yard of her house, and the holly decoration Possum put on her roof. We ended up having a whole Gingerbread Village. (Thank you Smilie Girl, Lego Lad and Box Boy.)

The day after the Gingerbread construction we went to another friend's house, and the girls were delighted when they found she had organized some Christmas cookie decorating. Dragon was delighted when our friend said she was happy to mind the younger girls (with Possum's help) while I took him shopping for his Christmas gifts. (This friend lives very close to a major shopping centre.) The girls were lucky to be able to have another swim with these friends in their pool too.

The next day, our lovely neighbours invited the four youngest girls and me too come over for an afternoon of Christmas craft. The little girl next door is a very prolific crafter, just like Kitcat. They all coloured in Christmas pictures, cut them out and then decorated them with stickers, glitter, ribbon, glitter, pom-poms, and even more glitter. There was such a glitter storm that it even ended up in my coffee cup! These are the beautiful pictures they created .....

.... Ducky made the Christmas Tree, Teddy did the presents, Mousie made the candy cane while Kitcat chose a Pegasus unicorn. A Pegasus unicorn ! Well, she does love them, even if they don't have anything to do with Christmas.

These same neighbours gave each of the girls a gift of a leadlight-making kit. We spent the next afternoon making them, and what a job it was! Teddy made the butterfly and she was the only one who did hers in one go. Ducky (dolphin) had to start again when she was half way through as she bumped it and all the little plastic beads (which melt and create the glass effect) went everywhere. At least she managed to do it herself. Mousie's (horse) was almost ready to cook when she asked me to help her with one little bit, and I bumped it! Possum and I started over and were nearly finished Mousie's horse again when it got bumped once more, which meant we had to start over yet again! The same happened with Kitcat's cat. I was never so happy when this particular craft activity was finally complete.

The Christmas pics we made at our neighbour's house weren't the only items over-endowed with glitter. We found that at our school here in Brisbane the students don't just exchange Christmas cards - the cards are expected to contain some kind of gift ..... usually a candy cane. We ended up with candy cane overload at our house. But there were a couple really lovely little gifts that came home with the girls, like this Santa key a friend gave to Teddy. And although the glitter-er was a bit heavy-handed it is still really pretty.Kitcat and Teddy were both given one of these - Reindeer Food! The message reads

"Make a wish and close your eyes tight, then sprinkle on your lawn at night.
As Santa reindeer fly and roam, this will guide them to your home."

Both gifts of reindeer food were slightly different, but both were once again well glittered. This is Teddy's Reindeer Food. The tag on Kitcat's read

"Sprinkle on the lawn at night.
The moon will make it sparkle bright.
Santa's reindeer fly and roam.
This will guide them to your home."

We are sure this will work for the Six White Boomers too. After all, what kind of magical, flying Christmas creature could resist a mixture of oats, coconut and glitter?

Last Sunday I took Ducky to see her first "Nutcracker" production. It was done by the Brisbane Youth Ballet Company and we managed to get front row seats! We really felt like we were part of the action. During the interval I bought Ducky a Nutcracker tree ornament as a souvenir, and after the show she was able to get a photo with the Sugar Plum Fairy (because the cast members came out to meet the audience) which was an even better souvenir! Ducky really enjoyed "The Nutcracker" and I am hoping we may be able to make this a new Christmas tradition.

Yesterday the rain set in and the girls became a bit cranky with each other, so I gave them each a large piece of paper and asked them to draw a Christmas picture. I was really pleased with their drawings ... Here's Teddy's Christmas tree. She carefully copied some of the decorations that are hanging on our tree before drawing me and her on either side of the tree.

Mousie spent ages doing this lovely picture of the Nativity scene. I particularly like the stripey clothes. I also like her spelling of "Baby Jeuses" and "Joepsh".

Kitcat's focus is all on Santa when it is this close to Christmas. She was very careful to draw all the reindeer, including Rudolph.

Ducky drew another Nativity Scene. I like her Wise Men - they have a bit of a Spanish look about them. (Maybe I should explain to her a bit more about the wise men from the East.) But the thing I like best about this drawing is the mobile hanging from the roof of the stable. This morning we set about to make our annual Cookie Christmas Tree, which was going really well until I didn't hear the last alarm to take the last sheet of cookies out of the oven and forgot all about them! They were very burnt when I discovered my mistake. Thankfully Possum came to the rescue and whipped up another batch of cookie dough. This also meant we had extra cookies, which is never a bad thing. The girls all had a turn cutting the cookies from the dough, and later decorating the tree. The extra cookies were very handy when the girls wanted to eat the Cookie Christmas Tree straight away instead of waiting until after dinner. They were able to eat a few 'spares' which saved the cookie tree for dessert.I hope all my family, IRL friends and blogging friends (I know some of you may come under more than one of those categories) have a very Merry Christmas!

School Christmas Parties

2011-12-21T20:57:00.003+11:00

The final days of the school year brought with them the usual flurry of Christmas activities. Mousie's class teacher organised the students to prepare a special party for the parents. She put them into groups of 5 and they worked together to make invitations and write a list of food which they thought their parents would like to eat. This meant that each table had a totally different selection of treats, and I was impressed that Mousie had asked her teacher to purchase Jelly Beans - my favourite!

The parents arrived and congregated outside the closed classroom door at the prescribed time. A couple minutes later the door opened and each student walked out, found their parents/family members, took them by the arm and escorted them inside to their designated seat. Mousie's guests were Possum (who finished Year 10 a few weeks before the rest of the Half-dozen) and me. After the teacher gave a short speech we divided into the small groups and listened to each student read a prepared talk telling the parents what they had enjoyed most about Year 2, and then they each shared their favourite piece of work from the whole year. Most read stories or showed artwork but Mousie proudly displayed her maths sheets on which she had managed to get 100%. She loves maths!
Once the official part of the party was over the students were allowed to lift the food coverings and offer around the plates to their parents. They showed remarkable restraint as they served the adults party food and drinks, before tucking in themselves. As mentioned before, each table had a completely different selection of treats but after a while they were allowed to move around to other tables and finish off the rest of the food.

The teacher shopped, and paid, for it all (Mousie said each group had a budget of $25 and had to research prices and figure out if they would be able to afford their chosen treats as well as make shopping lists), and she also prepared such things as chocolate cake. The students helped prepare other dishes such as fruit platters or fairy bread. I've never before known a teacher to go to so much trouble (and personal expense) like this. And I was impressed with how she made a whole unit of work out of the event, incorporating maths (figuring, budgeting), writing skills (invitations, speeches and lists), problem solving (organising, list making, researching), artwork (invitations), public speaking (speeches), hospitality (hosting and food preparation) and so much more!

Just before school ended we found out that this particular teacher will be teaching a 3/4 class next year, and Mousie will once again be her student. Everyone is very happy about that.

Kitcat's class had a class party too and they were also allowed to invite their parents. Each student nominated which kind of food they wanted to bring and the parents provided it. Kitcat's choice was chocolate cake, which ended up being baked by Possum and it was absolutely delicious (so I was told). Possum and I went to Kitcat's class party and Kitcat was rather pleased to have her big sister there. Kitcat's teacher had organised a gift for the parents .... .... it was a huge portfolio of work from throughout the year. We stayed long enough to help the teacher clean up, for which she was grateful. Kitcat was upset when the school year ended. Ms O will be teaching Prep next year and the Prep classes will be located at the far end of the school, so Kitcat will rarely see her. As with most children and their first school teacher, Kitcat loved her just as much (if not more) than mummy. (She certainly behaved much better for Ms O than she did for me!)

Mousie's class had their own Christmas party where they each nominated which food they would bring. Mousie took along reindeer cupcakes, an idea brought into our house by Possum from her Year 8 Food Tech class.

Parents were invited again, and I put in a brief appearance with Possum. We didn't stay long because Mousie seemed to think she had to sit with us, but we could see she wanted to join in with the dancing that was going on over at the other side of the room. I knew we made the right decision when we looked back through the window and saw her happily doing the conga with her friends.

Teddy and Ducky also had class parties where they nominated which food they would take along. It was Teddy who originally asked for the reindeer cupcakes, and Possum made some for her party too (it was rather handy having Possum home those last weeks) and she also helped Ducky make truffles for her class. Family members weren't invited to these parties but we found out later on that everyone had enjoyed themselves.

The girls helped me make mini Christmas puddings for their teachers, and once again Possum came to the rescue and decorated them beautifully with glace cherries, after I blobbed some white chocolate on their tops.

Once the chocolate had set I placed these on little round Christmas coasters (6 for $2 at the cheap shop) and the girls helped me wrap them in cellophane and finish with curling ribbon and little silver bells. They wanted to give a gift to every one of their teachers, and with some of them having up to 4 teachers each in their classes (assistants and special needs helpers, as well as team teaching pairs) it meant a lot of cooking, decorating and wrapping. But it was worth it when the teachers told the girls that they appreciated the home made gifts most of all.

I was surprised when I found out that the teachers here gave gifts to their students. Kitcat's teacher gave everyone in her class a soft toy koala. Kitcat loves it so much she took it camping with us last week. Teddy's teacher gave her the picture book 'Eight'. which is one of her favourite stories. Mousie's teacher's gift to her students was the special party they all organised and hosted, and Ducky's teacher gave her a visual diary plus a set of charcoal pencils.

Christmas Traditions -Tree and Work Party

2011-12-18T22:36:00.000+11:00

One of our family traditions is to put the Christmas Tree up on the first Saturday of December. We have less space in our new home here in Brisbane, and we gave away our old Christmas Tree before we left Canberra, so we needed a new tree. A smaller tree. We have no floor space for a tree so it had to fit on top of the chest, and it had to have fibre optic lights. (I always said that when we bought a new tree it had o have built-in lights as I really really hated putting the 3 strands of lights on the tree ..... and really really really hated taking them off again!)

So this is our new tree, complete with fibre optic lights.Only about a quarter of our decorations were able to fit on it. There was very little other places to decorate in this house, so we contented ourselves with hanging the wreath on the front door and setting up our Nativity beside the tree.

It doesn't look as spectacular as these huge Christmas Trees at Westfield Chermside, but we are happy.

Another tradition has become rather firmly fixed over the last years - attending HB's work Christmas party. Back in Canberra the military Christmas party was a huge affair complete with free food, rides and other activities. Here in Brisbane each unit organises their own Christmas get-together.

So the afternoon after we had set up our Christmas Tree we headed to a park to have a BBQ with HB's work unit. Teddy had fun playing with this leaf insect which she found near a tree.

The girls played on the playground equipment, and Dragon and Kitcat performed a tandem 'planking' stunt.

There was plenty of BBQed meat and delicious salads for lunch, after which some people played a leisurely game of cricket until Santa arrived! He had a gift for every child - even Dragon and Possum (the two eldest children at the party).

Dragon received some ear buds for his ipod while Possum was given a Beanie kid toy.

Each of the younger girls were pleased to unwrap a bubble wand, which they used to great effect right there in the park.

After Santa had given out the gifts we took a photo with him, and then the girls told him what they'd like him to bring them on Christmas morning.

Ducky asked for a "Littlest Pet Shop" shopping mall while Mousie's request was for a very particular toy frog called "Prince Tad". Teddy told Santa she wanted some more baby clothes, which seemed to make him rather confused until she went on to explain that she meant Baby Born doll clothes. Predictably, Santa wanted to know if Teddy's Christmas wish was for her two front teeth! And also predictably, Kitcat asked Santa for a soft toy kitten. As if she doesn't have enough sprawled over her bed already!

Dance Concert 2011

2011-12-14T19:04:00.001+11:00

We have just survived the annual dance concert. Well, I survived, while Ducky thrived! She loves to dance. I should be used to the hype and hustle by now, but every year it takes me by surprise.

This year's concert involved many more extra rehearsals than we had been used to back in Canberra. I'd like to say the end result was a much more 'finished' product, but it was pretty much the same standard. Ducky loved the weekend trips to the ballet studio so she could practise her steps with her fellow budding ballerinas. She loved every minute of her time backstage. But, of course, her most favourite part of all was performing in front of a live audience.

I couldn't help bursting with pride when she danced onto the stage, she looked so happy and graceful. I wanted to nudge the people sitting around me and whisper "That's my daughter - see, there? See the most beautiful one?" But of course I didn't, because no doubt in their eyes another little dancer was the best and most gorgeous.

So I contented myself with taking lost and lots of photos of Ducky in her costume. Isn't it simply stunning? And I didn't have to sew one single thing - no attaching straps, no fixing trims to hemlines, and best of all .... no sequins!! In my opinion, this was the prettiest costume in the whole concert, although it was a close thing as many of the others were just beautiful too.

The concert was lovely. Ducky's performance was called "A voice, a self, a soul" and it was delightful. And although I do enjoy watching Ducky dance, I am very glad it's over for another year.

