chat time

Erik is getting to be quite the talker and although we share a lot of pictures we dont often share video. This one took me nearly half the day to upload but I know that it will be well treasured so I will start making the effort to get more video up. THe video started out pretty slow as he was pretty involved in playing with his "cloud dough" but then you get a tiny glance into his imagination and hear him talk pretty well. I didnt realize how shaky I was with the camera...my apologies. Also while Erik does a fairly decent aussie accent....I understand mine is completely horrible and only did it so that I could get Erik to do his accent. So aussies-I know I cant even try to begin to pretend that I have an accent.

Captain Erik

Erik is named after Lindsay's best friend who passed away in his early twenties. He is now called Junior on such occassions when both Erik's are being spoken of so as not to confuse. So Junior was given a bear that was found in Erik's (senior) apartment when his family went through his belongings. The bear is a pilot and dressed in traditional pilot get up with the aviation goggles, red scarf, leather bomber jacket and leather cap with ear coverings. Junior loves this bear and for some reason loves to undress him. Junior then takes his aviation goggles and places them on his own face and becomes a pilot. Quite funny and it will be a surprise to him one day when those goggles meant for a teddy bear won't fit on his big noggin! And yes Erik was a pilot - an alaskan bush pilot to be exact.....so junior is destined for aviation!

Computer lesson

I really debated this moment for a while. I realized that in taking this next step in teaching Erik to start learning the computer I may truly be shooting myself in the foot, but in the end I obviously took the risk. So far so good.

I didnt know if I was ready to expose him to this for a variety of reasons, him wanting it all the time, he is only 3 and thus there is no need for a computer in his life, etc. But if I am going to let him sit in front of a screen I would like it to be interactive sometimes so I went for it on a cold icky day when we were staying inside all day.

 The first obstacle to overcome was the laptop's mouse and his urge to touch the screen like an ipad

 We headed over to the Sesame Street website and tried out a few of their games.

 He was liking this dinosaur digging one, he got the concept of the mouse pretty well but had trouble with the little detail of lifting the finger off and clicking without moving the cursor.

And out comes that tongue that makes it appearance when he is really focused on something.

He hasn't asked me continuously to play on the computer nor has he thrown a fit when I ask him to get off so we are still good. I know this may lead to obstacle down the road but really I want to be the one that he starts learning and exlporing the computer with. He already knows the ipad well and we have had to sit and chat with him about you tube and how he cant just touch every video that looks good because the internet can be dangerous, so here we are. I remember my mom saying that she hosted things at our house when we were teens and growing up because it was a way for her to observe and keep us safe from a distance because she knew just what was happening if it was at our house. So I took that as my motto, I want him to explore and learn with me not with someone else.

I kept the session short-about 20 minutes and stopped while he was still having fun. It was perfect. The next time we did it, he was having fun and I think 20 minutes is about good for him. He has a hard time sitting still for an activity for long so it was good. He wasnt bored at that point but he wasnt completely entrenched anymore either. I think we will save this fun for those days when we are shut in or are super bored but I am glad to have made the leap.

Party Animal

Erik was invited to a birthday party where the parents had hired a local petting zoo fo sorts to come bring some australian wildlife for the kids to learn about and touch.

To start off the party there was food (smart to have all the food taken care of before the creepy crawlies came out!)

There was a pizza delivered that was a square meter, it was ginormous! And it was funny because 3/4 of the pizza was pepperoni-a safe bet for kids and 1/4 supreme style for adults. Well here in Oz, sausage is different than in the states (this host family is also American). Let me digress for a moment-a big tradition in my family is to have summer sausage at family gatherings, but especially christmas. There is no such thing here in Oz-which was sad when we were trying to find a suitable alternative last christmas :(. Anyhow pepperoni is almost always spicy, not like in america, and thats all right. But with this large pizza, many kids didnt eat much....well combined with excitement of other kids, party happenings, and the adults didnt have to be shy!

 Sweet little guy, enjoying his. He likes spicy so he ate a bit of it, but then gave up.

 After food and treats, we all gathered in the  front garden (lawn) to see what animals we would get to see. There was such a crowd they tethered off a half circle for the kids to stay behind since chitlins seem to always scoot closer and closer - you know like the tv.....all of a sudden they could lick it if they stuck out their tongue. It was quite funny.

