Making friends

I love having holidays with Nan and Pop, I get to go to the lake with my friends almost every day.  

Oh and speaking of friends, I have made even more new friends this holiday.  

I love hanging out with friends.

There were heaps of people at the lake today so it was a miracle that we found this little guy!

Leaping Lizards!

Love Princess George

Cute and Cuddly on a Girl's Day Out

We had huge plans that we would spend Boxing Day relaxing by the lake but it wasn't very warm.  All the grown up boys went to play golf so the grown up girls decided to go for a driving adventure.  They asked if I wanted to join them but I decided that it would be more fun hanging out around the house so I said no thanks. 

Now that they are back home (and bragging!) I really wish that I had joined them, they found koalas.

Apparently there is a koala up in this tree ->, it is up really high in the tree, close to the top of the photo.  

They must have found koalas that were closer to the ground to see one up close like this.

They even found a koala with a cute little baby that was hanging on tight.

 I can't believe that Judy has only been in Australia for a few days and already she has seen koalas in the wild.  Maybe next time that I am invited for a drive I will join them.  Even better, maybe nan and pop will take me on an adventure to koala-land next year!

Love Princess George

Might as well JUMP!

For some reason whenever mum sees these photos, she starts singing this 'Jump' song.  I don't know the song, I think it must be from the olden days, either that or mum is such an ordinary (that is a nice way of saying terrible) singer that it is unrecognisable!  Anyway, if you were about in the olden days, you probably have that song stuck in your head too :-)  

I guess if you are now singing or humming along to the tune, I might as well show you the photos.

Might as well JUMP!

Ed joined in the fun

Even Billy went for a jump!

Don't you wish you were relaxing on the banks of the lake watching us jump, better still jumping too?

Love Princess George

A Smashing Good Time

When Adam and Melati were on their way home from Christmas celebrations at Nan and Pop's house, Melati remembered that we hadn't smashed the Gingerbread House that she had made for us.  We would have smashed it then but we were all so full that we just couldn't eat another thing so she made us promise that we would smash it on Boxing Day.

If mum were quicker she might of managed to get a before photo!  Oh well, here is the destruction in progress.

I'm still not very hungry, but that's OK, Billy will eat all of the gingerbread and the decorations.

Love AJ Pickle

Christmas Eve

The sooner I go to bed and go to sleep, the sooner Santa can deliver presents to all the good kids. I've been good, even AJ has been pretty good so I guess he will be at our place soon.

I hope you have all been good and that Santa visits your place too.
Love Princess George

Christmas with Crazy Cousins

Yippee it is Christmas time, well almost Christmas time.  Really it is Christmas Eve and that means that it is time to celebrate Christmas with my crazy cousins, aunts and uncle and of course Grandma.

We ate a delicious lunch together and were all on our best behavior so that we could open Christmas presents!

Dad and my littlest cousin played Santa and together they handed out the million presents that were under the Christmas tree.


We played nicely with our new presents but then had to go out and run around to burn off some energy.  OK, we may have been eating some chocolates and lollies as we were playing!

The parents decided that it would be a good idea to get a nice photo of all of the cousins together.  Getting 6 kids to all look in the same direction at the same time and not pull crazy faces was next to impossible.  Here are some of the nuts photos that mum snapped.

I'm not ready for a photo yet!

We do love each other :-)

No hope!

Gangnam Style!

Clearly mum missed out on getting a decent photo of us all, better luck next year mum!  I wonder if anyone else managed to get a decent photo?  

I hope you all get to have a great Christmas with family,
Love AJ Pickle

Where are you Lucky?

Well it has been a week since the unfortunate incident with the idiots in the park.  I am still a little bit wary of going out on my own, even if it is the middle of the day, but I am getting much more confident all the time.

This is one of the main reasons that I have been brave enough to go out all over the neighbourhood...

My beautiful cat Lucky is missing.  He snuck out through the garage door on Monday night and we haven't seen him since.  I know he is a big 'fraidy cat and that he is probably frightened and hiding in someone else's garage but I am worried about him.  We have all spent hours wandering around, sticking up posters and calling out his name, hoping that he will cry out and we will hear him.

Please, if you live anywhere near hear, can you check in your garage and your garden, even in your cupboards to see if Lucky is hiding there.
Love Princess George

Angry, So Freaking Angry

Dear Arse-Hat Young People,

Angry, that word hardly seems sufficient for how I am feeling right now.  Your mean thoughtless abuse is responsible for breaking a little girl's heart, her confidence and her spirit.

What gives you the right to hurl abuse to someone sharing the walking path and open space with you.  Someone who is not in your way, who you don't know, who has done nothing to impact upon your day other than be walking by you.  When you yelled at her, swearing and scaring her, she was to frightened to walk to her destination and terrified to walk home because you had walked in that general direction, still yelling and swearing.  In fact she was so frightened that she walked in the opposite direction until she felt safe enough to call me.

One of the first things you yelled at her was, "What's in your F%*^*ing stinking box?"  Hopefully referring to the cardboard box she was ever so carefully carrying that contained a baby bird.  The same baby bird that she found in the garage this morning, that she carefully shielded from the cats to give it a chance to survive the day today whilst she was at school.  The bird that was ever so carefully placed upon a towel in the box to keep safe.  The same bird that she and a friend walked up to the vets to find out if it was a native bird that needed protecting.  It was, it was a Honey Eater.

