Our local pool has been revamped. As we live so close to the pool, the boys have been watching the progress eagerly - they are of course experts at building already so have watched with interest.

A few months back the new pool 'toys' arrived. We could see them pretty easily from the road so each time we drove past the boys would scream "TOYS!!!". They would then immediately turn their attention to the other side of the road where a motel is being built and would scream "MOTEL!!!". They have been watching the progress of the motel and trying to work out how come the motel will be well and truly finished before we move into our house, even though we started to build 2 years before the motel began. Thank goodness the pool is finished otherwise we'd be having to drive a different route to our block to save our ears. Is there such a thing as industrial deafness for mothers??

So now the 'toys' are ready to go, the boys are pretty happy to be able to go for a swim and have checked out the pool twice already. They are booked in for swimming lessons in January so there should be just enough time to have a few sessions at the pool before lessons start. They've done a pretty good job on the revamp, check out the new little kids pool and the cool 'toys' in the background...

Someone else is pretty happy that they have brought back the diving board...

He's like a kid at Christmas...

The boys like to take a break when they get too cold and watch daddy on the diving board...

Can't blame them, I like to watch him too ;)

But somebody else wasn't too impressed that he didn't get to taste the water that day...

"it's too cold for you" doesn't mean much to a 6 month old.

I'm too tired to write anything today so here's just some photos (let me hear you say aaahhhh)...

It happened. I knew it would eventually, I just didn't know when, or which child it would be. But Isaac took out the grand prize last night when he stuck a piece of lego up his nose. I'll repeat that in case you didn't quite get it the first time. Isaac stuck a piece of lego up his nose.

I realise it happens to every child or family at some time or another. Personally, I never felt the urge to see if some inanimate object would fit up my nostril. But my sister Tory stuck some foam up there which my mum had to pull out with tweezers - obviously a very delicate operation (especially with 3 sisters laughing hysterically in the background). It wasn't so bad in her case as the foam kind of softened the impact the tweezers could have made. And my oldest sister had to be taken to the doctor for a bead to be removed from her ear. Not that I remember that but it's one of the family stories that get brought up every now and again.

As far I as know, Paul never stuck anything up his nose, but he made up for it by eating things. Legend has it that he swallowed a coin or some such similar small item and when taken to the doctor for an x-ray the doctor was more concerned about all the other nuts and bolts they discovered already inside his stomach. And he reckons Jeremy gets his dirt-eating habits from my side of the family.

Anyway, so last night Isaac, for some reason only understood by other 3 year olds, decided to see if a piece of lego would fit up his nostril. Oh yes, it did fit. Then he tried to get it out all by himself, only suceeding to push it further up.

Our first knowledge of the incident was "mummy, please get it out". As Paul and I were busily building rockets and space shuttle's out of lego at the time, it took a few moments for us to realise what he meant. There was lego up his nose. After an initial consultation it was determined that although we could see the lego, we couldn't reach it and tweezers were way to risky for such a delicate part of the anatomy. We tried to get him to blow his nose, but hey, he's only 3 and hasn't got a great handle on that yet.

After a phone call to a paramedic friend for advice (because you never know, there may be a trick to removing lego from a 3 year old's nose that we hadn't come across before) we realised a visit to the hospital would be in order, most likely along with having to hold down a screaming child or even knocking him out in order to remove the lego. With little hope we held one side of his nose and advised him one last time to "blow big like a rocket taking off" and fortunately out flew the piece of lego. Jacob's comment was "wow Isaac that came out fast like a bullet".

He's fine now.

PS: I realise this is not a cute photo of my child. It was taken a few days after his hair cut, out bush on a day he got no sleep, filthy dirty from playing in the dust, and yes, his nose is running. I figure this photo will help illustrate the above story, and not every photo is cute, nice and "aaahhh". This is reality. This is a photo of a child that would stick lego up his nose.

