Lucas' self assessment for Year 1

Lucas brought home a USB stick today, which contained video footage of his self-evaluation for his year 1 education. We were both very proud and very amused to watch, and I hope you are too!

Dinner at the bench

Daddy was'nt very hungry tonight (too many sausages),  so Mummy and the kids had some pasta carbonara (with vegies) at the bench.

Camping trip (sort of)

Lucas and Daddy have just got home from their first camping trip. Well, we say "camping trip", but we were in fact camping out not too far from home - Lucas' school oval, in fact!

We set up the new tent, nice and close to a few of the other Dads. Luckily, Dad had a dress rehearsal in the front yard last week, so he didn't embarrass himself in front of the other Dads, and had the tent up in very short order. This was facilitated even further by the convenience of being able to simply drive up the car onto the oval!

Once we were set up, Lucas went off with his friends and played all sorts of games, leaving Dad free to ensconce himself in the chair and have a good beer-assisted chin wag with the other Dads.

Dinner was a nice easy communal effort of sausages and bread (and some other green stuff that went largely ignored), with some fizzy drink thrown in. After this, the kids went buzzing away like bees until well into the night. We all took turns having a hit of cricket, some people went off for a kick of soccer (Lucas scored a couple of goals), and generally having a bit of fun.

It was about 11:30pm by the time both Birds hit the hay, well and truly exhausted. This, of course, did not mean we went to sleep - Lucas was very excited to be out camping with Dad, and was an absolute wellspring of casual conversation and questions until about 1am. Neither of us slept all that well (I blame lack of pillows), and we ended up waking up at 6am! Still, we were first to be packed up, and after a little bit of mingling and playing, a delicious bacon and egg roll brekky was served!

We had a fantastic time, and maybe next time we might try camping out somewhere a little further from home! Still, it was nice to be able to drive down to Sandy for a take-away coffee, and then back home again in only 20 minutes.

Early night for the both of us tonight, I reckon!

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree...

Yes, it's that time of year again, and even though we won't acutally be in our own house for Christmas this year, it is nonetheless of the utmost importance that we have our Christmas tree up and decorated!

Both Lucas and Alicia were extremely keen to help us out, and in fact continued to add baubles and streamers long after Mum and Dad has started to tire of the whole exercise.

The final result looks great, and was well worth all the effort!

Baby steps (or pedals, in this case)...

We were beginning to despair of ever getting our daughter out and about on a bike. However, we were recently made aware of a sale on at Aldi, featuring one of those new-fangled "detachable tandem" models for a bargain price of $80. So, we decided to snap one up before it was too late, and after a little bit of assembly and oiling, here's the result:

So far, we've managed to get to the end of the street before Alicia got a little uncomfortable and wanted to go back home. Baby steps...

PS. The above is just a glamour shot - when she was actually riding, we did in fact have her wearing a helmet!

Happy birthday, Daddy!

Well, what a rather unorthodox birthday today has been!

Just my luck, today (of all days) was the day I was rostered on to help set up at Lucas' little athletics. The weather was gloomy, but not actually raining, so it had not been cancelled. So, up at the crack of dawn, and off to the track and field. One and a half hours of fairly solid physical labour later, and then, only then, do the skies open up and bucket down with rain.

Oh well, not to worry, let's all go home and watch me open my presents, shall we?

Uh, Alicia, Lucas, Evan - it's actually my birthday, guys...

Ah well, the presents were in fact mostly toys, so I guess you could forgive them for mistaking it for one of their own birthdays. Hey, it's my mid-life crisis, and I'll be as childish as I like about it!

Anyway, with Athletics cancelled, we all went off for a spot of brunch, to a lovely cafe here in local Highett. Lucas' mate Evan was happy to tag along with us. After we got home, Julia headed off for a massage session (yeah, whose birthday was it again?), which left one adult entertaining three kids. Who am I kidding - there were four kids, so we all went and played with my new toys! So, after an epic LEGO adventure quest, with Lucas, Alicia, Evan and myself as the brave heroes (far better than boring old athletics, I can assure you), Julia finally came home from her massage, and after saying farewell to Ev, she and Alicia finally got down to the serious business of preparing a cake for dear old Dad.

While that was happening, Lucas and I played a game of Blood Bowl to pass the time. The miniatures that came with the game were unassembled and unpainted, so we used LEGO figures instead! The rules were just a teensy bit more complicated than your average game of snakes and ladders, but Lucas got the general gist of things with a bit of help from Dad, and in fact ended up winning with 1 touchdown to 0! Not to mention the fact that his Orc team stomped quite a few of my poor Human players' faces into the mud in the process!

Eventually, it was time for dinner and we headed off for a lovely meal at Half Moon in Brighton...

... and finally, home once more for some yummy chocolate birthday cake!

All in all, a fantastic birthday for a 39-year old boy to have.  :)

October

And now, some photos for the month of October...

A visit from Paul and Steve, the infamous "Barclay Boys", was very well received by all nephews and niece, particularly when Uncle Paul helped Alicia to drive the bus. His years of experience in the Police force came to the fore, and he helped to keep the riff-raff (a.k.a. the "wascally wabbits") from making too much trouble on the bus!

While Uncle Paul took the nephews out to a movie on the weekend, Alicia stayed with Mum and Dad at the Sandringham Village Fair, and had a ball on all the rides and jumping castles.

