Pizza!!

Jack's little mate Jared is having a sleep over tonight.  I had a great afternoon, they entertained themselves with the Wii and I was free to relax!!  So tonight we've made pizza for dinner.

Here are the boys making the dough.  Jared was chief mixer and Jack was chief sifter.

Then they got down and dirty and kneaded the dough...

They stretched it out to their desired shapes.  Jack's was in the shaped of a bone.

Applied their sauce of choice...

Added some bacon and cheese...

And viola!!  Pizza!!

Then the taste test...

Jared's hot cheese face.

Birthdays and a new kitten in our household.

We've had a busy weekend for birthdays this week.  A joint birthday for Owen's niece and nephew on Friday, Emmy's 1st Birthday party on Saturday, Grandad Kev's birthday dinner Saturday night and then a BBQ dinner for another niece tonight.

Here's Grandad blowing out the candles on his cake for his 88th Birthday. 

 Jack, Patrick and Ally lining up to help Emmy blow out the candle on her 1st Birthday cake.  She was adorable grabbing little handfuls of smarties off the cake.

And last but not least here is our new kitten, Cappuccino.  She's such a cutie.  Kitti apparently disagrees but we're very much hoping that she'll get over it. At the moment there's just been lots of hissing and mewling. 

Goodbye Old Girl

We made the very very sad decision to put our poor old Bella girl to sleep today.  Today I was feeling relieved that she was sick no longer and would be feeling no more pain but tonight I'm just feeling heart broken.  I'm very much wishing that Jacks' suggestion to "think of happy kittens" was actually effective because all I can think of is the loss of her.

  

I have a thousand thoughts but no words...

A break away...

...what a great way to spend a weekend!!

We went to the beach for a couple of days over the Easter weekend and stayed at the beach house with some family and friends.  I'm sure I've mentioned many times about the great childhood memories I have from holidays with my family at the beach house.  When I say my family I don't just mean my Mum and my brother I mean FAMILY!!  My Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and Cousins...lots of us all in one house, beds head to head around the sleep out.  The best of times!!  Ah, sweet memories.

So this weekend the three of us went down with our friends the Williams's and the Bruckner's and my Grandparents and Aunt Jenny and Uncle Michael.  It makes me feel so happy to have Jack spend time with other kids like that.  I'm sure it was a different experience for him as well being around other kids for that amount of time.

So we did some swimming...

We hung out at the beach...

We played in the sand...

We hunted for yabbies (thanks Jason)...

We saw the sunrise (thanks kids :P)

We swam some more...

We baked some brownies...

We at some fantastic waffles (thanks David)

The kids rode scooters and bikes...

The big kids rode bikes...

We goofed around...

We ate fresh coconut...

And we wore out sunscreen...

Jack got so sick of me telling him to put on more sunscreen.  He told me he couldn't wear five layers of sunscreen.  He didn't get burned though, lucky he listened to his Mum.

It is sooooo relaxing down there.  The fresh sea breeze, the sound of the ocean, the wind rustling the coconut leaves, the sand between your toes, the cool water splashing over your feet, the laughter of the kids, ahh bliss.  

Life is good!

Second toothy peg gone...

Jack has had a wiggly tooth for weeks now and it fell out yesterday at school when he was having lunch and he swallowed it!!  He was a  bit puzzled when I asked how the tooth fairy was going to get the tooth.  We left her/he a note.

I am now the mother of a 6 year old!!

So my beautiful little guy turned 6 on Sunday.  Sometimes it feels like time just flies by.  A big 6 year old already!! and some days with a  big attitude to match but he is just awesome, a truly gorgeous little hunk of human.  He was pretty excited about this birthday now that he knows all that a birthday brings and can understand the countdown to a birthday.  

He had a little bit of a sleep in on Sunday but as soon as he woke up he remembered that it was his birthday and wanted to open his gifts.  It was a whole family affair, Jack, Owen & I and Kitti and Bella all sitting around on the floor of his room to see what he got.  O & I got two kisses for the 2 things that he liked the most which were some Lego and a Wii game.

He and Owen then headed off to one of his school friends parties for the morning while I finished up the prep for his Spongebob Pool Party.

I love this smile, so adorable and so joyful.

Speaking of adorable, how cute is little Sofie's swimming costume.  I want one!!

We had all sorts of yummy food but I really loved the way these turned out, Krabby Patty Cupcakes.  I had seen them on Flickr while I was researching cake ideas.  They are vanilla cupcakes with a brownie disc for the patty and some icing to represent the lettuce, mustard and tomato sauce.  The others are just chocolate cupcakes with bright blue buttercream.

