Week-ending

Camping with our favourite {Sydney} cousins......

 lovely scenic drive filled with beautiful cumulus clouds

I think I'll add some more pics later......

15 weeks......or so I thought

I came on here to finish my 15 week update on Lil, but just realised that's tomorrow she's actually 19 weeks.

What???. 19 weeks. How did this happen?? 

How did she go from this; my smallest baby.....

to this, my bald-est baby......

to this (today); my most 'butter-ball-ish' baby.....

all in 19 weeks.

I am in denial! Really I am. It just goes WAY too fast and this little chubs of ours can no longer be called a new born. 

I have a baby. But not a newborn. ahhh sigh!

So the 15 week update went something like this.....

you sleep 11 hours at night

you still don't really ever cry (I wonder if this will change when you start teething?)

You are SO chubs. we love it.

You happily lye anywhere and just look around

You love being near people

We threw out all our 'blubble blowers' because you blow them for us (ok we didn't really but we could :)

You can roll from your tummy to your back

You no longer sleep on your tummy (because of above)

When u wake up in the morning after your mammoth sleep, you lay in bed cooing and gurgeling. When I come to pick you up, you flash me the best.smile.ever. Ever.
Even with our early feeding woes, you are my easiest baby by far!

At 19 weeks your stats haven't changed that much.....

you still sleep 11 hours at night sometimes 12

You are still feeding from me {which is a little miracle that I am grateful for everyday}

You have started laughing. We LOVE it.
You love to grab things
The octopus toy is your MOST favourite!
You love to smile
And you are still celebrated like a 'star' everyday. Exactly how it should be!

"Watcha think mummy"

This is what happens when I leave the room for 10 seconds while hand painting......

Love how perfectly she imprinted even her little fingers.

All in a days work

We like to start them young around here.......

 

Jasmin's 3 official "contributing"' jobs

 - put the dishwasher on (taken very seriously and don't-you-even-think-about-putting-that-tablet-in-the-dishwasher-and-pressing-that-buttton unless you are Jasmin {otherwise you will be in big tantrum trouble}

- push the chairs in at table

- wipe the table

And this one is her unofficial job. Putting away the cutlery. Done because her brother asks her in his sweetest voice if she wants to help him. And she almost always does.

Jacaranda hunting

Every year I wait for spring. One, because I can't wait to pack my puffer jacket away, and two, because it's time for the Jacaranda beauties to adorn our streets.

This year they seemed to take longer than usual to bloom in full (I assume because of the cold weather that has been lurking around Sydney??).

So a few weeks ago after being somewhat disappointed with the lack of purple flashes around, we went on a hunt. A Jacaranda hunt. We only found about 12 that were showing their vibrancy the way they should've been. But last week driving the same route we counted more than 40. Finally they are here! And they are beautiful.

I love that every time we go anywhere now the kids count as many as they can, and Jasmin constantly calls out from her seat "there's another jacranra".

Sometimes we drive home the longer way just so we can see their vibrant glory from a higher vantage point. It takes my breath away every time I see them scattered below. 

Apparently 'way back when' in the 30's and 40's Jacaranda saplings were given to mothers when they left the hospital with their babies. How appropriate that something SO beautiful would be given to a new mother to plant and watch grown as she welcomes new life into the world. 

{As you can imagine the kids are thrilled when I randomly decide to pull over and take about 50 a couple of pictures ;} haha

Sometimes

Sometimes we watch beautiful dancers on utube and spin around the lounge room wearing 'bawarena' skirts

just what little girls dreams are made of.

And a few more

Spring in Darling Harbor.......

and what's a trip to the city without playing in the spinning doors of fancy hotels :)

Traditions and mystery days

"In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e, time." Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I think these few words sum up quite perfectly WHY family traditions are SO important.

It doesn't matter so much what the traditions are, what matters are the feelings and connections that are created because of them. The sense of belonging within the family and the memories provided that bind us to each other, inseparably. Moments and memories that are remembered and talked about forever.

One of the things I LOVE about blogging is that there are so many new and inspiring ideas out there. Almost everywhere I click I find something I want to tweak and adopt as our newest family tradition (luckily Chad is big on traditions too otherwise I'm sure this would drive him mad ;)

So enter 'mystery days' to our repertoire of family traditions! I saw the original idea a few months ago on a blog I frequent and knew immediately we were adopting the idea (it's basically a random surprise family activity)

After I told Chad about it, we announced it to the kids and the next morning when we opened the scriptures, this note fell out......

hahahaha. This is obviously not a note from either Chad or I (gotta give Rylan credit for trying ;) And while we acknowledged it was REALLY funny (it still makes me laugh) and a great idea, the boys would actually be going to school and the mystery activity had to be organised by us, the parents (for now).

Yesterday however, when we opened the scriptures, there was an 'authentic' note announcing a mystery day. It was all very exciting!!

The dancing and repeated chants of 'no school today it's a mystery day' were well worth the absence of academics (i.e missing school :) but we did go to the aquarium so there was still 'educational' value ;)

So without further ado, here's a few pics from our Mystery day in the city........

 

I think the look on this sharks face (it looks like a smile doesn't it :) pretty much sums up our day (even with the 'I'm so tired' melt downs on the way home......;)

ps) thanks for the tickets to the aquarium prattsama!!
pss) does it seem funny that we had sushi for lunch after going to the aquarium?? hahaha

Smiling

Daddy daughter love

There's not many things I find cuter than this little smile!

Weekend surprises

It's kind of funny that my sister'n'law Alana is engaged, because I really do still think of her as 'little lani'. 

Then I see pictures like the ones below, and I am reminded that she's actually a Woman now. A beautiful, talented, successful Woman. And she's getting married!

  {these two pics are courtesy of Deep Grey photography. They are AMAZING. Really they are. If you haven't already seen their stuff you should absolutely go check out their photos....like right now ;}

For her engagement party on Saturday, Chad and I flew up to Brisbane (with Lil) to surprise her and Cam. It was very exciting :) Oh how I love surprises! (yay :) It was so fun rocking up and not telling them we were coming (I thought it was going to be more exciting for me (haha) but when we arrived there were squeals, hugs, tears and love. Just as we hoped it would be :) 

It was SO good spending the day with family and seeing how happy these two are! Ahhhh young love. So new and exciting!!!!

the 4:30 am (yes AM) train to the airport......Lil didn't even notice she was being dragged out of bed. Chad and I on the other hand......we must be getting old ;)

 

We stayed with my sister Anita and had a lovely brunch with all my other sisters before the engagement party too! I really love those girls!!! Ahh sigh, the time we spend in Brisbane is never long enough!!

Can't wait till Christmas to see all our family again!!!

ps) Cam you are a LUCKY man!! thanks for making Lani SO happy!!! I think she is going to burst :)