Cullen Nation

2009-01-07T03:36:00.000-08:00

The quota has finally been filled. Enough people have asked, so now I can finally say that yes, we are moving back to America. We gave it a good effort this time; by the time we move back we'll have been here just over a year. And what a freaking horrible year it's been. Don't care to elaborate, but ya, it's been pretty crap.

So America here we come... again. And not just America, but surprise of all surprises, we're moving back to Arizona! Never thought that would happen again. I loved Texas, and am heartbroken that we're not moving back there. But we're all excited to see our Arizona friends and family that we've missed.

I'll be writing more as things move along, but I'm just putting this info out there so you can all leave me alone for crying out loud. Ha ha, I'm totally kidding. I crack myself up sometimes. That sometimes is usually late at night when I'm a bit delusional, but hey-- it still works for me.

Christmas & Boxing Day

2009-01-07T01:59:00.000-08:00

After we opened presents at our house, Daddy and Sam took a nap, Thomas and Penny watched movies from Aunt Sanya, and I got to work in the kitchen. I made a veggie salad, frog eye salad, and seven (!) dozen choc chip and skor bit cookies. Yummalicious. Then we headed over to Peter and Celeste's for food and presents.

Grandad and Peter working the grill while Joe and Ben play.

More presents!

Sam loved this truck. He didn't want to open any other presents because he was too busy playing with this.

Penny's sweet pose again. Nan got her a nightgown with a cute teddy bear.

Wii.

After Peter and Celeste's, we went to the Ross's for dessert. (The same place I helped decorate for Christmas.) As you can see, we were all pretty exhausted by the end of the night.

Jayme's youngest, Nazareth. He reminds me of Sanya's youngest, Carter.

ZOnKeD

The day after Christmas is Boxing Day. We went to a creek and had a picnic. I'm not a creek kind of girl. I don't like brown water. But the kids loved it. Here's Ben taking Penny and Sam on a little cruise.

Here's the whole famn damily. (I don't know how the neighbor's baby got in there...)

Christmas Morning

2009-01-06T03:30:00.001-08:00

Well thank heaven for my Mom, sister Sanya (sorry, didn't get pictures from her package. Well... okay, so I do have pictures, but I look like crap, so I'll just leave those off.), Aunt Cindy, and Mayra, because without them our tree would have been pretty empty. I guess Santa is going through an economic slump too.

The traditional line up.

Presents from Mayra. I'm gonna miss her! And I know my kids really will.

Package from my Mom. Sam got a book he tried to eat (no joke), Thomas got a cool dolphin book, and Penny got a gorgeous dress. I got cute shirts that I've already worn like a million times (no joke-- ha ha), and Jason got a one pound bag of peanut butter m&m's. Somehow I gained one pound that morning.
(Australian's must not like chocolate and peanut butter-- which is like my favorite combination ever. They have chocolate and peanuts, but not peanut butter. Weirdos.)

Look at all their faces. So cute!

As soon as Penny saw her dress she absolutely had to put it straight on right there.

My Aunt Cindy is the best gift giver. She got me jewelry!

Aunt Cindy got Jason some gloves that he loved.

Santa came! Sam got animal markers, Thomas got an accordion, and Penny got a My Little Pony house.

Penny doing a 'sweet' pose.

Pointless

2009-01-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, Christmas is here and past, but here's some pictures anyway.

I don't really know how this started, but we always let each kid put the angel on top of the tree. So here they are all taking their turns.

Feliz Navidad

2009-01-05T02:52:00.000-08:00

Mayra is the lady who does daycare for my kids. Her husband is Sergio, and his brother is Juan. They live just up the road and were so nice to invite us to their Chirstmas Eve celebration. Juan made a delicious punch (that I still have to get the recipe for) that we enjoyed while we sat and talked. It was just nice and relaxing. Other neighbors were there, as well as some of Mayra's family. We had a really nice time. We left around 10, but they stayed up til midnight to open their presents.

Man, this food was good. I swear I could have eaten all those potatoes. It was potatoes with some yummy sauce and raisins! Sounds weird, but it was so good. Juan cooked the meat to perfection. Simple salad and yummy rice. Just so good.

How cute is this cake? It even had a real carrot for the nose.

Santa Joe

2009-01-05T02:37:00.000-08:00

On Christmas eve, Santa drove through town in the back of a fire truck. He threw candy out to all the kids. After collecting the candy, Sam said, "Thanks Joe!".

(Jason's brother Joe filled in for Santa since he was busy getting ready for Christmas, but the kids didn't know that. Even I didn't know until he was close. You can't put anything past Sam.)

Cookies for Santa

2008-12-28T01:01:00.001-08:00

Click on it to see what Thomas wrote. So cute.

Christmas Carols at Movie World

2008-12-26T02:06:00.001-08:00

Jason's Nan (aka 2 Nans) has worked at the same place for fifteen years. That place is Movie World-- which is the Australian equivalent to Six Flags. And since she's worked there so long she gets nice perks-- one of which is getting a bunch of her grandkids in to Carol night for free. Not only for free, but the kids also got a free popcorn and ice cream. Luckyyy.

Movie World is a Warner Brothers theme park. They did this Carols night on the 15th of December (and as usual I took forever to post it). Of course you know it's summer here-- and for some strange reason Australians don't really believe in air conditioning. So I felt so sorry for all the people in costumes dancing around. But the kids had fun, and that's all that counts, right?

I wish I would have had my digital recorder when Elmo came on stage-- Penny and Sam were over the moon. It was SO cute. And they got to hold out their hands and touch most of the characters. They had a really good time singing Christmas songs with their favorite characters.

We bought the kids flashy necklaces. The boys got spikey balls and Penny got a butterfly. Of course Sam had to ham it up for the camera. Oh wait, that's not for the camera-- he's always like that.

Some of the lucky ones who got to benefit from their hard working Nan. Look at photogenic Thomas! He's so cute. Then besides the little ones (I can't name them all because, well, let's face it: sometimes I can't remember my own kids' names) there's Jason's cousin Bronwyn (love that girl) on the left, cousin in-law Kim and her friend, and then another cousin in-law. And then of course there's Jason.

Penny saw me take a picture of Sam, so she couldn't be left out.

It's funny how rumors get started. This is Jason's cousin Nicole, who is obviously pregnant. After I took this picture I told her that I felt like getting pregnant just so my tits would be as big as hers. (Um, sorry to all those who didn't know how crude I am.) So the next day I heard I was trying to get pregnant. Not happening.

Jason's cousin Paula and her amazingly noise tolerant baby, Oliver.

Oh the excitement of it all.

This is one thing that I like about Australia. Do you think all the kids would be able to stand in front of the stage at Six Flags? I think not.

Oh ya, and Santa came to visit!

The kids with 2 Nans and Nanny D after the crowd cleared.

I don't know why I feel the need to point out to all of you how much of a bitch I am, but here I go again. This guy stepped right in front of me, and not just once. And it's not like there was a big crowd right there, it was us and him. So I told him to get out of my way in a very unlady like manner. So there.

Since Nan knows all the characters, she was able to steal Tweety away for Thomas to say hi.

Everyone got a turn with Sylvester.

The kids with Speed Racer (this was actually in the movie).

Penny always has to push the limit, as shown in this picture.

Eye Spy Bag Instructions

2008-12-17T02:59:00.000-08:00

A couple of you asked for the instructions to these eye spy bags. I meant to post this sooner so you could do some for Christmas. And of course, the one time that I actually take pictures through the whole process-- I manage to eff things up. I got so frustrated, and I'm pretty embarrassed posting these pics even after all my mistakes, but whatever. My brain doesn't function properly on this side of the world. But as frustrated as I get even thinking about how much I messed up, I promise not to cuss.

Anyway-- the bags I made were for Christmas. I don't think you can really tell from the pictures, but I think I found some pretty cute things to go in there that had to do with Christmas. I found some cute babies in the baby shower section at Walmart. He worked perfect as baby Jesus. I held on to a sacrament cup at church, and it's held up so far, but I'll let you know how it does long term. After Christmas last year I bought a ton of tiny Christmasy things on clearance (gotta love clearance). If you really are interested in what all I put in there I'll send you a list-- but I'm sure you're all clever enough to come up with plenty on your own.

I haven't always sewn the list on there, but I did these past times and I think it was fine. I get paranoid about things happening to kids' eyes, which is why I haven't used a list before. But I rounded the corners of the laminate. So there.

