Another fun trip to Busselton

 

 

Have you seen all my new teeth?

Christmas is good!!!

Xmas Eve dinner: Meatloaf and scalloped potatoes

Say "Cheese!"

I love presents!!

Even when they're not mine!

Wrapping paper tastes yummy

Scooting natural!

I ate too much!

Vin and I striking a pose with my new scooter

"What do you mean there are no more presents?!?!"

Christmas dinner

The best nieces ever!!!

Taking time out for painting with the cousins

Just look what Santa brought me

Elliot loves it too!! But not as much as the computer that Santa brought him.

A visit with Santa

Lucky for me, Mommy and Daddy didn't forget to take me to see Santa like they did last year. Nope this year we went all the way into the city to Myer so we could visit Santa in his special Santaland.

First, I rode on Santa's train all by myself and I even got my very own golden ticket punched as I boarded. I really liked that.

Next, we waited in line until it was finally our turn. We got led down a little hallway by one of Santa's helpers and into a little room where Santa was sitting and waiting to meet with Oliver and me. And you know who else was there??? Rudolph!!! Santa said that he gave him some special magic food to make him sleep very soundly and rest up for Christmas. But I know he was real because he was breathing and everything!

So after patting Rudolph, I got to business and told Santa exactly what I wanted for Christmas: ice cream!! Strawberry ice cream. I think Santa thought that this was a funny thing to want for Christmas. He also asked me if I've been a good boy, and I nodded but then said, "but I'm also naughty sometimes!" That made him laugh. And you know what else?

I think Santa is very very nice and not at all scary. Oliver, on the other hand, was a bit of a baby and started screaming the second Mommy and Daddy put him on Santa's knee. He even ruined our picture. Maybe next year, he'll realise that it's a really good thing to be really nice to Santa since he brings us such great stuff every year. ~ Elliot

It's never too late to become a rock star!

Guess who's so excited because her terrific hubby bought her a GUITAR!!!!! for Xmas?!?!

Yep, that's right, this mamacita is on her way to becoming a rock n roll babe or at least a long-haired folksy chick. I've already learned how to tune it with a handy iPhone app that I downloaded and started taking lessons courtesy of about.com. And I'm now practicing scales like nobody's business.

I know I don't have much extra time in my life but I reckon if I could just dedicate 15 minutes a day, I might be able to accompany the family singing Christmas carols this time next year.

But mostly I'm just over the moon with having a wonderful husband who supports my little whims even when even I doubt me myself. Have I mentioned that he's a keeper?

Yep, we're loving the swimming pool

Tiana and Blake join us for water antics

Yep, Ollie loves it too!

Rich, Vinnie and Dominic join Elliot for noodle wars

Thanks so much Paul for doing such an awesome job keeping it swimmable!

5 years and counting

Five years, two children, one dog, a great group of friends, and one nearly finished completely remodelled house later, I truly feel like Australia is home. Here's a letter I wrote to some friends a month after we moved here which I recently found in my email and thought quite comical now.

Hello friends.

Since I’ve been so crap at returning emails and so much time has passed since I’ve talked to some of you and because I now feel a little overwhelmed at how much I have to catch up on, I thought that I’d send a quick group email with a “what’s up” in Paul and my lives. Consider it a holiday letter, only for Australia Day or Groundhog’s Day or something. The hope is that with this business out of the way, I’ll be much more motivated to respond more personally to the emails some of you have been so good at sending. Thanks for that.

So, on December 2nd Paul and I flew back from Peru to the States to catch up with my family and friends and cuddle my two new little babies, my adorable first nephew, Evan, and my gorgeous little Fairy Goddaughter, Kate. The first week back was great fun, but the second week I sort of fell apart emotionally and this lasted for several weeks. Heck, I’m still a bit of a basketcase, but I’ll get to that. Seriously, I think that I never really let the reality sink in about what moving to Australia truly meant--learning the ropes in a new city/country, having to say goodbyes, having to find a job, having to furnish/remodel a home, and not having any friends of my own. And it all sort of hit me at once. Hard. And I started flaking out on friends, holing up at my parents, and freaking out, and before I knew it, I was loaded up on a plane on my way to my new home. Gulp.

Our flight wasn’t too bad and we had planned a couple of days stop in Sydney to break up the trip, see the city, and visit an old friend of Paul’s. This was a good idea in theory, but not so great in practice. I was still freaking and now very tired, and on top of all this had to smile and try to be nice and normal when we were with Paul’s friend. So instead, I fell apart on the day we put aside to visit the beautiful sites of Sydney. I cried in front of the Opera House, on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, in the Botanical Gardens and just about everywhere else we wandered around. I’ll have to revisit Sydney again when I’m not feeling sorry for myself and can appreciate the place.

