Adventures

My boys are gorgeous, and here are some photos of recent adventures (big and small) to prove it:

1. Owen got an unopened jar of vegemite out of the cupboard, got it open, and dug right in. Disgusting!

2.  Jackson loves being a pirate. He’s so cute I’d hand over anything he asked for!

3.  We had a free day on Monday, so went hiking. It was okay, but we’ve had heaps of rain lately, so it was mostly just muddy. We had fun anyway.

4. The last few days we have had crazy weather. We enjoy a beautiful morning with sun and blue skies. Then around 2 pm it gets dark, the wind, thunder and lightening start, and the rain comes pouring down. Wednesday we even had hail for about 5 minutes. It all lasts no more than 30 minutes. Within an hour, we are back to blue sky and sun. Once the hail stopped, Owen had a great time!

5. We got our Christmas tree up and decorated. We don’t have many decorations, but it looks okay. The first thing Jackson did when it was up was lie down underneath it. I’m not sure why, but it was cute.

Monkeys!

Anyone who knows me even semi-well knows that I am not crafty. I try sometimes, but it usually doesn't end well. I'll leave out the messy details.

But...a few months ago at youth, with the help of another talented leader, the girls made sock monkeys. I mostly supervised. I was inspired though. I thought, "I could actually do that." So I decided to take up the challenge and make sock monkeys for all of our nieces and nephews for Christmas. And while they are far from perfect (especially the first few), I feel quite satisfied with the way they turned out. Nice job me.

So here are some (not great) photos of the finished monkeys. I'm pretty sure that I'll be making more. I actually enjoyed this! Maybe someday in the future you will all be owners of my sock monkeys. Probably not, but who knows.

If you're interested in making your own, click here for the tutorial. I warn you, it's addicting. Happy monkey making!

The black ones are for the boys and the girly ones are for the girls. It was a bit tough to find cool socks for boys. The last 3 are my favorite.

Here comes Santa…and tears

We decided on Friday to take the kids into the city to the Myer Centre to see Santa. I was pretty excited about it and thought it would be a fun outing. There is a train ride, Santa letter writing, the big man himself, and his reindeer, Rudolph that the kids can pet (he’s fake). Like I said, I was pretty excited and the kids would really enjoy. Ha.

The train ride was a mild success. Jackson would have nothing to do with it, but Owen went for a ride. I’m not sure he enjoyed it, as you’ll see from the photos, but at least he did it.

 

We waited in line for Santa, which wasn’t too bad, especially the part when the kids got to watch Nemo.

Finally it was our turn to see him. We went into the little room where the Jolly Man was waiting for us. Owen immediately started crying and trying to climb over my shoulder out of there. Jackson literally ran out screaming and Sam had to go and catch him. We stayed in there for a few minutes. Jackson finally stopped crying and would answer yes/no questions from Santa. Owen just cried and continued trying to climb out. At least we didn’t pay to get a photo! This was the best we got, once we were far away from Santa.

Not the best family outing. At least Jackson enjoyed the bus ride. Maybe next year?

Gotta love ‘em

Owen is disgusting. He refuses to be fed most days, and must feed himself. Luckily the weather is warming up and he can eat naked outside some days. Seriously disgusting.

And so it’s not all about Owen all the time, here’s one of Jackson. I came home from a meeting today after church, and this is what I found. Nursery must’ve been pretty intense today, cause this never happens.

Pumpkins

When I first saw carving pumpkins at the store here, I got really excited. I was planning to get a bunch, have some friends over and we would all have a great time carving pumpkins. I couldn’t wait to have a tiny bit of our American Halloween tradition here in Australia. The next time I went to the store, however, I saw the price tag. $20. Each. I seriously had to stop and recheck the price. Surely they didn’t mean $20 for each pumpkin. But they did. So I gave up my pumpkin party because I couldn’t imagine paying that much for one pumpkin.

Then last week my awesome (and very thoughtful) sister-in-law, Amy, called up and said she was bringing us a pumpkin. It was a wonderful surprise and I’m so grateful to know she was thinking of us. So the next night, Jackson picked out a stencil, the boys stayed up late and we carved our pumpkin. Jackson wouldn’t touch the inside guts, but had fun helping with everything else. Good times were had by all. Thanks again, Amy! We love you!

Cleaning out the guts

This is as much as Owen participated. Thankfully.

The finished product! I think it turned out great. Jackson was a little scared of it. Oops.

I love this boy!

Australia Zoo

Australia Zoo had a great offer in August. If you went once in August, you got free admission for the rest of the year. We decided to go with Mum so we got the free passes. A couple of weeks ago, Sariah (Sam’s sister-in-law) invited us to go up with her and the kids. The boys loved having their cousins there. We all had a great time. Jackson and Tommy even got to do the pony ride for the first time. I thought Jackson would be scared, but he loved it!

Why?

I really love my son. Just want to start with that.

So Jackson has recently turned 3. I feel like we’ve really moved forward in leaps and bounds since then…just one short month. Jackson never really hit the “terrible twos”, although he had his moments. But he’s wasted no time hitting the “terrible 3’s.” I admit he’s still not terrible, but the tantrums have increased a lot. Definitely testing the limits.

But really, that isn’t what is driving me crazy right now. One of the annoying/frustrating parts of Jackson’s growing up is entering the question phase. I hear the question “why?” about 10 billion times a day (and I never exaggerate).  I know he’s just trying to work everything out, but oh my goodness, I had no idea it would make me so crazy.  He also wants to know who everyone is, where they are going, and where their mummy and daddy are. He also wants to know what everything is about. It goes something like this:

“What is that shop about?” “What is that shirt about?” “What is that car about?” “What is that movie about?” “What is that picture about?” And then when I answer him, without fail he follows up with, “why?”

But even that I could maybe live with. This is when I really want to scream (and often do). Here is a little window into how conversations between Jackson and I go at least half of the time.

Jackson: “Mummy, what are you doing?” Me: “I’m cleaning up.”  J: “Why?” M: “Because it’s a bit messy.”  J: “Yes, Mamma?” M: “Because it’s a bit messy.”  J: “Yes, Mamma?” M: “Because it’s a bit messy.”   J: “Yes, Mamma?” M: “Because it’s a bit messy.”  J: “Yes, Mamma?” M: “Aaaaggghhhh!”  

I hope we all make it through year 3. One month down, 11 to go. Good thing he’s so handsome.