Okay-- so cut the fabric in six inch squares. Cut a 3 1/2 inch square out of one side. Cut a 4 inch square out of vinyl. It is vinyl, right? You know what I'm talking about anyway. I've heard of some people using a clear shower curtain, but I don't see the point in that when you can just grab some in whatever thickness you want at Joanns.

I hope I'm clear in the pictures and descriptions. No offence, but I tried to dumb it up a little-- just so you would understand. It's not that late right now, but my brain is done with thinking. I'll read this again tomorrow morning to see if it makes sense.

This is why I love doing these bags: I love small things. And yes, this container really is full of tiny things. So much fun. I usually put 30-40 trinkets in the bags. I always put a couple things in there that they'll really have to search for. Try to use different textures just to liven things up. :)

I bought this at Micheals in the doll stuffing section. Use about a cup to fill each bag. Give or take.

I liked Penny's. But I have to point out that instead of a straight stitch to secure the vinyl, I tried to use a heart pattern. Not a good idea. Don't know if it's just because it's hot here or what, but the vinyl kept sticking to the machine, so instead of hearts, they were just weird designs. Oh well.

I liked the look of this fabric, but it was absolute crap to sew with. Don't know what the deal was. The fabric I used with Penny's worked well. The Halloween fabric I used worked well, but since it's flannel (or whatever it's called) it's thicker. When the fabric is thicker, you don't need to use quite as much filler because it's harder to move around. The thinner fabric you could even use a bit more. You'll get the hang of it.

I usually pin the vinyl in place, but this time I had the genius idea to just tape it. It seemed to work a little better-- but just see what works for you.

After you straight stitch it, cover the raw edge with a zig zag stitch. You may notice on the finished pictures that I forgot to do that on the green one. Rats.

I told you I was dumbing it up. Just remember when you start to sew not to start in a corner, because it's a pain to hand stitch a corner shut. FYI. Leave about 1 1/2 inches open so you can turn it the right way and then funnel in the doll filler and then toss in the trinkets.

The fabric wasn't cooperating and I realized I forgot to sew in the list. Poopy. But I'm still not actually cussing.

Ah ha! I remembered the list this time.

Finally finished. See how horrible the corner looks? Son of a goat. And of course this is the one I forgot to zig zag.

I put the train in there for the Polar Express. Can you see the Santa cap? How cute is that? Micheals and Hobby Lobby have these bags of buttons that have so many cute buttons in them. Love those things.

Crappy finished picture. The green thing says Jingle. You can see baby Jesus in the top right. This is the one that I forgot to sew the list in, but I sewed it on after.

Have fun, and I want to see YOUR finished projects.

Aussie Tooth Fairy

2008-12-07T02:20:00.000-08:00

Here's another post that I should have done ages ago. I think these are from August. Thomas lost some teeth, and like he's always done, he decorated the envelope that he puts his tooth in. He always does a good job-- but I loved this one. At first he put on there that he wanted 50 $2, but when I told him how much that was, he changed it to 6 50 cents. Funny kid.

Here's pictures from two teeth that he lost.

When I was putting these pictures together, I thought maybe I'd write about Australian money.

Their bills are plastic, and they come in 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100. Anything above that my poor eyes haven't seen. You can tell in the pictures that there's a see-through area on them. One thing I think is smart is that their bills are different sizes and colors. One time I was exchanging some money at the bank here and the teller asked me how visually impaired people could tell the difference between our notes. Before that I never even thought about it.

Their coins come in 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents, one dollar, and two dollar. Not a smart idea. So many coins! The wallets are made different here to accomodate all the coins. It's just a pain to always have so many coins. AND! What's their problem with pennies??? Oh, and they don't have names like nickel or dime-- they just call them 5 cent or 10 cent pieces. Bor-ing.

Okay, I'll let you all know how stupid I am. I knew that they didn't have pennies, so I was confused in the stores when I saw so many prices ending with cents other than 5 or 0. I didn't know that they just total everything together and then round up or down. So there you go: Allison the dunce.

Canungra Show

2008-12-05T04:33:00.000-08:00

Canungra is about 30 minutes away, and it's the town that Jason grew up in. They had a show-- or a fair as we Americans would say. These pictures are from August! Isn't that horrible? Talk about a slow poster. Anyway-- Jason took the kids to go see all the animals and watch the different shows they had on. The kids had fun, Jason learned his lesson, and I enjoyed every moment of peace while they were gone.

Below is the wood chopping competition. Jason didn't take pictures of the other events, but they had things like pig races, beaut ute (suped up vehicles), and an American group that did basketball tricks (sounded like the Harlem Globetrotters when he was describing it to me).

These next pictures crack me up. Sam really liked this baby goat, as you can see. And the goat obviously liked Sam because he was trying to nurse from his finger!

This isn't a pony, it's a full grown miniature horse! Isn't that crazy?

They call these dagwood dogs. Of course I'm sure you can figure out it's a corndog. Silly Australians think they have to be so different from Americans.

4th of the 4th

2008-11-24T03:05:00.001-08:00

I got tagged by my cousin Sarah (LoVE her!). This is from Jason's nan's birthday. I'll admit when I got tagged, I thought to myself that if the picture was crappy I'd just pick another one-- but this is the real deal. 4th of the 4th.

I know some people don't like getting tagged, but some love it. I don't know what category YOU fall into-- but if your heart so desires this, then I tag YOU.

My new favorite picture

2008-11-23T03:07:00.001-08:00

There aren't words good enough to describe my Penny. (Of course, the opposite is true too.)

Jason went to the beach with the youth from our branch recently. I haven't been to this beach-- but it looks nice. He took the kids with him on one of the trips (didn't get any pics of Thomas). Jason thought it was hilarious that this guy got caught after fishing. Those rock columns are cool, huh?

I'm in LoVE

2008-11-23T02:20:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, when I lived in Texas I had a business with my sister-in-law Shelly (Nathan's wife). And if you didn't know that, then you're a punk, because it's right here on the left of my blog. Anyway-- I lo-lo-lo-loved it! (Oh Shelly, I MISS you!!!) Then after our move from hell-- I think I just kind of became jaded about a lot of stuff. I used to find so much comfort in my sewing projects. Since being here I've only made a handful of things. The other night I decided to organize all my ribbon. I have a lot of ribbon, so that was a big job. And thanks to the freaking idiot movers, everything was a complete mess. But I did it.

And my fabric is a whole other story. Don't know if I have the strength to tackle that yet.

After I put all the ribbon in here, the drawer collapsed from the weight.

Just bits 'n pieces.

Here's something I made for my kids for Halloween that I forgot to post earlier. It's an eye-spy bag. I put over 40 things in there! Don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but I put things in there like: a rat, skeleton, tombstone, fly, maggot (yes, I found a maggot), bat, worm, cat, eyeball, jack-o-lantern, and lots of other Halloweeny things. It was fun making it and the kids love it.

Thomas the School Boy

2008-11-23T01:02:00.000-08:00

The Incident

*I had done the school post below, but then this happened, so I'm just adding it on top.*

So Thomas came home from school and was just acting weird. He was hiding behind the couch for a while and I thought maybe he had been crying. When I asked him what was the matter he told me he wanted to move back to America. I asked why. He went on to tell me that a big kid at school (I've seen this kid, and he is BIG) hit him on his lip because Thomas wouldn't give him some of his lunch. He also went on to say that this bully had been taking food from him for a long time. That flipped my bitch switch on (although I'm quite sure you're all aware that that switch is never off).

So this morning I loaded the kids up in the car to drive Thomas to school and take care of this. I went to the office-- but the principal was out. The secretary suggested talking to Thomas' teacher. This is where I should have taken a moment to reflect on what might happen. But I didn't. I went up there and didn't find the teacher-- but what do you know? I saw the bully. And I attacked.

Let's just cut down to it and say that no, I won't be going to jail, but yes, I think Thomas will be fine now.

Hell hath no fury... like a protective mother.

(below) Thomas with his latest certificate.

Every Friday there's a parade at Thomas' school. I have no idea why they call it a parade, because it is B O R I N G. Basically all the kids sit on the hard cement (yes, that's the whole school sitting down) and be quiet while the Mr. Rogers-look-alike principal drones on and on.

If the kids have been good they get a certificate-- and you can see Thomas has gotten a couple. In some of the pictures you can see Thomas' class did a performance.

