Easter

It has been so long since I posted now, partly due to time and the demands of my beautiful children and also partly due to loadshedding (the whole no power thing is getting boring). So I started this post at the end of March and now being the end of April I guess it is time to finish it off.

RILEY'S SCORE FROM THE EASTER BUNNY

We had a lovely Easter this year, Riley got right into the spirit by making Easter Bunny a lovely Easter card (which has been quietly put away for prosperity) and so Easter Bunny returned the favour and wrote Riley a thank you note (complete with chocolate marks on to prove that he did indeed eat the chocolates that Riley had left for him).
RILEY'S LETTER FROM THE EASTER BUNNY

As Emily is too little for chocolate (much to her disgust) she scored with a couple of books, one from Easter Bunny and one from Mummy & Daddy.

EMILY LOOKING ON IN ENVY AT RILEY'S SCORE


EMILY TRYING HER BEST TO GET CHOCOLATE OUT OF A GIFT BAG

EMILY LOOKING LESS THAN IMPRESSED BY HER BOOK

After the initial gorging on chocolate we then went off for a lovely brekky at one of Riley's school friend's houses. The kids started off by doing a huge Easter Egg Hunt which Camilla's parents arranged for us. They all had such a wonderful time running all over the property looking for hidden eggs. After the egg hunt we sat down and ate a yummy brekky (preceeded by chocolate of course).

RILEY AND CAMILLA GETTING SOME 'ALONE TIME' (Hmmmm)

RILEY AND HIS LOVELIES, KELLY & CAMILLA


CAMILLA GETS A FLOWER FROM RILEY


KELLY, RILEY AND CAMILLA ENJOYING SOME BREKKY



RILEY & HIS FUTURE FATHER-IN-LAW?? (Kelly's dad)

It was a very lovely and relaxed morning which I think ended at around 1pm with Riley going to a playdate for the rest of the day at another school friend, Kelly's, house. Both school friends were girls so all day on Easter Sunday Riley spent being the only boy amongst a bunch of girls. At brekky there was a bit of tension between Kelly (his regular on-again-off-again girlfriend) and Camilla (the friend who's house we were at). They both needed to be sitting next to Riley at all times (hence him being in the middle of them in all photos). At one point Riley and Camilla came and sat together outside and Riley went and picked her a flower (no idea where he gets this romantic streak from), Kelly comes out and stands looking at the flower, the conversation then went like this: RILEY "Kelly do you know where Camilla got that flower from?" KELLY "No", RILEY "I picked it for her" KELLY (in a rather annoyed tone) "Oh" RILEY "Do you want me to pick you one too?" KELLY (in a very authorative tone) "Yes, I do" so off he runs to pick Kelly a flower and thus appeasing both his loves of the day.

Rocker Riley

We have officially entered the "perfomance stage" of life. Riley's school is very muscial (which is nice as he has always been musical too) and they often perform little songs for different events, like Christmas, Easter and more recently Grandparent's Day at school. Riley is also doing Speech and Drama which is of course encouraging his need to perform. A few weeks ago we watched a Justin Timberlake concert on TV which Riley really enjoyed (now there is a born performer) and when the concert was over Riley was really excited and decided that I should go to Montecasino (a very large casino and entertainment venue) and hire out the venue for him to put on a show (his repertoire includes When I'm 64, I think I'll wear for Easter.... and When Santa got stuck up the chimney). He was most upset with me (the worst Mother in the world) for not running straight out and hiring Montecasino for him and selling tickets to all of our friends to see him perform. So he put on a very convincing show for Brad and I, including runs into the audience etc and for a microphone he used a roll of wrapping paper. So today we were at the toyshop and he sees this microphone and just had to have it. The minute we got home he set it up and has been singing up a storm ever since (some days there is just not enough Panadol.......). I took a coupld of quick pics of him and thought that I would share them here.

Riley's Computer Art

Riley's computer teacher just e-mailed this to me this morning. I am so proud of my little man, he is learning so much at school and doing really well too.

Food on our Faces......

There is an ad on TV where a teenage girl is in her bathroom with face cream on her face and slices of cucumber on her eyes. An age old beauty treatment, he little brother walks in, screams at the sight of her and then the next scene shows him smiling wearing her face cream and slices of cucumber on his eyes as well. Turns out this appealed to my young man and so on Wednesday night as he was getting ready for bed he decides that he needs a bit of beauty treatment himself........ The other pics are of Emily enjoying some carrot for lunch on Thursday, she has been far more interested in carrot than her rice cereal (can't say I blame her really).

Clowning Around

These are a couple of pics of Riley clowning around over the weekend. Spending time indoors meant that we watched more TV than we would usually do and so we caught up on a few episodes of Hannah Montana on the Disney chanel. Anyways in one episode Hannah's big brother Jackson, who is a sandwich short of a picnic, decides to draw a face on his stomach and make that his new best friend. Riley of course thought that this was a splendid idea and so had Brad draw him a friend also. He has lots of fun making his tummy talk to us.

Strange Stray.....

The weather here this weekend has been wet and cold so we have been spending a lot of time indoors. This afternoon I walked into Riley's room to turn his bedroom light off and I spotted what I thought to be a massive spider running across the bricks near our pool. I called out to Brad and we went outside to investigate only to find that our 'spider' was in fact a stray crab. Now considering we live inland and not near any major watercourse this was a strange find. Brad picked the little guy up in a container, as we did not want him to wander into our pool and be killed by the chemicals, and we took a look at him. It appeared that an animal, most likely a dog, has had a go at him as there was a considerable hole in his shell. We all got dressed into our wet weather gear and took a little family walk across the road to the watercourse on the golf course and let him go. The weather was not only wet but quite cold (12 degrees according to our car) and although we were all rugged up Emily looked less than impressed with the whole outing. I think our daughter is not a fan of the cold, man is she in for a shock when winter hits......

