Morning Shenanigans

Adlai doesn't usually move around in the mornings. He lays on his back and yells/cries/whines till someone picks him up. Not really a desperate cry just an "I'm up and I'm not going to stop until someone saves me" kind of noise.

Apparently he had been up for a while this morning. When I went to save him, he was standing with his sleeping bag wrapped around his ankles.

He didn't need saving from his bed. Maybe from his sleeping bag, though.

Love Me Some Peanut Butter

So, I may have been walking through Costco and may have made an spur of the moment purchase.

But it was on sale!

And it did take a few days for Seth and I to eat it. I so wanted to eat it all in one sitting but I was mostly good. And it was pretty close to awesome.

Australia Day

We had a few low key Australia Day. Seth had the day off but we didn't do much of anything. We did do dinner with our friends, Heather and Troy. We were going to head to the city to see the fireworks but in the end we just headed for some more ice cream at the same place as Lilly's birthday. I did give the kids some glow bracelets. So they at least had that.

Well, and they had ice cream.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Lilly!

Our morning was pretty slow. We talked to my mom

and Lilly opened her present.

There was even a wardrobe change.

And later my sister-in-law, brother and the twins called. But I was on the way out the door and didn't have my camera handy to snap a picture.

The temps ran into the 90s. It was hot. So in the afternoon I took the kids down to an outdoor pool near our old apartment. It was nice. Although to me, it felt cold the moment we got into the water. We spent a lot of time in the baby pool and that has a shade sail over the entire thing, so the water doesn't really warm up. At least in the other pool there was a section that wasn't covered so it felt warmer (I'm sure it helps to be standing in the sun).

Seth met us at the pool and we headed out for dinner. We asked Lilly what she wanted for dinner. Lilly's answer was rice. So Thai was the winner. Here's Adlai's thoughts on dinner:

Afterwards we walked down the street a few meters to a gellato place. Lilly was quite happy.

She even was happy to include her brother in the festivities.

But then I asked her to pose for a picture (in front of a brick wall) and it was clear she was done.

I did want to show you her fashion sense.


And her last attempt at a smile.

I love you, Lilly Bear!!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

The AWA had their first Mom and Tot outing for the new year as a family event. We went to see the Melbourne Aces play today!! To say it was a professional game would cause me to chuckle. But it was ok. Because it is the off season in the states, there are a few guys that play in the minors in the states. I didn’t recognize anyone. Although I guess I should have gotten some autographs. Who knows, maybe someday they would be big names. Maybe.

Applying mass amounts of sun protection:

This one just goes around like this so we don't worry about his fact. He is awake in this picture.

The um . . . stadium? If you look closely, you'll see that this is the same place I was when i took pictures of the guys doing crazy stunts on their motorbikes a few months ago during the Royal Show.

And what's a team without a mascot?

At 10 months:

Adlai can crawl, pull himself up to standing, balance with no support. He plays a game where he stands up and let’s go of your hands and then falls into your lap. He still takes two naps but won’t sleep through the night. He likes food until you note the success and then he starts spitting it out. He pulls himself up in his crib and then cries because he doesn’t know what to do after that.

Got Polar Bears?

This kid's hair gets oddly curly when there is a bit of humidity. But when I want it to curl, nothin'.


I should not have waited until after the baseball game to try to get a better picture.

Did Someone Say Par-tay?

We decided to have Lilly’s party on Saturday to avoid scheduling conflicts of other parties. The weather was supposed to be decent but there was the threat of rain the entire time.

So, Lilly wanted to do a fairy theme. (Second choice was underwater.) So we put some flowers on the table and to start we had the girls make magic wands.

By the way, the guy on the left is Nathan. He has an amazing talent of holding things. Here he is showing off his wand holding skills and I had him holding thread as well. If you ever have a party and need someone to hold stuff, Nathan is your man.

A couple of the girls wore dresses but Lilly may have been the only one with wings. Lilly wanted to invite Alex (they’ve been friends FOREVER, he has to be there, doesn’t matter if all the other people are girls, he’s coming – Lilly’s words, I love it!) so he came in the best elf costume EVER!!

Next up was a treasure hunt. I didn’t get pictures of that but it was great. Seth did an awesome job of setting it up. Some kids got lost (with an adult, of course) and wondered around the park but everyone was a winner in the end.

We played with a wishing well. Everyone had to toss a coin in the box and get the coin on a number. When everyone had a number, the kids got to choose their prizes with number 1 choosing first. They all got bubble wands but they had to choose their color.

The kids played a fun game with balloons but we had to alter it due to the wind. They were supposed to hit the balloons around and keep them up in the air, but one toss and the balloons would have all ended up in the skate park. So the fairies and elf just passed the balloons. In order to get their prize they had to pop their balloon and perform a task that was written on a piece of paper inside. The best one was when the youngest fairy was ordered to hug her mom and dad!

The kids got lots of playtime at the park. And then we had hotdogs and hamburgers for everyone.

Chef at work. The grill that is in the front was from the other party that was sharing the area. They had a ton of food. This was just part of the sausage course.

He got some sort of mush, nothing grand.

We even had a cake.

(It’s supposed to be a toadstool, if you couldn’t tell.)

And for those of you that remember our monstrous lazy susan that goes with our rockin’ heavy weight table, I have discovered that it is very useful in cake decoration.