I'm pretty sure that all schools in Australia wear uniforms. Every once in a while they have a free dress day. I don't know why they call it a free dress day, because you have to pay to do it. That's why in some of the pictures the kids are wearing normal clothes. It's funny because I thought it would be nice to have my kids go to a school with uniforms, but man am I hating it now.

(below) Can you tell which one is Thomas? It might be hard because there's another boy near him who also wears glasses and looks similar to Thomas.

(below) Can you believe Thomas? He had a free dress day and he actually chose to wear his church clothes! Silly boy. PS-- see the kid on the right? That's the bully!

These pictures below are from sports day. The school splits into two houses-- Stinson or O'Reilley, and compete. Thomas was in Stinson, which is good, because I'd rather have him wear blue than orange. Ha ha. Plus Stinson won.

(below) Thomas is the third blue shirt from the left.

This is Penny helping Jason paint some lines for the school work day while Jason's dad and Thomas look on.

Wink Wink

2008-11-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

When we go anywhere-- we're usually in the car for a while before we get to our destination (that's what happens when you live in BFE). So I've been grabbing some Junie B. Jones books to read to the kids on our drive. Those books crack me up! I'm not kidding-- sometimes I can't read for a while because I'm laughing so much.

Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine has been my favorite book so far. Junie B. got a valentine from a 'secret admirer'. Below describes when she's trying to figure out who her admirer is. Maybe it won't be as funny to you-- but it cracked me up.

I wrinkled up my nose very darling.
"Yeah, only you don't even have to be shy of me anymore, William. 'Cause I think I know your secret," I said.
After that, I put my chin on his table. And I winked my eye at him. Only I'm not actually good at winking. And so I have to say the words.
"Wink, wink, William," I said. "Wink, wink, wink. See my eye? See how it is trying to wink at you?"

And here's an excerpt from the book we're reading right now, Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business:

A crib is a bed with bars on the side of it. It's kind of like a cage at the zoo. Except with a crib, you can put your hand through the bars. And the baby won't pull you in and kill you.

How hilarious is that???

A Goonies Kind of Day

2008-11-15T23:28:00.000-08:00

As usual, we were running late for church. Really late. Sam hasn't been feeling too crash hot, and was taking an extra long nap that I didn't want to wake him from. So when he finally woke up we headed off to church. We got 20-30 minutes down the road and got caught in a huge storm. The wind was blowing like crazy and the rain was just pouring down. Like everyone else on the road, we pulled over to wait for a lull. We were only half way to church, and knew that we'd be held up a lot more, so we ended up just turning around and coming home.

When we got home, the storm hadn't hit here yet. Jason was trying to clear the garage out to put the car in there so it wouldn't get damaged in the weather. Then the storm hit. We got some good rain-- which we very much needed. I looked out the window and saw a ton of water NOT going into our tank. In case you didn't know-- we live off the water in this tank. So much was going to waste-- as you'll see in the video. Jason got soaked going out there to clear the debris from the drain so the water could get in easier.

I've known for a while now that a frog was living in the gutter. Yes, the same gutter that the water rushes through and then goes into our tank that we use for drinking water. Yep, I still boil our water. Frog piss doesn't sound very thirst quenching to me. Anyway-- that frog always makes lots of noise, but everytime I grab the camera it stops. We finally got it today. And can you believe that after filming I had to ask Jason to get the frog out of there??? He was going to leave it in there!

Please tell me everyone reading this has seen The Goonies? That's like one of the best movies ever. Love it. It was filmed in Oregon, so all the outside shots are overcast. Every time it rains I want to watch that movie. So today was a Goonie kind of day-- and I hope we have lots more.

Christmas?...already?

2008-11-14T03:20:00.001-08:00

It is so hard to even think about Christmas when it's so dang hot here. It just doesn't seem right. It also doesn't seem right to decorate so early, but I suppose that's what happens in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.

Earlier this week when Penny and Sam were at daycare, I took Thomas out of school and we went to Jason's Uncle and Aunt's house to decorate for Christmas. When they asked if we wanted to go, I guess I thought we'd be hanging lights. No lights. Jason's Aunt has the biggest Christmas decoration collection I have ever seen! She just kept pulling out more and more.

Jason's cousin, Jayme is in the picture by the tree. She was one of my bridesmaids. Her younger brother, Jesse is hanging a light fixture. As you can tell, neither of them like their pictures taken. The kids did though. Jayme has four kids (and I know I'll misspell their names): Asaard, Aleijha, Alaska, and Nazareth. Somehow I didn't get a picture of Nazareth, but he's a cute little baby.

Aleijha just got baptized recently, so she's just a little older than Thomas. They get along really well. All of Jayme's kids are very polite and well behaved. I'm jealous.

Alaska is such a cutie. She got her Grandad's glasses and put them on the big Santa. Then she went up and kissed him. (That's rug burn on her face.)

Haircuts

2008-11-11T22:42:00.000-08:00

Penny's hair was getting out of control. It kept getting knots and even though I'd spray it with a ton of that detangling stuff-- she'd still cry when I brushed it. I threatened to cut it off and she didn't care! So off it came.

When Jason and I first got married, he told me he had always gone to a barber and he always would go to one. I told him I was quite capable of cutting it myself. I grew up watching my mom cut hair, so something must have sunk in, right? It took some convincing, but he agreed to let me have a go. Before that I had only given my sister's friend, Brian Dever a haircut in High School. I was glad I had done that because I was able to not lie and tell Jason I had experience in cutting hair. I obviously impressed him, because he hasn't been back to the barber since.

I've cut Thomas and Sam's hair all along-- but this is the first 'real' haircut I've given Penny. When we lived in Texas she got a hold of some scissors, so I had to fix that one. She did her best to sit still this time, but a three year old is very squirmy, so it was a challenge. But I think it turned out pretty well.

The boys got haircuts too. I forgot to get 'before' pictures for them, but just refer to the Halloween pictures to see how shaggy they were.

My favorite Australian commercial

2008-11-04T03:16:00.000-08:00

This commercial cracks me up.

An Australian Halloween

2008-11-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

I LOVE Halloween. I HATE Halloween in Australia. But I was bound and determined to make it as fun as possible for the kids. And as if people don't already think I'm crazy enough-- I decided to push myself right over the edge and have a party.
Most of the kids that came said it was the first Halloween party they had ever been to. I wanted everything to be perfect (it turned out a far cry from perfect, but the kids had a blast). I made up a playlist of a bunch of Halloweeny songs-- which of course included Thriller. I made jello with gummy snakes in it. I had green juice. I put up all the Halloween decorations I had (which sadly aren't that many). And believe it or not, I actually cleaned my house. And now, here I am blogging about it, with my house still in shambles. But hey, I have to have my priorities in order which is why I'm sitting right here right now.
Halloween isn't a very celebrated holiday here. When I first came here I heard people calling it a pagan holiday. Whatever. Losers. They're just jealous because they've missed out on the best holiday ever. One parent that dropped her daughter off here asked me what Halloween was about. I told her I thought it had something to do with celebrating the dead, but to me it was all about dressing up and getting candy.
*By the way, I don't know who this kid is, I just thought it was cute and it helped break up all these boring words.

All week I've been cutting out Thomas' sandwiches in Halloween shapes. Space is limited, so I could only work with a few: a bat, a witch's hat, and a ghost. So on Halloween I made Penny a ghost sandwich too. I wanted to take a picture of her and she was smiling-- which was fine, but I wanted her to look scared. So I told her to have a scared face and she said, "I'm not afraid of ghosts. I can punch them, see?"

Thomas was this skeleton guy. I think he just chose this so he wouldn't have to wear his glasses.

Penny was a fairy. She was so excited she managed to give herself a double chin.

Sam was a pirate-- but right here he reminds me more of Pancho Villa.

I love these pictures. Penny knew darn well how cute she looked, and she was so excited she couldn't contain herself. She had her arms around her brothers and was singing one of her made up songs (she has MANY). She was singing, "Oh ya! You guys are my boyfriends!" In one picture you can even see her doing a little dance. She is such a crack up.

Isn't Penny SO DANG CUTE?!? Now I'm tempted to dye her hair blue permanently. Ha ha. But after a while she started to complain (she's very good at that) that she was all itchy. So she ditched the wig somewhere and later she changed her outfit as well. She still looked cute in her new outfit-- one she's worn to dance. She reminds me of Shirley Temple in her pink dress (you can see her later on, but not very good).