I sit here with the baby behind me playing on the floor, exercising his vocal chords with his nether-regions exposed to the air. (He loves that). Caleb turned six months old this week, and so I decided I’d do a ‘snapshot in time’ thing of what he’s like, so you can see he’s just as cute as we keep telling you.

1. Wingnut. That’s his nickname, because his ears stick out just a little. When he grows a bit more hair we’ll probably have to rethink the name.

2. Cay. That’s what the boys call him. Jacob and Jeremy call Isaac, “I”. So now we have an I, two J’s, and a K.

3. He’s a stickybeak. He has to be in on all the action, and forget feeding him with other things going on in the room, because it ain’t gonna happen.

4. He stares at things, particularly Paul. Then he breaks out into a huge grin when Paul looks at him.

5. He grabs at things. When he manages to grab it hard enough to grasp it, he of course brings it straight to his mouth for a drool session.

6. If he can’t grab something, he bangs on it. Thumps it with his hand.

7. He’s just starting to get noisy. He was a very quiet baby until recently. We referred to him as a mime a few times, because he’d open his mouth wide to laugh but no sound would come out. Maybe we just couldn’t hear him over the three other muppets. But he’s discovering his voice and how much fun it is to add it to the commotion already happening around him.

8. He loves his dummy. He grabs it himself and shoves it in his mouth. He’s so clever. :D

9. He loves the jolly jumper, and he still loves his bouncer which he bounces himself by kicking his legs.

10. He’s just started solids and screws his face up each time the food gets into his mouth.

11. He can be a real cranky bear when he wants to be. And he still has the newborn 'woe is me' cry - complete with poochy lip just to make sure he gets his point across.

12. He can roll over a few different ways, but mostly from his back to his tummy. He doesn't bother to roll any other way because his brothers will do it all for him.


Happy half birthday Cay Cay!!

Hey Deda*, you can sit back and relax now. We don't need you to come out and help us build the house anymore, Jeremy's got it covered...




*Deda = what the boys call Paul's dad, who is providing the expertise to build the house!

Ponderings

Do you remember this...?

If you somehow managed to miss it, check it here.

Well, now there are three boys doing this. *sigh*

Not all at once, fortunately. But I'm sure it won't take them too long to work out there are four sticky-outy-prongy things on our washing line.

And Jacob has worked out he can crash land onto the trampoline.

*sigh*

Birthdays and Babies

We've had a birthday in the house. The eagerly awaited 3rd birthday of Isaac finally arrived after having to wait a whole year. I'm sure once he's over 21 he'll be trying to figure out how to make them come slower, not quicker! Anyway, we now again have a 5, 4, and 3 year old, and of course a 0 year old. Speaking of whom, how cute is he??!!:

Anyway, back to the birthday. Daddy really outdid himself with the cake. Isaac had chosen his 3rd birthday cake as a 'rocket' cake (chosen since the day after his 2nd birthday), and despite some last minute manipulating by his oldest brother to convince him that a dump truck cake would be better he stuck fast to the rocket idea. Daddy worked hard to defy gravity with this one and the result was pretty cool. Fortunately the 3 year old thought so too. :)

Here's the birthday boy opening one of his presents...

Jacob now knows that his birthday is next (after Christmas of course) and has already worked out his birthday cakes up until he's about 18. He just has to work out how many 'dark' sleeps till his birthday!!

I'll leave you with one more photo. Did I mention how cute he is?... :P

A few belated photos from the wedding we attended back in October (was that really a month ago???)...

The Bride and Groom:
A close up (aahhhh):



The Bride and Bridesmaid:

The entertainment at the reception:


And the boys finally understanding what we mean by "ocean" (I think this was Isaac's first time to the beach!!)...

I have a good excuse for not posting recently - we've been away. I haven't just been totally slack and ignored my blog (as would normally be the case). I ended up being away for just over 2 weeks in total, and even though with modern technology I could have posted on my blog from absolutely anywhere, obviously I didn't.

