HAPPY 21st EM!

This is Em & Amira last weekend after an arduous trek up Mount Lofty. Well, it was hard for some of us....!

For others, it was more of a sight-seeing, napping kind of trip.

We also went and fed the ducks, swans and seagulls on the Torrens. The ducks snapped the bread right out of my hands, and they were veeeeeery interested in Amira's little fingers! Eeek.

Zac finally got jealous of me doing Amira's hair in cute little pigtails. So he got a rhinoceros horn.



The cheeky little monkey... oh so cheeky!



Here she is again! Wearing tights because it was a little chilly. Gee, so much for our lawn...



"Skippedy doo-dah, skippedy yay!" Look at all those curls.



More dead grass, the car, and Zac with one of his mates, Joshua.



Amira and her friend, Jessica, having a stare-off on the swing.



A few stray birthday presents arrived this week. We received a slip in the mail box for a parcel, so I took the kids & the dog for a walk to the Post Office to collect it. The box was HUGE!! So had to balance it on top of the pram on the way home... lucky it wasn't heavy! Turned out to be a giant foam "Snakes and Ladders" set from Mud & Ellen. An instant hit!



(Although Zac was explaining the rules of the game to the neighbours today, and we were shocked that instead of sliding down the snakes' backs, he said that you get eaten by the head and then poohed out again at the tail. How embarrassing!!!)

Cuddles and tickles for the camera! It is so hard to get the two of them looking at the same place at the same time, let alone smiling!



Finally, some rain. :)



Amira crying as her gumboot fills with icy cold creek water!!!



Guess she has a lot to learn this winter! Hopefully Zac can pass on some gumboot wisdom, such as "tuck your trackies in" and "don't wade in water deeper than than your boots"!

Happy Easter!!! I hope the bunny was nice to you all. :)

Here's Amira all dolled up and strutting!



Both kids busy drawing and writing.



Amira and her favourite Charlie and Lola book! She gets so excited and bops and dances when the theme music comes on... very cute!



Chocolate ducks?? What was the Easter bunny thinking?!



Zac found the biggest bunny ever!



Zac's 4th Birthday! Aunty Jac bought him a Nemo fish for the bath...



Amira had no idea what was happening but she was excited anyway!



Zac wearing his new watch from Nana (and Amira looks pretty envious too!).



Amira in her little skirt, tights, and gumboots!!!! (Thanks Jacqui!) Just in time for all this lovely rain!



We went to Dot's for a BBQ lunch but Amira thought the pool was too cold to go swimming.



So did Zac... which is why he is hanging on so tight!



Zac's birthday dinner - after all the chocolate on the weekend, I made vanilla slice for his 'cake'!



Busy times for us soon - Gunny will be returning to the SQNs soon and there are a lot of trips scheduled for me as well!

Oh and everyone in Canberra, watch out - Em will be back very very soon!!!*

(*For a limited time only.)

It's the week of 4 yr old birthdays!!!

Here is Zac, ready to go to Oscar's pirate-themed birthday party. He has his sword, his parrot (well actually a cockatoo from Michael - thank you!) and make up ala Johnny Depp courtesy of Mum! Arrgggg...



Now Zac has borrowed a few more professional looking props and has set into one of the hosts, lopping off limbs with happy abandon.



Oscar's cubby house... see what Gunny has to compete with?!*



The kids in the 'moving out Zac's car bed' ceremony. Now there's only a cot & a ginourmous bunk.



Said bunk.



Oscar slept over the night before Zac's birthday party. The kids had a great time! You have no idea how much talking two four year old boys can do...



The day of Zac's party! Amira on the Merry Go Round...



Zac on the same ride! Waiting for all the kids to arrive.



My beautiful little girl modelling some "I moved while the make up artist was still painting" artwork!



At this point I am not sure who was having more fun!!! Squirty dodgem boats... one word... awesome!



Zac's birthday cake. It was actually a caramel slice with half a kilo of dark chocolate and double cream on top... bad has never tasted so good!



Here we all are. Zac is obviously thinking, it's his party so he can pull faces if he wants to... that, or he is the only one of us who has realised we are posing in the teeth of a huge shark!



Today we managed to build and paint a giraffe out of egg cartons and a cardboard roll before I left for work!



*Gunny would like to say that he is not competing with anything and has no cubby house issues whatsoever! Oh, and that his was finished first.

The biggest blog ever!

Sorry about the delay... we will try to make up for it.

Well I think everyone knows I am back at work. Two weeks ago I had a training flight to Hobart! This is me on top of Mount Wellington.



I got one of the guys to take this photo on my phone to send to Zac. Tasmania is absolutely stunning, it was a pity I was too busy flying on instruments to actually look out the window!

Here is Amira and her friend Jessica at kindergym. Last week the girls were wearing almost the same outfit! They both love it, everything is padded and there are ladders, slides, trampolines and tunnels everywhere. Zac does not like us going without him when he is at kindy.



Here is the little dare devil about to launch on a tiny plastic roller coaster! The anitcipation was enormous.



This is another phone picture - I bought the kids a tub of yoghurt to share and Zac was sulking that he didn't get his OWN yoghurt, so I confiscated his spoon. Well little Amira saw Zac not eating his favourite yoghurt and she decided to feed him! You can see she has not done such a good job feeding herself either. It looked like a skiing accident for a while.



Amira wearing my motorcycle gloves...



The 3 cousins!



Zac sharing his icecream with Amira. It has been really hot here in Adelaide!



One afternoon I could hear giggling but could not find the kids anywhere. Eventually I discovered them BOTH buried in the toy box...



Judy reading the grandkids a bed time story.



For the Adelaide Cup long weekend, we drove down to Second Valley (near Rapid Bay/Cape Jervis) to go camping by the beach with friends. The beach was tiny but beautiful and very protected. There was lots of swimming. snorkelling, BBQing and drinking...



Zac insisted on playing cricket!



Even Tayla came along! She has to be the best dog in the world. After swimming and running for two days, she got home and hardly moved for another two!



Our campsite! It was high 30's every day, but we were lucky to have some huge shady trees (even if the galahs and cockatoos did insist on flinging pinecone debris!).



Poor Amira managed to contract a staph infection in her foot so unfortunately we had to cut our trip short and ended up spending a few hours in hospital on Sunday night and Monday morning! That is a whole other story... but luckily she is fine now.

Hopefully we will be back early next week with pictures from Zac's 4th birthday party!