Sharing Shells

2011-12-10T22:34:00.006+11:00

Shells : selecting ....... sorting ....... sharing ........ swapping ........ selling ??

Selecting shells on Sutton Beach. Sifting through sand, searching for shells. Mousie and Teddy took this very seriously. Ducky and Kitcat helped for a while .....

...... but Kitcat couldn't resist the fun on offer. Jumping waves is a more energetic way to spend your time at the beach!

Mousie sorted her shell stash before we'd even left the waterfront.

Once we arrived back home the serious shell sorting began. There were lines of shells, some of them were categorised according to size and some according to type.

Teddy's final stash filled a small bucket. She was forced to tearfully dispose of many broken pieces.

Mousie also sorted her shells, some according to type, but mostly just random lines and groups.

She had a very hard time selecting which shells she would keep.

Kitcat didn't really have too much trouble choosing her final shell selection. She enjoyed washing, re-washing, rinsing, re-rinsing and then sorting her collection. She lined them up, she arranged them according to size, according to type, and even according to colour. Then she re-arranged, re-washed, re-rinsed and re-arranged again!

Finally, she choose her favourite shells. (After taking a few breaks to apply eye-shadow and lipstick).

Once the girls finished cleaning and sorting their shells they began sharing them with each other .... or at least that's what I thought was happening. Many shells, rocks and pieces of coral exchanged hands as I watched from the kitchen window while preparing dinner.

Then I realised that maybe it wasn't pure sharing that was going on in the pergola, so I started listening a bit more closely. It seemed that the shells were not so much being shared as swapped.

Then I heard the girls discussing various coin denominations and I assumed they had assigned different shells a monetary value and were actually buying and selling each other's shells, using other shells as currency.

When I eventually went outside to intervene (in what sounded like a rapidly-becoming-heated disagreement) I discovered that the noise I had assumed was the clinking of shells, against each other and on the tile floor, was in fact the clinking of real coins.

Teddy and Mousie had raided their piggy banks and were haggling over the price of certain prize shells which were currently in the possession of the other.

Of course I couldn't resist snapping some photos and making a scrap page of my girls and their shell enterprise.

4WD Adventure

2011-12-07T19:44:00.002+11:00

A few weekends ago HB announced we were going on a 4WD drive. He had been looking through his trusty "Dirty Weekends" guide book (which was a gift from Smilie Girl & family when we first arrived in Brisbane) and had chosen a tour through the Glasshouse Mountains, ending at Coochin Creek where we were going to have a swim.

The track wasn't too rough to start with. It was rather rutted and eroded from last summer's excessive rain, but no different to what we'd been on before.

This bush track got us really close to some of the Glasshouse Mountains.
We stopped at the Glasshouse Mountains Lookout picnic area for lunch.While HB BBQed the steak and sausages I took a group shot of the Half-dozen.Then Kitcat wanted me to take portrait shots of just her on her own. She was enjoying being out in the bush.

Possum, however, listened to music on her ipod in the picnic shelter. (She didn't realise at the time, but she was sitting only a metre or so away from the biggest hunstman spider we have ever seen!)

Teddy then wanted me to take a photo of her with this very friendly and not-at-all-shy magpie.

Dragon, meanwhile, played games on his ipod in the picnic shelter.

Ducky helped HB with the BBQ while Mousie, Kitcat and Teddy went exploring along the bush track. They found all kinds of interesting insects which they studied with great enthusiasm.

After lunch we headed back to the bush tracks and continued our journey to Coochin Creek. Possum, in this photo, is trying to show how steep, rutted and eroded the track is as is leads us up the hill.

We followed the track for ages as it gradually became narrower, steeper and more difficult to manage. Just as we were about to crest a hill we found our way blocked by deliberately placed cement pylons. Even though the track down the other side of the hill looked reasonably good there was no way around the concrete, so we had to turn back.

We tried a few different side tracks, mostly at my insistence as I didn't want to go over that really bad hill again (photo where Possum is pointing up the track) but every diversion lead to another dead end. We had no choice but to go back the way we came. This time, I got out and filmed the car as it laboriously made it's way over the uneven surface. It doesn't look like much in this photo, but some of those tyre ruts were deeper than our axle height!

After surviving the rough tracks - and believe me, I have not adequately described the terror I endured during this drive - around the Glasshouse Mountains we began to move away from them towards the creek. I've never seen so many pineapple plantations as are around the base of these stunning mountains.

We finally made it to Coochin Creek, but were disappointed with the location. It wasn't a nice place to swim. The water was mucky and the bank was muddy and riddled with mangrove roots. So we headed to a place we always know will be nice. Here are the four youngest Half-dozen swimming and playing at Sutton Beach, Redcliffe.

Possum and Dragon decided not to swim, preferring instead to play games on their ipods.

The girls had a great time. When they'd had enough swimming they started collecting shells. (A whole other post in itself!)

As our day drew to a close Kitcat wrapped herself up in a beach towel and made a cute pose for me to photograph.

And that was the end of our 4WD drive adventures .... for now!

WINNERS

2011-12-02T19:30:00.000+11:00

We have some winners around the Half-dozen household!

(There are competition winners too .... scroll down to see if you have won a Coles Myer gift card from my recent Air Wick Aqua Mist promotion .... and check your email inbox if you are a winner!)

Firstly, Ducky sang in the Performance Choir at the recent school concert. Doesn't she look snazzy in her sparkly choir uniform?

I didn't take any photos of her when they were singing as I couldn't see her very well. But when all the performers came back onstage later on, to do their body percussion piece, I was able to snap this happy, smiley shot. The body percussion item was simply called "Rain" and the students used their hands and feet to create a sound like a rainstorm, right from the first whispers of the wind (rubbing their hands together) to the opening sprinkles (clicking their fingers) and on to the heavier rain (slapping their thighs). In the middle of the downpour there was some startling sharp foot stamping which, combined with the lights being flicked on and off, looked and sounded just like thunder and lightening.

At the end of the concert there was a presentation. Year 7 students were given certificates of participation, then two performers from the choir were given a trophy. It was no surprise when the senior choir soloist was awarded the trophy for being the best performer - it was well deserved as she is very talented and confident. But it was a lovely surprise when Ducky was called up to take the encouragement award trophy. As one of the youngest members of this choir it was an unexpected honour. Go Ducky!!

Possum was presented with an Academic Achievement Medallion at the high school's Speech Night (we used to call it presentation night) back in mid-October (we are used to having it in late Nov/early Dec, after the examination period) which was for her overall high standard of achievement. The Wind Ensemble also performed during the evening and it was good to hear her play her flute in such an impressive band.

A little later, at the end of October, the high school had their Sports Presentation evening. This, we were to find out, was an elaborate dinner affair held at a sports club and in order to attend you had to purchase tickets. Seeing as Dragon was also getting an award it meant we would had have to buy at least 3 tickets @ $25 each. I've never had to pay to see my children receive an award before and I was a bit miffed. HB made the decision that no one would attend the sports presentation, which made Possum a little bit sad because she did want to go. They were handed their medals and certificates the following week. Here's Possum with her Bronze medal and certificate for Cross Country.

And here is Dragon with his Bronze medal for Cross Country, as well as his Merit Award for academic achievement. The merit awards are, apparently, a step below the academic achievement awards and as such are not presented on Speech Night. Dragon received his award during a special school assembly, held during the normal school day, so I didn't get to see it :(

Possum then had Music Presentation Evening. This was also a dinner affair but since it was held in the school hall it was considerably cheaper than the Sports presentation evening. And seeing as Possum was required to attend because she had to perform with the band, we happily paid the $10 for her meal. It was on a Friday night in early November, and since we have Athletics on Friday nights I took the other five children to the sporting fields while HB took Possum to the Music Presentation. Here she is in her band uniform, holding her flute and her music participation award.

The award days were not over yet. Today the primary school held their "Best of the Best Assembly" and I was very proud to sit there and watch my little Kitcat receive her very first Academic achievement award. I thought it as cute how they had a photo of each child projected onto the wall behind the stage as they came up to be presented with their award. Seeing as she is in a Prep/1 composite class, Kitcat's achievement is even more impressive, although not totally unexpected because the teacher has been telling me all year how Kitcat does her Prep work very quickly, then asks to do the Year 1 work and often finishes that even before most of the other Year 1 students. Kitcat also received a $15 book voucher with her certificate, and she is looking forward to going book shopping with me.

Now, on to the winners from the Air Wick Aqua Mist competition. I chose M.W. to receive the first prize of $200 because her comment made me giggle every time I read it ....

I could use some Aqua Mist to freshen up Nanna's room before the Xmas visitors arrive. She smells like an old lady, you know - lavender and incontinence. But very light on the lavender, if you get my drift.

I just couldn't choose between the rest of the comments so I did a draw .....

2nd Prize $100 - Saint Bernard
3rd Prize $50 - Smilie Girl
Check your email inbox and as soon as I get your postal address I will send you your Coles Myer gift card. Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who entered. A big thanks also goes to "Soup" for sending out the samples from Air Wick and providing these great prizes.

September Sunsets

2011-11-28T13:43:00.010+11:00

What happened? How did it get to be nearly December already? I am so behind on my blog posts and I have heaps of things to record.

These are some beautiful sunset photos I managed to capture on our outing to North Pine Dam back in September. There was a control-burn fire somewhere in the hills and the smoky sunset colours changed in depth and density almost every minute as it progressed.

Here's Possum being my model while the sun begins to sink between the trees and behind the hills.

This was taken a few minutes earlier .....

.... and I snapped this shot a few minutes earlier again.

Here's a collage of some more of the sunset photos.

FB Posts I Want to Record

2011-11-23T22:21:00.005+11:00

Amazing how many things you can find to do when the one thing you should be doing isn't really what you want to do.
(17-2-11)

I'm finding it increasingly frustrating that the children in this family who CAN do homework independently are not getting any, yet those who need constant help and supervision with homework are getting bucket loads of it. Do all the primary school teachers hate me?
(25-2-11)
This continued throughout the year. I thought one of the purposes of primary school homework was to get the students used to the idea of doing regular study after school hours when they got to high school? Apparently not.

Morning coffee with one friend and lunch with another - having all six children at school certainly has it's benefits!
(9-3-11)
And although I haven't had the pleasure of two outings in one day since then, I have had more coffee breaks and lunches with friends this year than the whole previous 16 years together.

My 14 year old son walked out of the bathroom and I almost sent him back to wash his face again. There was/is a dark smudge along his upper lip.....
(31-3-11)
It's a much darker smudge now ....

Ducky and Dragon are having an armpit farting competition. Dragon is winning.
(24-4-11)

It's a beautiful day in Brisbane .... someone said the word 'winter' but I don't believe them.
(16-7-11)

My 5 year old has most certainly mastered the Art of Pestering.
(22-6-11)
And she has mastered it even further in the ensuing months.

A tall, rather good looking young man just came to the door and asked Possum to go to Westfield with him .....whatdoIdo!?! WhatdoIdo!!?!? WHATDOIDO???
(29-6-11)
I let her go, and sent her text messages every 2 minutes and called her every 5 minutes ....

Anyone know how to kindly and humanely get rid of strays? We've had one hanging around our house for weeks - of the small human 8-year-old male variety.
(8-7-11)
He lives just down the street and he still hangs around a fair bit, but not every single day (sometimes he'd come back multiple times per day) due to some gentle but consistent discouragement on our side. Apparently Mousie is the attraction in this case.

She's only been 16 for a week and already the 'teenage attitude' levels have more than doubled. I may not survive until her 17th birthday.
(10-7-11)
Thankfully, 'teenage attitude' has been fluctuating a lot lately and most often it's in the lower register.

Dragon (14) had to clean the toilet today for the first time ever. He made sure his rubber gloves were on, and then asked "Do I need a face mask too?" Followed by, "Should I put shoes on?" He sure was worried about the germs.
(21-7-11)
He only did this job the required amount of times in order to earn money for some scooter-pimping equipment.

My kids have been playing Mario Bros on the Wii for at least 2 years (not continuously of course), but I still can't get used to hearing them call out "Get in your bubble!" or "Quick, someone pop me!"
(25-7-11)

I thought showing my 7 year old which herbs were which in the garden would be educational. Should have paid more attention when she asked 'can you eat it raw?' for each plant .... now my garlic chives are just little stumpy clusters.
(28-7-11)

My teenage daughter thinks I should "get a job" now that all my children are at school. I'm tempted to do it so then I can make her do all the housework because I won't be home during the day. Sounds good to me.
(5-8-11)

I like this version of the big bang theory: "The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus: In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded." (p7 "Lords and Ladies" by Terry Pratchett.)
(9-8-11)

We've whiled away a very wet afternoon by going for a walk in the rain, and now the girls are playing with playdough - a strange game where a rude and selfish princess is terrorizing the local bakery.
(7-8-11)

And the score currently stands at - Housework:0 / Procrastination:5
(29-8-11)
It's a running theme around here.