I'll post about the trip in parts, as there were many aspects to it. On the way down we stayed in Dubbo for one night with the wonderful Clarke family and then continued to Sydney the next day. That day was one that will forever be etched into Jacobs memory as the day one of his lifelong dreams came true: we did a couple of laps of a V8 Supercar Race Track. Those of you who know my children will understand that there was no way we could pass through Bathurst without taking time to do a couple of runs on the Mt Panorama race track. This was the week before the Big Race was on. Jacob and Jeremy were of course beside themselves that they were on an actual V8 Supercar track and Jacob kept asking me, totally seriously, if he could drive. Isaac, unfortunately for him, slept through the whole thing. I didn't wake him up because as is usually the case he fell asleep 10 minutes prior to arriving in Bathurst.

As we were driving away Jacob repeatedly stated that he was going to be a V8 Supercar driver when he grew up, and he was certain that Daddy would want to be one too.

We couldn't of course leave without getting a photo or two...

So, Louth...

For the fourth year in a row I set off north-west to Louth for a weekend of Scrapping, this time with a special guest.. Caleb! As I'm still feeding him he wasn't an optional extra, just a requirement!

We stayed at Trilby, which is fantastic and highly recommended for an outback getaway. If I could figure out how to link the words to show you I would - oh, hang on, it's not that hard after all so I have done it!! (I'm cleverer then I think sometimes!). Gabie does a fantastic job at organising and I take along my little shop so there are some goodies available.

Once again it was a memorable weekend. Always an adventure, we had every type of weather possible other then snow, and all types of bugs dropped in for a visit. Thursday it was warm but quite nice, Friday was very hot and Caleb who has been wrapped warmly since his birth in May suddenly found himself in a short-sleeve-no-legs all-in-one as it was so hot. Saturday we had a dust storm, followed by a massive but fairly short-lived thunderstorm with rain, and hail, in the evening. The first year we went to Louth we had to drive back home through thick yucky mud on the dirt roads, so I was getting a bit anxious about the drive home on Sunday, by myself (Caleb isn't much good if you get bogged), with no phone as Paul's doesn't work from Louth to Cobar, even though Telstra swear Next G is better then the CDMA system, it's NOT TRUE, Paul's phone worked there before they changed. I digress.

Where was I, oh yes the weather (I must have a pretty lame life if I'm talking about the weather on my blog). Anyway, come Sunday morning at 6:30am we awoke to overcast and more rain seemed to be coming in so all us Cobar girls just left. You've would never have seen anyone pack up as quick as we did! And despite all that the rain didn't last long and there wasn't a drop on the Cobar road, it was just the first section of the trip. Typical!

Despite all the fun weather stuff we did have a great weekend including a cool 'pink' themed dinner on Saturday night and a 'pamper' session. There was heaps of scrapping done despite the interesting conditions and I reckon Jillian gets 'die-hard scrapper of the year' award. Besides having a baby and running the shop I managed to get a few layouts done, see some of them below. And yes, Caleb was very well behaved for a 3.5 month old but I think he found scrapping very tiring as he conked out when we got home and slept for ages.

Next year will be the fifth annual Louth Scrapbooking Retreat. The dates will be Thursday 10th September to Sunday 13th, 2009. If you want a memorable experience come along for the weekend - you've never truly lived until you've been to the Louth Retreat and experienced the flies, the bugs, the heat, and been able to write your name in the dust coating your layout. Keep watching this space for further information.

We went up to Aunty Rachel's house last weekend so that Jacob could show off his new skill on Uncle Rob's bike track...

As I was admiring his balance and coordination (he's got more then his mother!) I got a bit distracted taking photo's of this...

How cute are they??!!!

I'm catching up on posting here. I've just had another memorable Scrapping weekend in Louth but will get to posting about that later. Look what we found two weeks ago...

Can't see it properly? Have a bit of a closer look...

