Friday Fun

Katy thinks Fridays are a great cause there is lots of fun with Mum! Today was no different. After waving goodbye to Ella and Daddy and a quick vacuum of the house it's off to Tiny Tots at the YMCA. Lots of walking, climbing and playing over, under and through loads of fun equipment.

Next was a trip to the airport to pick up Grandpa who was returning from a conference in NZ. Had to hang around at the airport for over an hour due to the late arrival of his plane. No matter Katy thought it was great to walk up and down the length of the airport - attracting numerous smiles from strangers.

Once back at home it was music time for Katy.

We organised ourselves for the BBQ dinner (more on that later) before venturing over to the Dee's. As Stace, Dave (and pebbles) are on a long weekend in Sydney, we needed to feed Duffy, their cat.

Then it was off to the Cook Community Hub for a BBQ dinner with the McCrae/Allison, Jones/Walter and the Walders families. A great spot - kids playing in park while the adults were cooking and eating. Beautiful evening too.We had such an enjoyable evening that it may actually become a regular event.

Katy & Abby; Max, Ella & Abby.

Abby & Zoe cooking their dinner.

Max on his bike; Mica, Tom & Emily

Rob, Al & Mira

Poor Pippa

Another trip to the vet today for Pippa after we discovered on Saturday afternoon a rather large lump on her left chest wall (adjacent to the one that was removed in July). The lump wasn't causing any problems for Pippa - it wasn't sore to touch and she was still eating normally and running around like a mad thing. I was again nervous as the vet said it should come out because it has come up fairly quickly, was a reasonable size and he couldn't guarantee it was related to the original lump.

The vet was great as although he had already 5 operations on his list today he managed to squeeze her in. During the afternoon I received a phone call from him letting me know that the surgey had gone well. The lump was another abscess but unlike last time the offending foreign body - 2 grass seeds - had been located! He believed that the seeds had been in there since the summer tracking along the side of her chest.

Pippa is back home now, a little sore and sporting a bald spot with a couple of stitches. Hopefully that's our last visit to the vet for a while.

Banished

Ella's bed routine has been going well lately. Probably 70% of the time she falls asleep while being read to. The other 30% we leave her (and hope) or if she is overtired stay on the end of the bed while she drifts off.

Tonight it was my turn to put her to bed and I must say if any night is going be a problem it will be Monday cause Ella has slept at childcare. Not the case tonight. Seeing though we had a a big weekend without much sleep and Ella didn't fall asleep while being read to so I thought I would lay down next to her and take a short nap while she fell asleep. As I closed my eyes Ella pipes up and says ' Mum I want to be in my own bed by myself.' Nice to feel wanted!! I left, Ella got up, found her princess dolls and spent the next 35mins talking and playing with them before drifting off to sleep. The best thing though was she stayed in her room.

New Love

Andy celebrated his 37th birthday yesterday and has now a new love in his life - an electric coffee grinder. He was spoilt by his two littlest princesses with eggs and soldiers for breakfast as well as a coffee. The coffee was even more wonderful than normal because 1. of the new grinder producing finer grains ('even too fine' quote from Andy - will need more time to test the settings) and 2. he has been on coffee detox for a week.

The celebrations continued into the night with his own party hosted by Stace...well actually it was Searlo's 40th black and white birthday bash. Stace (and Dave) did a fantastic job of organising the occasion with several secrets being kept from Dave. One of the secrets was the collingwood jersey cake that Stace and I decided would be pretty easy to make! The end product looked and tasted pretty decent. All up a great kid-free night with good friends :)

Melbourne Zoo

As our flight back to Canberra didn't leave until 3pm, we decided to check out the Melbourne Zoo. WOW what a place! I think we only covered about a third of this amazing zoo. Gorillas, monkeys, pygmy hippos, butterfly house and tigers were exciting to see. Then Josh, Mia and Susie joined us as we were finishing our lunch.

The elephants were the highlight especially the 2 very cute littlest elephants - Ongard is 6 weeks old, while Mali is 7 months old. They were both joining in with the zoo keepers games and tricks. All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not an elephant - 22 months gestation, 50+ labour and baby birth weight around 140 kg!

The butterfly house was fascinating as well as very humid! Loads of butterflies fluttering around occasionally landing on people. At the far end of the butterfly house, was several glass boxes housing caterpillars, cocoons and newly hatched butterflies. Ella was very intrigued with the whole process. She even sat sit trying to encourage a butterfly to land on her hand - no luck though.

The orang-utans were another hit and we spent about 25 mins watching and playing.

Of course even with this wonderful zoo, nothing beats climbing a tree!!

v

RIP Granny

This week saw us travel to Melbourne to attend Andy's Granny's funeral. She passed away last week peacefully aged 93. Granny will be sadly missed.

Writing

While Katy has been practicing her walking, Ella has been showing off her writing skills. The back paving is a fantastic place for chalk drawing. Here are some of the results of Ella's writing...

ALLE = Ella!

Ktay = Katy

TNAALIE = Natalie

Katy trying to be like her big sister!

Picnic at Lake G

Yesterday the girls and I met up with the cousins at John Knight Park on the shores of Lake Ginnindera for a picnic lunch. Cathy and Susie both made delicious salads to accompany the bbq chicken's for lunch. The playground was a huge hit with the kiddies and trying to keep an eye on them all proved to be difficult - Ella and Luca both wandering off at various times in the afternoon causing moments of panic for the adults. After a post lunch nap Katy showed off her walking skills storming all over the playground.

Visiting Cousins

So Andy left yesterday for a week - he has meetings in Sydney then heads to Perth on Friday for a 3 day conference. In Perth Andy will pay a visit to cousins Adrian & Heather who will be pleased to know that today while Ella was busy chatting & wrapping up various soft toys to be put to bed - the 3 owls Andy bought home from the UK are the mummy, sister and baby and winnie the pooh & tigger joined in. So what are their relationship to the owls? Well why they are cousins of course!!

Warmer weather brings...

1. Trips to Floriade which is in its last week.

2. Planting the vegie garden - roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, slender eggplants, zucchini, passionfruit, snowpeas, lebanses cuecumber, butternut pumpkin and herbs of course.

3. Planting other plants - including a very pretty and endangered Tumut grevillea replacing the scraggly tree in front of the lounge room window.

4. Eat lunch under the shade sail.

5. Loads of playing outside in the sandpit, on the trampoline, on the swing, on the slide, chalk writing on the pavers...

6. Daylight saving.