Mousie (7) just came up to me and said, "Mum, you know what? I can still remember when I was a kid."
(30-8-11)
!!??!!??!!??!!??

Kitcat hurt her leg and started crying "I need some ice ..... but I don't need the big ice pack ... I just need two icebergs!"
(3-9-11)

Um ... that screaming that you probably all heard around 3 hours ago (yes, even you in the northern hemisphere) .. yeah, well, that was me on the Superman ride at Movieworld. Seriously, awesomely scary.
(24-9-11)

Made a mistake tonight. We were looking through some old photos and the girls saw pics of all those soft toys that *mysteriously* went missing when we moved. They haven't given them a second thought for months, and never played with them when they had them, but now they are crying themselves to sleep over them.
(27-9-11)

We recently saw a friend for the first time in a few months. She's had her hair coloured in the meantime. Mousie (7) said "Mrs W has spray-painted her hair!"
(12-11-11)

Doesn't take girls long to work out the magic of a credit card. HB said they could buy something from the school book-fair with their own money (which is in the bank.) Since I don't have cash I checked if they took credit card. Kitcat piped up with "If you're using your credit card, can we buy TWO books?" and then a minute later, "So with your credit card we can buy a really expensive book." And while Ducky was moaning about the fact that the book she wanted was over $30 Kitcat piped up again with "It doesn't MATTER! Mum's going to use the credit card!!"
(16-11-11)
I did finally manage to make her understand that "credit card" does not equal "free".

It's so hot and humid here today! I opened the deep freeze to get out some meat for dinner, and I just wanted to crawl in and close the lid.
(23-11-11)
It's still hot and humid here, but I've refrained from turning myself into an ice-block.

Aqua Mist Competition

2011-11-16T13:40:00.007+11:00

****COMPETITION CLOSED****

This is rather belated ..... remember back in this post I raved about the new Air Wick Aqua Mist air fresheners? I wrote that they were great for freshening up my teenage son's bedroom. They are also great for giving every room in your home a subtle yet uplifting freshness.

While waiting for the prize gift cards to arrive I handed out samples of the new Air Wick Aqua Mist to some friends so they could try it in their home. This is some of the feedback I have received:

"I used it on the sleeping bags after our last overnight trip. They smelled wonderful when we pulled them out the following weekend."

"So fresh, and the bottle lasts forever!"

"I like that it contains only natural stuff."

"It was great to use in the car. Particularly after chauffeuring some sweaty basketball team members home!"

"I just love the light fragrance."

"Pippy (large hairy dog) dislikes me using other air fresheners around her special pillow and mat, but she didn't seem to mind the Aqua Mist."

"I spray it on my son's running shoes when he's not looking. So far he hasn't noticed, but I have!! I've noticed they don't smell as bad anymore."

"This works well around the kitty litter tray."

"Removed the odour of damp dog from the back of my car for several days."

Now that the prizes have arrived I have three Coles Myer gift cards to giveaway to three lucky winners of the competition.
1st Prize - $200
2nd Prize - $100
3rd Prize - $50

It was very exciting holding these Coles Myer gift cards in my hand, especially this close to Christmas.

Christmas!! Think about it .... how many of you are having guests around between now and New Year's Day? Could you use some light, delicate, fresh Aqua Mist to brighten the atmosphere in your home?

I know I'll be using it to get rid of the fishy smell left behind in my kitchen after HB, Mousie, Teddy and Kitcat have their Christmas prawn feast!

****COMPETITION CLOSED****
To enter the competition please follow these steps:-

1) Leave a comment here at my blog telling me how you would use Aqua Mist to brightened up your home during the coming festive season.

2) Please be aware that you must leave your email address (if it's not linked to your blogger profile) and be prepared to tell me your home address if you win a prize. Your email and home address will be kept confidential and will not be shared with any 3rd parties.

3) Competition open to Aussie residents only.

I will leave the competition open until the end of November, so if you win you will receive your gift card just in time to do some last minute Christmas shopping.

So, please share your ideas about how you would use the new Air Wick Aqua Mist air freshener in your home during the festive season.

{I did not receive payment for this review. I did receive free products for review purposes.}

****COMPETITION CLOSED****

Swans on the Lake

2011-11-10T21:07:00.010+11:00

When we first met the cygnets they looked like cute little fluffy toys.

They didn't resemble their elegant parents very much at all.

They stayed by mum's side while dad protected his family.

They quickly learned where to find food ......

...... heads down ......

..... and bottoms up!

Fast forward a few weeks and the cygnets were starting to look more grown up.

It was their ugly duckling stage.
They had a certain scruffy, teenager-ish look about them.

That's not to say, of course, that all teenagers are scruffy.
There's a couple of rather good-looking ones in this photo.

The parent swans were much more relaxed and were pleased to take bread from Teddy and Mousie, and let their offspring fend for themselves, although they were still vigilant.

They were trusting enough to let us venture close.
This one looks like Mousie's pet.

Jump ahead another month and the cygnets have lost all their baby fluff.

The parent swans were interested in our bread and were not impressed, or scared, by Dragon's Mousie-throwing antics.

The cygnets feather's aren't as dark as their parent's yet but they certainly look like 'real' swans now.

Last, one of my favourite photos.
I like how the swan's head is sticking up there beside Kitcat as if to say, "Where's that bread, now?"

My digi-scrap layout.

Teddy Two-Wheels

2011-11-03T19:40:00.006+11:00

Teddy has a new nickname ... Teddy Two-Wheels!

Teddy was almost ready for daddy to take the training wheels off her bike way back in April, before she got sick. She lost her confidence, and didn't have enough energy, so we waited until she plucked up the courage to try again.

So in late September HB removed the training wheels from Teddy's bike, and off she went without so much as a wobble! She rode up and down the street for over an hour.Less than a week later Teddy felt bold enough to 'go bush' a few times, and also to ride over the smaller bumps at the BMX track .......... and just a few days after that she even dared to go down some of the really big BMX jumps.
Teddy's new favourite passtime is riding her bike - and she is now a certified two-wheeler rider!

Despicable What?!

2011-10-28T20:58:00.000+11:00

As often happens in our house, a random question was dropped in my lap during the morning school rush.

"Mum, what does despicable mean?" asked Ducky.

I dislike these kinds of questions. I know what many words mean, but when I am concentrating on something else I can't always find other words to explain the meaning.

"Um .... well .... " I started as I was trying to remember which one of the girls it was who had asked for peanut butter and which had wanted honey and which had wanted both on their toast, while also jotting a few items on the grocery list, while also finding the Coles sports vouchers to give to Kitcat, while also checking the time, ".... errr .... it means contemptible."

"What does that mean?"

"Ummm ... " I said while trying to think of a simpler way to explain it at the same time as I was rinsing out coffee cups and calculating the odds of a revolt if I packed a red apple in Mousie's school lunch again when she had been asking for a green one all week, " .... it sort of means like 'vile' and 'disgusting' and 'horrible' all rolled in to one."

"I see," replied Ducky, in that voice which means they really don't see.

Then Kitcat piped up with, "I know - it means like oysters!"

"Oh! I see!" exclaimed Ducky. And it seemed like she really did understand the concept now.

I Need Fresh Air! {Product Review}

2011-10-24T20:37:00.001+11:00

Mums of teenage boys, please impart your wisdom.

My 14 year old son has his own room. He spends a lot of time in there, with the door shut listening to music. Whenever I open his bedroom door the smell of 'teenage boy' invades my nostrils. I am always telling him to open the window and take his dirty socks to the laundry.

When he has friends over the problem is amplified.
Imagine they have all propelled themselves to our house (via bike or foot and, being teenage boys, they haven't exactly done it sedately ... they've probably raced each other) and are all perspiring profusely.
Imagine they've all taken off their shoes.
Imagine that most of them forgot to apply deodorant that day.
Imagine that they are wearing the same t-shirt and shorts they wore for the last two days in a row, and they forgot deodorant those days too.
Imagine 5 or 6 teenage boys all sitting in the confined space of a small bedroom, with the door shut.

Now imagine, as I open the door to that room, the stench that overpowers me.

If your nasal passage just shut down in defence, merely at the thought, I am not surprised.

I AM surprised, though, that Dragon can't understand what I'm making such a fuss about. He can't even detect that 'teenage boy' smell.

I've come to realize that opening the window and removing the dirty clothes isn't enough to freshen Dragon's room. I have tried several different air fresheners to combat the problem, the most recent being Air Wick Fresh Waters Aqua Mist.

And it works!!

This water-based air freshener can be sprayed onto fabrics. I think that was the winning point! After spraying it on the desk chair, curtains, carpet, bed valance - and even the joggers and the fabric hanging shelves in the wardrobe - the room smelled much better. And unlike the other air fresheners I had previously tried, Air Wick Aqua Mist kept the room smelling fresh for at least a couple days. It has a trigger pump action so it delivers a light, watery mist without any of that awful, choking feeling of a chemical gas-type propellant.

And finally, most importantly, the Fresh Waters Aqua Mist does not have a floral fragrance! Dragon hates to have his room smell like roses or lavender, or anything really, (except, perhaps, teenage boy?) so another plus with the Aqua Mist is that the fragrance is not overpowering at all (except, perhaps, for the first application when I went a bit overboard?)

I, however, love the smell of lavender and I'm glad Air Wick Aqua Mist also comes in a Lavender/Mountain Breeze and a Magnolia/Cherry Blossom fragrance. The 345ml bottle is quite large and, as you only need to spray around 4 pumps per room, it should last quite a while. (I think the one designated for Dragon's room will be used up a bit more quickly, though!)

Stay tuned for a little competition early next week where you can win some very useful prizes.

Oh, and mums of teenage boys - please tell me what you do to keep your son's room smelling ~~fresh~~ ~~pleasant~~ habitable.

Ducky's Special Holiday

2011-10-20T19:47:00.004+11:00

During the recent school holidays Ducky had a very special treat. She flew from Brisbane to Newcastle to spend a week with Nano and Grandpap. She was so excited about her very first plane trip, but I wasn't! Anxious would better describe my feelings about her flying solo. (I'm just glad this incident didn't happen until after Ducky returned to us safely.) Thankfully she was looked after very well through the Qantas 'Unaccompanied Minor' program and enjoyed her first flight very much.Once Ducky arrived in Newcastle she was taken out to lunch by Nano and Grandpap before going back to their house to settle in. She visited Grandma and Aunty J, and went swimming in the bay. The following day Ducky was in for a huge surprise. Nano and Grandpap know how much she loves horses, so they took her to a local horse-riding place and she had a horse trail-ride through the paddocks and bush. Ducky loved "her" horse, Pedro. She said she was able to steer her mount with the reins without any problems, even though Pedro liked to be a little different and kept getting out of line with the other horses.The next day, after church, Nano, Grandpap and Ducky got on a train and traveled to Sydney. She'd been on little tractor-trains at the Show, fair-ground train rides at school fetes and on a tram in Melbourne, but this was Ducky's first real train trip. And her verdict? "Well," she said, "it was a little bit boring on the way to Sydney because it was raining and I couldn't really see much scenery out of the window. And on the way back to Nano's house I fell asleep. Oh .... and the toilets are disgusting!!!"

They stayed in a hotel at The Rocks, which is the site of Australia's first white settlement and thus the oldest part of 'civilization' in this country. This wonderfully central location gave them the perfect launching pad for all of Sydney's most famous attractions - the harbour, the Opera House, Circular Quay, the city skyline, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Luna Park etc... Much of the rest of The Rocks was demolished to contain the bubonic plague and more was destroyed in the 1920s in order to make way for the Harbour Bridge construction. Cadman's Cottage (top left photo in set above) was built from Sydney sandstone in 1816 and it is the oldest building in Sydney. Ducky climbed up inside one of the sandstone bridge pylons where she learned about the history and the construction of the Harbour Bridge and watch groups of people doing the bridge climb tour. It was another spot, too, for taking in the views of beautiful Sydney harbour.

