4 year-old girl!

Today was Alicia's birthday - yay! She had been counting down the sleeps since almost the start of the month, and finally the big day arrived!

We started off the day with a bit of present opening - quite a large harvest this year, Alicia was very excited with both the quality and quantity of the presents.

 After that, we were finally able to convince the kids to get themselves dressed, so that they could help Mummy decorate the birthday cake! Mummy was all set to decorate it herself (having been put to shame in previous years by her very creative and artistic sisters-in-law), when Daddy unceremoniously shoved her to one side, claiming it was too hard for someone lacking the Bird artistic flair, and did it for her. Turned out OK, but we've got a bit of practice ahead of us if we're to come close to the Cake Sisters.

We only just finished decorating the cake in time to get to Alicia's party at Bonkers - a lovely little play-gym on the Nepean, and as luck would have it (for us, not the centre), we were the only party-goers there! Alicia and her friends had a fantastic time running around, eating party food and playing on the equipment. Lucas sulked a little bit about having no-one mature enough to play with him, but soon consoled himself with leading the male members of the party astray.

 After the party was over, we came home for a little wind-down time, and then off again to dinner with the Hohwy-Barclays! All in all a fun and fantastic day. And finally, FINALLY, Alicia can stop telling people that she's "free and a HALF".

Easter in Wodonga

This Easter, we took advantage of the extended public holidays to take a trip up to Wodonga to visit the Matthews clan. Lucas and Seth were inseparable the whole time, and Ty was absolutely smitten with Alicia - lucky for all involved she was gracious enough to let him follow her around!

We had a fantastic few days of holidays - a fun picnic at Yackandandah, a visit to the beautiful Woolshed falls, and various other activities.

And of course, let's not forget the inevitable visit from the Easter bunny, as well as the egg hunt! Or, "hunts", in our case - Lucas and Alicia were extremely fortunate this year, partaking in no less than three separate and distinct egg hunts! Now all we have to do is find a way to reliably ration the intake of the plethora of chocolate sitting in our fridge!

A lazy Saturday morning

Just a quick little update for Saturday morning - Mummy and Alicia are currently having a little sleep-in (although the boys suspect there is more girlie-talk than sleeping actually happening), and Lucas and Daddy are having bacon and egg muffin sandwiches - yum!

A day of fun in the fields

Today we all went out to Whittlesea (a little way up north from the city) to a place call Funfields. With a name like that, how could you possibly go wrong?

 

They're the Victorian equivalent of Dreamworlds tiny kid sister. Not an enormous selection of rides, but plenty enough to have fun with for a day, and best of all - virtually no queues! There was an area specifically for tiny tots, with electric ride-on racing cars and bikes. These were the quite possibly the favourite, and had Lucas and Alicia rushing out the exit to immediately re-join the entry queue quite a few times!

 There was also a downhill toboggan ride (kids needed to ride with Mum and Dad, but that was fine), a go-kart track (same deal), a crazy dodgem-boats pool, and even a rocking pirate ship!

And if that was all too much excitement for a family to have, you could also wind down and relax for a nice 18 holes of mini-golf!

And finally, there was also a modest selection of water slides and tube rides. Not really the most adviseable activity to partake in on a brisk Autumn Saturday, but Lucas and his thick-skinned Dad have never really been prone to taking advice of that nature...

All in all, a great day out! Now, if only Alicia hadn't slept for the hour-long trip home, she might actually be asleep by now...

Radio silence

Sorry for the extended break between posts, everyone - we've certainly had things happening in the last few months, it's just that we either (a) forget to take our camera along; or (b) forget to use it!

Anyway, here's a few photos that we have actually managed to take over the past couple of months. I shall try to improve the frequency of posts from now on.