Photos from Australia Zoo

These are my favorites from Australia Zoo...I hope you like them too :)

More Photos to Share

A Few Favorites

I've been going through my photos and uploading them to my Shutterfly account. I've picked a few of my favorites from the first couple of days at Beachmere.

Santa Visit

We went to visit Santa today. To be honest, I was not expecting it to go well. I've only known babies to scream when they were given to Santa for photos. However Kai was quite enchanted. It may have helped that his big brother and sister were enchanted too. They told Santa what they wanted, and were very careful to make sure he understood they'd be in Australia and needed small toys that they could bring home on the airplane. It was all very cute.

It's as Easy as...

I had to smile as I overheard this conversation between Isaac and Lizzy...

"Lizzy, that's not easy as pie to me. It's as hard as baking a cake."

Beethoven before breakfast

Lizzy has started group piano lessons at school. She's had two lessons so far, and has cottoned on pretty quickly. This morning we had a little Beethoven before breakfast. The children have to learn to play Ode to Joy (or as Lizzy wrote, "Oh to Joy") with 2 hands and after that they can pick any piece of music they like from their music books. Lizzy is currently learning the right hand...

My big brother

I took this video the other day of Isaac playing with Kai. I love how these two interact.

Research

Kai is participating in a research study at the University of Washington. He is a control subject in a sibling study on Autism. This is him wearing an electrode cap and pretending to be an alien.

He did really well, and the cap didn't bother him at all. Although he did try to chew on the chin strap numerous times.

Halloween

It is that time of year again...when all American kids hit the streets for some trick or treating. For the first time, my kids joined in. Kai didn't get dressed up, but he still came along for the ride. Isaac was Darth Vada (again) and Lizzy was a rock star.

Here they are:

This is Isaac at his school parade on Friday afternoon...

And then just before trick or treating on Saturday night...

And here is our rockstar on Friday at the school parade..

This is how the wig looked when we first got it. However it's had alot of wear over the last week and became "wilder" each time. Luckily it just helped fit the rockstar image.

We had to modify the costume slightly for Saturday night, but as you can see the wig was still a highlight...

Smarty Pants

Lizzy has been having trouble falling asleep lately. Bedtime starts at 7.30pm and lights out is at 8.15. However, there have been a number of nights lately where she's still been awake at 10.00pm.

Tonight, we talked about some things she could do to help herself fall asleep. One of them was counting with her eyes closed. I knew she wouldn't be asleep by 100, so I told her to count to 1000. I had to search for her "blankey" and when I returned I asked her what number she was up to. 156. What a smarty pants :) The counting must of worked. She was asleep about 15 mintues later when I checked on her. Or maybe it was sheer exhaustion from a week of not getting enough sleep.

Happy 1/2 Birthday

Kai is 6 months old today. I didn't realise until last night that I'll always know when Anita is something and a half years old because Kai & her have birthdays exactly 6 months apart. Happy Birthday Anita :)

Anyway...here are some photos of the "birthday" boy from a a few days ago.

Flushing Issues

We've been having some issues with flushing the toilet at our house. It's not happening.

The other week, Ben, in his frustration, gave the kids have a time out in the bathroom and made them stand next to the toilet where they could see the unflushed product that someone had left behind. They were suitably grossed out.

Move along to tonight.

We have a toilet bowl cleaner called "Green Works". As you might guess by the name, it's green. I leave it in the toilet for about 10 minutes and then clean the bowl.

Lizzy saw this tonight and very seriously told me "Make sure you never buy Yellow Works or Daddy will make us look at it for a time out"

I can't help but laugh.

Computer Craft

Lizzy wanted to do some craft with me today. However, I think she's been playing on the Wii too much, as she asked me

"Mummy, do you want to make something single player or multiplayer?"

I elected to do a single player craft, and we made some place cards together. I decorated mine and she decorated hers. I wonder if I had selected to do a multiplayer craft if I would have been required to decorate the same place card she was working on.

First Day of School

The kids went back to school today. Isaac is starting year 2 and Lizzy is starting Kindergarten. Lizzy has been telling us that she's so excited for the past couple of days, and sure enough, she happily went off to school today.

Here are a few pictures of her first day.

Diaper Rash

The other week, Isaac was standing next to me while I was changing Kai's diaper. As I wiped Kai's bum, I said "It looks like Kai is starting to get a little bit of a diaper rash."

Isaac was unusually concerned about this and asked me if we needed to call the doctors. I explained that all I needed to do was put some cream on his bottom and it would be alright. "Then why is it in the Emergency Book?" I had forgotton that Isaac had been reading "Treating Childhood Emergencies and Illnesses", a free book that was sent to us from Seattle Children's Hospital. There was a page on dealing with diaper rash and Isaac was concerned that we had an emergency. It was quite cute that he was so worried for his brother.

Our boy will read nearly anything he can put his hands on these days. Only yesterday, he found a Real Simple magazine and was reading about how to save money by doing some simple repair jobs at home. A 7 year old fountain of knowledge does come in handy somedays :)

Food Choices

We never talk about weight with our children. I'm concerned that so much emphasis is placed on weight these days and I think it could lead to greater problems later on, espeically with girls. Instead we talk about being healthy. We talk about eating a balanced diet and doing exercise to make our bodies strong and healthy. Our children know that dairy products have calcium to make their bones strongs. They know that vegies have good fiber content (and yes - they know what fiber does too).

I thought they knew about iron until the other night.

We were talking about our meal and how the meat contained protein and iron. We were talking about how iron helps make our blood healthy and if we didn't get enough food with iron in it we'd feel very tired. Suddenly Lizzy pipes up and says "Mmmmm....this [meat] feels like it's ironing my tongue." Ironing your clothes is just like ironing your tongue, isn't it?

A New Skill

Kai is working on a new skill. He's no longer content to lay on his back or tummy but is very happy when he's either sitting or standing. Until the other day, he was unable to sit without some support, but today he managed to stay upright without help.

However, he can't stay up for very long...

This is the earliest any of my kids have been able to sit by themselves. It just goes to show how they all have their own timetables :)