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.

Nothing cuter

There's nothing cuter than Jakey, in a baby blue wonder suit, with over sized bear slippers, and warm rosey just-go-out-of-bed cheeks...

...see what I mean?! Nothing cuter than that.