We arrived in Perth on the 22nd of December and spent the first week or so sleeping on the floor of Paul’s brother’s house and doing lots of holiday family stuff and truly Australian things (sic) like going to baseball games and rodeos. And Paul’s family really is sweet, but holy cow, it was all just an overload. I even found myself getting annoyed with our eleven-year-old twin nieces who I really really adore.

Finally I put my foot down and insisted we start furniture shopping so we could get ourselves in our own place. Thank God there’s an IKEA here. It was the first place that I really felt at home and knew how things work thanks to my days working there in Seattle. I’ve been there five times already with another trip planned next week and it’s 45 minutes from our house. Retail therapy works! Needless to say, our house is starting to look like the dude’s in Fight Club. But it feels like a home at last.

And it’s kept us really busy all January--tearing up carpets and steaming off horrible wall paper, tearing out dead shrubs and learning to prune all the trees that have become incredibly overgrown in the five years Paul’s had tenants living here. And there’s so much work in front of us still (and now that Paul’s started working, most of it falls on me when I feel motivated to do it, that is).

But the real reason nothing much is getting done lately is because we have a new member of our family. His name is Nacho, he’s a Chihuahua, and when he’s not eating all sorts of stuff from the garden that makes him poo blood, he’s really really cute. I’ve already been scolded from the veterinary that he’s displaying some real dominance behaviours that I need to get on top of, but it’s so damn cute to see something that small think that he’s tough shit. I’ll attach a photo or two.

But this stay-at-home mum business is tough. I have a whole new respect for women who have kids and actually manage to stay at home with them without starting to hate them or going crazy. And with human babies you can’t even lock them in a laundry room like I can with my little man.

So let’s see what else . . . I don’t have any friends to speak of yet, though our next-door neighbors are really friendly and like to drink red wine even more than me. . . I don’t have a job yet (so get off my back, already). It turns out to do any real counseling I need to be recredentialed here and call myself a psychologist or something. It sounds a bit complicated and I just don’t have the motivation to tackle that process at the moment, but just yesterday I found two really good job prospects at local universities that I’m qualified for. So I’ll apply for those and cross my fingers real hard.

I think getting out of the house will help me meet people and do me heaps of good at helping me feel a little more competent. (I swear to God that I have never felt so stupid in my life. Learning to drive on the left side of the road was easy--it’s learning how to work out garden hoses, plug-ins, and bank deposit slips that has really got me stumped.)

I should wrap up. We’re headed off to the big Australia Day celebration with supposedly like the best fireworks in the whole world or something. But before I go, I just wanted to let you know how much I miss each of you. You’re getting this email because you are someone who I think of and miss on a near-daily basis, and if I hadn’t let you know before, I think you’re pretty special and feel real lucky to have you as a friend even if you’re a long, long way away at the moment.

Sending lots of love from down under. You have an open-invitation to visit anytime (just bring a paint brush).

And here's a photo of Nacho as a pup because he was the cutest puppy ever!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

There may not be snow or a Thanksgiving long weekend to kick off the season, and I might not ever get used to the whole idea of Santa in surf shorts, but for whatever reason, this year I've finally found my Aussie Christmas spirit so much so in fact that I've found myself singing Christmas carols out loud in public on more than one occasion.

Not sure what started my festive mood, but once begun it has only snowballed. We've not only put up the tree, but bought 45 meters of lights to hang outside. We've replaced our nightly storytime with Christmas cuddles where we turn off all the lights, listen to Christmas music and admire our beautiful tree. Elliot and I even decorated (store-bought) gingerbread cookies. Here's some photos of some of the fun.

The boys checking out the Little People nativity set that Gramma and Grumpy sent:

Some of the beautiful houses all alight on some of Perth's most Christmassy streets: 

The boys loved walking around and admiring the lights. There were dancing santas and laser lights and folks handing out candy canes and one house even had a snow machine which Elliot LOVED!!!

The gingerbread cookies Elliot and I decorated: 

Notice that one of the cookies got a bite taken out of it before it made it to the tree. Hmmm, I wonder who was responsible for that?!?!?

Some of Elliot's magnificent Christmas decorations which he brought home along with a basket-full of Christmas cakes that he made at daycare:

And our Christmas tree with the barricade we had to borrow in order to keep a certain nine-month-old from destroying all the gifts and ornaments:

Dinosaur park!!!

Mommy stumbled across a newspaper article about a new playground that has real live dinosaur bones and fossils. So we phoned up our friends and planned a play date. What fun! What fun! And best of all, my buddy Ben showed up, and I just loved running around with him (except when he got a bit bossy!)

Look how much fun we had:

Aine, Cailey and I looking for fossils amongst the bones

Yeehaw!

