9 years

Joe and I celebrated our 9th year wedding anniversary earlier this month...aaaww... 9 years with this handsome guy...

We often look back on these past years and see how far we've come, and what we've achieved and how much we've changed. We were such spring chickens when we got married, so young and and inexperienced with everything- well me, anyway. I didn't even have my driver's licence or even own a phone until I met Joe! Joe often tells me that he saved me, and I'd have to agree with that. He saved me in a lot of ways.

Well, last year for our anniversary we spent the whole day doing this...

 ... how romantic are we!? But not only that, we decided renovating all day wasn't torturous enough, so we also decided to take our 5 yr, 2yr old and 6mth old along to our anniversary dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town...

 Which wasn't too bad until Noah spilled his drink all over the table, that trickled down to El's lap and soaked her pants...aaargh...what do you do?! Well, if you're El you go all 'MacGiver' on the situation and tie a hair tie around the wet patch leaving you with a bulging knot but no longer soaked pants... bless her.

All I can remember about the rest of that night, was eating super fast and these words from Noah as we were leaving "that was a nice restaurant." :)

This year, there was no renovating (hallelujah!). Instead It was mid week during the school holidays, I had a super sore back from a super clean and organised house for my scheduled house inspection later that day, spent the day out at the movies with the kids, who by the way crashed our dinner date again...

 ...and they even picked the restaurant!

Even though our anniversary celebrations haven't been as romantic, extravagant or kid-free the last couple of years, it has been so nice to share it with our pasta sauce covered munchkins. After all, they are a huge part of these last 9years, and are worth celebrating too.

 But in saying that, if the stars align and a certain granny and pop (hint,hint) are around for our BIG 10th next year, and Joe wants to whisk me away for a whole weekend ALONE together (no pressure granny and pop ;), I wouldn't say 'no'. It's always nice to dream. :)

And just to finish off, and to share a little bit of what it's like to be married to your best friend and your one true love for 9 years, I want to share part of the lovely text messages we sent each other on our anniversary...

Arn't we just the sweetest couple!?!

He just gets me, and I LOVE him to pieces. XOX

Movie Review numero 2

 The kids were so excited to go see DM2, a little too excited! We had planned to go see it after daddy finished work on a Saturday. So I got the kids ready (I made the mistake of doing it a little too early) and Noah called daddy to double check that we were still going... then we waited... and waited some more... and more... and even some more.... until daddy finally got home and the kids  (Noah mainly) jumped for joy and off we went! 

Noah looking out the window eagerly waiting for daddy

Jake decided to join him, probably just curious as to why Noah was staring out the window for so long!


STAR RATING 

Elena: *****

Noah: **** (proving to be quite the critic)

Jacob: ***** (he watched the whole movie!)

FAVOURITE PART

(warning some spoiler alerts!)

Elena: I gave it 5 stars because It was awesome! I loved it when Groo got married. I  thought the part where the dog peed on the petunias and they died, was so funny!

Noah:  I gave it 4 stars! I liked when the minions got the jelly to turn everything back to normal... it was awesome! It was just funny!

Jacob: ok, obviously Jakey can't say how much he really loved this movie, but he sure did show it! He watched it from start to finish (even though it was his nap time) and it was clear that he LOVED the minions and his favourite part was probably the minion performance at the end (and mine was seeing him dance to it!).  

Note to self: sit Jakey next to Joe or between both kids next time. He's one of those people who likes to "talk" during the good parts :) Or in Jakey's case  saying "mum!" then tapping me while pointing to the screen as to say "did you see that?! How funny was that?!" He did this to El too! So funny and cute :)

Dancing with the minions!

Jakey looking like a little minion! 

Till next time... happy movie watching! 

Ballerina

Look who is finally dancing again...

Elena has finally started dance lessons again. Now that Jacob isn't napping in the afternoons anymore, we found a perfect dance school, at a perfect time and day for us, that accepted Elena in straight away...it was just meant to be. 

So she traded in her Jazz shoes (much to my sadness) for ballet slippers and had her first lesson on Wednesday and loved it!

 Elena has always wanted to do Ballet. Even when she was doing Jazz in Emerald, she was begging me to also enrol her in the ballet class held before her jazz class. And I almost did, but things got hectic when we decided to move across the country so she never got to do it. So when we were discussing dance lessons again, all she wanted to do was ballet, ballet and ballet. No matter how much I tried to convince her to keep up her Jazz (since she had done two years of it and was so good at it), she wouldn't budge. I even showed her a video clip that aunty Georgia had shown me of this little girl doing some rhythmical hip hop (ok, I totally think that is waaaay cooler than ballet, and I would totally love to dance like that!),  but Elena responded with "that's cool mum. But I like ballet, it's so graceful."

So after my little 'try to change her mind and lead her in the "right" direction' plan failed (I know, I know, shame on me!), we now  have a graceful little ballerina!  Plus, I really should be grateful that I have a little girl who wants to be 'graceful' rather than 'hip'.

