A little chat with Juliet

Juliet is really trying to talk back to us now.  She's better at not interrupting than Alice...

Unfortunately, a lot of the chat comes in the form of excited screams.  It's cute, but it woke up the rest of the household this morning, who were uncharacteristically still dozing at 7.10am.

Marley's birthday party/sauna

Alice's wee chum Marley had a lovely fairy birthday party last weekend.  It came on day 6 of Sydney's longest and hottest ever heatwave - a sizzling 42 degrees by 11am (that's 104 to the oldies). 

The little ones dressed up as fairies - I can't imagine how hot Alice must have been in her very fetching fairy outfit - and had their faces painted.  Which lasted about 30 minutes, as the sweat wrecked their amazing facial decorations.

Still it was a great do in a truly beautiful setting and Alice's face really looked amazing.

melting

Nanna Keefe

I just wanted to post a little thank you to my Mum who has selflessly stayed in sunny Sydney for about half of Juliet's life so far and who has been such a wonderful help to me.  Now that she has left (and I'm able to get near the computer!) I truly realise the luxury her sending me straight back to bed after the first feed and gamely trying to keep Juliet awake to the specifications of "my" routine, getting me a coffee each morning, often making dinner, schlepping off to the city each afternoon to pick up Alice (despite her propensity to get lost), helping with the witching hour and then going to bed early so that she was fresh for the Alice wake-up calls each night.  I'll never understand why teabags can't go straight into the bin, but thank you so much, Mum - you were wonderful.

Thanks also to Stu for having his mother-in-law to stay for 9 or so weeks!

Seals

With the advent of being three and the new school year beginning, Alice has moved up to the pre-school room at nursery.  It's very much more structured - much more time spent sitting and listening or working on projects and is for 3 - 5 year olds.  Some of the other children seem really grown up - it's a big age gap.

Alice had her share of snivels in the transition phase, not helped by the fact that her bestie Savannah didn't move up at the same time.  She'll be there in a month though, so not too long for the terrible twosome to find their own way.

The first day, the day before her third birthday, we saw pictures of her working on a computer, she came home recognising the letters A and M and we also found that we had been set her first homework assignment.  Some tears were almost forthcoming from Mummy too at that point.  At 2 years and 364 days, she has homework? 

It's all very exciting.  In the last few weeks since that first day, we've delivered said homework (it's a bit like Show and Tell), learned about Chinese New Year (we were helpfully sent details of some events that we might like to go along to) and we are onto the letter T.  Which is for Tesco apparently, so they are playing shops most days.  There's also yoga most days and lots of talk about water safety.  Drop offs are good now.  Stu told a lovely story of earlier in the week when Alice walked to a table to join two older girls for breakfast on arrival.  They were chatting and she started laughing along at a joke, just quietly, just to get into the conversation.  What a little networker!

Killcare kills cares

...we were off on holiday to Killcare, on the Central Coast, a convenient 90 minutes drive from Sydney, but a delightful millions miles away from anything.  We'd wanted a holiday and when it looked as though that might not come off, I booked this while the rest of them had swanned off to the cricket.

We rented a beautiful house and stayed with our friends Auntie Niki, Uncle Dougie and Baby Jamie. There was a great pool and Alice swam all the time.  Juliet even had her first dip too.  Here, the girls recline by the pool after a taxing splash about.

The babies chill on the play mat before being put to sleep in their respective walk-in closets.  It was such a bonus to have Juliet in her own room for the first time!  Can't wait until we can do that permanently.  Anyway.

I didn't manage to do much of the cooking, what with two kids to put to bed.  This was also a MASSIVE bonus.  This is a pizza dough making master classs in action...

Alice got her face painted again - she has developed a bit of a fetish for this, this summer....

And here are my girls loving the house.

The less said about the lunch out the better.  We almost took a survivors photo after all the kids acted up to various degrees.  Or was that just all our kids?  Anyway, we were too exhausted to take the photo, so just spent the rest of the holiday resting.  I even read one and a half magazines.  Heaven.

Miss Three

Alice was 3 on her highly inauspicious birthday of the-day-before-Australia-Day and a lovely day was enjoyed by all concerned.  We had been on a birthday countdown for weeks, as Alice knew that it came after Christmas, but didn't have a concept of it not being on Boxing Day, so when the day finally arrived, she announced (as we had every morning for a month) "It's not my birthday", only to be corrected.  She slept in a little in fact, so is a bit dishevelled to start with.

Then she got into the swing of things with a pretty fairy princess dress from Auntie Deborah

Closely followed by a mermaid dress from Auntie Bethan

Then it was off to school.  She and Daddy went for a birthday baby-cino and banana bread at the cafe.

Nanna, Juliet and I were allowed to pre-school for the birthday cakes for afternoon tea.  All the kids sang Happy Birthday to Alice and she even had candles.  There was a bit of worry that they'd ignite the fire alarm, but all was well.

We took her home early for the unveiling of the present de resistance - the cubby house, from Nanna and Grannie, who kindly clubbed together.  Alice loves it.

Then it was out to dinner with the whole family.

Shame about Juliet's head.  Oh well.

What a day.  And then the next day...

The par-tay

And we're back. Still not getting enough sleep but birthdays, holidays and pre-school keep moving along, so blog we must.


Alice's birthday party took place a few days before the big day, with just a couple of little friends along for the ride.  Alice was allowed to invite three little friends (one for each year of her life plus I've decided that they can have a big party every second year to preserve my sanity) and Juliet had a couple of baby friends along too, (conveniently parented by Mummy and Daddy's best mates).

We had a morning do, as we went to an indoor play centre which gets a bit crowded later in the day and Alice, Savannah, Cora and Cassia had a ball.  The Mums let the Dads have a ball too.

It is hard to express how proud I was of the cake.  I had half of Sydney cheering me on, having done a practice run the week before and had to promise the staff in the kitchen shop who lent me the cake pan that I'd take a photo in to show them.  Juliet gamely resettled herself halfway through the three hour marathon that was the cake decorating.  So losing my brain, but still able to make a small person happy with the requested Dora cake. Things can't be all bad.

Proud as punch

And the big moment arrived.  Cora lent a hand as Alice has frankly no puff.

Ah *contented sigh*.  Nothing like a party that goes well and the feeling that you don't have to do it for another year.