Christmas wrap-up

Christmas is done for another year; I'm pretty sure the kids have no idea how lucky they are to get so MANY toys! 

This year's bounty mostly consisted of Transformer related products (toys, t-shirts, shorts etc.) but Carter also got a big boy bike (same as Linc's except blue). They also got a ukulele each, heaps of lego and assorted clothes.

We spent most of the day at Aunty Christine's house where the food was plentiful and everybody had a great time. Unfortunately 100 year old Ma (the boy's great grandmother) got a bit ill while she was here and had to spend a bit of time in hospital; this made everybody quite sad and distressed which, piled on top of the emotions Christmas tends to bring out, made everything a bit tense for a while... but after having a pacemaker installed, she is doing much better.

We are off to Sydney tomorrow (minus the kids) for Mum's Christmas present - a shopping trip and overnight stay in a five star hotel... can't wait.

The kids are having fun playing dress-ups today; they always tend to put on an American accent while role-playing... it's pretty funny.

A Christmas skype call to Nan and Grandad...

And Carter, looking very grown up...

Merry Christmas from Lincoln and Carter

Linc's end of year school celedebacle

Not quite a celebration, more of a debacle... we just weren't prepared for what happened when we went to see Linc perform with his pre-school friends on stage at the end of year celebration.

In the days leading up to the celebration he seemed quite excited about it, even telling Carter he wasn't allowed to come up on stage with him. He appeared happy that Mum and Dad and Carter would see him perform.  On the day we dropped him off with his class (late, due to some bad parenting) and still all seemed fine.

They announced his class, and out he came in a line-up (although he wasn't wearing the flower necklace to match his classmates - first indicator something was awry) and even ran in front of the stage for a short time before going to the back and then deciding he was definitely not going to join in (it all happened very quickly). The performance started and, as he had apparently told the teachers he 'didn't want to join in' they sat him on the side of the stage (as he was still technically under their supervision). The performance kicked off with 'most' of his classmates singing and dancing while Linc sat there with a heart-breaking expression on his face. I say 'most' as apparently one or two of his classmates didn't even bother going to the celebration as the parents/teacher knew there was no way they would get up on stage. But we had no idea that Linc wouldn't participate. Finally Linc decided he wasn't going to sit there anymore, and he looked up to try to find Mum and Dad; well I was already at the side waiting for him (considering I almost went to the stage to grab him myself!)... so grabbed him and we went and sat with Carter and Mum to watch his class.

Put it down to Linc having a really bad (sleepless) night (constant nose-bleeds) + personality inherited from his parents + the first time getting up on stage in front of a crowd and it shouldn't really have been the enormous shock that it was.

Firstly we wanted someone to blame; what did the teachers say to you...? why didn't you have a flower necklace...? was it because we were late getting him to the school? Why didn't the teacher help you onto the stage and encourage you to dance? How could they leave you sitting there like that with tears in your eyes and no-one to take you away from that horrible situation. Look at the picture, and judge for yourself.

No celebrating going on in Linc's world...

But on reflection, the teachers had a class full of pre-schoolers that they had to focus on getting to sing/dance and Linc was quite adamant he wasn't going to join in (at the last minute too), so considering they couldn't let him wander from their supervision, they had no choice but to sit him there. We have obviously spoken to Linc's teacher about it; they were extremely apologetic as they agree they should have warned us that there were signs that Linc might not participate.

Anyway, we have pulled Linc out of Fraser Primary School for Kindergarten next year; I know it sounds like it's directly linked to what happened, but it's really not... although the timing of the decision may have been influenced by what happened! We are more concerned that, as we are now 'out of area' for Fraser PS, Carter is not guaranteed a place there when he starts school; plus Linc's new school is literally down the road from our new house. And of course, upon informing Fraser PS of this decision, the Principal promptly called Mum (oh yeah, Mum made Dad ring the school to inform them we were pulling them out... but they rang her about it - LOL) and asked about our decision to remove him (as the Principal had been informed about what had happened at the end of year celebration, and thought that was the overriding reason)...

While we have been throwing some ideas around over Linc's schooling for some time, the chosen school is not something we had put much thought into; it was always going to be Radford (provided he got an offer!). But at $9200/yr for Kindergarten, and around $15,000/yr for high school, that was always going to be hard to digest/afford(!)... His new school will still be a private school, and is still quite expensive, but the values that are emphasised - and underpinned by the catholic religion (rather than the other way around) - sound like a perfect fit for our expectations and the way we are bringing up the boys at home (minus the religious angle).

Oh, and I bought my dream motorcycle. The kids and the cat think it's awesome. Am I right? Say whaaaaat?.

Honda VFR800

Lincoln's pre-school photos

Teachers: Rosie (L) and Carolyn (R)

The boys - photo update

Settling in, and Linc back to normal

A month and a bit has gone by since moving in; still loving the house, and have done a few things already to make it our own (tinted the front bedroom windows, half way through the installation of security screen doors, built a small garden shed, bought a couple of Red Star Cordylines for the deck, fitted bamboo slat fencing, and dug up and repaired some of the in-ground irrigation system).

But more importantly, Linc's hearing seems to be back to 100%. Only proper testing will tell us if it is back to normal, but he can definitely hear a lot better than before.

Carter is still in underpants full-time; we do need to watch his water intake before bedtime, but we have also been waking him up most nights before we go to bed and taking him to the toilet as he has had a couple of accidents during the night.

We ended up going back to our old street for Halloween; the kids had a reasonable time - to be honest I'm not sure we could say that they had 'heaps' of fun, but they got lollies and got to mix with a bunch of other kids, so that's the main thing...!

Carter out of nappies!

It sure has been a while since the last blog update - seems so long ago that we were living in our old suburb, getting under each other's feet, and on top of each other's nerves...! Not so in the new house - it's huge, and it's great, and we have discovered the level of fittings (tapware etc.) is unbelievable - try $485 for the water fountain outlet in the main bathroom... or $329 per mixer (two in the bathroom and two in the ensuite) as they are some fancy Methven brand. Nice.

The letdowns - well, there are some little things (like the lack of flyscreens on the windows, and rubbish locking hardware) some bigger things, like the position of the house means it cops the worst of the storms that come in from the Northwest, and abysmal water pressure throughout the house (including all external taps as they are ALL plumbed into the 4000L rain water tank), but all in all, nothing that has made us regret our purchase - yes, we're even slowly getting used to the busy road/walking path, mere metres from the main bedroom (tinting is going on the windows in the next week or so). My new favourite thing is having breakfast at the breakfast bar with the sun streaming in the huge full height window...

But more importantly, Carter is out of nappies. While he's been wearing underpants throughout the day for at least the last four weeks, and has been doing no. 2s for about 2-3 weeks, he has still had a nap during the night.. so tonight will be night three with no nap...! He did wake up halfway through last night quite distressed; we think he'd been crying out for us to come to his room to collect him to take him to the toilet... luckily he eventually gave up and made his way to our room. He was so upset as he thought he had already weed in his underpants - but he hadn't, and we were so proud of him. It's just so funny that he won't leave his room... even in the mornings, either Lincoln or us have to open his door so he knows it's okay to leave his room. We sure wish Lincoln was more like that; I just had to install an external blind to Linc's window as the sun was waking him up far too early, every day. He's now back to a more reasonable 6.45am to 7am...

Enjoying a stunning day at Floriade