Amber was the first one to show up. A while ago Thomas told me that Amber was his girlfriend. So of course Jason and I have teased him about that. So when they were making their bags, Thomas said, "And mummy, I am NOT in love with Amber!" Okay-- so that described the first picture.
In the second picture-- and this cracked me up-- Amber leaned toward Thomas and said in her cute little accent, "Now Thomas, tell the truth." And then Thomas confessed, "Okay, we're boyfriend and girlfriend." TOO FUNNY!!!
(Thomas must have a thing for brunettes. In Texas, his first girlfriend, Katy, had brown hair too.)

This is Mayra. She does daycare at her house just up the street and that's where Penny and Sam go. She is wonderful. She's from Guatemala but has been here for quite a while. This is her daughter Isabella-- or Bella as we always call her. Penny calls Bella her sister-- so sweet! Mayra grew up celebrating Halloween too, so I think she was happy to finally go to a Halloween party.

I knew that none of the kids would have trick or treat bags-- so I had them make their own. I had a ton of construction paper and lots of paper bags, so they were kept busy.

My biggest disappointment at the party: the cupcakes. As usual I was running behind and didn't get to decorate the cupcakes before the kids arrived. No problem, I'd just do them while they were decorating their bags. I was going to use green frosting and make the cupcakes look like Frankenstein. So I pull out my tub of frosting-- brought all the way from America along with the rest of my year supply. I open it up to add the food coloring and it just didn't look right. It had a ton of oil on the top. No biggie-- I'll just mix it up really good. Then I started having visions of a room full of puking kids, poisoned by my cupcakes. I tasted it and I'll admit that it tasted a bit 'off', but still thought it might be fine. So I start looking around for an expiration date: September 2007. Yes, I brought already expired food across the world just to throw it away. Mayra came over and I told her I was having a dilemma. She said, "Oh it should be fine if it's within 3 months." I explained it wasn't. So she said, "Probably even 6 months would be fine." I proceeded to tell her it was 2 years. Surprisingly, she didn't freak out at this weird American. She even tasted it! She agreed with me though-- it was a bit off. Luckily my mother-in-law had some chocolate frosting at home. So the poor kids missed out on my Frankenstein cupcakes. There's always next year!

Yes I know this picture is lousy, but it was the only one I managed to take of the kids bobbing for apples. After they got one they brought it over to me where I dipped in it caramel and set it aside to cool. Actually, it would have been fine to eat right then-- but as if I wanted something that sticky being eaten by kids running all through the house.

In a house full of sugar crazy kids, somehow I wasn't paying attention to Penny. She had been putting sprinkles on her cupcake, which was fine by me. But then I realized she was shaking the sprinkles directly into her mouth. There you go, cut out the cupcake middle man and put the sugar right where it belongs.

When I was trying to find Halloween games online-- the one that was on every site was this mummy wrapping game. I had bought 18 rolls of toilet paper, thinking that I'd let every kid get wrapped. Holy cow the kids just went berserk. There was toilet paper EVERYWHERE. In the first round I had Thomas and his 'girlfriend' Amber racing against each other. I don't know if anyone ever even kept track of who won-- they just kept going and going and going...

You'd think these two were twins, but they're not. This is Nan and Grandad's neighbor's. Emilie on the left is in kindergarten with Malcolm, and Aimee on the right isn't in school yet. I wasn't sure if all the kids would have costumes, so I left my costume box out for them to look through. So they looked more like twins before the pink high heels and mermaid skirt. They're such cute girls. Every once in a while I'll find a cute note they drew and put in the mailbox for me. Cuties.

We only walked down the road to Cameron and Samuel's to trick or treat. I know the second picture is pretty poor quality, but I wanted to include it to show why it's hard to trick or treat here: a LOT of walking. It wouldn't be so bad in a city, but out here in the sticks most everyone has acreage-- so even though the twins' house is a about 4 houses away-- it took a bit to get there because of all the 'extra' land in between.

This is what I found when I came back home. Thomas, Cameron and Samuel had pulled down all the spiderweb and and wrapped themselves up in it.
In the first picture you can see Sam tormenting Penny in the background. I swear that those two were born to break me. They've triumphed.
The second picture down you can see Pirate Sam took it upon himself to come and get the boys with a sword that another pirate left behind.

This one is Cameron. He was showing me his eye candy and I thought the picture turned out really cool.

This dog came waddling over to the kids. It's the fattest dog I've ever seen! And on top of it's obesity, they said it's almost completely blind. Poor thing.

Me and my pirate. I stole this shirt from Thomas. I had planned on wearing a black wig-- but when i pulled it out at the last minute it was all squashed. So this little witches hat was the next best thing.

The actual day

2008-10-24T03:58:00.001-07:00

This is a long post with lots of pictures. But you've come to expect that from me, haven't you?

In my family it's a tradition for the whole family to wake the birthday person up by singing Happy Birthday to them. As usual, Sam breaks the mold. He is always the first one up. Usually he just tottles around, entertaining himself. But when I heard him on his birthday morning, I put him in bed with daddy and I was going to wake up the other kids to bring them in to sing, but I just couldn't wake those little sleeping angels (that's the ONLY time they're angels). So I brought him out to the couch to watch Toy Story 2 until the others came to life. Once Thomas and Penny came out, they went in to our bed and then we sang to Sam. He loved it.

We've been trying to downsize everything lately. I'll admit that I tend to go overboard on birthdays (or Christmas) and get way too many presents. So poor Sam only got to open three things: a very cute homemade card from brother and sis, cars from daddy, and a farm truck from mummy.

One of Sam's favorite breakfasts is banana milkshake. Unfortunately for him, he's a very messy kid, so he's always had his shake in a sippy cup. So for his birthday he got an 'open' cup. That's a big deal, he knew it, and he loved every second of it.

Sam was SO excited that he got his very own letter-- just for him in the mail. Of course it was from the two Greats-- Grandpa and Grandma Hatch. He was just thrilled with his $5 and his little poem from Grandma.

I was a bit worried that our day wouldn't be as fun because it was quite windy when we got to the beach. I made and brought cupcakes with us, thinking we'd have a little party there on the beach-- but we just ended up eating them right outside of our car. Good enough.

You can see the view of the beach from our car, and further down you can see the view of the beach on our drive home.

Penny was being a nut head at the beach. She was flopping around like a fish out of water. I happened to get a pose of her doing that. Then, just a few minutes later she didn't want me to even take her picture. Moody little girl. Must get that from her mother. Poor thing.

You can see in some pictures that Thomas is learning how to catch a wave. He's getting pretty good at it.

ZONKED!

Nan bought Sam a birthday cake with dinosaur lollies on it. He loved it. Foolish mummy left it on the table that night (covered of course). So guess who found it the next morning as he was tottling around?

Nathan and Evan

2008-10-23T04:17:00.000-07:00

My oldest brother, Nathan and his wife, Shelly had twin boys three days after we had Sam. We lived ten minutes away from them in Texas-- and loved it. (So why did we move here again???)
Happy birthday Nathan and Evan! We love and miss you both!

We love and miss you too Abby!

Sam the Brain

2008-10-19T02:19:00.001-07:00

Sam was holding one board...

... but he wanted to hold two.

He couldn't quite get it...

... so he decided to put his mouth to good use.

He was making some progress...

... but then just gave up.

Sam the brain.

2 Years Old

2008-10-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

Sam was a bit of a surprise. I got pregnant with him when Penny was 8 months old. My mom got 5 grandboys in one year, and Sam was one of them. Nathan and Shelly had twins Nathan and Evan, Calvin and Sanya had Carter, and Jordan and Tamra had Bryce.

Aunt Tara (my youngest sister) came to visit us in Texas, so she stayed with the kids while we went to the hospital. I was quite anxious because Thomas and Penny were both 9 days early, and weighed 9 pounds 7 ounces and 8 pounds 5 ounces. So I didn't want to have another huge baby. I went in to have my water broke the day before his due date. That was at 11ish and I had him soon after 1pm. The nurse had checked me a couple of times, and I was worried because things weren't going that fast. She came in and checked me, and I was at a 5. She washed her hands and was writing down my information. I told her that all of the sudden I felt pressure down there. She checked me again-- even though she JUST had. Her eyes got really big and she called the doctor and nurses. She turned around, pointed at me and said, "If you push at all I'll be delivering that baby." I didn't push. But luckily the doctor was very fast. Sam was my smallest baby at 8 pounds 4 ounces. He had bruises on his face, and the nurse said it was because he dropped so fast.