Ducky's transport adventures continued as she boarded a ferry, for the very first time, and traveled across the harbour to Taronga Zoo. Here she had a great time seeing all the different animals on display. She said it was better than Western Plains Zoo because the animals were all so close to the public instead of far off in the fields, and she didn't have to walk as much either. This is despite it being divided into eight zoogeographic regions [and] home to over 2,600 animals on 21 hectares (52 acres), making it one of the largest [zoos] of its kind. I called Ducky the evening after she went to the zoo and she told me, in a giggly voice, that she'd had a ride on a giraffe and an elephant. When we saw the photos Grandpap took we realised that she wasn't exactly telling stories. I also realised I had taken a photo of Ducky with an identical statue back in 2008 at Western Plains Zoo. She's certainly grown up a lot since then!! "I liked snow leopard best because he put on a show for us. I also enjoyed seeing the penguins, and the seal lion show, and the meercats, and the mountain goats, and the zebras, and the giraffes, and the mummy gorilla hugging the baby gorilla, and ... and ... and .." she said when I asked her to tell me her favourite part of the zoo. She'd obviously had a really good day.Ducky sampled another form of transport the next day - the monorail. She also had another ferry ride, this time to the Sydney Aquarium where she could see over 12,000 aquatic animals from 650 species. Ducky talked at great length about the time she spent here. There was a special Lego exhibition being held there at the time and she enjoyed seeing all the huge statues made from tiny bits of Lego. Ducky was also enthralled by the tale of how sailors of old would mistake the dugongs for beautiful mermaids and be lured to their watery deaths.Ducky was amazed by the underwater glass tunnels which allowed her to see sharks, dugongs, sting rays and other large sea creatures swimming all around and above her. She loved the penguin tank and has watched the video Grandpap took, of the little penguins 'putting on a show', over and and over and over. Another favourite was the Moon Jellyfish. Ducky informed me that they only swim at night, which was why their tank was in the dark. I teased her that she wouldn't have been able to see them if it was dark, but she insisted that she could see them very well, and she could even see their tiny little tentacles hanging down ... except she used a word that sounds very similar to 'tentacle' (add an 's' and take away the 'n') and is something that also 'hangs down' but I doubt you'd find them on a jellyfish. I corrected her pronunciation while agreeing that it must have been quite a sight to see. Ducky told me all about the enormous 'fish tank' full of beautiful tropical fish, which probably was the Great Barrier Reef display. She was intrigued by the huge real shark on display in the foyer which was, as she informed me with her eyes almost bulging right out of her head, made from real shark skin and had real shark teeth.Ducky loves to swim. She would swim every day if she could, and while she was on her holiday, she did! Grandpap remarked that he didn't think Ducky would have really cared where she went for her holiday because as long as it had somewhere she could swim she would have been happy. She was very pleased that the hotel had a rooftop pool. It was certainly in a wonderful location! Where else can you swim, or soak in the spa, surrounded by such lovely views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge? Ducky liked her whole hotel experience and she informed me, after arriving home, that "...camping is good, but hotels are better." (I have to admit that I agree with her!)As I mentioned, Ducky loves swimming. Pool, bay, river, beach - it didn't matter where as long as it involves water. (Well, she is a duck!) She swam every day while she was away and suffered withdrawal symptoms the following days, back at home, when we couldn't go to the beach.After Ducky came home she told us lots and lots about her trip over the following days and weeks. Her favourite parts were the horseriding, the swimming and the aquarium, but she had such a wonderful time that she had to really think hard to nominate her 'top 3' choices.{Thanks to Nano and Grandpap for taking care of Ducky and giving her such a special holiday, and to Grandpap for taking all these great photos.}

Photos by Mousie

2011-10-16T19:40:00.001+11:00

During the school holidays we went swimming a couple times. That is to say that the younger, more enthusiastic members of the family went swimming. HB, Possum, Dragon and I watched. HB gave his waterproof camera to Mousie to take some underwater photos. It took her a while to be able to coordinate the underwater shots and after a while she gave up and just took random photos of everything.

These are the best of the many, many shots she took. (These photos were taken on 25th September during our visit to Redcliff lagoon. Ducky was still away on her special holiday which is why there are only shots of Teddy and Kitcat.)

Gurgly Eyes

2011-10-12T20:50:00.000+11:00

Kitcat was creating a creature out of paper, cardboard and split pins. She finished it almost to her satisfaction, but it needed one more thing.

"Mummy, my creature needs some gurgly eyes. Can I have some please?"

I couldn't stop giggling as I handed her a pair of googly eyes from the craft box.

What kind of a creature would 'gurgle' with it's eyes, I wonder?

Some of Our School Holiday

2011-10-08T20:56:00.002+11:00

Kitcat has always loved wearing dresses. Recently she has developed a love for climbing trees. Having me tell her that trees and dresses weren't a good combination was not what she wanted to hear, especially during the school holidays when she actually has the opportunity to wear all her pretty play dresses. Thankfully it wasn't too hard to persuade her to accept the need to wear a pair of shorts under her dress, particularly when she wanted to climb a tree. I love the expression on her face in this photo - a mixture of exhilaration and desperation.Ducky spent a week of the holidays visiting family, and Possum was away for nearly the whole fortnight. Dragon's time was mostly taken up with his friends, so the three youngest girls played together. They did a lot of pretending, such as this "Pet Shop" game which occupied them for a whole morning.Another morning Teddy and Kitcat were playing with their pop-up indoor play tents. Mousie doesn't have a tent, so she improvised.One evening Dragon and the girls watched a DVD. Dragon very good-naturedly put up with being Teddy's sofa cushion.Teddy played 'mummy and baby' with some of her teddy bears and Kitcat did the same with her cat & kitten toy.We had friends around a few times, went shopping, went to the park, went swimming a few times.... ....and one day we went to the Nature Centre (which is like a mini zoo) with some friends. We saw a spotted quoll for the first time. We also saw bilbies - another first. The girls loved it, and Dragon tolerated the experience because he had been able to bring a friend along.(Did you notice the photo of Kitcat in yet another tree?)

But probably the most exciting thing we did during the school holidays was go to Warner Bros Movie World - twice! HB bought us all a 3 Park Pass so we can go to Movie World, SeaWorld and Wet 'n' Wild whenever we like. The first time we went was when Ducky and Possum were away. The queues were not too long and we were able to see all the shows and go on nearly all the rides. The girls were able to go on the children's rides several times. The second time we went was after Ducky and Possum came home and coincided with the NSW long weekend. The place was packed. We stood in line for nearly an hour for the few rides we did get on. I was glad we hadn't paid full price admission for that day! The Half-dozen still enjoyed themselves, though. (I found it interesting that my children would happily stand in line for 40 minutes just so they could enjoy a 1-2 minute roller coaster ride. At home they can't wait even a few seconds for what they want/need!)

More to come about the school holidays ....

HB's Birthday

2011-10-04T21:59:00.004+11:00

During the past few days I've been spending a little time wondering what happened to September. I'm sure it was here not long ago, but it disappeared a lot more quickly than I was expecting. I've been looking through recent photos and realized I haven't updated the blog on some important family events.

Father's Day, at the beginning of September, was a bit of a non-event as HB had to work. He left early in the morning - before the teenagers awoke - so this is the only photo I have .... .... the four youngest showering him with homemade goodies. We intended to make it up to him on his birthday, but as it turned out he had to work that day too. (A bit of a change from the last 9 years when he's had to work on Mother's Day and my birthday!)

Originally HB didn't think he would be getting home until dinner time. Then he was told they should be home by 4pm. We planned a birthday picnic BBQ dinner at North Pine Dam, and I had everything ready so that as soon as he got home we could leave for the park.

We took a bit of bread to feed any ducks that might be around and ended up providing for a pair or swans and their cygnets. The girls thought this was wonderful fun until daddy swan became a bit too assertive. He ate the bread right out of Teddy's fingers, which was fine, but then he tried to eat Mousie's finger right off her hand!Kitcat has been interested in climbing trees lately, so I took this photo of her up a tree with the swan family, Teddy and Mousie in the background at the lake's edge.HB cooked his birthday lamb chops and sausages to his liking while Dragon, Possum and Ducky were at the other side of the penninsula watching the beautiful sunset.We had a delicious BBQ dinner in the peacefully deserted park while watching the swans, ducks, magpie larks and honeyeaters wander around, before experiencing those last golden rays of the sun as it slowly slid behind the mountains on the far side of the lake.

When we arrived back home we had birthday cake and HB opened his presents. Everyone had made him a nice birthday card, but we didn't really give him much else apart from some chocolates and a book. HB had provided his own birthday treat - a new motorcycle.

Diamond the Dragon

2011-09-30T19:12:00.001+10:00

One day Kitcat came home from school with four beautiful abstract, textured paintings. (They have different shaped 'combs' which they drag through the wet paint to create the texture.) I thought they were beautiful, but my camera batteries were still charging and I didn't get a chance to photograph them. I really wish I had, though, because Kitcat then proceeded to cut these gorgeous paintings into circles and triangles.

"What for?" you may ask. Well, just like many other times that Kitcat has brought home seemingly unrelated items for a craft project (such as Isobel the tissue-box cat), she had a very clear objective in mind. She intended to use the textured painting shapes to make "a dragon."

After cutting out all the shapes she thought she would need, Kitcat proceeded to draw her "plan" on A4 paper.Then she found some cardboard and had a go at making her 'real' dragon. (This is slightly larger than A4 size.)She wasn't happy with her attempt. She didn't want to waste her textured-paint shapes on this supposedly substandard piece of work. It was too small, and the textas didn't make the right colours. The pink cardboard looked wrong. It just wasn't what she had imagined, so she begged me to mix up some paint and find a bigger piece of cardboard. (Just as well I hadn't quite got around to throwing out that last packing box, as one side of it proved to be exactly the right size for Kitcat's dragon.)

After a lot of pencil drawing (and rubbing out) Kitcat was finally ready to start painting. She waited impatiently for the paint to dry so she could start gluing on the textured shapes. This is her final creation - Diamond the Dragon. You can see she used the textured paint triangles for the spikes along Diamond's back and tail, and the circles for the scales.(Her teacher wanted to enter "Diamond" in the local Show, and at first Kitcat was happy with the idea. When we went to The Show, however, we couldn't find "Diamond" anywhere in the education pavilion. Kitcat seemed quite upset. However, when I took her to school the following Monday I found out that when the time had come for the teacher to fill out the entry form, Kitcat had had a sudden change of heart and decided she didn't want "Diamond" to go to the show after all. Apparently she thought she would not get her special dragon back again afterwards. But then she had forgotten about that little detail and, somehow, still thought "Diamond" would be on show at The Show.)

Diamond stayed at school for the rest of Term 3 and, during story writing lessons, Kitcat wrote this:

"Diamond is very sparkly and she likes playing with playdough. She loves that. Diamond lives with me and she likes painting too. She has heaps of scales and spikes. Diamond went to the bush with us. She played hide and seek with me. After that she played in the leaves. She loves eating fish."

Ducky Goes To The Ballet

2011-09-26T20:01:00.001+10:00

HB heard that the Imperial Russian Ballet was coming to town. We talked it over and decided to give Ducky the opportunity to see her very first ballet. Even though I reasoned (with myself) that Ducky was surely old enough to sit still for the 3 hour show I was nevertheless a little worried that her natural ~~wriggliness~~ ~~hyperactivity~~ exuberance would make for a bit of a miserable afternoon (for me, seeing as I was going too.)

I made the mistake of telling Ducky a few days prior to the show, which meant she was asking me about every 3 minutes if it was nearly time "...to go see the ballerinas en pointe" and also kept anxiously asking "... are you sure the ballerinas will dance en pointe." I assured her that there would be lots of ballerinas in pointe shoes, and if there weren't I would ask for my money back.

When we arrived we somehow managed to head the wrong way and ended up walking right around the whole theatre complex. If we'd gone the other direction we would have found the door sooner, but I wouldn't have had the chance to take a photo of Ducky with the huge poster that was on the rear side of the building. Here she is pointing to the pointe shoes on the prima ballerina, saying "That will be me one day."Since it was Ducky's first Ballet I ~~happily and willingly~~ bought her a program, and only winced a little bit when they charged me $20. This show was three acts of various solos and short performances, rather than a whole ballet. Next time, when we see a whole ballet, we will read up about it online before going, and thus negate the need for a $20 piece of glossy paper. Here's Ducky with her ticket and her program.The day we went to the ballet was exceptionally windy. During the two short intervals I insisted Ducky get up and stretch her legs and we went on to one of the balconies of the Lyric Theatre. Luckily for Ducky, no one else was willing to brave the crazy wind out there, so she ran up and down practising grand jetés and fouettés to her heart's delight. She stopped long enough to catch her breath and allow me to take this photo of her with the Brisbane River in the background. Notice the back of the program shows a scene from a pas de deux of "The Sleeping Beauty" which is coming to town next year. Ducky has already started asking to go to that one!The first act was Don Giovanni condensed to a One Act Ballet. It combined all the interesting and showy bits of the original ballet, but made it rather hard to follow. Act II was a breathtaking modern dance to music of Ravels 'Bolero'. I had not known it had been choreographed (apart from the famous ice dance of Torvill and Dean) and was absolutely entranced by the performance. The last act was a string of short numbers, some solo and some with the corps de ballet.

When the ballet was over I asked Ducky which part had been her favourite and she answered without hesitation The Dying Swan which is set to the music of Le Cygne, the 13th movement of The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. This has to be one of the most beautiful solos a ballerina could perform. I made a scrap page featuring the advertising poster for the Imperial Russian Ballet, an image from "The Dying Swan", and my very excited Ducky clutching her ticket before we left for the show. (And by the way, Ducky was not wriggly or hyperactive during the ballet. She sat, completely entranced, for the whole 3 hours. Her exuberance she saved for the balcony during intervals.)

