January 24, 2012 | Day 24

The new school year didn't quite begin how I had imagined.  We woke up to torrential rain, an overflowing swimming pool that needed to be pumped asap and a flooding laundry.  Oh.joy!  Lucky for me, my wonderful husband looked after the pool and the flooding while I got the kids ready for school.  It was all chatter and excitement about new shoes, special yummy homemade lunches (ok, maybe I was more excited about my lunch efforts), seeing friends again and new teachers.  There was one negative though.  Here we are with the rain pouring down outside and  of course being the unorganised, last minute, never prepared person I am, we have no umbrellas (well ones that work) and no raincoats.  It's supposed to be sunny on the first day of school.  This is Queensland for heavens sake!  I even had to take my annual "first day of school photo" inside this year.  Sheesh!   Luckily, the rain stopped just before they left for school (although it's torrential again now) and hopefully everyone got there dry.  I'm going to miss them soooo much,  but  I can't wait to hear all about their first day when they get home this afternoon.

Day 24, A wet weather day.

B xx

First day of school 2012

January 23, 2012 | Day 23

The day before school goes back is always a bit of a quiet day here.  I get that anxious sad feeling about Summer being almost over and constantly wish for time to move slower.  Blossy and I spent the morning buying new dancing stuff, visiting our friends gift store which we love and then  I spent the day labeling school stuff, getting lunches ready and sorting out uniforms (oh and I watched 6 episodes of Homeland.  Awesome show!).  By the time dinner came around we decided to celebrate (or mourn) the end of the holidays with pizza.  I figure, why not end the Summer holidays in the same way you started them.  It's probably not the brain food they should be eating before their first day back at school but thats ok.  We've got all year to make up for it.

Day 23.  A Dominos kinda day.

B xx

January 22, 2012 | Day 22

Today we invited some wonderful friends over for  a Pool Party!  There was the gorgeous Dani from Danielle Hamilton Photography and lovely Na from Naomi V Photography and their  families.  There was food, there was drinks, there was laughter and most importantly there was new friendships made.  My kids had never met Na's kids and we kinda knew that Blossy and Miss K would get on,  but seriously... by the end of the day it was like they had known each other their whole lives!  They're now BFF's apparently.  They text, they facetime, they constantly tell each other how cool they are.  It's pretty sweet actually.   I'm so grateful for my beautiful friends and their families and look forward to spending many more days together, like today.

Pool Partying our way through Day 22.

B xx

21 January, 2012 | Day 21

You know the school holidays are almost over when its time to head to the barber and get the dreaded "school haircuts."  I have to admit I was loving my boys have hair that was a bit longer again.  I adored Charlies white mop top and James' huge boofy hair that somehow smells like puppy dogs all the time (in a nice way).  Unfortunately the big boys school has rules.  Lots of them, and one of those rules is that hair must be off the collar, off the ears and above the eyebrows.  So off for a haircut they went.  Charlie probably could have gotten away with his mop top at his school but as usual, he wanted to do whatever the big boys were doing.  So now they're all clean cut and ready for another year of school.  I'm going to miss my boys :(

Day 21, preparation for school day.

 B xx

January 20, 2012 | Day 20

My kids all love each other, they really do.  One positive thing about being in a large family is that you pretty much always have an allie.  As much as they fight, compete and say awful things to each other, if an outsider was to threaten, challenge or do wrong by them...look out!  You'll face the wrath of the four other siblings and I imagine it wouldn't be nice.  Actually, I'm kinda counting on this sort of support when Georgie starts dating.  Imagine the first poor boy to break her heart!!!  Anyway as I was saying, they'll stick up for each other when others are involved but holy hell are they competitive amongst themselves.  Every single thing is a competition.  Who can swim a lap fastest, who can get in the shower first, who gets the biggest piece of cake, who the cat loves more,  and it goes on and on and on...

Today we went down to our local foreshore and again with the competitiveness.  Here I was imagining hot chips on the beach and a quiet stroll along the edge of the water looking for shells and teeny tiny crabs. Yeah well that lasted all of five minutes.  Before long there was a race organised.  A finish line was drawn in the sand and luckily I had my camera,  because more than once we needed a photo finish to settle arguments of who had won.  Even Georgie got in on it,  although she had no desire to win.  She was just happy that the boys had included her.  After about an hour of running flat out they were all pretty much buggered and we returned to  quietly strolling along the waters edge.  That is until it was time to go home.  Then there was the race to see who could get into the front seat first! *sigh*

Racing our way through day 20

B xx

Ready, Set, Go!

January 19, 2012 | Day 19

Sometimes it's nice to have some quiet time alone.  In this house those quiet times are few and far between. As a family of seven you kinda get used to being in eachothers pockets all the time,  but Sam out of everyone, finds it especially hard.  Ever since he was a little bubba he has always liked his own space.  He's a neat freak and I think his crazy, messy loud siblings are somewhat stressful to him.  So I wasn't surprised when this afternoon he crept upstairs while everyone was in the pool, put on his pj's and snuggled up on the lounge with kittycat.  I love that I was able to snap him enjoying his own little piece of quiet time.  Believe me...it didn't last long.

Enjoying the quiet of Day 19.

B xx

Quiet times with kittycat

January 18, 2012 | Day 18

The sun came out!  Well...for a minute it did.  There's been no rain today but it hasn't exactly been your perfect Summer's Day.  Sam had cricket training all afternoon so we were pretty much confined to our local area.  When the sun did shine for those five minutes, Chuck and Blossy decided to make the most of it and take a quick dip.  Apparently it was freezing which makes sense since the pool is full of rain water and hasn't had any sun for 3 days to warm it up.  In the end they lasted about 15 minutes before it became too cold and a warm shower seemed more inviting.  We have pool playdates tomorrow so fingers crossed for a warmer, sunnier day.

Jumping into Day 18 with a splash!

B xx

Quick! While the sun is shining!