Wodonga Carnivale

Our annual Canivale held in the High Street, Wodonga, Grace was helping on the guides stand spraying hair to raise funds for the guides, street entertainment, market, parade, live music a great evening and kids have had fun...

George having his hair sprayed at the girl guides stand

Grace getting a touch of colour..

and it was very bright- blue and orange

Shayla going red...

Bit more colour for George

TV camera crew - following Grace around this week another TV appearance coming soon

Decorated shoe display

The Green in Wodonga

Cafe Grove- good coffee and food...

Guides stand..

appearing from the left Charlie, Bill, Sureya, Grace and George

David goes to Sydney

Wodonga is approx 6hrs by road from here, from Albury airport its 75mins, and on Thurs morning David went to Sydney with work for an NPD training course.  The conference centre was located at Woolwich on the Paramata River looking down to the harbour bridge, opera house and the CBD.  Luckily he took his camera and although the day was overcast the pictures are good.....David says Sydney is absolutely stunning.

What a busy week we have had here, along with the everyday things that happen there has been sewing, Lego making, card making, school, kinder, trips to friends, and friends visiting here, park trips, shopping,  girl guides, appointments, keyboard practise, work - so not a lot of time for taking (interesting) pictures to put in here - although I wish I'd taken the camera to the park as it was a lovely morning spent there.  

We did manage to take just a few though here's George with some Lego in the making, Star Wars is his favourite he loves it..

Matilda is 4 weeks old on the above pics chilling out with me in the garden last week She turned 5 weeks this week, who can believe that! I took her to her 4 week check she weighed in at a whopping 8lb 10oz - shes filling out well, but shes grown out of her newborn sleep suits & you can feel the extra weight especially when I'm carrying her around! I'm using the pushchair for the school run pick ups, and George quite likes sitting on the front just like Grace did giving out directions as we go along.

Big hugs and xxxs from big brother, George is enjoying his time spent with Matilda they stick their tongues out at each other..

Some sewing - the teapot cover I made earlier this year, with the little bird on the top made by Grace I thought about doing them in wild colours, would they make good gifts for the teachers at the end of the year? And I was able to return to my dressmaking class this week (Matilda sleeps so well all through the class!) I started with something very easy, some small booties for Matilda, although incredibly fiddly as they are so small. 

We have a full car now!

Some funny faces from Matilda during wash time....

An interesting dragon fly in the garden

Today's pictures of Matilda and Grace making an appearance too....

First day back...

What a great picture - David meets swimming Ace - Grant Hackett (who promotes the Uncle Tobys products), we got him to personally sign a swimming cap for Grace.  For those who don't know who GH is here's  some info from wikipedia about him...

Grant Hackett OAM (born 9 May 1980) is an Australian former swimmer most famous for winning the men's 1500 metres freestyle race at both the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. This achievement has led him to be regarded as one of the greatest distance swimmers in history. He also collected a gold medal in Sydney for swimming in the heats of the 4×200 m freestyle relay. 

Hackett was the captain of the Australian swimming team from the time the role was reintroduced in 2005, until his retirement in 2008.

Hackett works for the Nine Network, often hosting Wide World of Sports. He is now working for Westpac as a banker and has expressed interest in a possible future political career.

Today was Davids first day back at work which went well and wasn't too mad considering he's just had a 3 week break, a bit of a shock to the system.

And my first day doing the school/kinder run solo, I'm pleased to report that it all went well and we got to school and pre-school on time for drop off and pick ups, and even managed to get to the school parents evening without a hick-up.  So very pleased with myself for doing that with Matilda in tow, and pleased of Grace and Georges help in getting there without too much protesting but now also very exhausted!!

Matilda slept through all the ferrying around, she was a bit unsettled this morning, I think the house was too quiet, so we went out for a short walk and she soon dosed off to sleep, it was a lovely morning sunny with a very autumnal breeze - a taste of weeks ahead, lots of dragon flies and butterflies around and the kookaburra laughing loudly as we walked past.

Hope your weeks off to a good start..

Building skyscrapers and yawning...

Steady George

We save all our boxes for the kids to make things, usually they take out one or two boxes and use their imagination and turn it into something, and sometimes they get every single box out and make something spectacular like this skyscraper, inspired by watching an episode of Big,Bigger,Biggest about skyscrapers, which is a fave TV programme at the moment, guess who tidied it all up the next day?

Sometimes its all too much...

But i can smile - once....

But only once!!

Look at those little legs when they're stretched out....

Sunsets and pumkins..

George admiring his little sister, he sings 'twinkle little star' to her when stood here so sweet

Here's our pick of the day, from the garden we have handfuls of cherry toms which are sweet as lollies, zucchini, squash and figs (which will be stuffed with blue cheese and probably won't hang round long enough for a picture!) 

Matilda and Grace having fun, Matilda has been spending a bit longer with her eyes open and looking around quietly taking everything in...

And keeping George quiet for a few hours is Lego, the biggest hit this Xmas was some Lego and he loves it, and is collecting Star Wars Lego at the moment you can see some of it on here..

Avocados in the garden, we've taken an old shrub out in front of them to let the air circulate to minimise pests and would like to plant another avocado in its place....

The area where the mulberry tree came out, cleared and ready for a play area for the kids...

The pumpkins, we can see about 15 growing around but the vines have gone wild climbing all over the place, some must be 6 or 7mtrs long, even growing up in the maple tree, would be funny to see them growing in there..

The humid weather, late showers clearing and the sun going down gave us a gloriously colourful sunset which Grace kindly took pictures of, it was amazing all across the sky was this colour.... 

Pictures and updates

Heres some pictures a friend has taken in hospital and some from yesterday, you can see the change in Matilda when you compare them..

This is Lachlan - Georges best friend with Matilda, he wants a sister called Matilda like George too.

This is Amy with Matilda in hospital...

Heres some pictures from Sundays fishing adventure, Dave Grace & George went to Horseshoe Lagoon in Albury for a days fishing, they had a good catch reeling in 5 carp during the session...

Yesterday Grace started 'kids on keyboards' an after school music lesson where they are taught keyboard skills, she has some homework to practice and really enjoyed herself there.  On Tuesday Grace entered the swimming trials at school and came second in her race, but she missed out on making the school swimming squad by just 3 seconds, shes not too disappointed and will try again next year, we are really proud of her efforts.

Today George had a good session at kinder, and Grace enjoyed guides this evening.  

This morning me Dave and Matilda enjoyed a coffee out in Wodonga and then we went onto the nursery to look at trees for the garden, we had a skip  to dispose of the trees that where chopped down to clear the area so we can improve the soil and get planting with some productive trees.  

The maternal health nurse visited us this afternoon to check Matilda and she has gained an enormous 500grams in 10 days and her length is now 52.5cm, so she is doing really really well, she has a weepy eye but its nothing to worry about probably a blocked tear duct that will clear itself over time, and she got a bit sicky after feeds since the weekend but with her weight gain being great Im told not to worry about it, just stock up on the washing powder and hope the weather improves to get everything dried out.

We have had a few friends visit Matilda this week, for cuddles,  and all have commented about how much Matilda looks like George!