Photos from August 2011

2011-09-22T18:52:00.004+10:00

One recent weekend something astonishing happened. All six of my Half-dozen played a game together in the back yard. This hasn't happened for ~~months~~ ~~years~~ a very, very long time. It was good to see all the children having fun together, even if that "fun" involved tying Ducky up with skipping ropes.Apparently, Ducky was the prize and Possum was the conqueror (?)And somehow Dragon was ~~tackled~~ conquered as well, by his little sisters.At least they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, even if in a rather incomprehensible (to me) way.

Now this is something the younger girls have always enjoyed - sitting on Dragon while watching TV. He doesn't mind, as long as they keep still.
I used to frequently take "before church" photos of my cute little girls. They aren't quite so little now but they are still cute.
This is the sign Kitcat made so the backyard birds would know where to come to find some food. She has been amazing me with her progress in reading and writing. She figured out how to write "birds" by herself, by sounding it out very carefully, except she reversed the last 'b'. Now the various mynah birds, magpie larks, willy wagtails and others, which visit our backyard, are often referred to as "birbs".Mousie came to Kitcat's rescue and told her the correct way to spell 'birds' and also added the 'please come here'. The artwork, however, is all Kitcat's. She had put some bread and some grass in the upturned frisbee under the little yellow table. I told her I didn't think the 'birbs' would go into the pergola and under the table to eat, but I was wrong. All the 'birb' food was gone the next day.
Lastly, two photos taken by Possum. She made apple pie one Saturday. I think it must hold the record for the longest-preparation in apple pie history. She followed two recipes from her school Food Tech class last year. The first recipe was for the pastry, which was to provide enough to make four mini pies. The second recipe was for the filling, except after she made it she realized it was only enough for two servings. So she made another batch of filling. Then she realized that four mini pies wouldn't be enough dessert for the whole family.

I suggested she use the pastry to make a family-sized pie. This idea was met with typical teenage astonishment and resistance - she was astonished that her mother could have a reasonably decent idea, yet she resisted the way it appealed to her common sense because, after all, it was her mother's idea. Finally she begrudgingly decided to follow my advice, making sure I knew it would be my fault if everything turned out wrong. Then, of course, she had to make another double batch of the filling. And since her recipe called for the apple mixture to be cooked and cooled before putting it into the pastry, this took a very long time. All afternoon, in fact. But it was worth the wait. Looked great, smelled fantastic, tasted absolutely delicious! Thanks Possum!!And secondly - Possum's sunset photo. We don't have a spectacular view from our yard here in Brisbane, but one evening Possum was determined to get a sunset photo anyway.It's lucky the noise isn't able to be heard through the photo. Not that the sunset is noisy, of course, but the lorikeets which roost in the trees overnight are deafening!

Enterprise III

2011-09-19T19:18:00.002+10:00

Mr Enterprise (aka Dragon) has struck again .... well, nearly.

Some children from the neighbourhood were going door-to-door selling $1 chocolates for some fundraiser. HB bought one. (He always buys one - that's why they keep coming back to our house. I'm sure they tell their friends where to go as well!) Kitcat and Teddy wanted to buy one too, with the money saved in their money boxes, but HB said 'no'.

A moment later I saw Dragon dash out the front door. He soon appeared back in the kitchen, sidled up to me and asked in a low voice if he could sell some chocolates to his sisters.

I needed further explanation, so he said "I just bought two chocolates for $1 each, can I sell them to the girls for $2 each?"

So, he'd laid out some of his gambling money for chocolates and was hoping to make a 100% profit by persuading his gullible younger siblings to buy them from him at double the price.

Not surprisingly, it would have worked. Later in the week Ducky and Mousie overheard me telling HB about Dragon's new business idea and were nearly falling over each other to get to their money boxes, however Dragon had already eaten the merchandise.

It was a good plan, though.

He determined the target market - little sisters.
He ascertained the need/desire - chocolate.
He made sure the target was capable of sustaining his enterprise - four little money boxes stuffed with loose change.
He found a way to manoeuvre around the supply deficiency - basically, a black market operation which would hopefully fly under the radar of HB, would would not allow the girls to purchase their own chocolate.

I have to give Dragon some brownie points on this occasion ... at least he asked for permission before attempting to take advantage of his sister's financial naivety (and insatiable hunger for chocolate).

Nahla

2011-09-15T20:03:00.003+10:00

Nahla is a new addition to our family.

She's Ducky's imaginary friend.

A fairy.

Nahla is visible only to Ducky. She appeared at our house just before Christmas. In fact, it was around about the same time I insisted Ducky start seriously cleaning her room in preparation for our move to Brisbane. Ducky had lots of bits and pieces littered throughout her belongings .... treasures and mementos of previous years - nothing terribly valuable or of huge sentimental importance. Things like a paper hat from the Christmas cracker, a plastic puzzle out of a party bag, a pretty bracelet that was now too small to fit her wrist and an old toy from a McDonald's Happy Meal were a few of the items I remember she knew she didn't need but still wanted to keep anyway.

She couldn't bear to throw all these little items away, yet she knew she had to get rid of them somehow in an attempt to bring some kind of order to the chaos that had once been her bedroom.

One day Mousie, Teddy and Kitcat came inside after playing on the trampoline. They were very surprised to find little gifts on their pillows. Ducky told them her fairy friend, Nahla, was responsible for leaving these trinkets. She also promised her little sisters that if they were good, Nahla would probably leave more presents for them when they least expect it.

Over the next couple weeks Nahla mysteriously left tiny gifts all over the house for the three youngest family members. One day it was some glass beads on the table beside Mousie's placemat, another time a pretty enamel flower ring was found under Teddy's pillow, and the next evening a miniature sparkly pink notepad had been placed inside Kitcat's sandals.

Searching for fripperies bestowed upon them by the mysterious Nahla was a huge help in distracting the three youngest of the Half-dozen from wanting my constant attention during the packing process in those last weeks before we moved. Kitcat was very taken by this fantasy and became particularly involved. Many long-lost, formerly-treasured items were rediscovered while rooms were cleaned and belongings packed into boxes. In Kitcat's mind, this was all due to the efforts of Nahla.

While I was pleased that Nahla was helping Ducky tidy up her room I was also frustrated that these items weren't going where I had originally intended them to go i.e. in the bin or to the 2nd-hand shop. I still had the same number of objects in the house, they just weren't concentrated in the one spot as they had been before.

I had similar problems with Possum. Her room was full of things she didn't need or really want anymore but just couldn't bring herself to throw away or give to charity. She also opted for the 'donate-them-to-the-little-sisters' course of action, although she did not employ a fairy friend to do it for her. (Dragon, on the other hand, would have quite happily shoveled nearly everything out of his room into the wheelie bin. I had to stop him and sort through his old games, books, puzzles and toys.)

Nahla, apparently, moved to Brisbane with us. The three youngest girls still occasionally find small items left around the house. The only problem now is that:
(1) Ducky may not have wanted Nahla to give away that particular item (she simply hadn't put it away properly), and
(2) If the item is left in a neutral position, instead of on/beside something that definitely belongs to someone, a small war inevitably erupts between the younger girls as to whom was the intended recipient.

As Ducky is the only one who can see Nahla, I couldn't take a photo. We are told she is a brunette and wears yellow clothes, so I imagine this is what she looks like ........... a pretty yellow fairy with a slightly cheeky look about her. (image source: here.)

Nahla seemed to have flown north for the winter (and, to our surprise, it did get a bit chilly here in Brisbane - at times - during the past few months ..... certainly cool enough to scare away a little sun-loving fairy, I suppose) because we haven't have many little gifts left around for quite a while. But just today I overheard Ducky telling Kitcat, "If you are very, very lucky Nahla might just leave a little something beside your bed while you're asleep......"

Remembering

2011-09-11T09:24:00.003+10:00

There's been a huge build up to this day in the media. 10 Years since the Twin Towers fell. It was certainly a pivotal point not just in American history but in world history, and has become one of those sombre "Where were you when ....." moments.

Where was I when it happened?

In bed. It was late at night. HB heard the shocking news on the radio, as he was driving home from work, and he woke me up. We turned on the TV and watched together, in horror, as smoke billowed out of the north tower.

HB was tired after work and soon went to bed. I sat on the floor near the TV, sound down low so as not to disturb him or the slumber of Possum and Dragon, and kept watching.

But not long after HB had got into bed I rushed in to tell him that, as I was watching, a plane had crashed into the other tower. He came out and watched a bit more, before leaving me to the shocking scenes and seeking the comfort of bed and sleep.

He wasn't to be left in peace. Next I was rushing in to tell him that the south tower had collapsed and I was amazed at how, although concerned and upset, he could just shut it out and go to sleep. Then there were the reports of another attack, this time on the Pentagon.

When the north tower collapsed I switched the TV off. I couldn't watch any longer. I was afraid of what more I might see.

I sat on the floor in the dark and I cried.

I went back to bed and tried to sleep, but my mind kept replaying all I had seen on the TV coverage.

Eventually the sun came up. I remember thinking that it seemed odd, almost wrong, that the sun rose as usual despite what had happened. Of course, the rising sun wasn't doing anything abnormal ... it was the horrendous crime which had been committed that was completely and utterly unnatural.

RIP Victims of 9/11. You are remembered.

Book Week 2011

2011-09-07T21:22:00.002+10:00

It was Book Week very recently and although our new school here in Brisbane doesn't have a Parade like we've been used to, they did ask students to come dressed as their favourite book character on the Wednesday. My four youngest were looking forward to this very, very much and we had tried on, tweaked and finalized the costumes in the days leading up to 'dress-up day'.

Teddy was going to be Goldilocks, just like last year. Kitcat struggled with great indecision. She wanted to dress up as a cat, but she also wanted to wear a fairy princess outfit. She had finally decided on the fairy princess option, simply because that would look prettier than a cat costume. Unfortunately, illness prevented Teddy and Kitcat from attending school that day, or for much of that week, and they were really sorry they couldn't join in the fun.

Ducky revisited the "Mulan" success of the 2010 Book Week Parade. Luckily, everything still fitted her and we were able to find the dagger and a fan. I also still had the chopstick and large gerbera to do a fancy oriental bun. Of course, the best part for Ducky was the makeup! At assembly she was singled out as having one of the best outfits.Mousie, my little bookworm, took Book Week very seriously this year. After all, it is supposed to be all about a character from a book you've read. It does tend to become a costume competition as multiple generic superheroes and princesses and fairies flock to school. There are also a lot of movie stars, like Batman or Hilary Duff, but not many students actually choose a book character.

Mousie has been enjoying "The Faraway Tree" series by Enid Blyton and decided she wanted to dress up as the character "Frannie". So she dressed as a little girl from the mid-late 1940s and decided to pose as though she was climbing a tree. I liked this photo and had to make it into a scrap layout. I think she's just adorably cute!In fact, I thought she was so gorgeous I made another layout.Now the costumes and props have been packed away, just waiting for Book Week next year.

Enterprise (?) II

2011-09-03T19:57:00.001+10:00

Dragon's money woes continue. He still has a fortnight to go before he will start receiving regular pocket money again, as he owed it all to me for his scooter-pimping gear. Having been banned from making his little sisters pay him for his Wii-playing skills, he's found a new way to ~~make~~ win money.

A group of boys at school have been playing a game. They each bring at handful of small change. At recess and lunch break they stand behind a certain line and throw the coins, one at a time, towards a wall. At the end of each 'round' the person whose coin is closest to the wall wins all the other coins, and they start again.

The word 'gambling' immediately sprang to mind when Dragon told me where he scored his pocketful of loose change! I raised my concerns with him, only to have him reassure me that it was simply a game of chance (yes, that's what 'gambling' often is Dragon) and a fun way to spend their lunch time. But when I asked him how much money the other boys had won he refused to meet my eye and mumbled something that sounded like 'nothing'.

So, once I managed to get to the bottom of the story I found that this particular group of boys who were gambling were not Dragon's usual group of friends and, to put it one way, not exactly in the top class. They were also obviously unaware of Dragon's throwing skills (basketball, shotput, skimming stones etc....) He had also maneuvered to be last in each 'round' to throw his coin (which had been donated to him by one of the unsuspecting players) and therefore knew exactly where to make it land in order to win. The game only ended when Dragon's pockets were full of the other player's 5c and 10c pieces.

Although I did ask Dragon not to partake in any more gambling activities, I think the problem resolved itself when these other boys finally realized how they'd been defeated and either stopped playing that game or refused to allow Dragon to join in.

I know Dragon is intelligent, and I can see the ingenuity in his schemes, but I do wish he'd direct his knowledge and skills to his school work instead!

Verbal Creativity

2011-08-30T19:03:00.001+10:00

I've recently been concerned about the amount of times I hear my children say

'I hate'

especially when they are arguing with each other and it becomes

"I hate YOU."

