Some more snippets

I seem to have a pile of random photos building up so I thought I would pop them on here.....

Wet swimmers after a surfing sess.  Rowan can now stand up on his board, he makes it look so easy!

A bowl of flowers picked by my little boys

Glassy sea

Our thongs

Tristan surfing

Afternoon Tea Time

Boiled eggs and Lego ninjas

Lego in pjs's

For Reuben's birthday Cath sent him a make your own pop up book kit.  They both loved it and spent hours, thinking of their stories and making them

This is one of my favourite views.  It is along the pathway between school and the lake, every time I go past it I think to myself, oh how I love it here!

Rowan had a day off school as he was a little under the weather and his concentration was getting really bad, so I thought he needed a break.  He got well into doing this jigsaw.

School had a dress up day, the theme was Aladdin

I suppose this is our biggest news, we have a 2nd car.  We only needed one a couple of times a week so it won't be used much, but we also wanted a 4x4 so we could go to better camping places, as here you are really limited to where you can go if you only have a normal car as the roads end as soon as you head away from the coast pretty much.  So we now have Goldie, she is an old 1988 Toyota Landcruiser, a beast but should be good fun too!

As a mid term treat we went down to the Gold Coast last weekend to go to Movie World, the boys choice.  We all had a great day.  This was Rowan's favourite ride - the childrens bumper cars, they went so slow it was amazing, but he loved them!

This is Reubens favourite ride, the childrens roller coaster

And the end of the day was finished off with the parade, they have seen it beofre but they loved it again.  I thought Reubens arm was going to fall off he was waving it so hard!

We have found a new park around the other side of the lake, it is great.  Rowan though liked the adults park best, they have loads of gym like equipment there.  He was well into doing 'his exercises'!

So that's a pretty good example of our days really.  We have a long weekend coming up for the Queens birthday then only 2 more weeks till school holidays, yippee!  I can't wait to do some fun stuff with the boys and just hang out, I miss them when they are at school.  We may try to get a camping trip in Goldie done soon too!

Mad May, Birthdaytastic!

So it was May and as most of you know, May is mad in our house having Tristans and Reubens birthdays right next to each other.

Reuben wanted a bouncy castle as he loved his party so much last year that he wanted the same again!  A few problems with that though, we have no flat garden space (the back garden is a pool and the front is a hill), so then we thought we could go to a park, but to hire a castle was really expensive, so it was back to the drawing board.  Then he was going to have a party in the local leisure centre, but being May eveyone thought it would be too cold to be playing outside in water (it would usually be around 20 degrees!), so we ended up having a party at a local soft playland!  I couldn't bring myself to let him have an organised junk food fest at the playland, so we just payed for him and 5 friends from his class and 2 from the street to get in, bought everyone a drink and a couple of plates of wedges!  All the kids were well happy, they got to run and jump and bounce and play and they all had loads of fun!  Reuben had a great day.

So Tristan didn't feel left out and miss his usually birthday antics too much I planned a surprise party for him too.  I got a friend and her kids to come up from Brisbane and a family from down the street to go to the surf club, which is our nearest family friendly restaurant.  There were 14 of us all together and Tris thought it would just be us 4.  He had a great night.  We didn't leave until 10pm, the kids were great, they love it there too.

The Sunday of that weekend was also Mothers Day here, Tristans real birthday and Reubens present day (he had his pressies a day early as otherwise Tris would be at work).  We did a morning of pressies then spent the arvo at the park for a bbq and then went down to the beach for a swim and surf.

Here are the photos of the birthday shenanigans.......

Tristans surfboard cake, decorated by the boys

Reuben asked for a number 5 cake with strawberries and sprinkles, so that's what he got!

Reuben's birthday crowd

Rowan and his slushy!

Reuben and friends

Doesn't Tristan look like he is really enjoying himself?!

'Happy Birthday to you'

How chuffed is this boy to be 5?  He looks like a little birthday pixie!

There are about 8 birthdays in Reubens class in May, this was the following weekend up at the lake.

A whole month of birthday fun time!

Oh dear, sorry another month has gone by!

Gosh, really has it been that long?  My last post was about Easter and we have just gone past the half way mark for term 2 at school, wow, that's over 5 weeks.

Well, life is still pretty good and we are all happy, healthy (apart from the old minor cold here and there) and still smiling everyday :) 
Tris is still working and surfing.
Rowan is still daydreaming, riding bikes and surfing.
Reuben is still loving learning, riding bikes,collecting shells and playing in the sand.
And I am still studying, collecting shells and watching the two big boys surf!

by the way, Reuben isn't surfing as he finds the sea too cold at the mo!  It is winter here which means that in the day it varies between 15 and 23 degrees and the night temperature is usually between 10 and 16.  It did drop down to 6 the other night which was a bit of a shock, the following day at school parents are all rugged up in Ugg boots, scarfs and big coats!  Saying that though we are feeling the cold, maybe not as much as some, but we are wearing jeans and boots on some days.  Reuben, bless him is really feeling it and has moved his sheepskin into bed as his sheets are too cold, has a fleece blanket over his cold cotton pillow and now has warm flannelette pjs too!
Although the temperature has dropped the days are still mostly sunny and we can still get out to the beach and for bike rides.

I can't really think what we have been up to, so I shall just stick some photos on and let you see......

Reuben got a super surfer award at school for being a great all rounder and for having such a huge improvement in writing his name

At the beginning of May the weather was just lovely, the days were warm, sunny and beautiful.  The sea was warm and everyone was smiling.  So we made the most of it and every day after school we went out to the beach.

Tree climbing pirates on a desert island!

Another after school trip out, this time to the lake.  This is Rowan in his favourite tree.  I love these photos, way better than any proper school photo!

Every now and again we see roo's just by the road between 2 housing developments.  One day we managed to stop and get a photo

Then Tris and Reu tried to get closer! Boing!

We went to a local Wood Expo, which was great.  Loads for the kids to do and loads of tree and wood people for Tris to get excited with!

These glockenspiels sounded amazing

And so did this drum

Whack it!

Practicing their circus skills

Rowan is really improving at devil sticks

This glockenspiel band were awesome, I thought they were playing electronic music through some speakers somewhere, then I realised that it was these ladies on their glockenspiels

Amazing carvings galore

And fun shows to watch (yes, mum it is the same guy we saw at the markets)

Rowan's new habit!  Yes he looks like Bevis!

The big boy in the house has out grown his faithful islabike and needed a new one badly, but we said we needed to find a bargain or wait till his birthday.  Same for the surfboard he wanted.  Then we looked on the local classified website and saw an ad for a soft surfboard and bike just the right size.  Bargain!  We drove straight up there and grabbed them both for $150, new they would have been $650!  Oh yeah, check out Rowans new helmet.  They have ride and walk to school days at school and as an incentive the council hold prize draws for the kids that ride or walk.  As we always ride, the boys got entered and Rowan won!  Bagged himself and new and funky helmet.  Doesn't he look grown up!

School Sports day, it was a bit overcast but the boys loved it

Go Reuben!

Go Rowan!

Reuben in the long jump!

Neither of them won anything in sports day, but it was so lovely to see as they just didn't care if they won or not, they just loved running with the other kids, big smiles on their faces the whole time!

So that was some of the last month, there was also 2 birthdays in this house, 2 more birthdays in Reubens class and another birthday on the street, but the photos for that will come later, time to pick up the boys now :)