Summer Days

We had a fairly cool December but January has brought some hotter days. We dug out our old game of totem tennis and have been having fun playing tennis in the back yard. We are all fairly mediocre at hitting the ball but it has us all laughing and that is the main thing!

Britta and I took the boys to Tusmore park last week. It has a lovely big toddler pool with fountains in the centre. The pool is covered by a big sail which makes it very pleasant on a hot day.

Splashing and jumping in the water makes for a big appetite.

William has always had a keen interest in collecting and examining rocks and stones. He climbed down into the creekbed at the park and enjoyed himself fossicking amongst the rocks. He was also keen to peer into a stormwater drain which he said was the home of a monster!

Baking Cookies

It was a really hot today so it wasn't possible to spend much time outside. We have been giving the playdough a pretty good work-out lately so I decided to swap it for real dough. The boys are always very excited at the prospect of cooking. They cooperated very well with all of the steps in making gingerbread biscuits. They especially enjoyed using the cookie cutters to press out hearts, pigs, stars and teddy bears. They were very careful when they were mixing and measuring and made some very good biscuits.

Four Little Monkeys!

This morning my friend Marianna brought two of her sons, Joshua and Marcus, to our place to play while she attended a doctor's appointment with her new little baby, Maddelena. The four boys got on like a house on fire. Both Oliver and William love playing with older boys so Joshua was definitely popular. I took William out to the supermarket to do my weekly shop while Britta held the fort for an hour. William enjoyed the luxury of my undivided attention. Demonstrating that he was a very big boy he went to the Wendy's ice cream shop by himself, asked for a rainbow ice cream and paid for it. He came back with a smile from ear to ear. He (and I) was so proud of himself.

When we arrived home all of the boys clamoured for an ice block and proceeded to eat their way through our current stock. I guess this is a sign of things to come! I couldn't resist this shot of them all on the couch watching Toy Story and eating ice blocks.

The Wiggles

It has become something of a family tradition for us to attend the Wiggles Concert each year on the day after the boys' birthday party. This year I was determined to get 'hot potato' seats which are the best seats in the house right in front of the stage. We were sitting in the second row and the view was phenomenal. The Wiggles present a spectacular show which keeps the thousands of pre-schoolers who attend on the edge of their seats.

This year the boys wore their Wiggles costumes. William was dressed as Murray and Oliver was Geoff. Imagine our surprise when Murray picked William out of the crowd and gave him a hi-5!! We were all so excited!

3rd Birthday

Oliver and William had their third birthday on 8th December. I couldn't help looking back through some of our earliest photos of the boys that morning before they woke. This was their first day at home after spending three weeks in the Special Care Baby Unit. They didn't even reach from my hand to my elbow. It is so hard to conceive of now.

An early photo of William with Grandad.
Uncle Rowan and the little boys.

Tiny Oliver and his favourite little teddy.


Brothers



And now after that little trip down memory lane we zoom through the next three years to the morning of their third birthday. Prior to this birthday the wrapping paper had always been the greatest point of interest. Times have now changed! It was ripped off without a moment to spare!

The boys received some German Bruder trucks which are very lifelike and contain plenty of interesting doors to open and shut. This truck is a cattle carrier.

William's favourite present was his Superman costume. He has become an absolute devotee of Superman over the past couple of months. Since receiving his costume he has hardly had it off. It is all I can do to peel it off him at night to get him into the shower!

We had a fantastic birthday party at home again this year. Inger and I made a birthday cake each. Oliver has a great interest in tea and coffee cups so I made his cake to represent a tea party.

William continues his interest in telephones so Inger made him a fabulous red phone.

The highlight of the party for all of the children was the bouncy castle. There was non-stop bouncing for over two hours. The boys were in tears when the man from Jay-Jays came to collect the castle!

Two gorgeous little guests, twin sisters Abbie and Lily.

Our family room in party mode. We had lots of balloons hanging from the ceiling.

The moment William had been waiting for - blowing out the candles!

And then - cutting his cake.

Mia exploring the contents of her take-home party bag.


More bouncing..........................
Britta and Tom were on hand for crowd control!!

Their experience shows!

Time to go home but not before a shot of our twin group.

The Luck of the Draw!

It is now nearly eight weeks on and my four little balls of fluff have become adolescent 'peeps'. Like any mother I have been anxiously watching how my babies develop. Being new to this game I wasn't sure how I would tell the sex of the little ones. So, I submitted these photos of them to 'Backyard Poultry', a very popular website of chicken enthusiasts to see what the experts thought. My first photos were rejected on the basis that I didn't show good 'comb' shots. This was somewhat disappointing as I had spent a good half hour trying to compose nice profiles of my chookies as I lay next to the coop. I had to enlist Inger to help me catch each chicken and then take a nice macro shot of each comb which could then be submitted. I am not going to subject you to the detailed comb shots as they are altogether too technical for a blog of this sort.

After some deliberation the experts have come to a verdict on my 'girls'. It seems that three of them may not be girls at all. The three grey chickens may in fact be cockerels which will be a bit tricky. The local council does not allow people to keep roosters in suburbia as their crowing is too noisy. So, they will probably have to be re-homed when they get a bit bigger. The other interesting point which came out of photographing the chickens is that they may be araucanas, a breed which lays blue eggs.

Twin Group Christmas Party

On 4th December I hosted the Christmas party for our twin group. We had 13 twins at our place which made for a pretty cosy time! We have a new mum in our group, Virginia, who not only has identical two year old twin girls but she has just given birth to her second set of twins. We were all speechless when we discovered this!

Despite all of the toddlers running around the party was very relaxing. All of the mums indulged in one or two champagnes each which may account for the level of bonhomie! We have all become so close over the last year, sharing a level of understanding that many of us have not found elsewhere. We are looking forward to the next year together. Another friend who is also a mum of 5 year old twin boys dropped around to deliver some tupperware I had ordered and she joined in with the fun as well. I was thrilled with the Madagascar lunch boxes I had bought for the boys.