 Some spiky looking lizard. I know I am not good about remembering all the animal names and things I learn here, I should take notes or something, I just dont have it in me. I just like to take it in and move on. this one was named "Spike" I remember and it was going after a little worm on the pillow case.

 Erik reaching out to touch a different lizard. It had a head like a turtle kind of but the body of a lizard and skin kind of  like a snake, very interesting. Erik was hit and miss with the animals. He would get all anxious to have it be his turn and touch it and then he would panic and retract. Unfortuantely there were so many kids so he didnt have much time to change his mind if he did want to reach back out, so he missed out on a few.

 turtle...

Snake...smallish compared to the one you will see soon...

 I practically bribed him to have her put the snake around his neck. This was nearly the best pic I could capture of it-you can see it all in his face.....I am only doing this for you mom! He did not enjoy it in the least. And rightly so, snakes are scary, he doesnt like seeing them at the koala sanctuary too much either. Actually the first handful of times we went he wouldnt even go in the building. So this was a big step.

 The big snake!

 The big one slithering back into its box!

 This was a really cool looking bird. It looks sort of like an owl but its not one.

All in all Erik had a blast, there were lots of cool things to see. There was lots of fun food, there was a lot to learn and just fun times to be had. 

Mum's Day

So the weekend continued into one great adventure. Right after the tri we walked back to the car and found this cool carved out stool and tree near the car. So we took the opporunity for a littl photo op.

 I love this one, I caught a perfect little giggle in action. This may be my new favorite of these two peas in a pod.

 And it would not be complete without some cuddles from mommy. Erik is becoming quite the affectionate little guy and I am trying to soak every bit of it up. He often wont let us leave without a hug AND a kiss. He randomly tells us he loves us often and his new thing is to do the competitive I love you as big as..... phrases. Funny thing is, he cant quite grasp how big or important or vast things are, and he is obsessed with airplanes, and so he thinks he can top all the phrases by saying "I love you as big as an airplane in the sky" with a tone that you cant help but giggle at your self because he sounds like that is the most ominous and precious thing. He even gets all quiet sometimes when he says it. I love his little spirit.

 Sunday we spent the day walking around Byron Bay and hiking up to the lighthouse and standing in the most easterly point of australia that you can reach by foot. Pretty cool!

The scenery was breathtaking!

Walking up to the light house was quite a walk for the Erik's little legs and we dont take the stroller with us usually anymore so to keep him going and keep the complaining down we sang "Do as I'm doing" about a dozen times and every time we got to the phrase 'if i do it fast....' we would run as far as we could.

 silly face.....Erik likes to pull that phrase out randomly for photo ops and in everyday life as well. Silly kid!

On our way walking down those stairs we had the chance to see some wild dolphins swimming along the coast line. It was pretty surreal and great. They weren't doing anything crazy just slowly and relaxingly swimming but it was so cool!

Erik recognizes the letter 'E' now and every time he sees one he says 'hey der is an e for ewik' so when we got to the most easterly point of australia's mainland and there was a giant compass he thought it was pretty sweet. By the way....those sunnies are his must have accessory....he constantly asks if I brought his sunnies and luckily he wears them and we dont have to worry about him tossing them somewhere without realizing it. He actually gets quite upset with me if I forget them.

 In this bottom one, I dont think you can see it well but someone wrote really huge in the sand "MUM" since it was Mother's day. I thought it was pretty sweet.

That morning I had woke up to a super early text message actually from some one at church and had to take care of a mini crisis. But after that I tried to rest in bed for a bit longer while Erik and Linds went and brought me breakfast in bed of a chocolate donut, chocolate milk and a sweet card and new pen that they promised they wouldnt steal from me. Then we went around the bay.

My favorite part of the day was the drive home actually. I had enjoyed such a great weekend away with my men supporting Lindsay in his big event and enjoying playing with erik without the distractions of laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. Getting away was the perfect pick-me-up. So on the way home I asked Erik what his favorite thing was about the weekend. Then I asked Lindsay, and then I said something. Erik absolutely ate that up and so we continued to go around our family at least ten times. After about two rounds he facilitated the game and that just made my whole weekend. Good thing too because.......