Cailey, Ben and I
(Aine wasn't feeling very photogenic!)

The sandwich creativity continues

The peanut butter, jelly and banana was just the start. Today Elliot requested a vegemite, cheese, hommus and jelly sandwich. Paul double-checked that he really wanted each and every one of those ingredients and then made the sandwich as directed. And our little culinary artiste ate it all up! Yum!

I'm one sick mommy

I mean, who else would think her little boys' wee smells like maple syrup and their poos smell a lot like McDonald's french fries. I know that they say that moms smell their babies' dirty nappies differently (and not as unpleasantly) as other folk, but maple syrup and french fries?!?!?

All I can say is thank goodness for the mommy nose mask (or whatever it is!)

A boy (and a sandwich) after my own heart

Yesterday morning, completely out of the blue, Elliot asked me for a peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwich (a combination with which he has had absolutely no previous experience). Understandably, I did a double take, checked that I heard him right, and then upon confirmation, grinned gleefully as I prepared my little guy's first PBJ and banana sandwich with the utmost love and care.

I was awfully nervous as I passed him what was most likely his most carefully crafted sandwich to date, but there was no need for nerves. My little Elvis gobbled down each and every bite in record speed. It's like he channelled a five-year-old me! When he was finished, I told him that the PBJB was my very favourite sandwich when I was a little girl, and he grinned from ear to ear and said, "It's YUMMY!!!" Gosh I love that kid sometimes!!!

P.S. Mom, I was telling my friend Karina about Elliot's sandwich and she grinned and told me about her favourite sandwich growing up: peanut butter, mayonnaise and lettuce (has to be iceberg too). I nearly fell out of my chair. There is no way that a person should encounter two people who have the same wacky idea about a good sandwich.

Oliver at 9 months!

Hey folks! Guess who is nine months old today? That's right, I've been out in the world now as long as I was in Mommy's tummy. And wow, I've learned all sorts of things.

I crawl, cruise, and even sometimes try to walk on my own (soon I'll do it without falling!) all over the place now and nothing is safe from my clutches! Mommy and Daddy had to borrow a big old barricade just to keep the christmas tree safe. And I've scared Elliot half to death TWICE now by cranking the volume on the stereo to like a thousand decibels.

And the funniest thing is that Mommy and Daddy think that saying "No-no Oliver" is going to stop my exploring. I pretend to listen, and then when they aren't looking, I go right back to the TV, DVD player, power cords, remote controls, dog bowls or whatever else that has caught my fancy. And if they catch me again, I save them the trouble of saying "No-no" and say it myself with a smile. Mommy thinks I'm sneaky and a little bit devilish, I reckon I'm just really clever.

Oh, and by the way, I'm saying other things now too. I say 'mama' and also 'ba-ba' while I wave my hand good-bye. I can give high-fives and clap-clap-clap for myself and all my amazing accomplishments too.

Mommy and Daddy reckon they're pretty lucky because they have two incredibly clever, happy little boys. They also say they're lucky because I'm proving to be a fantastic eater just like my older brother. I'm eating just about everything the rest of the family eats now, but I really don't like Mommy or Daddy to try to feed me now. I can do it by myself y'know.

I do lots by myself these days. Mommy and Daddy are just amazed at the way I'm completely content to play on my own. I'm quite happy to open up the toy drawers and find all sorts of toys to take out and play with. I also try to play with my big brother lots, but he's not really very fond of sharing his toys with me and sometimes even squeals if I do so much as touch him (so I purposely do it more!) Whatever, some day he'll like playing with me and until then I'm very happy with my own company!

And Mommy and Daddy are also feeling very happy these days. Yep, that's right, I'm finally learning to sleep through the night. And how do they express their gratitude?!?! They've started putting me down on my own to go to sleep. I don't have to tell you that I'm not a fan at all of that situation!!

Hmm, what else? Oh, I've got three big teeth on the bottom now, with one more on the bottom and two on top ready to come through any day. Not so much fun in my mouth at the moment. It hurts!

Oh and in case you're wondering, my hair still stands straight up. I'm quite a celebrity because of it too. Everywhere I go the ladies go on and on about my cool hair and like to rub my head. Mommy gets a little tired of it, but I totally don't mind the attention.

I do love attention too, especially from my mom. When I'm feeling extra needy, I follow her around everywhere saying "mom-mom-mom" until she finally picks me up and gives me a cuddle. I really can't understand why she would ever want to do anything else. ~ Oliver

Chillin'

After a wait of over five years, Paul and I have finally hung our beautiful hammocks that we bought in Nicaragua during our wonderful trip of the Americas. And oh, they are awesome! The whole family is loving them, and Elliot and Oliver are quickly learning the meaning of chillin'. I think Paul and I need to learn how to do that too!