To go with the Spongebob theme I had yellow cups with cute little cocktail straws and seahorse swizzle sticks which I got from a local wholesale place that were pretty economical and added a little extra to the decor.  I bought a couple of inflatable palm trees and had Jack's Spongebob toys leaned against them and a few posters printed off the net and yellow & blue balloons for decorations and with the help of JG made some "jellyfish" from pink balloons and streamers.  It looked nice and festive.  I wish I had a little more time to add some streamers and things but as normal I bit off a little more than I could chew.

For games we had Pass the Parcel, a treasure hunt, a shark pinata, Pin the Square Pants on Spongebob and a Krabby Patty Relay Race which was great.  For the relay the kids had to race up and back the patio carrying a split bun on a spatula held in one hand that had an oven mit on.  They did really well.  There are so many great free printable things around on the internet and some great bargains on eBay as well.  I bought some little Spongebob badges on eBay for little prizes and to go in the loot bags.

Here's Jack posing happily in front of his gift stash...

I was so glad that so many of our family and friends could come along to celebrate and grateful to have so many generations together too.  I was also thankful for the help both getting ready and packing up as well, great family and friends are such a blessing.

Everyone gathered around the cake... 

All the kids wanted to eat the pineapple part but I had actually iced some shaped Styrofoam on top of a slab cake so they had to settle for a pineapple leaf and a slice of cake.

Jack had a great day, I was very pleased that he enjoyed himself so much.  I was left a little frazzled by the end of the afternoon but that's nothing new, time management is not one of my strong points, lol.

In other news...

The school Disco was on Friday night.  It was Bob the Builder/Construction themed so I whipped Jack up some paint splattered painters overalls from and old sheet.  Note to self: ensure fabric is strong enough to withstand crazy dancing.  LOL!!  Luckily I had told Jack to wear shorts under the overalls because although I had triple stitched the crotch he managed to split his pants by the end of the night.  He is a wild crazy dancer, it actually looks just like this photo...

And then today was the school sports carnival.  Owen and I are both sunburnt, Jack is fine however.  He must have listened when told to re-apply sunscreen.

He did really well this year.  He came third in his sprint race.

Here is Jack and his friend Mitchell showing off their winners ribbons.

 The kids get to do everything which is great so they did a few ball games and then the long jump...

 and the high jump...

It's a long day but great to see the kids getting out there and giving everything a go.  The younger grades are so cute to watch.
Well I'd better go and put some more cream on my sunburn.  Ciao :)

This sweet adorable face...

Being a Mum can be a tough job.  Jack has had a little difficulty adjusting to school this year and we have had lots of tears.  Having to peel his little arms from around my waist in the morning at school is hard.  We've also had some instances where he has been pushing his boundaries which I know is a normal way for a child of his age to act but he has always been such a well behaved little guy that I have found dealing with these circumstances quite difficult.  As much as I know he doesn't mean it, it breaks my heart when he tells me that I'm the worst Mum ever and that I'm mean.  Oh my does it hurt but this face, this cheeky little guy with those adorable freckles makes my heart feel so joyous.   

I just love this photo even though he's munging out on a dixie drumstick at the time I just think it's adorable.

It was my Grandma's birthday last week and we had a lovely family dinner at Rob & Marie's to celebrate.  I love to see Jack have so much fun playing with his second cousins.  It brings back great memories of all the family time I spent with my cousins.

It's so funny how kids know that there's no way you can blow out a sparkler but they always have to have a go at it.

Blow kids, blow...

It's hard to get time for family get together s with the time pressures of life in modern times and so it's hard to get photos of family together too.  I was so happy with these next to photos of my Mum with my brother and then with my niece Rasharna.  I think they are both such lovely shots.  I just love phots, lol.

This is Jack's cousin Ally.  They go to school together and were in the same class last year.  He thinks she's pretty cool.  He was so cute when I took the photo, he put his little arm around her.  Adorable.

This cute little fella just hung out all night at the party.  There was also a little possum visitor to the party too but I only managed to get a photo of it's butt.

We've had a jet-ski for years now and Owen used to go out pretty regularly before Jack was born but it hasn't been used in ages so Owen and one of his mates rosters coincided and the opportunity arose so they went down to the river on Sunday.  Jack has been pretty eager to get out there too.  I thought (sort of hoped) he'd be turned off by the murky water in the river but alas no, he jumped on.

I thought they'd just putter around near the jetty but they headed out right down the river and around the corner.  I should have taken binoculars so I could tell who was on which ski.

When he came back to shore he was so excited to tell me that they'd gone  a 5 and a 7!  57 MILES PER HOUR!! What a little speed demon!  It is fun out on the ski.  I much prefer it at the beach though where the water isn't so murky and there's not a sign telling you not to swim because of the crocodiles in the area.  I think I'll be pretty hard pressed getting a turn now though, now that Jack's had his first taste.