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.

Jalen's Birthday

Today we headed to Launceston for Jay's 10th birthday. We celebrated by going to the Launceston Aquatic Centre. Our kids had a great time at the pool and loved being thrown up in the air and jumping into the pool. Maddi is getting more confident in the water and started to let go of us and kick small distances with her kickboard and floaties. This morning she reminded me that we needed to take her "keyboard" to the pool. I automatically assumed she was talking about her toy piano and said there was no way we were taking it to the pool! Then in frustration she kept repeated it over and over that she was talking her "keyboard and floaties" and then I got what she meant.


Since it's school holidays we thought it would be a good idea to buy ourselves a pass to the program pool, which was a pool a bit warmer than the rest. Since you have to pay a bit extra it is more private and more enjoyable as you can pretty much do what you like without considering the many other patrons of the pool. We pretty much had the whole program pool to ourselves which was great, and the kids had a blast. The good thing was we spent at least a couple of hours in there and we never got cold.



Up


Down

In between our pool time we celebrated Jay's birthday. He had a Chance Bateman number 10 cake which also matched his age. He had 5 friends from school to celebrate with him and they seemed like pretty cool kids. Maddi loves Jay and is always pointing out kids that look like Jalen and always says, "Harri and Jay are my friends. I love Harri and Jay." It was important to us that we got to celebrate Jay's 10th birthday with him and there was no way that we would of missed it as Maddi was looking forward to Jay's party all week!


After spending several hours at the pool we headed into town to do some shopping. Since it was such a beautiful spring day we made a spontaneous walk to the monkey park. Maddi carries around a pink teddy that Mum gave her as a newborn around with her all the time now. The thing is it is a pink teddy and it says "Princess" on it and she has named it Baby Isaac (after Sarah's son). She gave Baby Issac a view of the monkeys and told him what was going on with the monkeys.




The kids spent a good while at the playground, and we kept on walking onto Kmart (with the kids!) as it was such an enjoyable afternoon. Little Alex was pooped after his pool swim and play in the park and had a nap in the pram. I think the kids would of walked about 2kms altogether today and they were so good natured all afternoon, which made it a pleasure to be around them.