The long awaited update...

..yes we're back!

...but don't get too excited just yet as this is quite possibly definitely the worst blog post I have ever written, with crappy photos that are nearly all taken from my equally crappy phone!  But after I promised yesterday on my facebook page that I'd have a published post up by today, I couldn't renege and had to put something together no matter how good or bad it would be.   Once I started looking for content I realised that throughout the last few weeks of mayhem it seems my camera has been snug in it's bag and not really been out to party much.  So huge apologies to those who were hoping for a picture perfect, insightful, inspiring or just plain interesting post...this unfortunately will be none of those. But here goes anyway...

So after a great, relaxing, first (and last) Christmas in this little house we spent new year with friends having a chilled out night meeting new people and partaking in the odd cocktail while the children swam for 4 hours straight!  We spent the next day having a Mexican feast with the girls complete with non alquaholic (as Poppy calls it) sangria. 

 

That evening, inspired by the sparklers we'd had at midnight the previous night, I decided to try out light painting with my camera...soooo much fun, the girls loved it, and got used to writing backwards pretty quickly.

 

 

 

The first few months of each year are always super busy for us in terms of events, birthdays, school holidays then school going back etc. (For those UK and USA readers, Australian school (summer) holidays are 6 weeks long and go from approximately half way through December to the last week in January, depending on which state you live in). So following the new year our calendar goes into overdrive with our wedding anniversary, my mum's birthday, my niece's birthday, Poppy's birthday, Col's birthday, Valentine's day, my mum and step dad's anniversary, Col's nieces birthday and a few others too.   And of course this year on top of all that we also had to see our wee lass Poppy off to school for the first time!  (Oh and Mother Nature decided to throw a cyclone threat in the mix too, just for fun...more on that another time).

 

One of the main reasons this blog was neglected was because I wanted Poppy's last few weeks of being a little-person-of-leisure, to be choc-a-bloc full of fun.  So she had a list of things she wanted to do before school got in her way, a pre-prep bucket list if you like, which despite illnesses and me hurting my back in the last week of school holidays, we managed to cross most things off.

 

Cooking

Chinese brush painting

 

Bike riding

Lots of swimming

Beach combing

Picnics at the ocean

The taking of terrible selfies using my forward facing only camera phone so we can never quite tell if we are in the shot or not...this one was one of the more lucky guesses!

Playground visits

Dress ups...even though she chose the day we were going to have the car serviced as the day she wanted to be the Gruffalo

Awesome paint your own shoes craft.. (thanks for the idea Kylie)

 

Finishing off all their Christmas craft gifts

Dinosaur exhibit at the Museum of Tropical Queensland

Paleontologist Poppy

 

The amazing Lego exhibit at Perc Tucker Gallery...we all loved this.  My rubbish pictures don't do it justice

 

 

There was a list of famous people you could find within the ship, Leo and Kate, Darth Vader, Samuel L Jackson for example.  I swear this was Vicky Pollard - but strangely I couldn't see her on the list...

 

There was a huge room within the gallery filled with Lego where the kids could add their name or creation to the wall.

 

 

This was incredible, again a very poor photo, but this Ned Kelly picture is made up entirely of 'single dot' Lego bricks, 23 colours and consists of just under 50,000 bricks!

 

 

More bike riding

 

Poppy's first Irish Dance Workshop

 

 

A touch of crazy golf

 

More beach combing and palm frond flag flying...are you bored of our beach shots yet?

 

Before we knew it, and with her pre-prep bucket list completed, the 6 weeks of holidays were over and it was time for Poppy's birthday and the first day of school.  I found it very hard to send her off to school, as I said before with Sasha it was far easier as Poppy was born the same week Sasha started so I had no time to worry or dwell, this time it was different...sob sob

 



But this little monkey was so ridiculously excited to begin her schooling career!

 

Poppy's birthday was a fun but decidedly more quiet affair compared to last years big 4 in Vegas!

 

 

And with that we are almost up to date, Col's 40th was a great affair over on the island with 40 of our great friends, but as I was busy organising things I didn't take one single photo!  I know, I am quite disgusted with myself, so until I get my hands on some picture evidence I can't really blog on that.  But I hope this fills a void for now and shows that I haven't been sitting on my jacksie these last few months.  The house is all but finished and soon (like a few weeks time type soon) I start the first of the mini-renos all over again on our new place...so watch this space!

 

See y'all and thanks for sticking with us...all three of you (you know who you are ;o))

 

Kxx