Gimme Gimme Gimme.......FOOD!!

Give me the spoon... now that is more like it.


What the heck do you call this? Where is the steak and veg I see you guys eating?

What? What are you looking at? Do I have something on my face?

Yep, our little girl is finally on solids!! So for the past 4 years I have somehow managed to convince myself that I started Riley on solids at 6 months. Turns out I was wrong (it happens occassionally). I was looking through his baby book and it turns out that I started him on rice cereal at 5 months. I consulted one of my many parenting 'bibles' and found the reason that I had done that with Riley. So I went through the checklist again for Emily and decided that I would start her at 5 months too. She was definitely showing interest in solids, well if you can call watching everything that went into our mouths and salivating as she tried to get some of it for herself interested that is. Right at the moment she has a real taste for Daddy's beer (definitely a Crosby hey!!). We started with the Rice cereal on Friday, can't say she was too impressed but she got the hang of it by Monday when we also introduced pear, more to her liking but a bit strong but mixed in with the rice cereal seemed to be more to her taste. This Thursday we will try carrot and see how she likes that. I think that Riley is just waiting for her to have pumpkin because he loves it and he knows that it was the first solid food that he really loved too and he wants his sister to be the same. Riley has enjoyed helping me to feed her too, I often say that he would breastfeed her if he could and we tried to get her to take a bottle (either of expressed milk or of formula) but it seems that our girl is a bottle snob, she is a boobie girl through and through when it comes to milk. Unfortunately in these pics you can see that she has conjunctivitis in her right eye which makes her look a little bit sad, this cleared up overnight and her baby blues are all clear again now.

Art Time

I bought Riley some new paints on the weekend so that he could expand his artistic creations at home (well that and the fact that the poor kid was trying to colour a carboard roll from kitchen towel with a black felt pen to make it a traffic lights pole). So we set up the paints outside and it occurs to me that Emily might like to join in (seeing as how she refuses to be left out of anything these days). I was right she loved every minute of it although she did have to make the paintbrush pass the taste test first..... although it looks like she was sucking on paint I can assure you that she just got it on her face and lips, I did not allow her to put it in her mouth although she did put up a fight when I tried to take it off her and let me tell you my girl has a pretty firm grip on her too!! I have kept her first creation and will find a way to stick it in her baby book or maybe her scrapbook like I have with Riley's school art (when I say kept I really mean salvaged as she was intent on taste-testing that too....). Riley also enjoyed doing the activity with his little sister and showing her how to paint properly, I think that she made need a few more lessons though.....

5 Months Old Now

Just a quick note on Emily's progress. On March 2 Emily officially turned 5 Months old. What a big girl she is too. She is really more and more beautiful every day and doing and seeing more things every day. Right at the moment anything that anyone is holding whilst she is in their arms is clearly meant for her, food, drinks, keys there really is nothing she won't take. This photo was taken on Sunday March 2 at a birthday party. I am also waiting on a picture that was taken on that day of Emily meeting another little baby, a 7 week old little boy who is as big as she is! She was very interested in him (hopefully not a sign of things to come.....) and leaned right in to get closer to him.

School Days

Riley is well and truly back into school this year and really enjoying his new class and the new challenges he faces. Last week I went in to Riley's school to answer a call for help from the Library to help with repairing old books and covering new books. Riley was very excited that I was at his school and at morning tea he ran in to give me a cuddle and then kept on bringing friends in to prove that I was really there. I also went back in later in the week to help his class do some cooking. I like to be involved with his school life and to know what he is doing at school each day first hand and so far Riley loves having me there too.

Every week Riley's school has a theme for the week and all the children are encouraged to bring in items from home for the theme table. Last week the theme was "People who help us" so Riley took in a book (as we do most weeks) and also his Fireman Raincoat. He was a bit of a hit in the playground (especially seeing as how it was a rainy day) and so the principal took a photo of him. The second pic is of Riley on "Messy Day" last Friday. All the children had to bring in old clothes and swimmers and they got to get all muddy and play with food and have water fights with each other and the teachers. It is a smart way to see what children may need monitoring for "Sensory Defensiveness" I think you can tell by this picture that there is no need to monitor Riley.

Riley's Art

This is a drawing of a traffic pointsman that we see each morning on our way to school. They are employed by one of the local insurance companies to help ease traffic congestion during peak periods. They do a wonderful job and are always happy and smiling and obviously take great pride in their work. They wear fluro green shirts and caps (I suppose in an effort to avoid being run over). Riley drew this one on Monday morning before school whilst I was getting dressed. On the way to school he had me wind his window down and he showed the man his drawing. Although the man was some distance away he could not miss seeing or hearing Riley and seemed excited to have had his picture drawn.

Riley has been spending a lot of time lately doing some wonderful drawings and creating road signs and putting them up on the walls for us. A couple of weeks ago Riley really wanted to go out for dinner (mostly because he loves getting dressed up etc), this was at about 6:30pm in the evening and I was just putting a really tired Emily to bed and dinner was already cooked and waiting to be served so I said no. Of course he was upset but then we decided to do some role playing (which he loves). So we decided to turn our Brekky room into a restaurant. Riley created signs with the name of the restaurant "The Dinner Room" and also "Montecasino" and also some signs saying that we were not allowed in the kitchen and that everyone must eat all their dinner. He is really enjoying writing these days and often gets me to write something on a piece of paper so that he can copy it. This is what he has done on this drawing above.