Fast forward to that evening, we were home, we were all blissfully tired and I had some treats that were supposed to be just for me. It was near bedtime for Erik and he wanted me to share, we were in the middle of explaining that this treat was just for me today because it was mum's day-a special day. All hell broke loose I tell you. He had the biggest tantrum I have ever seen him throw (and luckily we havent had one since), he escalated to screaming at the top of his lungs "I don't want happy mums day, I want treat." It honestly left me speechless. I knew he was overtired and just didnt quite get it and by no means were my feelings hurt, I just couldnt believe he was that upset about chocolate. He is a complete chocolate fiend but I guess i didnt realize just how much. Anyways he eventually calmed down and Lindsay had a really good calm conversation him about it all. He came out apologized and gave me loves and then went to bed.

That was the finish of my mum's day but it was all right the whole weekend was near perfection!

my treasure

 This little guy puts up with a lot from me, all those rules mom give out, all those warnings about staying safe, all that rushing here and there.....and I am one lucky mom. He is such a happy, smart, and lovely boy. He has weaknesses but overall he is my treasure and such a gem. He started over the last couple months started getting into duplo legos, its one activity that I have endurance to play with longer and I love helping him use his imagination and seeing his creativity. He often wants me to build a house and he builds airplanes and rockets.

Wearing his pants huck finn style because the waist fits but legs are too short. I think it's cute!

 Its funny how as a parent there are some things that are easy to do with your child and others that we do because we know we should. Legos is just something I enjoy doing with him. Duplo size is perfect for him. Lindsay brought back a batman one from a trip a while back with the little lego pieces and his toddler hands were just not quite gentle enough and it was frustrating for him and me. But this size is durable and toddler friendly.

I love watching him be so determined in his building and stick that tongue out in concentration. I could eat him right up!

General Conference Fun

 I set up our entertainment center for General conference so that when we had some friends over for the sunday afternoon session, Erik would have plenty to do and I would maybe get to listen to some of it. This probably looks like a ton, but really his attention is not real long so I knew I needed quite a bit of things. There are so many ideas out there for fun things to do with kids for General conference at home, and I tried to make up something using bits and pieces of many ideas and made them my own with some tweaks. I knew I didnt want it centered all around food and I knew that he wouldn't sit long enough to listen real well for key words. I didn't want to make it frustrating to where he would want to give up.

 So this was my system. I looked up prior how many speakers there would be for the particular session we were going to be watching and came up with an activity for each speaker. I just numbered them and had him follow in order. I did put a small treat on each number and there was one sucker on one number in the middle. I didnt buy anything new, I just used things I had and made a few things with resources I had.

So the activities were, file folder games, stickers, playdough to put on a dot coloring page, popsicle stick puzzle, cut out pictures from church magazines and paste them on paper, wood puzzles, beading foam beads onto pipe cleaners, and matching pictures of the apostles and first presidency. I also made a sensory box for him to play with once the activity was finished or it he didnt want to do one of the activities. I didnt want to fight with him or come up with things on the spot so I didnt push these things. I just offered and let him decide. I had him help set it all up and he was chomping at the bit to get started when our friends came. The end results was overall success, some things he did longer than one talk and others he just ate the candy and then went off. The sensory box saved me and am so glad I thought to make one up real quick. You can make one out of anything. I had a bunch of rice in a plastic bin and then added small plastic containers (really small ones) and small toys and weird knick knacks and he played with that happily. In the end he got a bit of sweets but not a ton, and he was entertained while I got to mostly listen (I did have to still facilitate and help with some of these fun things).

Success!

Easter

So Easter this year was great. Fun, friends, and low key. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to work it this year. I wanted to impress on the true meaning of the holiday and still keep up with some of the other fun activities. I didnt know if I wanted to keep Sunday strictly for religious things and do the other things on other days or combine them. Luckily it all kind of just fell into place. We planned to have an Easter dinner with a few other couples and a sweet elderly gentleman and Saturday we had traditional home made hot cross buns with some other friends. Schedule wise we actually never got around to doing an egg hunt. Which is pretty ironic since it was Easter last year that made Erik obsessed with eggs, and that obsession continues. But he had plenty of other fun stuff. Sunday morning he woke up to an Easter basket and I felt really comfortable with doing commercial holiday stuff with the religious part due to the fact that throughout the weeks prior as we taught about Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection Erik was very keen to learn and talk about the true celebration of the holiday. We didn't have the camera out as much as we should have and then we finally did pull it out it died within thirty seconds.