What can I say about Sam? Maybe without him I could have had a shot at still being sane. No, but honestly, what is it about the third one putting you over the edge? I guess just being out-numbered. But we all love Sam. I'm sure he'll always be the life of the party. He's an absolute crack up. He loves his brother and sister. He's a definite daddy's boy.

We sure do love our Sam boy!

Birthday Boy

2008-10-18T03:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm only going to do one more lot of pictures after this. It was so hard to whittle them down!

We did go to the beach today-- although it was a bit cold. I usually try to make cool cakes for my kids-- but I just did cupcakes so we could have them at the beach. I'll post those pictures later-- these pictures are just Sam through the years. Through the whole two years.

Happy Birthday Sam!

2008-10-17T08:12:00.001-07:00

My Sam is two today. We plan on doing two of his favorite things in the world: going to the beach and eating cupcakes. We'll see if the weather cooperates.

These pictures are the first lot of four that I'm posting. You heard right. I think maybe I take too many pictures?

I wanted to think of something clever to say about Sam, but I'm quite sleepy (from Business Time-- Flight of the Conchords). So I'll do my Ode to Sam later.

Flight of the Conchords

2008-10-13T23:55:00.000-07:00

***not suitable for little ears-- it has a couple of cuss words***

These guys are freaking hilarious. Every time I watch them I die laughing. So dang funny. This is a show about two New Zealanders (Kiwi's) who go to New York trying to make it big with their 'band'. They have a friend from New York who thinks he knows everything. In these clips they are being bullied by an Indian.

These clips aren't that long-- and I promise you'll laugh. If you don't, you are a descendant of a retarded monkey.

Cinco de Mayo

2008-10-13T04:25:00.000-07:00

Do my kids look a bit younger here? I took these pictures back in MAY. Yes, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. Back then I thought I was overwhelming everyone with all of my beach pictures, so I was trying to break things up. Problem is, I forgot about them. So here they are in all their splendor.

These were taken at Currumbin Beach-- which is right by Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we got to pet the kangaroos.

Last Saturday

2008-10-12T03:25:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday most everyone reading this was watching Conference. Not us! We went to the beach and the drive-in movie theater!

When I first came to Australia 10 years ago, we would get Conference a couple months after the real thing. Now we only have to wait a week. So today I got to watch it, although I only watched the Saturday sessions so far (loved Wirthlin's talk and of course the choir of primary kids was just so cute).

Anyway, back to last Saturday: we went to Broadbeach. It's still too cold to get in the water, so the kids just played in the sand. It's just nice to be at the beach. And as you can see from the pictures: yes, I'm a horrible mother and I let my 3 year old wear a bikini (good thing there's not a picture of me on here!). Doesn't she look like Maryanne from Gilligan's Island?

After that we headed home so we could get ready to go to the drive-in. Jason cleaned out the back of his work truck and we threw in as many blankets and pillows as we could find. It was still uncomfortable. We saw WALL-E. I still don't know what my verdict is on it, but the kids liked it. I had popped some popcorn at home before we left because I'm a cheapo. Every time I go to the movie's I always sneak something to eat-- I guess that's my way of sticking it to the man. But I NEVER start to eat until the real movie starts. So as soon as the movie started I handed the kids their popcorn (aren't those bowls cute? They were our Christmas present last year from Jordan and Tamra). Of course it was pitch black-- but I still had to take a picture. No one was impressed with that-- it was too bright.

Of course it wouldn't be an Allison post if I didn't find something to complain about. It's been FOREVER since I've been to the drive-ins in America. Here it cost $26, and Penny and Sam were free. If we would've stayed to see the next movie too it would have been $36. And to go back to my Stepbrothers post: just for me and Jason to go to that matinee cost $30. I miss American prices.

p.s. For some unknown reason, about every 5 years Jason shaves his goatee off. It's off in these pictures. What do you think?

Another Saturday

2008-10-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

Today we had to go get photos done with Jason's family. I really don't want to talk much about it (that will be yet another memory I'll have to block), but no joke at all: the worst photographer in America could be the best one here. Enough said.

Tonight we went to Jason's cousin's birthday party. It was her 21st and that's a big birthday here. (I don't know why it's such a big deal because you can drink here at 18-- and most of Jason's family aren't members, so they definitely drink {like most Australians}.) But we had fun. We saw lots of family that we hadn't seen since our wedding (10 years ago). They had a live band (a one man band-- ha ha, that sounds funny, but he played the guitar, sang, and used his laptop and speakers for the rest). He had strobe lights too, which my kids just loved. They're probably going to go blind from watching them so close, and deaf from the big speakers.

I know these pictures suck-- but I only had my small camera.

-Penny and Sam hanging out with Uncle Peter (Jason's next younger brother).
-Penny with her twin, Aunt Rachel (Jason's only sister).
-Jason's cousin dancing with the little kids. You can see Jason's mum in the pink shirt on the left. Sam is being a goofball on the right.
-More of Sam being a goofball.

This is Sam sitting on Jason's mum's dad's lap (got it?). Sitting next to him in the light blue is Jason's mum's mum. Next to her is her friend (no they're not lesbians although they do everything together). Standing up is Jason's grandfather's wife, who used to be Jason's nan's best friend. How scandalous.

Proof

2008-10-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

Here's proof that I don't just sit on my arse all day.

Penny loved her dress, but it also came with a pattern for a little purse, so she won't stop asking me to make that too. So I'll be posting more pictures once I've made that. By the way-- I'm including pictures of my ugly face because of Melissa's request. I do agree with her though: all the mom's out there need to have more pictures of themselves on their blogs (except me).

I know these hooded towels are way too big, but their other ones were way too small. Thomas said he likes his the way it is, but I think I'll make some adjustments to Penny's and Sam's. (I made Penny a pink one, but she wasn't in the mood for a picture). And eventually I'll embroider their names on them.

Is there ANYTHING cuter???

2008-10-06T22:45:00.001-07:00

Can you believe this is Penny's VERY FIRST time at dance? I was shocked how much she participated. Can you hear what she tells me to do at the very end? (Watch it first to see if you can tell, but the answer is in the comments.)

Dancing Queen

2008-10-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Penny has been going to dance class for a very long time now. The only thing is, it's been pretend. She has been going to her 'Dance Nation' (don't know where she got that from) for quite some time. But we thought we'd finally take her to a real dance class.

Her dance meets every week here at Jimboomba (Australian Benson). Penny was so excited when the real day came that she actually let me do her hair like a princess. (I only got a couple of pictures her first day but I got lots of video-- I'll post some later.)

We went to the new 'cheap shop' in town and Penny loved these pink braids. So for her second time at dance I put them in her hair. After I got her ready I started getting myself ready to go. All of the sudden I realized it was quiet-- and that's usually a bad sign in our house. But I was pleasantly surprised when I found her in her bathroom admiring herself. She didn't see me for a while. Then I just had to grab the camera-- but I was happy she didn't act different. She even kept playing peek-a-boo with herself! Too cute.

Penny was pretty pleased with her outfit this day (below). Can you tell? At her dance they do this thing where all the girls are spread out and then they all have to put their heads on the floor as if they're hiding. Then a helper comes and puts a blanket over one of the girls and everyone has to guess who's under the blanket. This was Penny's third time at dance and they chose her! She had a good day.

I bought some new hair clips and Penny kept bugging me to wear some. I finally decided this would be the day. She was so excited. Some of these poses are in front of her dance class.

I raided the dress-up box for this ensemble (below). I spent lots of time, as always, getting Penny ready for dance this day. She even got perfume. But I had lots of errands to run and Jason just so happened to come home early that day, so he volunteered to take her to dance. I made it a big point to tell him what time to be there and all that jazz. So I was at first pissed but then worried when I came back home and his truck was still here. I came inside to find Jason and Penny playing the Xbox! I was just about to rip Jason a new one for forgetting when he said that he actually took Penny up there and she started crying and didn't want to go! Oh well.

This was at her latest class. She loved the butterfly I put in her hair. She also had sticker earrings and a bracelet on. I was trying to get her to do a pose where I'd be able to see her bracelet, and she just didn't understand what I was telling her I guess. But Sam came up and saw his sis and tried to do what she was doing too.