I've told them that hate is a serious emotion and should be reserved for truly repulsive things (like sadistic dictators, or possibly cane toads) and doesn't need to be wasted on simple objects such as broccoli, the colour puce or even homework, and certainly should not be directed towards family members.

People in general tend to use quite a narrow selection of words when they want to describe something. Some of our neighbours, for example, don't seem to know ANY adjective that doesn't start with the letter "f" (and rhymes with truck). 'Nice' and 'good' are a couple of other overused adjectives. Similarly, my children don't seem to know how to describe their feelings except in the extremes of 'love' and 'hate'. I try to get them to think of another word that could be used instead, but so far the vocabulary levels are remaining fairly constant.

Except in the case of "I hate YOU." I have banned this phrase in our house and somehow my youngest four girls have managed to creatively string together a few innocent words which are just as bad, if not worse.

Mousie might say to Kitcat, who is annoying her, "You're my worst little sister!" Now Mousie only has two little sisters so you wouldn't think it was such a big deal. Kitcat didn't think so, though. She screamed like she'd been slapped.

Ducky has been heard to say to Teddy, "Out of the whole family, YOU are at the bottom of my liking list." This also produced the desired effect, which was to make Teddy dissolve into tears.

But by far the worst insult they have devised to replace "I hate you" is the one I've been hearing far too frequently lately - "You're my least favourite person in the whole world!"

Somehow this makes "I hate you" seem almost tame. It's one thing to 'hate' someone, but to say they are worse than every single other person on the planet is taking the insult to a much higher level. It's pure spite delivered with the sole intention of wounding.

Not exactly the kind of creativity I like to encourage.

Does anyone have some words of wisdom/advice for me?

How to Spot a Truly Malnourished Individual

2011-08-26T19:49:00.002+10:00

Recently, we were talking about our sponsored child, Talent, from Zimbabwe. Teddy asked if he was in this photo.

As this photo was taken in Papua New Guinea sometime around the 1950s, I told her "No, Talent isn't in the photo. And beside, some of these young children are malnourished. Talent has good healthy food to eat because that's part of the reason we send him money through Plan International every month.""That little boy looks like he's had plenty to eat," Teddy said, pointing at the distended belly of the little chap in the background.

"His tummy isn't round like that because he's full," I explained, "That's actually a sign that he hasn't had enough healthy food to eat. See how thin his arms are? And look at his rib bones. See, they are almost sticking right out through his skin."

Teddy did have a very good look before her attention was claimed by the next photo. As I saw which part of the picture drew her main focus (man in centre front) I expected another question was imminent. As Teddy drew breath I was preparing my answer as to why the man had a bone stuck through his nose. But instead Teddy pointed at him and made this comment:

"That man must be really, really badly malnourished because you can actually see his rib bones sticking right out through his nose!"

Seriously, though, it is appalling that so many children live in poverty, die from malnutrition or preventable disease, have no clean water to drink, no decent clothes to wear and cannot afford to attend school. If you've ever thought about sponsoring a child, consider doing so through Plan International.

Grandparent's Day

2011-08-22T20:22:00.001+10:00

Students from Year 1 have, for the past few months, been learning about "The Olden Days".

Last term they had a special school 'incursion' where they were able to see and handle many old-fashioned objects from early 1900's wooden toys to ribbon typewriters! (And that made me feel rather old, because I learned to type on a very heavy, click-clacky-arms-get-stucky-when-you-type-too-quickly machine. (That's the little letter arms on the typewriter, not my arms!) ) The next step in the "Early Days" unit was, quite logically, to come in contact with some of the human relics from those times. In order to facilitate this the Year 1 teachers decided to hold a "Grandparent's Day."

The children made lovely invitations to give to their grandparents, and Teddy wanted to post hers to Nano and Grandpap. She'd done such a lovely job on the invitation that I couldn't not post it to them, although I warned her that it was very unlikely that they would be able to come. So it was a lovely surprise when they called to tell us that they were going to make the journey from Port Stephens to Brisbane to attend this special event.

Since Teddy is in Year 1, and Kitcat is in a composite Prep-1 class, they both had the honour of having a grandparent accompany them to school on 16th August. Last time Nano and Grandpap visited us, Nano went into Kitcat's classroom to help her make an Easter Hat so this time Kitcat wanted Grandpap to come into her class. Kitcat's teacher was pleased hear about these plans as her students were unable to muster up very many grandparents, and I think Grandpap was only one of four that showed up. Teddy's class, however, was swamped with ~~"Early Days" relics~~ senior citizens and she was very glad that her Nano was able to be there with her.Grandparent's Day fell on the day before the "Ekka" public holiday, so it was very nice for the Half-dozen to be able to spend the whole next day with Nano and Grandpap before they set off on their travels again. They took us out for lunch. They showed us all the photos from their recent overseas trip, and taught Mousie how to play some kind of computer game on Grandpap's laptop.And we took them down to the lake to see the cygnets.(We discovered this family of black swans a while ago and have been checking on them weekly to see how the babies are growing. Currently they still look like cute little fluffy toys.)

So thanks to Nano and Grandpap for coming all that way to make Grandparent's Day a memorable event for Teddy and Kitcat.

Show Day

2011-08-19T19:00:00.000+10:00

As I've mentioned a few times before, the Queenslanders have different names for quite a few things:

The game of tips (or tag) is here called 'tiggy'.
At high school the morning roll call is called 'form'.
Schools don't have a canteen, they have a 'tuckshop', Sick Bay is called 'First Aid' and the School Counsellor is called a Guidance Officer.

Most of these things, I think, were fairly self explanatory or at least easy enough for me to work out. But I did get stuck when people started talking about "Ekka". I tried hard to not look like an ignorant southerner when it was mentioned. I thought if I could hear someone use the word in a sentence I may figure it out, but I have to admit I was stumped. Finally, someone asked me directly if I was going to take the children to "Ekka" and I had to ask them back, "What's an Ekka?"

Turns out it is simply The Brisbane Show, except here they call it the "Exhibition" which is shortened to the "Ekka".

"Ekka" is currently in full swing but will soon be coming to an end. Possum spent an enjoyable day there with some friends last Sunday, but HB and I contented ourselves with taking the four youngest Half-dozen to the local regional show (which was held earlier in the month and was actually called 'The Show' so we understood what it was all about.)

Ducky, Mousie, Teddy and Kitcat had never been to a Show Day before. It was always too expensive back in Canberra .... actually, when you are a family of eight most things are too expensive. But here the primary school children are admitted for free to the local show, so HB and I decided to take them along. (We did ask Possum and Dragon if they wanted to come too. Possum declined because she wanted to save her money for "Ekka" and when Dragon found out that we would be doing a lot of 'looking' at the exhibits and displays he preferred to stay at home. "Boring," was his response.)

We sought out as many freebies as possible, like the little train ride which took us around the show ground, and this petting farm. The girls spent a lot of time holding cute little chicks and patting the guinea pigs, kids and lambs while HB enjoyed watching the motor cross demonstration nearby.Ducky was the only one game enough to have a go at the free rock climbing. She did very well for her very first attempt at the sport.Teddy wasn't too scared to pat the baby crocodile at the reptile exhibit. (Kitcat is standing right behind Teddy patting the croc's tail too.) The girls were given strict instructions, before we arrived, as to exactly what they would be allowed to buy. Each one could have 1 show bag, 1 ride and 1 item of food. They ended up with two showbags each (and two-4-one offer), and then Kitcat chose a bag of fairy floss (cotton candy) while Ducky and Mousie wanted a snow cone. I think Teddy got the best deal with her giant lollypop, though. She was still nibbling away at it a week later!!And for their ride, after much discussion, all four girls decided to go through the haunted house. It only lasted a few minutes, yet Kitcat couldn't get out of the little carriage quickly enough at the end. I was glad we hadn't allowed her to go on one of the 'real' rollercoasters.When we finally managed to find the Educational Pavilion we were delighted to see that our school had won the Champion's Ribbon for the best display. HB and I were proud that both Mousie and Ducky had some of their work on show - Ducky's convict diary was hanging on the wall ........... and Mousie's lifecycle of a dragonfly, made from plasticine, was right at the front of the table.It was a nice day out and I have to remark on the weather. Early August in Canberra would have meant wearing several layers as well as thick jackets, scarves and woolly beanies. It was amazing, to me, that here in Brisbane we needed our hats and sunscreen and actually started to get a bit warm even though we were only wearing t-shirt and shorts. As much as I do often miss being in Canberra, I must admit that living in Brisbane certainly has it's benefits!!

The Logical Answer.

2011-08-15T20:04:00.004+10:00

Mousie has injured herself again. It's another school playground accident although, just to keep things interesting, this time it was the flying fox rather than the monkey bars that were the culprit. The doctor sent Mousie off for an x ray of her right elbow. Apparently it is hard to be certain about an elbow problem in children, even with an x ray, and the doctor talked about possible cracked bones, buckle fractures and dislocations. He put this collar & cuff sling on Mousie and ordered her to be very careful during the coming week, at which time she would need another x ray.Thankfully, the second x-ray showed that there were NO cracks, buckle fractures or dislocations. The doctor then warned Mousie that the bone was probably badly bruised (and going by the huge bruises on either side of her elbow, which extended well up towards her shoulder, I was not surprised!) and she was to take it easy for another week or so. He also prescribed "No more monkey bars or flying foxes until the end of the school term," accompanied by a waggling finger in her face.

Mousie reluctantly gave up her collar & cuff, and she was also a bit sad to give up the little extra perks that went along with it such as having mummy help her dress, wash and eat and check in on her periodically to make sure she was alright.

She was rather more reluctant, though, to follow doctor's orders regarding 'taking it easy'.

This was quite apparent today when Dragon suggested his sisters join him in a game of "tiggy". (We used to call it "tips", but they have different names for some things here in Queensland.) Mousie eagerly ran outside to join the game until HB called her back in saying, "You know you can't run around, Mousie."

"But why not?" she whined.

"Well, because of your sore elbow," HB explained.

"I won't hurt it if I am running," Mousie protesed.

"Yes," HB reasoned, "But if you are running and you trip and fall over, what's the first thing you will do?"

(I think he meant to ask
'If you start to fall, what's the first thing you will do?'
The answer being, of course,
'Put your arms out to break your fall.')

Mousie just looked at him, puzzled, as HB repeated "What's the first thing you do when you fall over?"

Then Teddy walked up and blurted out, "I know - start crying!"

Which proves that Teddy knows her sister just as well as she knows herself.

Enterprise

2011-08-11T20:31:00.001+10:00

Dragon is skint.

Completely broke.

In fact, he is in debt. He still owes me all his pocket money until the end of September as well as a few more chores, as per our "Scooter Equipment Deal" made in the school holidays.

Nevertheless he had devised a way to earn small change to spend at the tuck shop or corner store.

I had this conversation with Mousie a few days ago.....

"Mum, dy'a know what? Dragon took money out of my money box."

"Well, did you ask him to?" (She can't reach her money box on the top shelf.)

"No, he just took it."

"Are you sure? Did he unlock it for you?" (She also cannot manage the little, tiny lock and key device by herself.)

"No. He just took the money.."

"Well, why?

"Ummmm .... because I had to pay him."

"What for?"

"And d'ya know what, mum? He got some of Ducky's money as well. Out of her money box too."

"So tell me why he got it."

"Weeeellllll, he said I had to give him some money."

"Okay, I understand that part. Now tell me why he took it."

And to cut a long story short ..... actually, not a very long story. It's quite a short story, really, but Mousie's narration can often resemble a long piece of string that has become tangled around several obstacles before twisting back upon itself several times and frequently even unraveling right at the end into more than one strand..... it would seem that Ducky and Mousie were having some difficulty reaching the next level on one of the Wii games. I'm not sure if they asked Dragon to help them or if he just recognised the opportunity himself, but the end result was that he agreed to get them up to the next level in exchange for the key to their money boxes.

Mousie and Ducky apparently thought this was a pretty good deal when they shook on it.

Their confidence in their business acumen was rather shaken when they watched Dragon sit down with the Wii controller, manipulate it for approximately 3.7 seconds, and then disappear into the bedrooms with money box keys in hand.

I'm not sure how long after that they realised that they had effectively signed away their life savings of small change! Ducky adores her big brother so much she was prepared to let him get away with it.

Mousie, on the other hand, let the knowledge that she'd been 'had' fester for a day or two before it got the better of her and she finally had to get Mummy involved. (This may or may not have had a lot to do with the fact that Mousie had a lot more small change saved up in her money box than Ducky, who tends to feed all her coins to the vending machine at the ballet studio.)

So, despite being mildly impressed with Dragon's entrepreneurial attempt - and who knows how far it might have extended without adult interference - HB and I had to instruct him to repay the money he took from his sisters and, in the future, to help them with Wii games for no other reward than the joy of displaying his superior skill.

And hopefully Mousie and Ducky have lost a little bit of their gullibility too.

HB is Home.