These are two guys Achilles and Jermaine that were a part of our get together. I was going around the room to take pics but like I said the camera died, so you only get to see these two. Their lovely wives were there as well. Achilles is a musician and Jermaine is a rugby player....we really like rugby and have gone to one his games where he scored! He is trying to make a career of rugby and is at the level where he plays on a feeder team for a pro team. And both of these couples are awesome!

 But I digress....here is the only picture I got of Erik in his cute Easter outfit. Well the more casual after church version. He had on nice slacks and a button up shirt at church but for dinner we went for polo and shorts. But he sure was handsome! The Easter bunny gave him all sorts of goodies ---actitivies for church and General Conference (handmade), very few treats, marbles, and a super cool airplane. Here he is shooting the camera. He has great aim and hit the camera right in the lens. Little stinker

All in all it was a great holiday and I got to introduce deviled eggs to these aussies while enjoying lamb and other yummies. Erik's favorite scripture story before Easter was Abinadi and now it is Christ's death and resurrection. We actually found an awesome app for the ipad from the lds church's bible videos. It is so awesome! You can watch the videos and also explore the land where it all happened and learn more about the people and what living was like back in that time. It is his favorite thing to do when he has the opportunity to use the ipad.

Funniest thing about it is that he will of course watch the crucifiction video the most and he always wants to watch from the point when Christ is being whipped and abused before he is nailed on the cross. we were getting a little worried that he skipped to that point every time and would watch it over and over. That is until we spoke to some one else about it and she had said that she read that children at his age dont understand that the story doesnt end the same every time so they reread or watch it to see if maybe it may change. A week or two ago he told Lindsay and I that he needed to get something so that he could save Jesus. Sweet little guy thought if he figured out a way he could save Christ. That then turned into further opportunity to explain why Christ needed to die for us. I dont think he quite grasps that one but it has been absolutely awesome to see him learn and absorb all of this information. Many days when he chooses what he wants to read together before quiet time or other times of the day when we read together he always asks to read his "gipsures" or scriptures. I am not going to complain or argue with that. It has been great. We just use the Book of Mormon reader that is animated with pictures. So lovely!

My day today

Today is Monday April 24th, 2012.

Most mondays are a busy day. Catching up after a weekend of fun and letting the house turn to mush. And with my genetic mutation of not having the inner drive to have a spick and span clean home, it was probably already needing a few chores done before the weekend started. Okay lets be honest, my house was in bad shape this last week, throw the weekend in there and it looks like a tornado ran through here. Multiple loads of dishes needing to be done this morning, clean up, and the normal every day hustle and bustle. I woke up with big plans. To be productive from early morning until this evening after dinner was cooked and family night was to be enjoyed.

This is how my day has run. Its all worked out great, but somehow just not enough time in the day!While this isnt exactly the same timeline, it will be pretty close


5:30 Lindsay's alarm clock goes off....uggh that means try to get in the last little bit of restless interupted sleep until Erik wakes up, could be any minute.

6:30 Rise and shine to a little hungry man (he let us sleep in a bit, wahoo!) Cartoons until breakfast time

7:00 breakfast is served. I get on the computer and check email, fb, and look up how to include vinegar into the laundry to try to get the stink out of workout clothes.ERik plays and chats with me. I also pay a bill online before I forget and scan in some documents and email them to the insurance company. Erik is begging me to play hide and seek or shooting.

8:00 I choose hide and seek, we play a couple of rounds and he cant find me hiding on the balcony, because its not one of the usual 5 that you can hide in our closet size apartment. Finally I start making noises and he finds me, when we swap so he can hide, he hides in the same place as last time. This is an ongoing lesson of not hiding where the adults just hid or the same place as last time. One day he will get it :)

8:15 Back to the grind, but trying to involve Erik into the chores. We get him dressed, I help him make his bed. He helps me load the washer and clean a drain with baking soda and vinegar, he likes the bubbling. He runs off to play and I load up the first load of dishes.