I can't forget about Penny's fans! Thomas usually just catches the bus and goes to Nan's on dance days, but today I grabbed him as well. So while Penny danced her heart out I followed Thomas and Sam around the hall. I love the last poses where Sam sees Thomas doing something so he has to come and copy his brother.

Step Brothers

2008-10-01T04:14:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not know, my 7 year old Thomas goes to a year-round school. In fact, I think all schools in Australia are year-round. Right now he's on a two week break. So Nan and Grandad took the kids out today. Penny and Sam are sleeping in their beds right now, but Thomas got to stay out and go camping for the night. (We all miss him: at prayer Penny told us to call Thomas and tell him to come home. Okay, here I go again with my dang honesty: Penny's not actually in her bed, she's in ours because she said she's too scared without Thomas here.)

Anyway-- back to my point. Because the kids were taken care of today, Jason and I decided to take advantage of our freedom. Well, I kind of talked Jason into ditching half a day of work to watch a movie with me. We were meeting in Brown's Plains (Australian Tucson-- a hole {no offence Gretch-- keep in mind I live in the Australian St. David-- no offence Melissa, Erin and Wendy}) for insurance junk. *On a side note: I now have my Medicare card which means I can go to the doctor for free! Woo hoo! Jason has always been free and the kids have recently become free since they are now officially American/Australian citizens.

Holy cow I keep going off on tangents (is that really how you spell that word? The spell check didn't say different). Anyway-- so after we were done with our business, I showed Jason a brand new packet of Mint Slices (yummy cookies) that I had hidden in my bag (no I didn't steal them, this was a premeditated move), and I told him I'd share them with him if he came to a movie with me. I was hoping Batman was still playing, but nope. I'm actually glad it wasn't showing because I went with my youngest brother's advice to see Step Brothers. I'll admit right now that it's not a movie that everyone would like. They did use the F word quite a lot. But still, Jason and I were absolutely cracking up the whole time! I kept covering my mouth up because not everyone else was laughing. I couldn't help it-- just crude hilarious humor. I wish to heck that Zack could've been right there with us. Thanks for suggesting it Zack.

On yet another side note: I already knew most of the lines in the movie because Zack practically told me the whole thing after he saw it. Not that I'm complaining-- I was glad he did so then it could sink in twice. (How is it that guys can see a movie once and have it memorized?) I remember one time after my folks had gone on a date and saw Groundhog Day-- my step Dad did the same thing as Zack: practically told us the whole movie! And it's not just that he told us a ton of the lines, but it was how he was covering his mouth to stop from laughing just by remembering it! Like father like son.

So bottom line: if you're a closet sinner (thanks for that term Erin) like I am-- you'll probably like this movie.

Pip and Toot

2008-09-29T02:20:00.001-07:00

Back in April we bought Pip. I liked her at first, but she started getting into trouble. We figured it was because she was bored, so we got her a boyfriend. I definitely like Toot more than Pip. They both bark at kangaroos, which is a problem when they're quite common around here. Other than that, they're pretty good dogs. Pip is still an idiot though.

If only...
maybe if Pip would have stayed this cute (below) I might still like her. But I kinda doubt it.

I didn't even realize what was going on in this picture until I downloaded it. When I potty train my kids, they pretty much go naked so I don't have a ton of laundry. Yep, good mom. So I knew that Sam was naked in the picture, but I didn't realize that Pip had Sam's pacifier!

Packages from Home

2008-09-27T23:25:00.000-07:00

My mom sent us a package because as usual I was complaining. I just wrote that doughnuts are like bricks here-- and so are marshmallows. It sucks. So my mom sent us lots of goodies including marshmallows. Later we roasted the mallows in the backyard.

*Notice in the last picture that Thomas and Penny are already fighting.

Sam's birthday is coming up in October and Thomas' is in January, so my Grandma and Aunt Cindy sent a package. Of course they included Penny in the mix too. They all gathered around eager to open it up. As usual they had to do lots of silly poses.

After the box was opened and everyone was grabbing everything, Penny asked, "Where's the pink?". She was thrilled when she found something for her. Later as they were standing up to show off what they got-- Penny kept squatting. I couldn't figure out what she was doing, but she said she was 'being sweet'.

My new favorite picture.

Saturday is a special day...

2008-09-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

...ya right-- it blows!

But at least we left this stupid town. It's still a bit too cold to go to the beach, so for some weird reason I thought it'd be fun to go to a mall. Not fun. But we did manage to perk up our day a bit after finding Krispy Kreme doughnuts! There are lots of other doughnut places here-- but their doughnuts are like bricks. Doughnuts are supposed to be light and fluffy. So we finally got that today-- at a mere $30. A dozen glazed doughnuts cost $15. Two dozen costs $25. But to buy one dozen glazed and we could pick the other dozen was $30. So we went with that. I'm a cheapskate-- so usually I like to have something to look at for the money I spend. But I guess I'll just have to look at the extra chub on my backside for monetary satisfaction.

Sunday Best

2008-09-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know these poses are very similar-- but I still had to throw on a couple just because they're all so cute. This was the other week after church. This is the lake/park at the bottom of the mountain/hill our church is on.

Can you tell my kids are moles? Just like daddy. I remember being a kid and my mom would always have us face the sun for pictures and it was so hard not to squint. But come on! Thomas especially-- he had his eyes closed in nearly every picture. And notice Thomas' teethy smile I've been trying to break him of? Even with the squints and teethy smiles they're still darn cute.

Guess and Answer

2008-09-22T05:02:00.000-07:00

I thought the kids of my blog buddies would get a kick out of this. Guess what it is? I'm sure you'll be able to guess what it is, but guess how it got there?

I was going to explain what it is and how it got there, but I thought it'd be funner to see some guesses. I'll give you a couple of days to think it over.

By the way... it's kind of gross, if you couldn't already tell.

Okay-- here's the answer. This is another one of those times when I was absolutely kicking myself for not having my camera. The other morning I drove Thomas to school and thought maybe a rag or plastic bag was stuck on the telephone wires (or whatever wires they were). But when I looked closer it was this unfortunate bat who touched both wires at the same time. So there you go: it's an electrocuted bat. By the time I had a camera it had fallen down by the fence. That would have been the coolest-- and yes, grossest picture. Dangit.

Where's my camera when I need it?

2008-09-17T23:35:00.000-07:00

I'm so mad at myself! I usually carry a camera in my bag, but for some reason I didn't have it with me on these two very important events.

First: When I picked Thomas up from school today there was a kangaroo hopping around by the playground. How dang cool is that??? I see a lot of kangaroos and wallabies, but not at a school, and never at the playground. Doofus brain! That would have been an awesome picture.

Second: After years and years of my flirting drought, it FINALLY happened. Yes folks, that's right: I got whistled at. What a glorious day. Not only did I get whistled at, but it happened while i was pushing my kids in their stroller. So here I am-- dangerously close to my thirties, with two kids in tow, and I got a whistle from someone coming up behind me. And on top of the whistle I got a head sticking out the window after he passed to get an even better look. Oh ya. I've still got it.

Now that's where I should end my story. But for some reason I have this conscience that tells me to tell the truth. Dang it. Okay, so when that whistler stuck his head out the window-- he looked freakishly close to this guy:

Where's my camera when I need it???

Heaps of Videos

2008-09-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

2008-09-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

Kangaroos Galore

2008-09-11T22:56:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite part of Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary: the kangaroo field. It is the coolest thing to go right up to kangaroos and pet them, or to have them hop up to you to see if you have anything to eat.

I couldn't believe the kids could even reach into the mummy's pouch and pet the joey inside! I got pictures with Thomas and Penny doing that. There's one picture where the joey's legs were sticking out of the pouch instead of the head.

I love this picture! It was so sweet to see Thomas 'hugging' the kangaroo.

I was surprised this kangaroo was still nursing-- he looked pretty big.

I couldn't even tell that there was a joey in this pouch until it was wiggling around and moving the mom's tummy. Then it opened up a bit and you could see the little baby inside.

Mummy and Joey eat some grass.

The feeding line.

Typical Sam. The first picture he's shoving a stick into a poor kangaroo's face. Then he's sitting on the bench with Jason, and he has to get wiped off after playing with kangaroo poop. That's my Sam.

