Swimming Lessons

Elizabeth started swimming lessons last week. So far it's going well, and she's happy to have Kaff' (Kath) for her teacher, just like Joseph.

Ready for her first lesson.

The Terrible Twosome

They do love each other sometimes.

Reprise

If anything was going to make me end my extended blogging holiday, it was going to be this....the opportunity to post this picture of Brendan enjoying his 36th birthday, in his party hat and with his fish cake. No need to thank me!

So, what have we been up to?

Well, Elizabeth has spent the last few months learning to feed herself- with varying degrees of success. Here are some of her failures- best not viewed if you have a weak stomach.

Back in February

March

More March

April (and a first taste of the delights of Mr Whippy on Easter Monday- I think she's well on her way to a chocolate coma)

And finally May, which is about the point where I gave up on ever eating at a restaurant with her- is it just me, or is she getting worse?

Saturday Morning Makeovers

Apologies to the three of you who read this blog for the delay in updates. I'll attempt to catch up on the last few months over the next week or so. Stay tuned for some exciting
adventures*. In the meantime, here are a few pictures of some recent Saturday morning makeovers....

* Adventures are likely to be not very exciting, or even slightly adventurous. Please don't call the complaints line to register your disappointment.

Doing Time

Joseph spends a fair portion of his waking hours sitting in the time out corner. Lately, Elizabeth has started keeping him company. Whenever he gets sent there, she'll follow him over and sit down too like it's part of some game. Invariably Joseph will ask her 'What did you do?' and I always get visions of them as grown ups in jail and Joseph asking 'What are you in here for?'
Let's just hope that vision doesn't come to reality.

In the meantime, I'm going to have to work on alternative punishments- I don't think that Joseph looks like someone suffering the consequences of pushing his sister off the couch, does he?

Complaints Department

Whenever I don't blog for a week or so (or six), I invariably get an email/ phone call/ text from a certain person who shall remain nameless demanding that I rectify the situation post haste. I know it's only one person, but when that person represents a good 20% of readers, action was required.

So I've spent the last six weeks restucturing Barrett Enterprises and am proud to introduce our new Complaints Department. Elizabeth has been trained up and now the phones are manned and she's ready to take your call.

But don't get upset if she doesn't take your compaint too seriously.

She's learnt that from her mother.

First Day as a Tarragindi Kindy Kid

Today was Joseph's first day at Kindy and I'm happy to report that all went well. There were no tears, even from me, and his teacher's said that he went really well. He barely looked up from playing when I came to pick him up, and he didn't want to come home, so I'm taking those as signs of a successful first day. Joseph has been a bit tight lipped about the day, which I'm putting down to exhaustion, but maybe he's adopted a 'what happens at Kindy, stays at Kindy' policy. Although he did share the exciting story about the boy with the curly white hair that dropped a grape. Can't wait to hear what curly white hair boy does toorrow!


Here are a few snaps from this morning.

'Twas the night before Kindy

It's hard to believe, but Joseph starts Kindy tomorrow morning. Like Mummy back in 1978, he's heading off to Tarragindi Kindy (where all the cool kids go, right Lis?). He's not due to start until next year, but they had a few spare spots and Joseph was lucky enough to be offered one, so he'll go there for two years before starting Prep in 2012. We've had lots of talks about sharing, manners and remembering to go to the toilet these last few weeks, let's hope he remembers some of it tomorrow!

This afternoon, Joseph learnt how to make up his kindy bed, but now thinks that they'll be sleeping on coffee tables at Kindy.

We told Joseph that he could have his favourite dinner the night before Kindy, so he picked spaghetti.....with 'mussels and scallops and prawns'...as you do, when you're three. So he and Daddy cooked up a feast for us all.

The future Masterchef with the finished product.

Good Morning!

I wish I had half as much energy and was half as happy as Elizabeth is when I wake up in the morning!

And look at all of those chompers- she's a dentist's dream this child!

Beach Break

On Boxing Day we headed up to Caloundra for a few days. Unfortunately Brenan had to come back to work, but the kids and I had a great few days at the beach with Grandma and Nonno.

Eating half of the beach.

Where did this big boy come from? Wasn't he just a baby yesterday?