Now, just a warning, but I'm about to do some major bragging! When Elena came out of her first ballet lesson, her teacher approached me and we had this following conversation:


Teacher: "She hasn't had any previous dance lessons???" (as I had mentioned to her at the start that this was her first BALLET lesson)

Me: (thinking "oh no, was it too different and advanced for her?") "yeah, she did two years in Emerald, but it was for Jazz"

Teacher: "oh, I thought this couldn't possibly be her first dance lesson experience! She did everything so well, she was really good. I'm really impressed with her"

Me: "Oh, thanks! That's great to hear!" (with the biggest smile on my face! I always knew she was a great dancer, but it's so nice to hear it from a non bias person, and who actually knows what they're talking about!) 



So you were right all along El. You were meant for this. You are a little ballerina. Now dance my pretty... DANCE!

Epic Review

I've decided I want to get the munchkins more involved in this blog. I'm thinking i'm going to even get them to be my little guest bloggers every once in a while. 
But to begin with, and since going to the movies is one of our favourite family things to do and we go quite often, I'm going to get them to review and rate the movies we see. I wish I started this a long time ago since we've pretty much have watched every kid's movie that has come out since Elena was around 2 years old (how else would Joe and I get to go the the movies on a regular basis?!). We would have quite the collection by now, but better late than never! So here we go...

Movie review numero 1: Epic 

STAR RATING

Elena: ***** 

Noah: ***

Jake: * (considering he fell asleep 2 mins into the movie)

FAVOURITE PART

Elena: "My favorite part was when the new queen was chosen. I liked how she turned into the new queen"

Noah: "You know, I gave it 3 stars because it was a little bit scary. I liked when everything went back to normal. I liked the leaf men."

Jacob: no comment.

Well that's it for our first Epic movie review. Till next time, happy movie watching! 

Fremantle fun!

Usually, when we don't have anything planned or any idea what we want to do on the weekend, Joe and I kinda just look at a map of Perth on our phone and point to place that sounds good. This weekend I pointed to 'Fremantle' and off we went to check out this little part of WA, or as Noah likes to call it "our new world."

Well, the verdict is... we LOVED Fremantle! I loved the vibe and business of the place. It was so alive with little stores, markets, people and FOOD! Yummy, tasty, I'ma -gonna- be- craving- it- for- days kind of food! 

The biggest, softest, tastiest marshmellows Jakey has ever tasted...

This is some authentic mexican from a little place in the markets called "little chiwawa" (as in that little dog, but i have no idea how to spell it) . It was some of the tastiest mexican I've ever had! 

Jacob enjoying some tasty seafood pallea, and who would have thought?! I can't get the kid to eat a single pea, but he'll happily eat a ton of this stuff!

We enjoyed some tasty gelato. Notice my one scoop compared to Joe's  2?  Good thing we're not on any sugar free diet, hey Joe!? ;)

And of course, the day would never be complete without a little face paint, and the kids would never forgive me if I don't post these pics...

                  Thanks for the fun time Fremantle! We'll be seeing ya soon for our next tasty food fix! 

My clever little cookie

Elena has always been my clever little cookie. She is doing so well at school being in the high level groups for both her literacy and numeracy, and I'm also so lucky that she has always been so independent and capable with her school work. This really comes in handy when she does her homework in the afternoons and hardly ever needs my help. She knows the routine, organises herself and just gets on with her work...bless her!

So it was no surprise to me when the award she received at her school assembly this week was for :

" The fantastic application and perserverance she demonstrates at school, particularly during independant learning tasks "- Mrs Caple.

I'm so proud of my El Belle and how well she has settled into her new school. Yes, she still begs me every morning to let her go to class on her own, and these days she's even trying to convince me to let her walk to school all by her self... " I promise i'll be careful mum, I know what to do" she says. I've told her that maybe when she's 10 (thought that might buy me some time!). 

She has made lots of friends and is always welcomed in the morning by all of them like she's a little star with her adoring fans. I was even told by one of the school mums that her little girl was so upset when Elena went home sick one day this week, and even shed some tears as she was sad that Elena wouldn't be at school the next day... isn't that sweet?! I'm glad she has such caring friends. 

Anyways, having neglected my blog for a whole year, and while we're on the topic of my clever little cookie, I thought I might as well put a pic and mention the award she got at her old school for:

"working really well in reading groups, picking out sight words, and always being a terrific friend and helper" - Mrs Davis

THAT'S MY GIRL!!! XO

Date with the boys

I love winter. I love that I can go out for long walks with the boys all while enjoying this beautiful Perth weather (almost as good as a Queensland winter), the scenery and getting a little exercise all at the same time.  This week on our walk, we stumbled across a little place full of fishey's and interesting things to see, do and even better touch! 

 Noah using a microscope. That thing was cool! 

 Jacob LoVeD the fish...

 Giving fishy a kiss..

checking out the badges they made

 We were also lucky to make it into the touch pool and even luckier to get to see and touch little baby sharks that day! However, Noah didn't think that was so great. He was happy to see but not touch the little sharks. Jakey on the other hand, LOVED it! He particularly liked the starfish and splashing his hands in the water and sucking his hands to taste the salty water when I wasn't looking!

I love hanging out with my boys while Elena is at school. They are a great little pair and I feel so sad when I think about Noah going off to kindy next year and not having my buddy home everyday. I know Jakey is going to miss his little partner in crime also. After all, whose milkshakes is he going to steal now...?

Jacob enjoying Noah's milkshake at one of our other outings this week. Noah never got it back.