Matt

This is really for family and close friends who might be interested.  Matt is keeping a blog of his time in Turkey.  Check it out by clicking on the link.

Matt's blog

'sup?

Just a little deposit for the blog bank:

2011 so far is going pretty well for us.

 Four kids back at school.

one hubby back at work

Me back at Uni (arrrggghhh)

One meltdown day.

One husband gone for 3 weeks (I hate it)

One major assignment due this week

LOTS of adjustments.

Zero time for much else :)

Seeya

I'm finally attempting to get my blog up to date. This post will be a quick catch up dating back to last year (oh dear).

The highlight of the past few months are:

Bella achieving fantastic results with her swimming. She performed really well at the school swimming carnival in October which gave her the opportunity to participate in the inter-school swimming carnival in the same month. When you attend a small school (Mt Nelson has about 150 kids) it is relatively easy to stand out at the thing you are good at but once you enter a larger pool (pardon the pun) of talent you can quickly get taken down peg or two. It is much more difficult to get the same results. With that said Isabella also shone at the inter-school swimming carnival. Placing in all of her races. She was ecstatic to discover she was invited to attend the Champions Carnival – a competition of the best of the best! You can imagine the smile on her face when she walked away with a place in each of her races! We had considered not doing swimming lessons again this year but I think we'll stick with it for a little bit longer!

A trip to the temple with Reuben (first time)

The traditional maccas on the way home!

Another trip to the temple with Chels and Bridey

Reuben finished Primary School!

His final year at Mt Nelson was fabulous. He had a starring role (ok I might be exaggerating a little bit) as the caterpillar in 'Alice the Musical' (Alice in Wonderland). His costume was awesome and his singing matched. Reuben has a lovely singing voice. We usually wake every morning to him belting out a tune however, he doesn't like to sing with an audience so watching and listening to him on stage was a real treat for me.

Reubs also had the opportunity to go on a year 6 trip to Canberra and Sydney. We did a lot of fund-raising for this and everyone enjoyed a fun-filled and educational trip.

Charlotte's end of year dance concert was so gorgeous. Plus it was our LAST dance concert for a while. And that means no more making and painting of props – FANTASTIC. I enjoy the creative outlet but it is very time consuming.

The Huon Show has become a family tradition and once again a fun time was had by all -but boy it was cold at the top of the Ferris Wheel.

Christmas was busy! Christmas eve with my family having fun, being silly, eating too much. Christmas day was pressies and breakfast at mum and dad's, lunch at Matt's parents with the whole Sayers family (minus Lou, Dan, Zeek + Ollie), more pressies and fun there and then back to the Huon for dinner with the extended family (mum's side). It was a terrific day and as we headed back to the Huon we passed the cemetery where we saw a couple putting flowers on their child's grave and I felt so overwhelmingly grateful for all the family I am surrounded with. I gave my kids a great big hug and kiss and told them how fortunate we are to have each other, that the presents don't really matter...”yeah mum, we get it” they said and off they ran to play with their cousins.

I think all the travelling got to Charli just a tad!

New Years Eve was mum's 60^th birthday party. During the day Bridey and I and our hard working hubbies and kids decorated mum's garden ready for a wonderful, nostalgic evening. Letters from absent friends and family, meeting up with old friends not seen for 40? years, beautiful words from loved ones, a most memorable tribute song to the tune of 'You Are My Sunshine', a 'funny photo booth', great food, the best company, fireworks even! All made for a wonderful night.  The weather was perfect and so was the entire night. The only thing I would change is the 3am bed time!

School's back!

I've now got kids in years 9,7,4 and Prep.

After 15 years as a SAHM all of my kids are in school full time. Kinda weird but kinda nice.

I'm finally going back to uni (part-time). I'm studying a Master of Teaching and tomorrow I have my first tutorial. Exciting.

That's all folks, don't know when I will return but take care, you hear x

I have really good intentions of updating this blog...later :)

Preview

These are for my cousin Chelsea.  She came to visit with her gorgeous little family a couple of months ago and we had planned to do some photos outside but just as they arrived it rained...a lot!   so we were confined to the veranda which was a huge pain in the butt.  Thankfully they are such a beautiful family it wasn't too hard to get some lovely photos. Here's a sneak peak for you Chels. xx

us

We have a Family Christmas tradition called 'The Twelve Weeks of Christmas'.  We plan ahead - usually in September - and make a list of 12 things we can do for others once a week for 12 weeks leading up to Christmas.  We usually do these activities for FHE but sometimes more time is needed or it just suits a different time better.  Our list is made up of serious, fun, silly and nice to do things and includes car washes, cookie drops, choosing someone to be a secret santa for and leaving them a well thought out gift, having friends over for dinner, TP-ing someone's car (sorry but it's so much fun he he he) roadside rubbish pick up, cleaning our local park equipment, filling shoe boxes with gifts for the Samaritans Purse appeal, caroling and so on.  Last night we did something for ourselves (or maybe it was just for me!) and we took some family photos.  We went into the city after everything was closed and took a few shots.  It was really cold and the kids were getting on each others (and my) nerves, and what was supposed to be a fun activity...wasn't!  Anyway we managed to get a few photos and this is my favourite.  It says it all about everyone;  Isaac's 'I don't want to be here' attitude, Bella happy to be posing in front of the camera, Reub's with his 'whatever' stance and Charlotte sticky beaking (she's obsessed with Matt and I kissing - a hopeless romantic I think!)  And of course I love it when my man plants one on me!!  So this one will be going in a frame because I think it's perfect for us xx

photos

Took some photos for some friends... I'm happy with them, they're happy with them. Was fun.