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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: You had a ball climbing the trees around Dove Lake in the Cradle Mountain National Park.

Amelie: You loved exploring the giant rocks in the Bay of Fires and what a view!

Finley: The giant air pillow at one of the camping grounds was a highlight for you having never been on a trampoline before.

I'm running extremely late with my posts for the last few weeks so here goes!

We had the most amazing time on our motor home adventure around Tasmania.  We packed a lot into our ten day trip and were wowed with beautiful scenery, history and some interesting wildlife experiences.

I'll post some separate posts in the coming weeks with some of the highlights from Tasmania.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: You were so excited to get the Lego Motorhome you have been wanting since learning we are going on a Motorhome holiday around Tasmania!

Amelie: Just like your brother you were excited to have some new Lego but the girls version!

Finley: Intrigued by the iconic buzzy bee!

A quiet start to the week have the patient discharged from hospital and resting up at home, nothing like being surrounded by your family to cheer you up!

The rest of the week was busy with lots of play dates catching up with friends who go to other schools as well as seeing our local friends.  Both Harrison and I really enjoyed our time together while Amelie was at preschool on Wednesday and Thursday, he always looks forward to those days when he is on school holidays and although we do one on one time with the kids during term time he knows it's guaranteed time with me (and Finley).  He had our days all planned out and written up on a checklist on his clipboard ticking them off as we did them.  Highlights being our fun trip to our favourite park, a visit to the local opshop and many games of Guess Who!

We've been gearing up for our Motorhome trip this week and we leave tomorrow! We're all so excited about the adventure and the things we will see along the way.  We gave the kids an early holiday pressie with their Motorhome/caravan Lego sets so they could make them up today in anticipation for the trip (and so we didn't have to take the big boxes with us!).  Looking forward to sharing our adventures with you in the coming weeks.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison & Amelie: Let's go fly a kite!

Finley: Eating sand, sand and more sand!

We had a fantastic day at Bondi Beach flying our kites at the Festival of the Winds.  We went last year but it was a bit of a rainy day so this year the weather behaved and the hundreds of kites looked amazing against the blue sky.  We spent the afternoon at the beach and after kite flying Amelie braved the water once again for a swim while the boys played in the sand.  Finley had a ball eating so much sand and he also loved playing with the bucket and spade.

Finley had his first hair cut this week, well really just a fringe cut which was majorly overdue! He surprised me by staying perfectly still and no tears! 

Amelie's preschool has been studying New Zealand this month so I was invited to go in and talk with the kids.  I loved getting to play teacher for half an hour and read them story books from New Zealand, talk about the kiwi, teach them to count to ten in Maori and very badly teach them the haka! I had the help from a little kiwi soft toy that we have that sings the haka, the kids didn't care how bad I was, they just loved sticking their tongue's out at the end!  Amelie loved having me there too!

Amelie had her last day of ballet on Friday for the term and parents are allowed to view the last class.  She did such a great job and has really improved, Amelie didn't get stage fright like the last time Matt came.  She had a lot of nervous excitement and I think we got the most waves and smiles out of all the parents!

Harrison was excited to finish school for the term and had his second spy club meeting to celebrate the start of the holidays!

A very eventful and scary Saturday night for our family, whilst having friends over for dinner poor Matt got a large piece of chicken stuck in his throat. After realising it was well and truly stuck we took him to the hospital emergency department where after an xray and then CAT scan he was operated on in the early hours of the morning to remove it.  It certainly gave us all a real fright, he's doing really well, he just a really sore throat and is very cautious about eating.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: Having fun cleaning the car with Daddy and Amelie!

Amelie: Always a happy girl to play out on the patio with a paintbrush and water .  Today I found you painting your toenails! 

Finley: Helping Mummy hang out the washing.

The kids were excited to celebrate Fathers Day with pancakes, a ten pin bowling game and once the rain cleared we explored a new playground that has been built at one of our local parks.

Harrison has started up a spy club with his friend next door, they have been sending messages to each other over the fence by paper plane during the week and they had their first meeting on Friday.  Harrison was organised with an agenda written up the night before on what they needed to discuss.  After school came and he couldn't wait to get home.  His tent was set up outside, spy outfit on, afternoon tea snacks provided and they were ready to go, no little sisters allowed!  We're over halfway through reading the Secret Seven book series by Enid Blyton to him so these stories have given him lots of inspiration.

Harrison got his fourth Merit certificate this week at the Year 1 & 2 assembly so was then awarded his gold certificate at the big school assembly on Friday which he was chuffed about.

While Harrison was at a birthday party on Saturday morning Amelie was excited to have a Daddy Daughter date at the pools, she loves going swimming!

Finley is loving crawling around the garden and is obsessed with the soccer ball!

A few photos below of Fathers Day with their awesome Daddy!

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: Waiting for those top three teeth to grow through, it's been months and still no sign of them!

Amelie: A swim on the last day of Winter!

Finley: Laughing at Daddy at the beach.

The sun finally came out on the last two days of my sister's visit so we jumped on a ferry to Manly and did a coastal walk around to Shelly beach which was just beautiful. It was on our to do list of beaches so it was nice to check it out before the summer crowds.  The kids even braved the water for a swim on the last day of winter!  Finley and Georgia were content with eating the sand!

It was so lovely to see the sun shining on the first day of Spring, although the Sydney winter doesn't get too cold I just love Sydney in Spring which usually brings warm sunny day's without the burning heat of summer.  We were excited to see the tree that we always admire through the seasons on the walk to school had blossoms which seemed to have magically appeared on the first day of Spring.

Sickness hasn't quite left the house with the start of Spring with all three kids knocked down at the end of the week. Both of the big kids with tonsilitus and Finley with an ear infection, fun and games!  Sleep is a luxury at the moment for a very tired Mummy and Daddy!

Finley has really started to cruise around the furniture now and is pulling himself up on everything and getting very steady on his feet.  He makes a bee line for the stairs every time the bean bag isn't in front of them, thinking he's very clever that he can climb them but with the tiled floors they're a bit dodgy and have already had a fall.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: You loved our visit to the Australian Museum, especially when you got to use a microscope to look at all sorts of objects and animals.

Amelie: Rainy day escapades, dressing up in Mummy's boots and your new accessories from Auntie Sophie!

Finley: Looking so much older an wiser, certainly not my baby boy anymore.

Rain rain go away come again another day! The rain has hung around this week which has been a shame with my sister and her baby visiting from New Zealand.  At least we were able to make the most of the shopping malls! Fun to be shopping again together for us as well as all the kiddies.
We had a wonderful week with them visiting and talked non stop! the kids loved being together and it was a really special time for the cousins to have a full week together.  Harrison and Amelie were great with Georgia looking after her and making her laugh.  Finley couldn't get enough of his cousin who is 3 months younger,  although he probably gave her one too many friendly pats on the head!  By the end of the week she was used to all the noise and was able to stand up for herself by pushing him away!  We managed to get into the city in between rain showers to see visit the Australian Museum which had some great exhibits and the kids had a ball. 

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2014."

Harrison: Hanging out with your little bro after school

Amelie: You ran outside to see a rainbow, so many rainbows with all the rain we've been having.  Of course teddy is in your arms, he goes everywhere with you at the moment.

Finley: Facing forward in the carseat now, you love to see where you're going and a fav toy in the car, that blows like a horn, thanks Nana!

Lots of rain this week which hasn't been much fun but we've been at home anyway with poor Finley being sick again with a virus that has had him covered in a rash and a high temperature for days.