Thanksgiving - Part 2

Simon & Sarah stayed after Thanksgiving and got a chance to practice their babysitting skills (they have generously offered to take the children one night while Matt & I go to see Cirque du Soliel -- my birthday present). Julia adores Simon, but Sarah is definitely vying for top spot because in addition to the balloons (which were such a hit), she brought sparklers for Julia to play with (yes, that's right-- fire for the 2-yr-old -- we gave her a bit of a hard time). Such a hit though! Julia was fascinated and asked us to light one after the other--they were gone in a matter of minutes. Liam was a bit apprehensive of Julia weilding flames (smart guy!), and Matt & Simon got a sort of synchronized sparkler routine going but were a bit disappointed when Sarah, Julia, Liam & I weren't vocal enough in our praise of their skill.

Sarah got the bathtime routine mastered...not an easy feat with little Liam who LOVES the water and has absolutely no fear of (and quite enjoys) dunking his head (face first) into the water. Seriously, the little guy goes from sitting to belly flop and back to sitting in seconds flat and barely pauses from his happy crowing! Then Simon stepped in for storytime with Julia and did admirably at reading Fox in Sox (the Dr. Seuss tongue twister book-- just a sample from the book: "When tweedle beetles battle in a puddle with a paddle and a poodle eating noodles, it's a tweedle beetle puddle poodle noodle paddle battle...").

Thanks for hanging out & helping out! The kids loved all the attention, and Julia now frequently tells me, "I want to see Simon. And Sarah. Sarah has balloons." (you've secured your place, Sarah!)

An Aussie Thanksgiving

Since we don't have any holidays this week, we celebrated Thanksgiving early with a lunch at our house-- traditional Southern Thanksgiving with an Aussie twist (i.e. 90 degree weather and the turkey cooked on the barbie).

Julia was incredibly excited and helped me set special places for her and Caydence at her little table. Even that early (around 9am) she was ready for the party (and the turkey!). I had to explain that it would be awhile before the guests actually arrived for our 2 o'clock lunch.

Sarah brought these great long balloons for the kids and they were such a hit! Liam at first was too busy in Julia's kitchen to pay attention to the balloons (apparently, he wanted to help fix the Thanksgiving meal!), but once he found them he was thrilled (as were the girls)!

Luke & Bec's daughter Jess (turning 7 yrs old today-- Happy Birthday!) took Julia under her wing (and even carried Liam around for a bit too-- so cute), and within minutes Julia was happily trailing her everywhere.
Just a funny aside: The girls decided for some reason to play in Liam's playpen that I'd put out in the backyard. Julia decided she wanted to get out and without help started climbing over the edge--a feat she's previously been too short to accomplish. Apparently she was still too short and took a big spill. Bec was out there ready to rush in and help, but instead of the usual drama and tears, Julia stood up and proudly exclaimed, "I did it myself!". Meanwhile Liam had a string of people to hold him and play with him, and he was in heaven! It was great for me because with the children so well entertained I was able to really enjoy the party too.

Matt's turkey on the BBQ turned out brilliantly, and in true male form, the boys all stood around for a good 15 minutes debating carving techniques before actually cutting into the beast. In addition to the turkey we had cornbread dressing (Grandpa's recipe but not nearly as good!), holiday sweet potatoes, spinach madeline, salad and pumpkin pie. The Aussies all decided that we Southerners are on to something in adding marshmallows to vegetables! Pumpkin pie was also a really foreign concept (despite the fact that roast pumpkin is a common side dish in this country). I definitely missed having a can of Libby's to make the pies! (who would've thought making pumpkin pie actually began by roasting/skinning & straining a fresh pumpkin and not just opening the can of pie filling?!)