2011-08-08T20:00:00.001+10:00

HB is home. You didn't even know he had gone, did you? (Apart from those of you who did - and you know who you are - who supported me through that period of time with either prayer or practical support, or both .... thank you!)

The ADF, in their ~~usual illogical logic~~ infinite wisdom saw fit to send HB back to Canberra. Yes, they move a family of eight from Canberra to Brisbane and then send the serving member back to Canberra, right in the middle of the freezing winter he had been expecting to avoid due to the fact that he was now living in Brisbane - makes perfect sense, right?

But, of course, the ADF had their reasons for this course of action. The Royal Military College, Duntroon (in Canberra) turned 100 years old a few months ago and they needed help from other military bands so they could celebrate in proper style. HB and a few others from the Brisbane band were selected for this purpose. They went to Canberra in late June and took part in the 100th birthday events, and then they stayed on to prepare for the Basel Military Tattoo, in Switzerland.

Although HB was quite excited about this opportunity, and understandably so, the Half-dozen did not all share his enthusiasm. The three youngest were particularly afflicted and cried for their Daddy every night, for at least a week before he left and for another couple weeks after he had gone, as well as random intervals inbetween - especially after he had phoned or 'skyped'. I think they don't really remember the last time HB went away for a long period. Kitcat kept saying "I don't like the army. They make my daddy go away from his family." (I don't like that bit about the army either, Kitcat.)

The day before HB was due to leave Canberra for Switzerland I received from him a pretty pink cyclamen in a pretty white and pink box. It only had a few flowers on it when it arrived but is now loaded with blooms.

HB found that it wasn't too expensive to phone home so we had regular updates as to what the Australian Army Band was getting up to in Basel. They performed concerts, did street parades, went on a day trip to the Alps, as well as performing once or twice a day at the Tattoo. If you'd like to see their segment have a look at the two YouTube clips below. (HB plays trombone, so he is one of the "Jake-the-Pegs" who do a funny little dance while the stage crew are setting up the stage in the middle of the performance.)

This YouTube clip shows the opening few minutes, which are missing in the first video. In both clips, HB is the "Jake-the-Peg" closest to the right of screen.

HB arrived home very tired and jet-lagged but only had a day to relax before he was sent back to Canberra! He gave everyone gifts he'd bought in Switzerland. Dragon got two Swiss Army knives, one that is issued to the Swiss army and one that is the more 'touristy' type with extra gadgets. Possum received a purple Swatch watch. The girls all were given a pencil set and a camping mug with the Swiss flag on everything. He brought lots of other little goodies too, like a calendar, some Swiss precision kitchen tools, and Swiss chocolate. The Half-dozen are enjoying it (I can't eat chocolate anymore.)

HB brought me a sapphire Swiss Military watch and a cowbell. He explained that all the cows wore these bells, and they can be heard from a long way away so the farmer can keep track of his cows even in the thickest fog. I'm not sure if I should feel offended because HB thinks I am a cow, or delighted because he wants to make sure he can keep track of his 'cow' at all times. It's a very pretty bell. I think I'll choose the 'delighted' path.

HB's home for good now .... well, at least until next time he has to go away.

3rd Grade RAD Ballet Exam

2011-07-30T21:18:00.000+10:00

We've just wrapped up that time of year when the full focus is on Ballet!

Ducky has had to deal with some changes in her ballet classes, the biggest being class size. She has gone from having a class of 5 to a class of 20! This means each student gets less individual attention from the teacher, has added distraction from the extra 15 classmates, and needs to concentrate harder as a result.

Ducky's new ballet school only allows parents to view classes once a year (compared to once a term back in Canberra) so I tried to unobtrusively get as many photos and little movies as I could. They spent most of the class practicing their Character dance, but you can be forgiven for thinking it's some kind of rustic tap dance due to the amount of stomping they have to do. Right at the end of the class they did some work on their classical ballet study. This montage was created back in June at the open class, but I have since added some photos taken on the day of Ducky's 3rd Grade Exam.

Another change is that this ballet school gives out CDs of the ballet exercises, studies and dances for each grade and expects the students to work at home. Ducky has always liked to practise at home, so she quite enjoyed this particular difference between her old and new ballet school.

The exams were held a month earlier than normal this year, so in addition to the usual winter school holidays classes the students were asked to have some private lessons. At $100 per hour, there was no way we could afford this so I managed to ask around and find some of Ducky's classmates to share a private lesson. Ducky ended up sharing a half hour private class with one other student, and she loved it. She wants to have regular private lessons now. (get a job, Ducky!)Just like the past two years, I cringed every time I saw Ducky turn a cartwheel or trip over a skipping rope in the weeks leading up to the exam. Thankfully she managed to keep her arms and legs unbroken and ankles un-sprained, and she woke up very excited on the morning of her exam. This was where another difference between former and current ballet schools became apparent. Parents were not welcome to stay. I was expected to simply drop her off and come back later to collect my little ballerina.

I don't think so.

Other mums obviously felt the same way and decided to hang around in the carpark too. I managed to get a spot where I could spy on the girls as they were waiting to go in for their exam. The teacher and assistant did their hair and pinned on bun decorations and distinctive markers (Ducky had gold beads in her hair and a gold brooch on her leotard, so the examiner would know she was No.1 on the list of candidates.)

Ducky smiled over her shoulder at me just before she went in to the studio, and she was still smiling when she came out again. She said she'd enjoyed her exam and wanted to do another one tomorrow! Now we are waiting to find out her result.

Ducky is really happy to be now learning 4th Grade Ballet work, and will soon start preparing for the end of year concert.

We are so proud of our little Ballerina. Ducky still has her eyes firmly fixed on her ultimate goal - pointe shoes - and now she is one step closer.

Winter School Holidays

2011-07-23T19:50:00.002+10:00

We've just had our winter school holiday. Not that you'd know it was winter when you see the photos and what the Half-dozen are wearing. There has been some chilly mornings and evenings, but we have not acclimatised enough yet to say it's actually been cold.

It's been nearly two weeks since the holidays but the younger girls are still talking about all the fun they had doing box construction. This took up all of the first Monday morning. Box Boy and Lego Lad came around to help us, and everyone got very creative. Ducky made a whole mansion for her little plastic purple frog "Oggy". Mousie made a sheep using boxes and a piece of fleece. Teddy made a sheep using a tissue box, some bits of egg carton and nearly a whole bag of cotton balls. Kitcat made a person and a butterfly. The box construction was interrupted for lunch and a trip to library, but when we got back home our neighbours came over for a 'quick' visit which turned into another lengthy creative episode. The construction process continued, on and off, for the next two weeks and only ended when school resumed (and I took the opportunity to rid the house of most of the evidence!)

During the second week of the holidays Ducky had ballet class every single day, Monday - Saturday, in preparation for her 3rd Grade RAD Exam. She was very excited to participate in her most favourite activity every day.Dragon had several sleepovers at friends' houses, and had some friends stay over here too. They watched a lot of DVDs.

The girls had a 'movie night' every evening as I hoped that letting them stay up a little later would lead to them sleeping in a little longer in the morning. (Didn't work.)

Our stash of puzzles were well used, especially during the hour between 6am (when the girls awoke) and 7am (when I was forced to rise due to complaints about hunger pains and starvation.)The big pile of library books were put to good use, most often by Mousie who has become an avid and excellent reader.Dragon spent a lot of time at the skate park honing his scooter tricks and skills, and an almost equal amount of time trolling through ebay listings looking for the cheapest and best bits and pieces with which to pimp his ride. Once the bits and pieces arrived in the mail he spent a fair whack of time out in the garage, either by himself or with a friend, modifying his scooter.

Dragon discovered that working on your greasy scooter headset on the carpet in your bedroom is one of the quickest ways in the world to get your mother into a fury.

I discovered that mixing laundry powder with a small amount of boiling water to make a paste - and scrubbing hard - will remove fresh, and day-old, grease from synthetic carpet pile.

Teddy continued to be our sweet but slightly strange little Teddy and hid her body under a pile of sofa cushions. I think it looks like she took her head off and laid it on the pillow stack.We had some play-dates, and went out for afternoon tea. We also went shopping for more shoes (When is someone going to invent shoes that don't wear out and expand along with the child's foot?)

The four youngest girls spent a lot of time playing 'school' or 'daycare' or 'creche' with their dollies.The Barbies, Polly Pockets, Doll Houses, Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony sets were all put to good use .... and some girls learned the hard way that when mummy says "Put your toys away or you will lose them" she really does actually mean it.

We played at the park, rode bikes, and had the neighbours over to play in our backyard lots of times. One little boy from down the street practically lived at our house during the second week of holidays. (He's in Mousie's class at school.)

One morning the three youngest girls tried to build a barrier to the bedroom.We spent an afternoon making birthday cards for Possum.We went to the movies. Possum, Dragon and a friend saw the latest Transformer movie, while the girls and I saw "Mr Popper's Penguins" with some other friends.

Possum celebrated her birthday - isn't she beautiful in the glow of 16 candles.We went out for lunch on Possum's birthday with some of her friends. Possum spent a night and day on the Gold Coast with a couple friends, and went to Warner Bros Movie World. She also went to a birthday party, and spent some time 'hanging out' with friends at the local Westfield shopping centre.

On the last Friday we hosted my bible study group for afternoon tea. Dragon didn't know where to look or what to do as the house steadily filled with more and more girls. The prospect of a lavish spread of sweet treats had just tempted him into the kitchen/living area but, after some of these rather pretty teenage girls tried to start a conversation with him, he ended up fleeing to the garage - with no food - where I could hear him tinkering around some more on his scooter. He emerged, half an hour after everyone had left, complaining that he was hungry.

Many mornings I found my bed invaded by small people and even smaller soft toy animals. (I am under there somewhere.)We were invited out for dinner one evening, and Teddy made some special smiley face biscuits to take along.Kitcat was so excited to be invited to a birthday party at a local park. Possum was much less excited (that is, not at all excited) to be told she was on 'little sister duty' and had to go to the park too.

Possum took some time out from Facebook to build with Duplo blocks, along with Kitcat. Reminds me of earlier times when my two eldest actually interacted with the rest of the family more often than one or two brief and unavoidable times per day.Teddy and Kitcat continued in their habit of sitting on Dragon.Dragon very good-naturedly accepted Teddy's cuddles.

Classroom Pests Pets

2011-07-18T19:38:00.003+10:00

Meet Charlie Bear from the Year 1 classroom. He's one of a new breed of classroom pets .... well, new to us anyway. Inventive teacher's have come up with many ways to torture parents, under the seemingly innocent guise of 'educational value', but this has to be one of the worst. We've never experienced anything like this before, but it runs along these lines: Charlie Bear sits on the teacher's table all day and at home time he chooses one student with whom he would like to visit overnight. The very excited 'chosen one' then runs out with the coveted prize to mum, who is somewhat dismayed to find that Charlie Bear comes with a list of instructions.

Parents are instructed that their their child, the current 'chosen one', is to include the classroom ~~pest~~ pet in everything they do. One of these 'voluntary' instructions is that the parent has to 'voluntarily' take photos of Charlie Bear engaging in various routine activities with the 'chosen one'. This is my favourite photo of Charlie Bear, quietly reading a children's book but very possibly osmosis-ing wonderful knowledge from his backrest of Shakespeare, Bronte and Austen. After the parent has voluntarily taken all these photos of Charlie Bear they have to be voluntarily printed out, voluntarily cut and pasted into Charlie's ~~logbook~~ journal and then, hopefully, the child will voluntarily write something about their experience with the classroom pet. (If not, the parent must voluntarily force the child to write at least two sentences.)Charlie Bear had an energetic afternoon with Teddy, making use of just about every item of play equipment in our backyard. (This meant an energetic afternoon for me too, as I was constantly called outside to 'take just one more photo' only moments after running back inside and putting the camera away.) He also had dinner and then read books while Teddy bathed. I "discouraged" (read: "absolutely refused" - he was rather grotty) the idea of allowing him to sleep in Teddy's bed, so we made him a cozy spot on the bedroom floor where he presumably spent the night partying with the rest of Teddy's teddies. (Well that's what it looked like the next morning ..... wall to wall teddy bears!)

Just as I was getting over the Charlie Bear experience, along came Billy. Billy is a puppet who resides in Ducky's classroom. He came home along with his little backpack containing pyjamas and the special food he has to eat, which consisted solely of a piece of pretend kiwifruit (this restricted diet was apparently due to some mishaps with Billy's food at other students' homes during the course of first term.)Once again we had to voluntarily take photos and Ducky had to write about Billy's visit to our house. Billy enjoyed playing computer games, watching a bit of TV, playing doll house with Ducky and her friend, and eating his kiwifruit for dinner, and then again for breakfast. We also had to make him a special bed on the floor in Ducky's bedroom as, I was very glad to see, one of the instructions on Billy's "care" sheet stipulated that he was not to sleep in the student's bed. (Teacher was worried about vomit, apparently.)