9:30 I throw on some clothes and make a short shopping list to take to the markets for dinner groceries. We will be on foot today so just a few things. Get Erik ready, walk to where our second car  is parked on the street, load him in, drive aroudn the neighborhood to find a place to park (it had to be moved by noon). Walk back...there is a park along the way...he wants to stop....I want to get out of the heat, but am trying really hard to get him outside for an hour a day for some type of physical activity (we do lots inside too), realize this is a good opportunity to get some of that in....tell him he has 10 minutes. Walk the rest of the way home.

10:15 Go to the managers office of the complex and going over some business matters with them. Go back to our unit, eat an ice block (popsicle). Get in a snack/mini meal and switch some laundry. Get readyand head out to walk to the shops. Erik walks the trolley about halfway there before he tires of it. I take over, we go into market, get our goods, load them into our trolley, Erik gets to play on the Big bulldozer ride for 2 minutes and then we head home. Walk home.

12:30 Arrive home. Unload groceries, give him another snack/mini meal (he is a bottomless pit with all the walking we do, especially on his little body). I make a couple of phone calls relating to my responsibilities at church.

1:45 Put Erik down for quiet time. Read him a book, sing him a song. Tell him he needs to rest in bed and look at books for a bit before he gets down to play with toys. Tell him he is not to come out unless he needs to poo (he knows all the tactics) and if he opens the door or asks if he can come out he is to get a time out. I know I sound like a mean mom, maybe I am but I am a firm believer in boundary setting for children. I am a bit  more strict right now with this as well, because he is really practising trying to manipulate and if we give him even a centimeter, he takes things a mile. So while he gets freedom and choice in a lot of matters, some things I still get complete control over because I dont think he can handle that freedom yet. Just some of my parenting thoughts.

2:00 Tell myself I can lay down on the couch for 30 minutes before I need to get up and finish my tasks before its time to start dinner prep at 3:30.

2:15 Erik has to go poo. Take him potty....and send him back to his room.

2:25 Erik yells for me and I ignore him. I dont want to fall into any traps. If its urgent he usually continuously yells or starts crying. A few minutes goes by and he yells again, I get up and think great, there goes my half hour nap. Open the door and he tells me he has poo in his pants. I check and sure enough he does. Diarrhea even. I try hard not to be frustrated. I could probably count on less than one hand how many accidents he has had, so I know it was tummy troubles and my lack of coming when he called for me that caused this. I clean him up, stick him in the tub, and here I am typing about my monday. Its now just a few minutes shy of 3 pm and I just had to document this because I thought it was  bit funny. By this time I thought my house would be clean and errands run. My child played with, quiet time finishing up and rolling smoothly.

The reality....there are 4 loads of laundry that need folded and put away. The house still needs picked up. One more load of dishes done. A child to be entertained, and dinner prep to be started. This is a typical stay at home mothers work day. Grand ideas, sometimes little to show physically but I will take it. Maybe I will get a shower  later tonight?!

Most days I do well with the shower thing I must admit but today lacked. Off to get my little smooth boy out to lotion. Hope you enjoyed the peek into my day!

perfect pint size package

Today I was having a rough day. Nothing in particular, just lots of little things that were mounting started to overwhelm me, add in a healthy dose of motherhood guilt and self deprecating thoughts and a meltdown occurred while Erik happily played during his quiet time in his room. I was in my room on my knees pleading with my Heavenly Father to lift me up and give me strength to get through.

I felt better after having a good cry, sometimes I think that just does such a trick.

This little man is just that, I think his spirit is so wise and he has such a sense of humor that he just kills me. Sometimes he makes me want to lock myself in a padded room, but then his spirit speaks to mine and I just want to bottle him up forever.

The past few months he has grown really interested in how babies grow in bellies. Many things are attributed to this. He knows that we (Lindsay and I) would like to give him a brother or sister and he LOVES babies and often hears or requests himself for God to send a baby into mommy's belly. Every time I go to any appointment without him, he asks if the doctor is going to put a baby in my belly and will ask a few times a week if there is one in there. He knows he grew in S's belly. Also we have a close friend who is the latter half of her pregnancy and Erik has seen her belly grow and quite frankly I think it has intrigued him more. Every time he sees her he asks her about her baby, and sometimes not quite grasping the concept fully asks if she is having "another baby." Like one came out between the last time he saw and the current time. Its been really fun, and opened up plenty of opportunity for me to teach him more about his special story. He loves to ask questions about him growing in S's belly and confirm that mommy did not grow him in hers, but that S loves him so much and so does B. A couple of days ago on tv he saw a pregnant woman and asked if that was S. I told him no but pulled out his scrapbooks about his adoption. He had moved onto other things and wasn't interested any longer. That is fine, line upon line right?