Simon brought bocce ball (or boulle), and we all migrated outside (leading with our belly's, I'm sure, after the big meal) for a game. Julia didn't quite get the concept and "helped" by collecting all the balls before anyone had had a chance to figure out the score. She was soon distracted, though, and the game continued.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope to make this an annual tradition here in Oz. Thank you to all of our guests for joining us! It was wonderful to share a bit of the South with y'all.
Happy Thanksgiving to all the Raulstons in Hattiesburg! We're missing y'all and wish we could be there too!!

Our Little Hurricane

Our little man has been a bundle of energy ever since he first figured out how to roll over, and he just gets more and more active each day. His play continues to be completely destructive in the happiest possible way. He can cross a room in seconds and leave a wake of scattered toys/books/breakables in his path all the while crowing like a proud rooster. As soon as you intercept his path or comment on the hurricane trail he's left behind, he just stops what he's doing and laughs up at you. Some new favorite motions are waving and splashing in the water, but banging on anything (pots & pans, a big ball, furniture, my head) is always great entertainment (see video below).

Our Little Artist

Julia has found a renewed interest in painting lately, so we have been doing a lot of art during Liam's naps (I haven't been game to let Liam join in the painting fun yet). I love this new stage in her development where she'll now tell me what she's drawing. This started a few months ago with her coloring. I commented on her lovely picture and asked her to tell me about it. She pointed to one squiggly line and declared it an apple. The huge swirls surrounding the "apple" were "a shoe". The current favorite subjects are snails and dinosaurs, and the snails actually hold a vague resemblance to the actual animals. She hadn't labeled this painting as anything yet when I took the photo, but by the time the paper was starting to tear from being soaked through with paint and all the colors were mixing into a brownish mass she declared the piece simply "finished"-- perhaps we're moving toward the new trend of modern art that transcends all concrete labels of what it is. I got distracted trying to save the patio furniture from her paint-covered hands and didn't actually get a final photo of the masterpiece, but I have no doubt that there will be many more to come.

Home Improvements

We have been slowly working through our list of home improvements that has gone virtually untouched since we moved in nearly three years ago. Nothing major (as much as I'd love to renovate the entire kitchen), but it's amazing what a coat of paint and some shifts in the furniture and wall hangings can do for a room. We really like our house with its great open plan layout that allows the kids ample space to play in and out while we can still supervise, but most of the original owner's interior decor was pretty atrocious. Just to give a few examples, when we decorated Liam's nursery, we had to begin by painting over lavender and lime green walls (yes, in the same room!) and the study is still painted in a shade of sickly peach with a feature wall of slightly brighter sickly peach. How to improve the kitchen has been the great debate. The color theme seems to have been what Faded Pepto-Bismol --tiles, curtains, countertops, back splash, etc. Fortunately, the walls are just cream-colored, so I decided starting with a nice blue feature wall and getting rid of the awful curtains would be a major improvement. Julia was a great foreman -- "No, mommy, up high" or "Here, mommy, a screwdriver". She even stood back with her hands on her hips and after staring at the test patches of blues, declared one her favorite. I wish now that I'd taken more before and after photos, but I was trying to get as much done during Liam's naps that I forgot about the camera mostly. At any rate, the kitchen was finished in time for Thanksgiving, complete with new curtains and a new square table to seat 8 (in the photos our old table is still set up too because we were gearing up for 15 people to come). The pictures don't really do it justice, but we're pleased. Next...the living room (pictured with the test patches and new bookcase and lots of toys and debris on the floor!)

a glimpse of the awful old curtain being used as a drop cloth

The finished product (it was really bright outside so you can't really see)-- I'll try to get some better pictures later

