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!