Tonight after having a hard day and Lindsay being gone for a meeting I felt like I needed to feel that close connection with him. I needed a renewing feeling with my son. You see.....lately he only wants Lindsay for every.single.thing. I know it's normal and most of the time it doesn't bother me. He has always been that way a bit, those two have a bond I couldn't even try to compete with, but have always been confident in my bond as his mother. I have always been the one that Erik would call out for if hurt or sad. The nurturing that most children desire from a mother. Lately he just wants Dad. I know his love for me hasn't weakened, but I needed a special moment with him. Since I am with him all day its not so special if I get him a treat or take him somewhere cool, that is what is expected from our daytime adventures so I knew I needed something else.

It came to me as we were getting ready for bed. I would not read his typical bed time story tonight, I would read him one of adoption scrapbooks and we would talk and reconnect. He drank every ounce of that up and loved seeing it all. Although he has seen the scrapbooks hundreds of times it was almost like he was seeing it for the first time. He is understanding! He is learning about his miracle! When we got to the end I read him the letter S wrote to him and gave to him before we left Germany. When I was finished he asked to keep reading him his story (I had read it all!) I told him he we could look at them again in the morning when he woke up and told him we needed to say prayers for bed. I said them tonight and spoke of the love that all of his parents has for him, earthly and Heavenly. I had asked for blessing for S and B and given thanks for them. When I finished Erik told me I did it wrong I needed to bless Erik too. So I said another prayer asking for blessings for Erik. I still hadn't gotten it right, so I asked him to pray........this was how it went he opened the prayer by addressing Heavenly Father-thank you, Erik little baby and S and B and then closed the prayer.

I just wanted to squeeze him forever. I am pretty sure he was trying to pray and thank God that S and B loved him and gave him to Lindsay and I. He asked twice more if we could look at the pictures again and talk about S and B. I told him in the morning we could look at it all again and talk more. When I was shutting the door he said, "I lud you." -I love you-

Those are the reminders I need. The ones where he knows just what to say to remind me that my efforts are not going unnoticed by his little hands that can tear up a clean room faster than I can pick it up. The kiss he can genuinely give me that will carry me through his incessant "why" questions that happen no less than a billion times a day.

It was an absolutely perfect ending to my day. Tomorrow will bring new challenges, I still have a sink full of dishes, a messy floor, laundry out the kazoo and phone calls to make, but I have a little man that will make it take three times longer but make me laugh throughout as well. He never ceases to amaze me how flexible he is in our life. He just rolls with it. He must get that from his Dad, both are pretty unfazeable. I am the basketcase. but at least I know they both love me!

Anzac Park

I thought I would give you a tour of one of the gazillion cool parks here. Seriously I am not looking forward to going back to American parks any time soon. They are all pretty much the same and compared to here.....boring!

This is Anzac park and it rocks. Our favorite is called New Farm park but this one leads a close second I think.

Wild Cockatoos. Our families favorite bird here! Actually we have a lots of avorites, so many things I dont even want to think about missing when we leave. I lvoe hearing the cockies and kookaburras. Seriously you should do a you tube search of a kookaburra, it sounds like a monkey sort of and a chortle type laugh. One of our american friends thought they had monkey chickens in their trees when they first moved here before they realized what they were hearing every morning!

 THis picture is not that great, but this is a zip line. Yep you heard me right, a zip line in the park. They call them flying foxes here. A flying fox in real life are the bats. But here at the park you get to fly like the bats and hence the name. So cool. Can you even imagine America putting these in their parks. No way, not even.....too much of  a liability. But here we eat up all that stuff that hasnt tainted Australia.

 Anzac park also boasts a sad pit area that is gated so littles cant wander in or out on their own accord. And this sand pit even has some built toys as well. And the thing I like about gates here, are they are magnetic and you pull up a pin type thing at the top to undo the latch. Perfect for short kids and it takes two hands often.