The Annual Christmas Card Photo Attempt

Every year for as long as I can remember, my family has talked about sending Christmas cards. The kind with the cute family photo...everyone in matching outfits, gorgeous backdrop, etc. The kind we receive from family and friends every year. Yet somehow despite all our good intentions and even many attempts at the family photo, we have never actually sent a holiday card. These days it's a bit of a joke because the tradition of not having a Christmas card tradition has continued with my own little family. Don't get me wrong...we've all got some great pictures. It just turns out that despite sweeping mountain vistas or serene beach backdrops, when it comes down to the family portrait, we can't seem to manage one where we're all looking in the same direction or all have our eyes open. Or there's the classic one from Ireland when I was about 14 where Mama, Daddy, & I are at the top of a cliff in Ireland...perfect day...perfect scenery....but the wind changed direction right as the shutter clicked [pre-digital cameras] and although we're all looking right at the camera, our faces are all mostly obscured by the swirling mass of mine and my mom's long hair. Anyway, this is all simply leading up to this: the other day, I took photos of the kids for our Christmas card and true to tradition, the results were hilarious. Some of my favorites:

Yes, that's my daughter using her plastic chainsaw to slice her brother in half. Festive, right?

And here the adorable hug turned into mild strangling right as I took the photo.

Happy holidays to everyone with Thanksgiving fast approaching...maybe one of these days you'll get our Christmas card!

Julia Sleep Update

Still no sleep for the wicked, but thanks to everyone who has e-mailed me with advice! If anyone else has more, keep it coming! Julia has an appointment next week with the respiratory specialist to examine further the possibility of pediatric sleep apnea, but the tonsilectomy is postponed till at least January. Meanwhile, we're altering the daytime and bedtime routines a bit in hopes of seeing a bit of improvement. Julia really likes the new addition of "getting the wiggles out" before bed -- thanks, Bonnie--where we shake out the wiggles from the day and then give her a massage while Matt "catches" all the wiggles as they escape and takes them (still wiggling, of course) away from her bed so she can sleep well. Even if it doesn't get her sleeping, it does get lots of giggles!

Park Fun with Gran & Pop

These pictures are from a few weeks ago, but they were just too cute not to put them up! Gran & Pop (Matt's parents) came by for afternoon tea (a good excuse to bake cookies) and a trip to the park with the kiddies. Julia loved having new guests for her tea party, and Liam thought it was great fun to have more people to dote on him.

Whoa, no one's guarding the cookies....

I'll just take one, okay?

A Day at the Park

We get up early every morning, but the other day we managed to actually get out of the house bright and early too (a necessity these days with the heat already climbing). We headed to Rocks Riverside Park for its variety -- big open fields, a sandy playground, and walking trails. Since there were no children on the playground yet, we decided to go first for a walk. I started to head down towards the river, but Julia said she wanted to climb up the "mountain" (steep, rocky hill with a path that goes almost straight up). I was a bit hesitant because I was just holding Liam (no sling or stroller), and I figured the novelty of the hike would wear off halfway up, and I'd end up having to somehow manage carrying both of them down the steep and uneven path. But I humored her, and Julia was such a trooper! She powered up to the top, stopping every now and then to marvel at the view of the river and the park below, saying "So high, so high". At the top she decided she wanted to be held, but instead of trying to explain that I couldn't really coordinate carrying both of them and getting us safely down, I just began praising her for climbing the "big mountain" and she was so proud of herself that she climbed all the way back down on her own with a big grin on her face. I wasn't coordinated enough to get any pictures of that part, but I did get a few once we went back down to the playground. Some other children had come by then, but the real attention-grabber was the construction work going on at the water play area. Julia is fascinated by construction vehicles (especially diggers and cranes) -- fortunately we have a LOT of road works going on in our area to keep almost any drive very interesting. This construction site, however, included men cutting off big tree branches and feeding them into a wood chipper. Julia was already mesmerized, but to make it even better the swings had a perfect view of the whole thing. Liam thoroughly enjoyed the whole outing too but for much different reasons. On the hike he reached out and touched all of the big boulders lining the path (he loves different textures) and then tried happily to eat individual blades of grass when we got to the bottom, but the highlight for him was the sand on the playground...he could've stayed for hours just picking up handfuls and feeling and watching it run through his fingers!