I love the picture with Jason by the drinking kangaroos (below and to the right). It looks like he's talking to an old mate.

There is something disturbing about a bird this big. And yes, that's a pigeon next to emu poop. It's a good thing that emu's don't fly, because that would be a big mark on the windshield.

Thomas was in heaven. His favorite was the big red kangaroo (can you tell?). He sat with that one for quite a while. He would rub it while it slept, and sometimes it would start to scratch itself, so Thomas would help him out. Then the kangaroo would relax again and cover it's eyes. It was the funniest thing to see. Thomas was so interested in him. He tried to hold the kangaroos 'hand' and he couldn't believe how heavy it's tail was.

It was funny watching the way Penny acted with the kangaroos. At first it was like she was holding back-- but near the end she really let loose. My favorite is where it looks like she was yelling at the kangaroo. She wasn't, she was so excited that she was just being silly.

I didn't get that many pictures of Sam at all-- he was all over the place. It seems like the whole time we were there I was telling him to stop whatever he was doing. In this picture he's trying to feed the kangaroo some dirt.

Who can spot Jason in this crowd?

I found this series of pictures to be hilarious. There's Thomas-- having his own little moment with this kangaroo. Along comes Sam. Thomas pushes Sam away. Sam runs away in a hissy. Classic.

Yes, this is a picture of me taking a picture of a guy's buttcrack.(watch for my upcoming buttcrack post)

Koalas

2008-09-10T05:38:00.000-07:00

FYI: If you ever want to piss an Australian off-- call a koala a koala bear. 'They're not bears, they're marsupials' they'll tell you.

Regardless of what they are, they are adorable. This koala's name is Lily. We thought that was funny because we've thought of that name if another girl ever comes (which will hopefully be never-- I'm DONE). But she was so cute and soft. But koalas do have long claws-- which is why that lady had that thing on her arm.

Can you spot all the koalas in the trees?

(By the way... the bottom koala isn't Lily.)

2008-09-10T04:35:00.000-07:00

These bearded dragons were everywhere! As soon as we walked in there was one on the footpath. We saw SO many that day. They were funny-- they kept shaking their heads like they were saying 'yes' a lot.

Aren't dingoes cute? Don't they just look like dogs? But I learned that they're closer related to wolves than dogs. So they don't bark, they howl.

I thought that possum was so dang cute. All the Kiwi's (New Zealanders) in the audience weren't impressed though. Possums were introduced to New Zealand and they over-populated and are now pests there. Still, that would be a cute pest!

There was a lot of ground to cover there. We did an awful lot of walking, but we also had to catch the train a couple of times for the kids. Well... okay... it was more for mom and dad.

Isn't that tree so cool? There are so many cool trees here like that. Even right in the cities. So neat. The last shots were us waiting for the train. I've been giving Thomas a hard time lately, because in pictures instead of smiling he basically just shows me his teeth. So when I was telling him to smile-- he just decided to hide his teeth altogether.

Crocs

2008-09-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

These huge fake crocs were cool. Penny was scared until she had her brothers with her. Sam was trying to scare the crocodile.

These smaller boring fresh water crocs weren't much to look at. We had passed those crocs and were waiting with all the other people there for the crocodile feeding to start. That's when I saw this humongous salt water croc. I'm not kidding-- the size of it caught me off guard. Jason was shocked when I said something not very lady like (who am I kidding-- I didn't shock him at all). The salt water one is the one on the left by the water. You can't tell from the picture, but it was massive. They said it's the largest one in captivity. Absolutely gigantic.

Birds

2008-09-10T02:40:00.001-07:00

We wanted to take this owl home with us, it was so cool. When we first saw it it had a dead baby chick in it's claw while it sat on it's branch. If you look in the picture, you can see a couple of dead mice on the branches behind it. Then it put the chick in it's mouth and came down to get closer to us. It really seemed like it was trying to share it's food with us. So cute.

This eagle opened an emu egg by cracking it with a rock. There was also a wedge-tailed eagle that I didn't get a picture of, but it was pretty impressive. We arrived to the show a little late, so we were just standing by the side. Before they brought out the HUGE eagle, they made us sit down and everyone had to keep their kids close. I'm sure they were being a bit dramatic, but they did say that the eagle picks up wallabies, kangaroos, and even emus! Crazy.

Snakes and a Two-Headed Lizard

2008-09-09T23:50:00.000-07:00

This shingleback lizard was so freaky! When she brought it out I literally kept blinking my eyes because I couldn't figure out how it had two heads. I wish I had more pictures because I swear it looked like a freak of nature. She said these lizards use their tail to lure other animals-- making them think the tail is the head. When the other animals go to attack their supposed 'head', the real head snaps up and gets them instead.

I wasn't surprised when Thomas went to touch this snake, but I was shocked when I saw my little Penny touching it. I wonder if she's my real daughter...

Sam was pretty la-di-da about all the animals he saw, but he was impressed with this lizard. Thomas and Penny liked these big pythons wrapped up in the trees. I didn't even notice until I looked at the pictures closely that there was a tree frog just sitting on the tree by the snake.

Many more pictures to come...

2008-09-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. We all loved it. I took way too many pictures-- close to 400. So out of those pictures I narrowed it down to just over 100 that I'm going to post. I'll do that soon-- I just thought I'd warn everyone that I was going to be posting a ton of pictures. I was thinking about just doing Smilebox or Slide-- but they crop things out of the picture that I want in. So anyway-- for tonight I'm just posting this one picture, but the flood will come. Enjoy.

Wallabies and Roos

2008-09-03T04:01:00.000-07:00

This first picture is of wallabies. The bottom video is too. They were both on the same mountain where our church is.

I like wallabies more than kangaroos. I just think they're cuter. Wallabies are just smaller.
These bottom pictures are kangaroos. I was talking to my friend, Melissa the other day (love her!) and she couldn't wait to show her daughters some pictures of kangaroos. So I thought I'd put this picture in of Jason in front of some roos. You can probably get within 20-30 feet before they jump away. This is the corner just in front of our house. I love the way the one on the left is just lounging.

My High School Tag for Gretchen

2008-08-27T04:21:00.001-07:00

1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes, what else was there to do in St. David?

2. What kind of car did you drive? My dad's killer '77 F150 Ford. I loved that thing and am sad that I ended up selling it.

3. Were you a party animal? Yes, I threw myself pity parties all the time. I still do.

4. Were you considered a flirt? I don't know, you tell me...

5. Were you in band, orchestra or choir? I played the flute in band. My mom made me join choir when Glennis Merrill came, and I did like her until she told my then crushes mom that I wasn't a good influence. What was that about? Come on man, where was the love Glennis?

6. Were you a nerd? Heck no. Although I did get good grades thanks to my brothers and sister who made good with all the teachers for me. Just try telling me that SD teachers weren't into favoritism.

7. Were you on any varsity teams? Same answer as Gretchen's: I was a cheerleader. Go Team!

8. Did you ever get suspended or expelled? No, but Gregor made me stand with my nose against the wall for a whole 5 minutes. I should have been embarrassed, but I was actually kind of proud of myself.

9. Can you still sing the fight song? ...what was it?

10. What was your school's full name? St. David Tigers.

11. School mascot? Tiger. FYI: my oldest brother Nathan was the first one to wear the real suit-- not that piece of crap homemade thing.

12. Did you go to Homecoming and with who? I went stag a couple times I think. I'm sure I went with Jeremy Deskins. I don't really remember anyone else, but there may have been more.

13. If you could go back and do it again, would you? HELL NO!!! Okay, so I know I bash St. David a lot-- but to tell the truth I did like living there. I liked pretty much everybody and had some good times, but I still wouldn't do it all over again.

14. What do you remember most about graduation? I liked Ginni Bryce's speech. I remember I wanted to sing Pink Floyd's We Don't Need No Education, but the teachers wouldn't let us. Jerks. And yes Gretchen, I did have on clear shoes (not heels though). And believe it or not I wore those same shoes to my wedding! Very classy. I'm a classy kind of girl. (chuckle chuckle snort)

15. Where did you go senior skip day? Does that mean the senior trip? Our class was lame and went to Mesa or something. I didn't want to go, and so me and a few other girls got a hotel in Tucson. Wait a minute... I chose Tucson over Mesa? WTF? No, we had fun. Other than the part when we were in the spa and a homeless lady came in and started shaving. That's not a joke.