The main play structure is supposed to be like a homestead I am guessing, the "house" is a typical Queenslander style, water silo's with matching slides for races. A trap door, ramps, you name it, this cool place has it. See saw included. You dont see those in america anymore either, too many fingers injured from the rumors I heard when I was a kid. I wonder what the real issue was.....like I said we relish it all here!

 Anzac park has a beutiful pond with lots of local wildlife around. Many times when I have been there, I have seen people come on their lunch hour and go sit by the pond, how peaceful.

 Another side of the "house". Shows the water pump, which I guess used to actually work but with the drought lasting so long, they turned off the function so as not to waste water. For now the kiddos can still pump it and just pretend they are getting water out.

This was my attempt at showing the trapdoor latter. There is actually no door, it's pretend but I thought it was so cool that the kids can climb up from under the house, its a great hiding spot when playing hide and seek or chase, very commonly used from our experience.

View from other side of see saw/teeter totter, you can see the back of an old school truck that has a flat bed to climb on and steering wheel. Mostly a jungle gym from what I have seen and pow wow meeting place. Just to the left of the picture out of focal range are the swings, dont worry they didnt forget about the swings. There are actually two sets, one to the left and one on the other side of the house. In this pic you can see the sand pit as well in the distance.

 just a cute little man

 close up of the truck.......it is stationary, just looks like it moves.

 A better picture of the silo's.

Are you jealous yet? Yep, we feel pretty darn lucky to have all these cool areas so close to us. Erik was behind in his motor skills upon arriving in Oz. But I have tried hard to take him to all the different parks that I can (each one is different here, although not all as fancy or as big as this) and work on all the skills. And now I am confident he is right on par and some things he actually is mastering before I would have anticipated. Like some of the balancing activities that a lot of the parks have. Now to work on his coordination. Poor kid has little coordination, falls on his face nearly every time he runs at full speed. To the point of not letting him get up to speed unless he is on grass or padding, because he has taken 100 too many faceplants on concrete. One day!

First camping trip in Oz

 Oh if only I could show you a picture of how much it takes to tucker out this little man. He has more energy than I know what to do with most days. We tried to get him to nap before we left for this one night camping trip with other members from our church, knowing he would stay up and be running around. But he wasnt having it........until we were in the car that is!

 Then he was out like a light. We were the first ones to the camp site but couldnt go to it, since we weren't the point of contact, so instead of staying in the hot car, we pulled him out and laid him in the shade of the car. He actually slept longer than  I thought that way.

 Then another family showed up and we played with a rugby ball for a bit tossing it around. I learned that it is WAY easier to throw a rugby ball than an american football (it doesnt matter how big your hands are!) and that I can kick a footie ball pretty well too. It was a lot of fun. I will say I do love Rugby but I never imagined that I would.

Ahhh such a handsome couple! The only reason I had a sweatshirt on was so that I wouldnt get eaten alive by the mozzies (mosquitos). I couldnt put pants on though, too hot. It has been weird to not have it cool off much at night here, no crisp mornings, hot cocoa seems far fetched, and not much relief when sleeping. Another lesson learned, our negative temp camping gear is FAR too hot for the Aussie weather!

 Playing with sparklers and setting on our camera!

 Lindsay went for a run that night and came across some yucky spiders.

This one is the infamous HUntsman spider. This picture doesnt show it well, but they are huge. Big enough to hear them scurry across a wall or floor. We have some friends who has one named "lucky" that lives in their garage. It was named that because he is now missing some legs from killing attempts. At this point they stopped trying to hunt him and just say they are more comfortable seeing him on the wall when they go out to their car then not, because then they dont worry that he has made his way into the car! Gives me the shivers thinking about it.

And so that we dont this post on nasty yuckiness. A picture of Erik and one of his friends. These two are joined at the hip usually and can get themselves into quite some naughtiness. She comes from a family of 4 girls and is the youngest so she knows how to fend for herself and well Erik is a boy, so although they play well..........they fight well as well. We recently had their nursery leader tell us that they have been quite naughty in class in church so we have been talking a bit about that at home. I didn't think these things happened until school!