Once Billy went back to school I figured Ducky's turn was over, so imagine my ~~horror~~ surprise when just a week or so later she emerged from her classroom carrying Buddie the dog. She was so excited because Buddie's visit was to last the whole weekend! I couldn't quite figure out if Buddie was supposed to be Billy the Puppet's dog, or if he was just a second classroom ~~pest~~ pet, but it was clear that Ducky was much, much more enthusiastic about the dog than she was about the puppet! Buddie made himself right at home the minute he was brought into our house and behaved just like a real dog at times ... even to the point of trying to steal dinner off the table.Ducky 'fed' Buddie, they watched a movie after practising guitar together, she made a bed for him on the floor (he came with his own pet carrier) and allowed him to sleep with her twin ducklings (very trusting, I thought!), took him to church, and introduced him to two new friends from the neighbourhood - Max the Australian Kelpie and Pocket the little, fluffy, yappy, bad tempered ~~rat~~ dog.
It was lots of fun hosting Buddie the dog for the weekend and as I was in the process of taking a huge breath, so I could breathe a sigh of relief, I suddenly had the wind knocked out of me ..... by a cute little frog. Meet Prince Tad from Mousie's classroom.Prince Tad was brought home with great ceremony, fed pretzels for afternoon tea, and then proceeded to explore Mousie's little potted garden. He helped her water her sunflower plant in the front garden, played a game of "catchies" with HB, Teddy and Kitcat and jumped on the trampoline before eating dinner. He then assisted Mousie with the after-dinner clean-up. At bed time I discovered that Prince Tad had made friends with Mousie's toy frog, Apollo, and they were both happily listening to her read them a story.In the morning I helped Mousie voluntarily paste the voluntarily-taken and voluntarily-printed photos into Prince Tad's journal, and I voluntarily helped to spell the words she didn't know.

Surely, I thought, now - at last - it was over.

But no! There was one last test to be passed.

Apparently Ducky's class was not the only one to have more than one classroom ~~pest~~ pet. Mousie was absolutely over the moon about being able to bring the much coveted Princess Rosey home ... and not just for a night or even a weekend. We got to keep her for the whole two week school holiday!

Yay! (not!)

After playing with Mousie on the Friday afternoon, the ~~extremely grotty~~ cute and delightful Princess Rosey was ~~unceremoniously dumped~~ carefully placed into a lingerie bag and sent for a ~~wild ride~~ gentle water massage in the washing machine. Once dry, I had the ~~responsibility~~ privilege of making sure this small member of amphibian royalty did not get lost. And I am happy to report that despite going everywhere with us during the school holidays, even to the movies, and being 'nearly' lost several times as well as having to be sent to "time out" more than once, Princess Rosey was safely transported back to school at the beginning of the term, accompanied by her journal which was full of those voluntarily-taken-and-printed photos.I did breathe a sign of relief once I saw Princess Rosey disappear into Mousie's classroom. I patted myself on the back for managing to get the classroom ~~pest~~ pet ~~ordeal~~ experience over and done with for the year, as I knew Kitcat's teacher did not subscribe to this particular form of parent ~~torture~~ participation.

Kitcat, however, was not so happy to be left out of all the excitement. So, she gathered up all her favourite soft toys and asked me to come and take a picture,
and ......thankfully she left it at that.

All Aboard the Chicken Train......

2011-07-14T20:22:00.001+10:00

We're in the midst of a train craze here at the Half-dozen house .... well, it's mainly the four youngest members of the family.

The school is close enough to the train line for them to be able to hear the synthesized 'dong-dong-dong-DONG' of the warning bell and the electric whirrrring sound as the train speeds up and away from the station.

We have to drive over the train lines from time to time and the girls love it when our car has to stop, at a level crossing, because they can watch the train go by. (I am not so excited by these occurrences. Occasionally a train can take a looooong time to go through the station.)

We recently were invited to dinner at a friends house, and they own an impressive model train set. Mousie, Teddy, Ducky and Kitcat were thrilled to be able to each 'drive' a train around the various lines, over bridges and through tunnels while watching for signals and pressing the button to make the train 'toot'. They have hardly stopped talking about the train set since we visited these friends over a week ago.

Today we had to drive to a different part of town and the road followed the train line for quite a fair way. The excitement generated by the mere thought that they might see a train lead to a height of anticipation that was only rivaled by the level of noise they were making.

After watching the train line intently for several kilometres, becoming more and more angry and frustrated with each turn in the road and every clump of trees that obscured their view for a brief moment, they were finally rewarded by the sight of a passenger train and a goods train passing each other.

There was great rejoicing in the car and all four girls spontaneously erupted into chants of 'choo-choo-choo-choo' and 'toot-toot' with the odd 'all aboard' thrown in for good measure. The chanting went on for quite a while.

Teddy sounded like a heavily-laden steam train trying to reach the top of a steep hill, "CHOO! ... CHOO! ... CHOO! ... CHOO!" with an occasional foghorn-like "TOOOOOT."

Mousie was rather erratic in her choice of sound effect, with random "choo-ch-choo, choo-ch-choo"s interspersed with fairly regular, jaunty little "toot-toot"s.

Ducky was in the fast lane, filling in the rare gaps between all the other 'choos' and 'toots' with her rhythmic little "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch."

After a few minutes I realised Kitcat wasn't participating. As I caught her eye in the rear-view mirror I saw a mischievous gleam. Just then there was a brief lull in the cacophony of train sounds and she took the opportunity to yell out "BOK BOK BOK BOK! All aboard the chicken."

Correct Cheering Protocol

2011-07-10T20:13:00.003+10:00

Mousie sometimes surprises us by demonstrating her knowledge of somewhat obscure subjects, such as the feeding technique of whales.

She likes to lecture her sisters whenever she finds an opportunity to share ~~her opinion~~ facts.

{note: Mousie's sisters do not ~~ever~~ always appreciate her generosity in educating them.}

Such an opportunity arose just a few mornings ago when the girls discovered that I was making them a milo drink with their breakfast.

Ducky was the first to observe and excitedly told everyone, "We're having milo! Yay!"

Mousie cried, "Yay!"

Teddy cried, "Yay!"

Kitcat yelled, "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"

"Okay Kitcat," Mousie began in her lecturing voice, "When you cheer you just say 'yay', okay?
You just say 'yay' and then you stop.
Okay?
You don't go 'yaaaaaaaaaaaay' because that's too long and noisy, okay?
Do you understand now Kitcat?
Don't say 'yaaaaaaaaaay', just say 'yay'.
Okay?
So remember, a cheer is just 'yay' but not 'yaaaaaaaaaay.'
You go it now?
Okay?"

Kitcat stared at her for a few moments and then yelled, "O-KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY."

Sweet 16th

2011-07-06T21:44:00.001+10:00

It was birthday time again in our house just last week and this time it was a very special one, especially for a girl - or so I've always thought. Possum didn't seem to think her 16th birthday was anything out of the ordinary but we all did our best to make it a wonderful event for her anyway. The birthday fairy still turned up, even though Possum is nearly all grown up now, and left not only 16 balloons but also a no.16 on the wall (just in case Possum was becoming forgetful in her advancing age!) HB was out of town for Possum's birthday but the rest of us showered her with gifts. She had been asking for the complete set of the "Tomorrow When the War Began" books, which she received! She also unwrapped a CD and an iTunes voucher (from Kitcat), a 'friends' picture frame, a 'sweet 16' silver charm for her charm bracelet (from Teddy), a pretty silver ring with a heart-shaped pink cubic zirconia (from Ducky), a box of chocolates (from Mousie), and another book to read (from Dragon).Nano and Grandpap sent money and a cute silver starfish necklace in a cute little purse. Nanna and Grandad sent money and some charms for Possum's pandora bracelet. Great-Grandma & Great-Grandad, Uncle R, Grandma and other friends sent/gave money too, so she was well cashed up by the end of the day.

Here's a collage of our traditional birthday "sibling love" hugs and kisses which are bestowed at gift-giving time. The little sisters also demonstrated their love for Possum by spending ages making her beautiful birthday cards which matched the wrapping paper on the gifts they gave, as well as spending a looooong time shopping with me to find the perfect present. Dragon showed his love for his big sister by writing in her card "I'm taller than you" and "Get a job".

My favourite is the photo of Teddy and Possum, bottom right of collage.I liked it so much I used it to make another digital scrap page, also making use of a free digiscrap kit called "Wild Mountain Honey" which had this cute little bench as one of it's elements. I thought it all went together well with the 'sweet' theme.Possum, our legendary procrastinator, couldn't decide what - if anything - she wanted to do for her birthday. Finally, with just days to go, she sent out invitations for her friends to meet her at Sizzlers for lunch. I was surprised at how many could make it on short notice. Here they all are enjoying yummy lunch at the restaurant.A couple of Possum's friends and their mum - people we had known back in Canberra and who also had moved to Brisbane this year - came back to our house for a while after lunch. They had a good time catching up, as they haven't really been able to spend much time together seeing as our families don't live in the same area, and I enjoyed talking to their mum about moving, absent husbands, changing schools and other joys of military life.

We were all too full after lunch to want dinner that night, so we just skipped straight to dessert and had birthday cake. Possum had asked for a vanilla choc chip cake, but she wasn't going to be forthcoming on any more details than that apart from stipulating that it couldn't be more than two layers. Since it was school holidays I was able to wait until the morning of Possum's birthday before setting to work on decorating her cake.

I had a lot of helpers, both in the planning and the assembly stages, not to mention when it came time for final touches! Mousie helped bake the cake the day before. Teddy, Mousie and Kitcat went shopping with me to purchase decorating supplies. We went out for candles, specifically, and ended up buying, at Teddy's insistence, a large fake purple waterlily. Then she wanted me to buy the purple flower candles. Kitcat chose the large purple candles and the small white candles. I thought the three votive candle holders would look pretty, but then couldn't find anything small enough to go in them and finally bought the larger church-type white candles.

All four younger sisters advised me on the decorating process. I filled and iced the double layer velvet vanilla & choc chip cake with rich caramel frosting and then sprinkled it with purple twinkle sprinkles. Teddy placed the purple flower candles and then Ducky decided I should make a no.16 with sparkling cachous. Ducky also said I should wrap the purple and pink gauzy ribbons around the cake. We then had a lot of discussion, and I was given a lot of advice, about the placement of the other candles and the purple waterlily. The end result elicited enthusiastic approval from the little sisters, although I thought it looked more like a shrine than a birthday cake! But we did have 16 candles, and we did manage to find a place for the purple waterlily which was a nice touch really, seeing as waterlily is the birth flower for the month of July. Possum managed to blow out all the candles on what I have now come to think of as the "Waterlily Candle Cake."

I made this digiscrap page using the photo of Possum holding her new 'friends' frame and then I put the photo of all her friends who came to the restaurant in the frame.Happy 16th Birthday to our beautiful Possum. We love you so much and are very proud of you!

A Gallery of Gaps

2011-06-27T22:36:00.007+10:00

Recent events in the Half-dozen household have lead me to ponder the volume of business we've generated, and will continue to generate for some years to come, for the Tooth Fairy. When I think about it, its no wonder our particular Tooth Fairy is often tardy or forgetful, possibly lazy or sometimes even broke ... or perhaps a combination of all of these! It must become a bit tedious to be called to the same household so frequently. I am pleased to report, though, that on her most recent assignment she was very prompt and rather generous.

Kitcat, our "baby", has lost her first tooth and the Tooth Fairy remembered to make a visit that very evening. She left a $2 coin, which is a 100% increase on the usual amount she pays for baby teeth. As I took a photo of the new gap in Kitcat's lower gum line I realised I now had enough photos for one of my "galleries".

I have created a few compilations of photos showing each of our Half-dozen at a major milestone in their lives eg: First baby photo, First Christmas, First Birthday, Dedication Day and now I can add First lost Tooth to the list.

Possum didn't lose her first tooth until she was 7. She lost it at school - literally. Although she wrapped it carefully in a tissue and put it in her lunchbox, it mysteriously went missing. Possum wrote the Tooth Fairy a note which she placed in her tooth keeper in lieu of the tooth, and she spent an uneasy night wondering if she would get any money. Of course the TF understood her predicament and paid up anyway.Dragon's first tooth fell out when he was nearly 6.Ducky managed to keep hold of her teeth the longest of all and even then her first tooth had to be pulled out by the dentist because it started turning black, which is why she has a gap in the top gum instead of the lower gum. She was seven and a half.Mousie was 6 when she lost her first tooth, the day before Kitcat's 4th Birthday. She also lost it at school but, unlike Possum, managed to keep it safe until she got home to put it in her tooth keeper.Teddy also lost her first tooth at age 6, just last month in fact.And Kitcat claims the record for being the youngest, only 5 years and 1 month, when she first lost a tooth. (She is holding her little wooden Cat tooth keeper.)So there you have it - my Gallery of Gaps.