St Barbara's Festival

 Yesterday was the annual St. Barbara's Day parade (aka, the christmas parade!). Caitlin was on a float for Outback Rhythm where she does acrobatics. She was thrilled when she picked us out in the crowd and threw us some candy canes.

Craig, Callum and a friend, Dougal took up a good spot on the footpath outside the pharmacy!

This float is the school float. We gave them a huge wave!

This year I think there must have been a record number of floats. They were cellebrating 12 years of the parade and so the theme was 12. The school float did a rendition of the 12 days of christmas. I think Caitlin's year 1 class had a big contributing role. I can't remember wany of the verses, but the last one was "And a principal called McLerie"

This pic is of the float that Caitlin was on. She is sitting right in the middle of the photo, sitting on a box. Her teacher is blocking most of her and Caitlin has her back/side to the camera. I was too busy waving to her at first to take a good photo! Caitlin said that it was the highlight of her day!

This is "Bluey" the huge dump truck. This is my favourite part of the parade each year. I love love love seeing this huge piece of machinery come down the main street. You don't see that in every town Christmas parade!

You can get an idea of the sheer size of the thing from this photo.

I will post photos of todays happenings later!

Photo Update

I have added a heap of photos just as a quick update. Most are from our trip to Esperance over the winter, which was a lovely trip. It was the first time that Shannon and Ryan had been there, so I enjoyed showing off some of the lovely sights.



We found a very friendly kangaroo, which was drawn to Callum. He just loves animals and treats them so gently. Caitlin on the other hand ended up on our shoulders to get away from this cute kanga!


Dad, deep in thought.



This is a pic of Caitlin at acrobatics. This weekend was her concert, where her beginners group performed a routine. At the end Miss Mel, the principal (facing the camera holding Caitlin in the bendback), gave out some awards and to our surprise Caitlin got a medal for the beginners group. She is now planning how to display all the medals she is going to win!!

Update From Caitlin's Birthday

Caitlin loved having a birthday party this year. Five friends came over for a play after school, they played some games, ate some yummy pizza and opened presents. I am always blown away by the generosity of others when it comes to birthdays. Altogether it made for a lovely day for Caitlin.



I don't know why this pic of Caitlin's "bunch of flowers" is sideways, but I am sure you get the drift!


Caitlin got a hair crimper for her birthday ($5 from a garage sale, spotted by Shannon - good one!). She felt really grown up having curly hair! Had to get a pic of Cal in there somewhere too, so here he is!

Slack!

Have I been slack or what! I hope to post some photos and a catch up soon. The kids are gorgeous at the moment, so we need to share some more!

C

Birthday Boy

Yay, we now have a 3 year old in the house! Cal got a big boy bike for his birthday and we have had a race track up and down the hall all morning so far!



This is our boy as he sat in our bed and opened a couple of presents at 7am.



This is the cake I made to take to playgroup so we could cellebrate with Cal's friends on Friday.

New Research

New research has found that there is a possible link between breast cancer and the regular use of multivitamins. I was blown away by this - what a huge find. This research may have implications for many diseases, especially lifestyle related ones.

You just can't supplement nature. Nothing beats a fantastic diet of fresh and yummy organic produce!

If you want to read about the new research, it can be found here.

I have just realised that it has been 3 months since I have written a blog post!

I have been busy as usual. My tonsillectomy in January went well. I felt like I was swallowing razor blades for a while, but that passed quickly and all is now back to as normal as can be as I learn to deal with allergies as well.

Caitlin started full time school at the start of February and is loving pre-primary. She is very tired by the end of the week and was beginning to get sick by the end of term but overall has coped extremely well.

Mum and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at the end of February. I went to tassie for 8 days (kid and husband free!!) as a surprise. My sister organised it on her frequent flyers and I am eternally grateful. I am so glad that I could be there for such a special occasion. We had a family get together on the day of their anniversary and the next day we had an open home, all of which went off amazingly well.

While I was in Tassie I got to meet some Dutch cousins who happened to be visiting at the time. Ab and Marietje are such lovely people. They are talking of coming to my end of the country in a few years, so I really do hope they make it.

I also taught 2 scrapbooking classes in Smithton, which was great fun. It has been a while since I have taught and it felt good. I am still not ready to go back to teaching regular classes. I have been thoroughly enjoying my other crafts recently. I have been sewing for the kids and also making gifts for my friends' children. It feels great to give handmade gifts.

I have been working really hard at simplifying our lives. I have been making and baking almost everything. We buy very little from the supermarket at the moment. I even made a batch of soap last week! I never realised just how easy this is! At the moment I have a sourdough starter brewing. It is beginning to bubble away and smells pretty interesting. I can't wait to make my own sourdough bread. YUMMY!

Mum and Dad have just been for a visit. They brought their car over on the train, had a night in Perth and then came to stay with us for 2 weeks. Dad got stuck into the vegie patch and between Mum and Dad, they have pulled our yard into shape! I said to Dad that he will need a holiday to recover from the work he has done here! The kids love having their grandparents around (for 3 days they had both sets together!) and play madly to make up for lost time. Mum went for Nannies help at school, which pleased Caitlin no end.

We had a gathering of friends and family for Easter which was relaxing and lovely. Kylie and Gavin and Leonie and Gary and all the kids came here, we all chipped in and made great food and enjoyed each others company.

Craig came out of hospital today after having his knee op. He is doing well and keeping his pain under control. He has some physio exercises to do and has crutches for long walking and uneven ground. He was upset today because he felt he was rushed and treated poorly on discharge from the hospital. They didn't even tell him when he needs to take his tablets next, or fill his scripts for him - he was told that he could stop off on the way home to get it if he wanted! I used to work at the same hospital and felt very embarrassed and sad that Craig was treated this way. Needless to say that I was crabby that my husband had been treated that way!

I have been loving some blog and web site hopping lately (I have a laptop set up in the kitchen and it makes the Internet quicker, more accessible and fun). Some of the sites I have loved are:

http://www.io.com/~sjohn/sour.htm

http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/

http://www.dana-made-it.com/

http://leonie-stampcardnscrap.blogspot.com/

I will post photos when I have some on the computer, as I haven't transferred them over yet.