egg collection . . .

For the last year or so Steve and Austin have been slowly building a bird egg collection. It is something Steve did with his dad, and which he wants to carry on with Austin and Lily. We have 4 of them now, which are carefully stored away in cotton wool, waiting for the day we have a proper display box to store them in. Most of the eggs have been found abandoned and already empty, but for the last month or so some Indian Mynah's have been building a nest in the outside cupboard at Zubi. And being the pests that they are, Steve had no problem in stealing one of their cute little blue eggs, which he bought home and demonstrated the technique of blowing out an egg . . .

i love my big brother

Austin has been man down with yet another bout of tonsillitis (watch this space for the tonsillectomy operation blog in the next few years I guarantee). So it's been a very lazy house this week . . . lots of tv and inside play.
One afternoon, the kids were happily watching tv and I was doing housework, when I suddenly looked over to see Austin had fallen asleep and Lily was sitting there playing with his hand. Now anyone that knows Lily well knows that she LOVES to play with fingers and hands, and has done since she was a little bubba, but this was just too cute! ! ! It seemed like even in his sleep he was moving his fingers and interacting with her, not sure who was enjoying it more . . .

Then 10 minutes later I looked over to see this . . . heart melting stuff

wet bottoms and party hats . . .

Last week Austin somehow managed to fulfil all of his goals on his reward chart (a very rare occurrence) which meant he got to choose something to do - like the zoo, aquarium, movies, mini golf etc. I tried to steer him towards mini golf because it's 5min away from home, quick and easy but he was adamant he wanted to go ice skating.
He has been obsessed with going for a while now but I've been putting it off, it started after he watched a skating episode of OSO - who is an annoying little cartoon Panda who teaches kids how to do things in "3 special steps..". As you can see from the photos below, one of those 'special steps' was to keep your arms out to balance yourself - it obviously stuck in Austy's mind !

When it comes to sport Austin always throws himself in at full force from the get-go, so it was funny to watch him take his first few steps on ice - and his first fall. My cocky little boy suddenly became very nervous as he realised it wasn't so easy . . .
I was having a hard enough time trying to keep Lily and myself upright, let alone trying to help Austin, when one of the staff came over and asked if he could help out. What a saviour. He took Austin on a couple of laps of the rink, giving the confidence to move out from the edge, and after that he was fine. He did really well - still fell over a few times and didn't go fast or anything, but basically mastered the balance thing which is the first step I guess !

Lily 'skated' for about 10 minutes and was actually doing ok holding my hand but she suddenly decided she'd had enough. I can't really blame her though, the poor girl was wearing a flimsy summer dress - bad bad mother - she was probably freezing to death!!!
We got off the ice and she then spent her time running away from me and hiding while I was trying to keep an eye on Austin skating. At one point I looked away for 10 seconds and she was gone - I couldn't find her anywhere and started to completely freak out! It was probably 2 minutes but at the time it felt like an hour, absolutely the worst feeling in the world! I eventually heard her calling "mummee, mummeee..." from behind a locked door, she had somehow managed to lock herself in an empty party room and I had to call the staff to unlock it. She, of course, was completely unfazed and came out grinning with a party hat on her head. I was too relieved to scream and shout at her, but needless to say we left straight afterwards . . .

dino drawings . . .

Austin LOVES drawing, he draws and draws and draws constantly, but to be perfectly honest he's not much of an artist, most of his drawings are very abstract and I have to ask "what's that?" Yes yes yes I know you're supposed to say "so tell me about it" so your don't crush their confidence, but that is never what pops out of my mouth when I see a rectangle and he tells me it's a tree. He has definitely improved lately though, even progressing to the point where he draws bodies on people, as opposed to their limbs coming straight from their heads . . .

Anyway, the other day my mum and dad gave him this dinosaur book that came free with the Sunday paper - one of those ones where you get a free model and fact sheet the first week and then have to buy one every week for the next 10 weeks to complete the collection. He was fascinated with the book, and it had all these sleeves to put in the fact sheets in of the weekly dinosaur, but he decided to fill the sleeves with his own drawings of dinosaurs - and surprisingly I think they are pretty good (and cute).

falling asleep with his dinosaur book . . .

sinking boat . . .

Austin woke up the other morning and decided he desperately needed to make a boat . . .
so we gathered the supplies and set about making a sail boat . . .
then he wanted to see if it floated . . .
when it floated he of course wanted to sink it . . .
so he filled it one by one with shells until it eventually sunk . . .
and he was finally happy . . .

loaded down with shells and its still floating . . .

it's going it's going . . .

Yay it's sinking . . . Austin is so excited while Lily looks concerned 

now lets make it really sink . . .

This is a typical Austin moment, he absolutely LOVES craft and making stuff but he LOVES crashing or breaking things even more. When he was around 3/4 it used to make me laugh to watch him and his buddy Riley play with trains. Riley loved trains and was obssessed with having them set up correctly and just driving them around the tracks gently while Austin just didn't have the same interest or patience. He would play for a while then get bored and eventually start crashing the trains and breaking up all the tracks, which of course sent Riley over the edge and caused numerous tears and fights. Now of course they are big boys, so they just tackle eachother . . .

little dove kindy photos

 school photos sure have changed since I went to school . . .

Treachery Camp

last week we took off up the coast for a spur of the moment camping trip. well kind of camping . . . we stayed in a campsite but lived it up in 'luxury' with an en-suite cabin!!! to be honest I actually don't mind the whole tent thing but we only went for a day and a half, it just seemed like too much effort and packing for such a short stay.
we went to Treachery Beach, which is near Seal Rocks, and about a 3 1/2 hour drive. it's a beautiful spot and completely remote, there was hardly anyone there and it was just so nice to get away from everything . . . no mobile reception, no facebook, no news, no tv, no traffic

Austin has become very cocky in the surf lately and had his first proper dumping, it was so funny to see the look of shock on his face, after seeing he was ok of course...

Lily is still very wary of the surf and stayed in the shallows, running away from any wave that came even remotely close

Austin and Lily made friends with a little boy called Max, they spent their time playing pirate games, getting dirty and climbing trees 

our luxury cabin

the camp grounds, which were completely deserted

such an awesome looking forest but am sure it looks very different in season

toasting marshmallows . . .

Austin's favourite part of the trip, he still hasn't stopped talking about them

my little lady

apparently the fish were biting but it was a good thing we took steak up for dinner . . .

lazy days . . .

the last few weeks of October seemed to just pass by without much happening and after such a busy September trust me I wasn't complaining . . .

this is about as interesting as it got . . .

lily got into another tub of bum cream . . .

i went to my first ever circus!!! 

  the kid's cooled off in buckets . . .

 lily passed out in the car like this on numerous occasions . . .

 lily had a rare moment of looking a little bit girly . . .

 lily & erin ran around ikea and jumped on all the beds . . .

 we got goldfish at Zubi . . .

 austin enjoyed all his new birthday toys . . .

 austin and socket became closer . . .

 lily and the ipad became closer . . . 

austin went to kindergarten orientation . . . he looks nervous doesn't he!!!

 lily decorated the walls . . .

 and used ALL of the glue for a sensory experience . . .

 austin enjoyed the slides at the Aquatic Centre . . .

 and lily jumped in the bath fully clothed . . .