Saturday, October 31, 2009

Tedddy Bear's Picnic

The other day we headed to Burnie for the Teddy Bear's Picnic. The best thing about the event is everything is free and it is full of entertainment and activities for kids. There are jumping castles, sand pits, storytime sessions, facepainting, craft activities and heaps more. Maddi and a little girl at least a year older than her hit it off. They named each other 'best friends,' which Maddi obviously picked up off the other girl as she has no idea what the terminology means!

The kids spent a good ammount of time at this gymnastics club setup.



Alex loves playing in sand and dirt so off course this birdseed tub was a hit with him.

Little Alex calls Maddi "Daddi" and his Dad "Dadda". On this see saw he kept saying "Awww Daddi".

We lost a couple of our helium balloons on the way to the car as it was such a windy day, but it was no drama as we got a couple of replacements.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Halloween Playgroup

Today at playgroup we held our second annual Halloween themed playgroup. The kids were all very excited and came along in costume. The Buckley kids looked so cute in their ghost costumes. I was amazed that Ruth walked all the way to the chapel with 3 of her kids in costume (except for baby Gideon). I think walking with one or two kids a couple of kilometres is hard enough!

Maddi dressed up as a fairy and Alex as a T-rex dinosaur. I didn't have to go to much effort to put them in costume as Maddi has had the fairy outfit for a while now and we were just waiting for the right occassion for her to wear it. She was all set with her fairy wand and told me she had a dream about fairies last night. Alex came along in his T-rexamus pjs that Moppy and Poppy brought home from Denmark.


There were also Superheroes, bees, wizards, witches and a Minnie Mouse. I find it amazing that all these little people didn't even exist 5 years ago, and now there's so many of them that we loose count of how many there are!

Every family brought along a plate of 'spooky' food to share, and the food all looked great. It was not too spooky to eat anyway. We then played some games and did some crafts and finished with the grand finale of Trick or Treating which the kids were all so excited about. There were some doors that surprised us with some tricks.


After the Halloween party we went into town. The kids got a lot of reaction from being in costumes and Maddi proudly told them we had been to a Halloween party. While we were crossing the street Maddi's shoe fell off and a man saved the day by grabbing her shoe before it got run over by the traffic. The man slipped the shoe onto Maddi's foot and named her Cinderella. It's nice to know that there are some good people around.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

CAT open Day

On Saturday we headed to Caterpillar for their family open day. Jalen, Harrison, Lisa and Aaron joined as well and Maddi was happy to have her cousins with her. Alex was our tour guide and showed us how a machine is built from scratch. It was good for Maddi especially to see where her Dad works as we very rarely get to go inside and check out the factory.

The boys



Little Alex was content for most of the tour and was happy to sit in the backpack. At the end he was very excited at see some of the final products. He's such a boy and his face lit up when he saw some of the trucks.

He immediately grabbed onto the cab and tried to get in. He loved sitting in the cab and had a big grin on his face the whole time. When we got him out of the cab it was a whole other story with the him throwing the biggest tantrum, screaming the place down! Everytime we would get him out of the cabs he would rapidly shake his head and then throw another tantrum. I was tempted to give him to Lisa and Aaron so everyone would think he was their son!

We were all pretty tired at the end of the tour with all the walking and taking in all the information. We did a quiz about the factory which Jay was very good at finding out the answers.

Monday, October 5, 2009

We said goodbye to Alex for two weeks as he went away for work.


Little Alex loved watching the plane take off. One of the last things Maddi said to Alex was "don't forget the Krispy donuts Daddy."


Rather than being all sad and lonely at home without Alex we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I forgot how beautiful the countryside is out there. The kids loved the outdoors there and loved looking at the animals. They were kept occupied outside a lot and little Alex would often cry when we could come inside as he wanted to stay outside all day. Maddi was full of so many questions about the countryside about the smells, sounds and animals. Maddi loved having so many adults to talk to. Uncle Chrish visited for a week and Maddi would pull up beside Uncle Chrish and talk his ears off. Uncle Chrish thinks she could talk through water.





Maddi is a keen little gardener and helped Grandma plant some lavender along the fence line.

They helped Grandpa do some gardening too. Little Alex is infactuated with machines and would follow Grandpa all around the lawns when Grandpa was mowing the lawns and loved watching Grandpa use his rotary hoe. He even learnt to say "tractor" while we were there, and would try to play with Grandpa's tractor. Maddi's job for the day was to help Grandpa collect the eggs from the chickens and would announce to us every morning how many eggs there were for the day.

Picking rhubarb
It was a novelty that Grandma and Grandpa had their own playground.



Maddi thought it was great fun to get static electricity in her hair and would delibrately rub her hair on the trampoline. One morning the kids were having so much fun on the trampoline playing "tackling." Maddi said "We're in the Hawks final Little Alex! I'm Buddy and you're Changa!"


We made a chocolate cake one day and off course we had to taste test it before it was cooked.

Auntie Becky, Uncle Jared and Kelsea had tea with us one night. When no one could find Uncle Jared for tea, Maddi declared "Uncle Jared has left the country!"

Maddi loved playing with Tracey, and Alex soon warmed to her to after a couple of days.

This is the "Magic cot", as named by Steph. It really is magic too, as we would ask Alex if wanted to go to bed, and he would nod with a smile on his face and be so content to go to bed. He slept through the night and would have 3 hour naps during the night. He only had two bad nights and since we've been home he has been sleeping through the night. I better not say too much more otherwise I might jinx the good sleeping!

We went and visited Nan and Pop. Nan was very cheery and happy to see us and was trying so hard to talk to us.

We went and visited Pop in hospital . Pop was so tired but was still very talkative and happy to have some visitors.

We also went and celebrated Nan and Pop's 66th wedding anniversary with them. Here are some photos of the event courtesy of Lisa's blog.






The kids enjoyed having baths in Grandma and Grandpa's new spa.

Waiting for Alex's plane to arrive. The kids were excited to see their Dad again and were trying to spot him getting off the plane.


Alex told me that there was going to be something different about him when he got home, and we soon found out that he didn't shave for two weeks.




We were all very happy to have Alex home again!


Alex is very good at getting us presents while he is away. He always gets the right sizes in clothing and picks things that the kids love.