July Highlights

Lia's Birthday

My cousin Lindsay (Lia) celebrated her 23rd birthday on 20th July.  Lia has been doing 'work experience' with me since when she was 15 years old! Her first job was assisting me with the clean up of the events storage room when I was a PR Assistant at Marrickville City Council. This room was called the 'cage' and it was situated underneath an old town hall. Not the place one would like to clean out alone! Even now, we cannot look at flags or banners the same way! I got her to work by telling her it would be good work experience for her and she could put it down on her resume. I then started working at Cancer Council as an Events Coordinator where for the past 7 years Lia has volunteered at my events including Australia's Biggest Morning Tea, Daffodil Day, Pink Ribbon Day and has been a Fairfield Relay For Life committee member for 6 years. In that time Lia completed her HSC in the States top 8%, graduated with a double degree in Economics and Commerce (or something fancy like that) from University of New South Wales and now has a HR job at a top firm so obviously she does not need to volunteer with me for experience any longer! This year she told me that she wants to volunteer for another charity.........as if I'm going to let her go!!! Haha

Apart from being a wonderful volunteer, Lia is also a talented cake baker/decorator. We give her a theme or concept and the result is a brilliantly decorated cake. So, for her birthday this year, her sister Tildy, my sister Flavia and myself went all out to make some delicious desserts for her. This is the result:

Clockwise from top right: Creme Brulee by Tildy and red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting by me, Triple layer white buttermilk cake with buttercream and coconut icing Birthday cake made by me, White chocolate oreo cheesecakes made by my sister and Strawberry fruit jelly made by my Aunty Zinda. Lia was impressed by our efforts and felt the love.  It was all so delicious!

Happy Birthday Aunty Lia! Keira and Jaime love singing Happy Birthday and blowing out candles

Cheeky cousins creating their own fun at the party. Jaime rode the bike pulling Keira who was sitting on a chair behind him and then they swapped. Clever kids :)

Lilly's Visit

Cousin Lilly stayed over for a weekend. It was great for me as I had an extra pair of hands from a very willing helper! The pictures above are snapshots of what Lilly did over the weekend which included looking after the twins when we were at Play School, changing nappies, feeding the babies their solid food and comforting crying twins (she was pretending to scream in the picture or did she really want to scream? haha) Lilly also played with Keira and read her books. What a wonderful help she was and great practice for when her twin sisters arrive. She is going to be a great big sister! xo

Play School

Play School has started and on our first day, it wasn't as hectic as we thought it be! Hopefully it will continue to be haha but I know that Keira and myself had an enjoyable time.  They had a fun lesson on the Human body and next month they are learning about the Olympics :)

The 2-3 year old class learning shapes and colours. Hyrum looks disinterested, Mercedes is concentrating on colouring in, Kingston playing with cars and Keira playing with shapes.

June Highlights

June was a busy and exciting month. Here are some of the things we got up to:

We started going to Story Time at Casula Library which is on every Monday. We first went there with our church play group a few weeks ago and the library had a Science Play expo on which was fun for the kids. Keira also enjoys choosing the books and DVD's to borrow which keeps her entertained and busy at home (a little relief for me) so I've added a weekly library trip to our routine :)


Keira having fun exploring the different and fun activites at Science Play

The twins got into the action too at Science Play

A new milestone for the twins - they are now eating solids :) They started on organic baby rice cereal and are now onto their fruits and vegetables. They are great eaters and enjoy their food although the flip side is that now their poos are starting to change as well! :( 

Lucas is having a bad hair day! haha

Montana has an Islander appetite and loves her food :)

I decided to take Keira out of pre school until I go back to work in 3 months so I can spend as much time with all the kids at home. I put Keira in twice a week when the twins were born so that she could continue to have the learning and socialising of child care and so I could spend time with the twins as Keira still commands so much attention which was hard for me whilst nursing two new borns. Now the twins are older and settled and I can give Keira the attention she needs. I know I'm really going to miss being at home full time with all three babies (as chaotic as it is) so I need to make the most of it while I still can.



Keira with her teachers Miss Joanne and Miss Angela from Kids United. They only cater for children 2 years and up so I would've had to take Keira out anyway as I would prefer all three go to the same centre. We might return in 2 years time if we still live in the area :)

The saying goes that when one door closes, another one opens. My friend Kristall and her sister Jasmine have a play school for their children and we're going to join in together with our other friend Darcel and her kids. I'm excited because now that Keira is finished with child care, she will still have that weekly learning and social environment with this play school and who better than with my friends kids :) Between the four of us plus Kristall's brother's daughter - there are 13 kids under 6!! We are going to rotate a teaching and activities roster between the 4 of us mums which will start later in July. From the pictures below, it looks like the kids are having too much fun playing  but I'm sure we'll be able to get a few ABC's in there or we might be a little too ambitious with the teaching part but I guess time will tell - play school could turn into just play dates but I'm sure the kids will still have fun!

 

The last highlight of the month - Montana has just started to crawl! She is such a little adventurer  and can't stay still. Lucas is on his hands and knees and not far off from crawling either. These pics were taken by my cousin Mathilde (Tildy) while she was babysitting the twins with her mum Aunty Zinda. It's hard to believe how fast they have grown!!

  

Meeting Baby Max McQueen

One of the best things of not working and being home with the kids is the opportunity to have play dates and catch ups with other mother friends and their kids. Darcel is one of my good friends who has 3 young boys ages 4,3 and 20 months old with another boy due in a few weeks. She is a super mummy! Last week the twins and I went over to Darcel's parents place for a catch up/ playdate with Darcel, her youngest boy Kingston and her sister Jaslyn and her 6 week old baby son Max who were visiting from Kalgoolie, Western Australia. Keira and Darcel's eldest two Cassius and Phoenix were at child care so the three of us had a great afternoon relaxing and chatting about the kids, motherhood and took some cute pics of the babies.

5 months old Lucas and Montana with 6 week old  cutie Max

Take 2: Lucas, Montana and Max

Later we picked up the older kids and let's just say that things were much more hectic and noisy than our peaceful and relaxed afternoon! Earlier, we both told Jaslyn to enjoy baby Max as this cute baby stage because life is quite different when they become toddlers and when number 2 etc come along but Jaslyn the trooper just smiled her sweet smile and said that she couldn't wait to have more babies! So here is Jaslyn holding the twins to have a taste of having two babies! lol