And finally, a welcome visit from Granddad, stopping over on his way back from visiting Virgie in Echuca. Alas, he was unable to fit himself in Alicia's bus, but they had fun playing nonetheless.

And to round off the month, Lucas went trick-or-treating with his school-mate Toby. They had a ball, and his mummy costume was a hit with all the neighbours, or so we're told.

September

Hello again. Moving on with the catch-up, here are some choice selections from the month of September.

 

Alicia helping Mummy with her physiotherapy

The kids jumping on Daddy for Fathers day.

Alicia congratulating her brother, the soccer champ, on a season well done!

A much appreciated visit from Nanna!

... which included a nice little family visit to the mini-golf.

Alicia at work on her latest piece of ephemeral art.

August

Oh, wow. Have I been slack. Sorry, people. I'll try to get things back on track as of now. The first thing to do, of course, might be a little catching up. So, here is a selection of piccies that were taken during the month of August (yes, August!) this year. I'll be posting further months in the following days.

Happy Birthday, Mummy!

Today was Mummy's birthday. The kids were very excited, as we'd been keeping Mummy's present a secret for all of two days, and I could tell they were nearly bursting at the seams trying to keep the information from leaking out.

We've had a very busy day - first Brian, Antionette and the girls popped in for morning tea, then after a brief lunch we went to the McConkey residence for a most excellent and pleasant afternoon tea. And finally, Uncle Jakob put on a fantastic birthday dinner for us, and we had a wonderful time at the Hohwy-Barclays.

Didn't take many pictures, but here are a couple from this morning:

Boomerang maker

Daddy has been re-trying his hand at making boomerangs lately. Lucas was initially interested, but once he observed how much actual work was involved, he quickly lost interest up until the part where it was ready to be painted by him. Alicia, on the other hand, was quite keen to get in on the action!

Happy Birthday, Pocket Teddy!

Whilst our dear Aunty Nin was off celebrating her 60th birthday in Tassie last week, we over here in Melbourne had a birthday of a different kind to celebrate. Alicia insisted that this weekend was Pocket Teddy's 2nd birthday. (Yeah, he's called Pocket Teddy because he fits in a pocket - we're not the most original namers in the world, OK?) So, Mummy went and whipped up a delicious chocolate cake, and we helped celebrate his birthday this weekend.

Alicia was happy with the cake, but she seemed to think that Pocket Teddy should also have been given a present. At this point, fearing repeat performances for every one of Alicia's prodigious collection of stuffed toys, Daddy stepped in. He said that was fine, but because Pocket Teddy was Alicia's baby, she would have to pay for his present out of her own pocket money. After that, she kept quiet.

Lucas' culture presentation - the United Kingdom!

Lucas has been working all week on a special cultural assignment for his school - he had to research and write up a report on the United Kingdom.

He was very studious, and spent quite a few nights on the home computer, looking up Google and writing his learnings into Microsoft Word.

In addition, the students were encouraged to dress up in the national costume of their assigned country. Having no better ideas, Daddy went and rented a Union Jack waistcoat from a costume shop!

Here are some pictures of the results!

Fun in the valley

The Birds recently went to the Yarra Valley for a weekend getaway. We hired a lovely little cabin near Healesville, with a quaint (and quite effective) wood heater (Mummy was very adamant about this detail). Aside from that, it also had a stunning view, and best of all - a tractor!

Sadly, the weather was not as nice as it was the previous weekend, but we nonetheless were able to get out and about. There wasn't much snow about, but we decided to take our chances and headed up to Lake Mountain to see if there was enough - lucky for us, there was. The weather was a bit blowy and windy, but we were still able to get in most of the requisite activities (tobogganing, snow-men, and snowball fights) before being forced to take shelter in the cafe.

The tobogganing part was fun, but the slope of the mountain was perhaps just a little too gentle for Lucas' tastes. He certainly wasn't breaking any land speed records, in any case:

We also got to feed a few goats, go on a historic train ride, and visit the
Mooroondah Reservoir National Park. All in all, a fantastic and fun time was had by everybody!

Some photos of Alicia

Just a couple of miscellaneous pics of our little darling girl. One playing dress-ups with her best friend, Sienna, and the other of her decorating a boomerang that Daddy went and crafted for her. (He went a bit overboard with the four-prong design, but the important thing is that it looks good!)

Birthday party bonanza

Saturday was an exciting day for Lucas. His birthday falls on the Monday, so we elected to have his party two days early. Of course, to his mind, this meant that we were actually moving the birthday itself, such that he came into our bedroom early Saturday morning and demanded to know where his presents were. We tried to explain it to him, and although we're fairly certain he understood, he nonetheless felt a bit gypped.

However, he soon cheered up when I got him and Alicia to help put the finishing touches on his birthday cake. Several strips of licorice, smarties, and silver balls later, and space shuttle Scorpio was ready for launch!

Lucas' 7th birthday party was brought to you this year courtesy of In-Sports, an indoor play/sports centre. They started off with some beach volleyball/basketball and races, then after a good one hour of running around, they were shunted into the party room for some eating and (rather loud) festivities. And after that, they rounded off the party with a bit of indoor soccer. Lucas was awarded a big championship trophy at the end of the proceedings, and was very chuffed with the whole affair.

After that, we went home for a bit of quiet time, and Lucas set about constructing the numerous Lego kits that he'd been given for presents. After a while, the cousins came over, and we had a nice quiet dinner party, with Lucas' choice of menu: Lasagne, followed by trifle!