The vet suggested that she find a garden with lots of native plants in it and place it in a shaded spot with a shallow basin of water next to it, to help keep it alive.  The vet suggested that it might not survive but that would give it the best chance.  Knowing that we don't have a garden she called a friend with a beautiful native garden to see if she could bring him over to live in their garden.  It was on the short walk to their house that you yelled at her and frightened her.  By the time she had the confidence to go home, talking to me on the phone the entire time, there was no time to take the bird elsewhere, her friends had gone out and she was expected to go out also.  She left the baby bird in his box with water and flowers but when we returned he had died.

We now have a nearly inconsolable girl who not only grieving the loss of a bird that she believes that she didn't get the chance to protect properly, she feels that young people, young adults, are people to be wary of.

Whilst I am disgusted by your behaviour and that of your 2 friends for not pulling you in to line, I am so proud of my daughter.  She would be less than half your age and she had the common sense to keep on walking, and to walk where she felt safe before calling for help.  I am proud of her for being brave enough to keep her cool whilst terrified.  I am also proud of her for talking to a police officer (a friend who is currently working in our normally lovely and safe community) and providing a thorough description of the people who scared her.

What I am most afraid of is that my confident beautiful girl will be less confident in what is essentially our back yard.  I am concerned that she won't want to go out exploring, walking to visit friends and enjoying where we live.  I am angry that I wasn't there to comfort her and I am angry that I have to console her.  Basically I am [insert every swear word under the sun here] angry.

No regards,
A very sad and disappointed Mum
(thankfully not your mum)

Santa for a Day

If you see any (wanna be) Santas wandering around the city today, you should stop and say hi to them. One of them might even be my dad.

Santa for a Dad

See dad wore a Santa suit to work today for Santa for a Day, to raise money for Transplant Australia.

We all think it is really important to talk about about organ transplant with your family and friends. We know it is a pretty scary topic and that no one really wants to talk about what might happen after you die but we think that if we aren't able to use something any more then someone who needs it more should be given that opportunity.  It is kind of like cleaning out your toy box and finding all of the toys that you don't need any more and donating them to someone who needs them.  It is better that they are used than sitting in a box, until they are no good to anyone.

So there you go, organ donation is just like cleaning out your toys, make sure that they go to a good home when you can't use them any more, someone will love them just as much as you!
Love AJ and Milla

PS - oops we forgot to press publish on this post so we have slipped it in where it should be!

Dear Children - Does Not Compute

Dear Children (and in particular the older child!),

Lets imagine that it gets to Sunday night and all of a sudden I realise that all of the laundry is still sitting in the basket waiting to be washed, including all of the school uniforms you need to wear tomorrow.  This scenario would entail me having to stay up late to do the laundry.

Now lets keep imagining that as the laundry slave for a said children; a 10 year old boy child, his younger sister and their dad too, their would be a decent amount of laundry that needed to be washed.

Now in a standard school week, school uniform would be worn for 5 days.  During this last week there was a costume day for the male child so only 4 days of actual uniform were required for him.  Of course if this particular boy child is known for cleaning his hands on his shorts so it is possible that his shorts were actually dirty and in need of being thrown into the laundry basket and a clean pair of shorts worn.  Keep in mind that this same boy is known for wearing clothes that are filthy and in need for a wash so this desire to wear clean clothes isn't entirely logical.

So, with all of this in mind, why would there be 7, yes that is right, 7 pair of school shorts (of the male style) in the wash today?  I am thinking that the boy in question has worked out that the easiest way to clean the floor-drobe is to dump everything in the wash.  I am also thinking that the same boy is soon to work out that if he continues to dump all clothes into the laundry he will soon be given the additional task of doing the laundry!

Oh and as a side note, I think that it may be time to clean out this particular child's wardrobe, one pair of shorts in the wash were size 4 and another were size 2!

Love your mama, xo

Sing

Growing up in the country was great but there was limited exposure to the amazing opportunities that my kids have.  During my childhood, symphonies and operas were something that was on TV every now and then, even then we would skip over those channels and run back outside to play.   Thanks to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,  conversations about going to the symphony, enjoying a ballet and now listening to opera is something normal for my kids

Last year we were lucky enough to be invited to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) perform with dancers from the Australian Ballet.  It was an awesome program so when Alison from MSO contacted us to see if we would like to head along to another performance we jumped at the chance.

The MSO website promotes SING as being a program that features one of Australia's pre-eminent conductors and a passionate advocate of the importance of singing in a child's life, Richard Gill, and singers from Victorian Opera, joining forces with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to lead a stimulating musical program for children which will explore the joy of singing and inspire aural imagination through song.

So that is the official spiel, what it really was was a fun filled musical program that had us singing, clapping and dancing in our seats.

On the edge of their seats, enjoying the performance

Normally, I am sure that if I asked AJ to sing a nursery rhyme he would laugh and walk away.  At SING he was singing along, yelling out answers to questions being asked about the orchestra and having a great time.  Milla and her friend were acting out all of the instruments and having a great time. They particularly enjoyed singing, so much so that Milla has decided that she will re-join the school choir next year, and maybe even audition for an extra-curricular choir!

Even someone like me, completely tone deaf with no musical ability at all was singing along.  In fact I have been singing one of the tunes all day long and actually enjoying it.  At one stage today, as I was wandering through the park with Milla, we both began singing ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong in rounds.

Ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding-y ding-y dong, the cat is gone 

Ding dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding-y ding-y dong, ding dong!

Thanks for another wonderful opportunity Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Meeting the talented  Jeremy and Kirilie after the performance

Disclosure:  The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra offered us tickets to the show, the opinions expressed are ours.