The boys had a great time examining him/her (how do you tell??!!). They decided to call him Uncle Andrew - don't ask, I have no idea why although they did suggest that name for Caleb when he was born). They made a little house for him next to a puddle which he seemed quite happy in, though he did try to escape a couple of times (I'd be a bit worried with three little boys staring at me, wouldn't you??!!). He ended up disappearing into the bush at some stage when the boys weren't looking - they can actually crawl pretty fast. The boys followed his 'tracks' for a while but couldn't find him. We aren't too worried about him though as we have found a turtle on our place before and the neighbours have a ground tank that he'll probably make his way to. The boys were a bit disappointed in losing their 'pet' but I'm sure he's better off wherever he is!

Please don't feed the animals...

relax, he's not really locked in there! We moved the chooks and the boys chose to have their morning tea in the old cage...

And taken recently...

That's it for now.

I was just checking a friend's blog and was noticing that it had been a WHOLE MONTH since she last posted (tut tut). Then I thought I'd better check how long it had been since I had posted (only about two weeks ago, surely!) and it was almost a WHOLE MONTH!! (tut, tut, tut). Where do the days go??

Well, some of my days this past week have been spent painting. We went to Dubbo and bought all the paint for our house and thus purchased ourselves a lot of work. Paul has decided that since he has built the house so far, it's up to me to 'decorate' it - with the paint. Seeing as he is colour blind it was also up to me to choose the colours. After doing numerous sample pots I have chosen Dulux's Angora Blue in a half tone for the bedrooms - a nice pale blue. When I called Paul in to check out the sample I had done he told me that to him it looked pink. Hmmm, maybe I should paint the bedrooms for our four BOYS in pink!! Or maybe I'm the one that is colour blind and the paint really IS pink!! I'd better go ask Jacob what he sees, but that probably wouldn't help much as when we were in the paint shop looking for colours he told me he wanted his room painted "army" meaning of course, camoflage. It'll probably take a couple of months to paint the rooms, seeing as when you paint in conjunction with looking after four boys and feeding one of them every 3 hours, you start and stop alot. Is there anyone out there with some basic painting skills who would like a working holiday to Cobar?? Food and board supplied!

My parents were up this week for two nights. The boys loved seeing them and made some drawings to give them as they walked in the door. Their pictures are so cute at the moment - apart from the ones that Jeremy decides to 'bomb' by scribbling them out. (At least with Jacob's he draws the actual plane with the missiles coming off it so you can still see the plane at the end!). It was also nice to have my parents come as they saw Caleb when he was just born and can see how much he has grown. Talking of which...

Caleb is 11 weeks in that photo. Time does fly.

Finally, here are the 3 boys watching the Olympics out bush (notice the army clothes)...

Have a great week (or month!).

Yay! We have walls going up in our new house!! Everyone has been telling us what a difference the walls will make, and it's true. The rooms look bigger then what we imagined and it looks more like a 'house' now. If only we could move in tomorrow! We'll start painting soon. Here is a photo of the boys watching the plasterers:

and Caleb watching the plasterers:

Paul is having a "casual" week at work, seeing that he has to go to the block regularly to see the action, so I'm having a "casual" week at home. Not much cleaning is being done other then the basics :) - a lot of time is being spent on Dulux's "My Colour" visual interactive website to get an idea of paint colours. The boys are fascinated by the walls and have quickly decided that it is more fun to be able to hide in all the new rooms that have appeared then to be able to walk through the walls! I don't know if I'm allowed to put on photo's of the plasterers in action so here a boring photo of some of the new walls...

Jacob's new trick

Yesterday as I went outside I spied a few items of clothing on the ground, somehow having pulled themselves off the washing line. Hmmm. I had a few words with the boys about it and left it at that.

This morning I look outside the kitchen door to check what the boys were up to and I discovered how my washing had found it's way onto the ground (note that today he was being very careful to make sure the washing stayed on the line!).....

I'm not sure how long my washing line can put up with this kind of abuse. ;)

Some new photos of Caleb, 3 weeks old already...