And the soon-to-be- birthday girl:

Don't mind the food on her face. That's how she usually looks so we don't even bother wiping it off for pictures.

AND it didn’t rain. In fact, as we left, there was a bit of sunshine. That may have happened because Lilly then spent the afternoon at her friend’s house. Just kiddin'!

Really? That's What You Do?

The malls or shopping centres around here usually have some sort of school holiday program. One time it was cookie decorating sponsored by Mrs. Fields Cookies (we were 4^th in line for that one). Sometimes in a Kung Fu Panda show with singing and dancing. They usually are pretty fun.

So I was happy that while we were running all over the state of Victoria to find the last items for Lilly’s birthday party, the mall we stopped at had a show. I knew this would give Lilly a break from all the shopping and we could take a breather.

I had never heard of Magic Tales before. No idea where it came from. But the best part of the show is this guy:

He’s Awesome Guy.

Seriously, his superpower was being awesome. Pretty awesome, huh?

A Bit o' Fun

Lilly and I like to have Adlai crawl around the house a lot. It wears him out. He sleeps better. Which still isn't great but hey, it won't be forever.

Of course, he has that funky crawl and he goes in circles quite often. He’s beginning to learn to stop and re-angle his body so he gets to where he wants to go.

LET ME OUT!!!

My guess is that Adlai is tired of being stuck in our house.

He tried to escape.

Well, he got to the door and took a look out.

I think he had second thoughts.

A Trip to the Theatah (I Mean Theatre)

A friend of ours is an amazing performer. She is in a group called Dislocate. We were happy to have been invited to see their show called Curiosity.

(Our friend, Kate)

Don’t tell anyone I took these pictures. I didn’t get any cool tricks. I’m just not that good.

They do a lot of circus type tricks. The show was pretty funny and they even did a little song and dance at the end. Lilly really enjoyed the show (and loved that she knew one of the performers).

They have a page on Facebook, check them out!

My Newest Buddy

This guy was found in the bathtub:

He made it out of the house alive.

But not much further than that.

And yes, the container does say Bug Catcher. Although I think it would be better named Spider Catcher since that is the only thing we have put in there.

We have seen a plethora of spiders here. Seth's co-workers say that because of the rains that all the spiders have been coming out to play. Most of them have been harmless, but I'm pretty sure we've had a couple I would not want to meet with a bare foot.

Happy Birthday, Alex!

One of Lilly’s friends just turned 5 and he had an Octonauts party. Lilly was so excited. But considering we don’t watch television, I have no idea how she has seen the Octonauts!

But wait! There’s more!

Look what baby Adlai has added to his repertoire:

This one only took 9.5 months.

Point Nepean

We drove down around the bay to the national park at the tip. There is a Quarantine Station that is starting to be refurbished (refurbished? I don't know if that was what I was thinking when I wrote this, but it's staying). At one point the 'hospitals' were used as barracks and I swear somewhere I read that the area was used for a camp (dorm room style, but I still can't imagine what kind of camp would have been held there)

This was the machine they used to decontaminate the luggage and stuff. Hence the luggage on the conveyor belt.

I really like the look of brick so I always get pictures of Lilly in front of it. Just ignore her hair, it’s her latest style.

Afterwards we took a little hike. It was a bit chilly but the sun was shining so we warmed up pretty well. Seth and Lilly even did a little play on the beach. I kept Adlai with me on the path so he didn’t get all sandy. Plus, I wasn’t feeling well and just wanted to sit and relax for a little bit.

Adlai seemed to enjoy his ride. Well, he fell asleep 5 minutes after we started walking and just sunk lower and lower in the pack. Notice the hat he got for the holidays. The was the last we saw of it. Time to go hat shopping for one with a string.

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Another scorcher! I don’t think it was as hot as yesterday but it was hot.

Anyway, we headed to the Docklands near the city to give Lilly a chance to let off some steam. She’s been trapped inside the house (with an occasional short romp outside) between the heat and the sun. So we took her to Monkey Mania. It’s an indoor play structure. Lilly had a grand time. She actually started talking to some other people and running around with them (we had tried to get some friends to come along but everyone was busy or sick.

No More Work than Necessary

2012 has become the lazy year. We just couldn’t find a reason to get moving! Well, and the fact that it was even hotter today. Our air conditioner is getting a workout, that’s for sure. Lilly wanted to watch a movie with dinner and ten minutes into it the electricity went out. She probably didn’t need any more television for the day anyway!! And having nothing to do with the above mentioned power outage, our oven stopped working today. At least all we were trying to make was chicken patties for lunch. Not some fancy dinner. Let’s see how quickly this will get repaired. When our oven stopped working at the old place it took weeks to get it fixed.

A New Year with an Exciting Start

It’s getting hot down here. I think the high was about 38 C. Trust me when I say it was hot.

We had a quiet day although we did break out the water table. Lilly had put together her Lego boat and wanted to see if it would float. The water table was not the best way to try it out as the boat barely fit inside but Lilly got to see it float. In the end all the boats were suddenly able to fly as there were games of chase with the Lego people.

The trucks were a purchase made a Toy World last week while we were looking for a birthday present for someone else. Seth was excited they had Jets but I was disappointed they had nothing for me.

Seth told Lilly she could have the Indians truck since he isn’t a huge baseball fan. Somehow Lilly ended up with both trucks in her car storage case.

I wasn't really serious about the exciting start. Pretty boring but nice and relaxing.