16. Were you in any clubs? I think you had to be in a club, so I chose FHA over FFA. Sorry Napoleon Dynamite.

17. Have you gained some weight since then? After three kids my stomach looks like a deflated balloon, and yes, there are some pounds that don't want to budge. Whatever. I don't care. Kind of.

18. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? I missed it because I was giving birth to my third baby.

Yes, these are the same shoes. Check out the vent holes-- so if my feet get sweaty they don't fog up. See, I told you they were classy.

Back to O'Reilly's

2008-08-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

The long and winding road...

It took 45 minutes to get to the top of this road from hell. See how narrow and winding it is? It really is the size of a one lane road. Now this road has tour buses going up and down it all the time-- and notice there's hardly any shoulder to pull off onto. Ya, it can get pretty scary. At first I was reading the kids Roald Dahl's The Witches, but I had to stop and look up because I was getting sick. But we finally made it to the top and had a blast!

2008-08-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

Last time we went to O'Reilly's, I don't know what we were thinking because it was the Easter long weekend, so it was super crowded. This time was much better. We love coming here to see and feed the birds. They're everywhere. They're not dumb, they know where the food is.

So in these pictures you'll mostly see Crimson Rosellas-- the red birds. There's also a picture of me with a male and female King Parrot. See how close I got a Rosella to my face? It was so cool.

We came prepared with bird seed so we wouldn't have to spend a fortune on a tiny sack. And yet, you can still see Sam in one of the pictures begging a lady for more seeds. And that dang kid-- the whole time we were there we were telling him to stop doing whatever he was doing: don't touch the bird poop, don't hit the birds or chase them, don't eat the seeds... it goes on and on.

In one picture you can see Penny putting seeds in her hair so a bird would land on her head. Jason got one on his hat, Thomas got a couple on his head, and so did I. I got a video of a bird landing on Penny's head. They wouldn't go near Sam-- he kept scaring them off by acting like a monster.

2008-08-22T04:25:00.000-07:00

So here it is-- the dreaded Tree Top Walk. You can see from the pictures that I opted to sit this one out while Jason just took Thomas and Penny. But then, because I'm a pushover, I ended up taking Thomas again after they went.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but you're pretty high up there with the trees. And I've posted before that this bridge reminds me of the one on Indiana Jones. In one picture Thomas and Penny are standing next to a sign (you can't see all of it) that says 6 people per span. Holy cow I hate that walk.

It was cold in the rainforest. Somehow, someone (not me) forgot to bring Penny's jacket. So for a little bit she stole Sam's. Then when Sam got cold I made her give it back, but Thomas being the good brother that he is gave Penny his jacket. That lasted for about a minute and then I gave Thomas my jacket. Once we were out of the rainforest we all took our jackets off. But isn't Thomas so sweet?

2008-08-22T04:10:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures you probably won't bother to click on to see better, but I'll put them on anyway.

Mount Lindesay-- which is a well known mountain in Queensland (Jason has hiked it), can be seen right in the middle of the picture with the big tree on the right.

You probably can't really see it, but I just loved the moss on this fence post.

It's hard to describe how I felt when I took this picture with the cows. We were surrounded by this scene, and it just seemed dreamlike.

I love this vine going up this tree. I swear that one of these times I'm going to try to climb up it like a ladder. The other vines are cool too, but the vine ladder is my favorite.

2008-08-22T03:50:00.000-07:00

So you can see the kids completely zonked out on the ride home.

Another mailbox! I forgot about this one since it was filed with the other O'Reilly pictures. Look how massive it is! I bet they only check it like once a month. People that live that high up on mountains are just weird.

I took a picture of this house on the way back down because it seemed so out of place. In the picture with the wider view (click on the picture to see it bigger) you can see the other houses around it look normal, and then you get this mansion looking place. Weird.

Jason wanted to take a picture of this other house because it looked Australian to him. This is what I would describe as an Australian house: a tiny shack on a huge chunk of land. I just don't get that.

Our stuff!

2008-08-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

So here it is. After 7 very depressing months, we finally got our stuff. It's a good thing we have a big yard so the movers could drive right up to our back door (even though Jason and his brother had to take the fence apart a bit to let the truck in). The truck arrived right before school, so we were all out there watching.

As the movers were unpacking, Penny and Sam were already playing with their 'Texas toys'. Thomas had his uncle (yes, his younger uncle) over to play with his new toys while Nan helped organize the game room. The kids managed to keep that room clean for at least two minutes.

The kids were so happy to have some American cereal the next morning. And of course they couldn't wait to watch movies on our wonderful 50 inch TV-- and while sitting on our fabulous couch. We've missed our stuff so much and are so happy to finally have it back. Yes, a lot of things got broken or damaged, but whatever. At least we have our stuff. I was really happy to see my bench from Grandma and Grandpa Hatch. I was terrified something would happen to it. Thank heaven!

My neighbor in Texas had a girl a several months before I had Sam (Sam will be 2 in October). When she had her baby, Thomas had sharpened a bunch of crayons, so he had homemade confetti. He wanted to go in the yard and throw it up in the air to celebrate the new baby. I kept telling him he could do it later... and later... and later. So when I was unpacking boxes and found that bowl full of Thomas' confetti-- I thought now would be the perfect time. Woo hoo!

fina-FREAKING-lly!

2008-08-11T05:13:00.000-07:00

This post won't be long-- but I'll post again soon (hopefully). I just wanted to share the good news that we FINALLY have our stuff!!! The last time I saw all of my possessions was in January. Now some people may say-- oh that's not too bad. BUT-- ever since January I've been wondering if I'd EVER see my stuff again. It has been a horrible nightmare-- one that I'll try to tuck away and forget because it's been that horrendous. No joke, no sarcasm: this has been the absolutely worse thing in my life. I'd rather give birth than do that again.

I had a picture I was going to put on, but for some reason I can't get it to work right now. And I'm too tired and cold to fool around with it. Like I said-- I'll post more later. I'm a bit swamped right now with the 400 boxes to go through.

Mailboxes

2008-08-03T05:13:00.000-07:00

So I've been pissing everyone off on the road trying to get pictures of some cool mailboxes. And I'm warning you that I'll be putting more on once I've got enough for a decent post.
It takes about 2 weeks to get a letter from the US-- and I'm sure it's because the poor mailman has to deliver them into all these cute mailboxes. Um, Post Offices? Come on Australia-- get with the times.
We rent-- and the homeowners here just have a boring mailbox. After getting inspired by all of these though, we decided we're going to make one for us. So I was trying to figure out what it would be. I think it should reflect the way I feel right now-- so I think we've decided on an outhouse.

***Some descriptions aren't next to the right pictures, but I'm going to trust that since you're looking at my blog, you must be smart-- and you'll be able to figure it out anyway.

This one has got to be my favorite. Come on, a microwave for a mailbox? How cool is that???

We pass this guy on the 'Tickle Tummy' road on the way to the Gold Coast. (That road is pretty fun-- as long as you aren't stuck behind a slow old mole.) This mailbox is the biggest and most creative one I've seen.

At first when I saw this bucket on a stick for a mailbox, I though it doesn't get more Australian that that. But then I found this tin can on a stick! Too funny.

I've seen lots of mailboxes around here made from old containers. This whole setup made me laugh.

Hopefully the mail doesn't fall off the wagon. Ha ha-- I'm such a dork.

Nice resting place. (below)

I had to get two shots of this one so you could see it better. For some reason it reminded me of Mrs. Lee from St. David-- probably just because she liked those masks.

I just thought this one was cute and I liked the horse in the background.

We found this one when we were going to look at a sheep and goat that we were thinking of buying (we still haven't decided-- but I'll let you know).

My stepdad would appreciate this.

A bashed and beaten little piggy.

Beer keg mailbox. And yes, Jason had to tell me it was a beer keg.

Ned Kelly. If you haven't seen the movie or don't know who he is-- just Google him because I don't feel like explaining. You can't really tell from the picture, but he's holding guns in both hands.

Ned Kelly's mask

I know I blog too much when...

2008-07-31T18:26:00.000-07:00

There I was blogging away, when all of the sudden I realized how quiet it was. That's a warning bell. So I went to investigate and this is how I found Penny. I had just organized her closet, and had even filled a box with things that weren't in season. Not only had she pulled all of her clothes out of the closet and the out of season box, she also got a chair and pulled out all of the hang up clothes. That's Penny for you.

Christmas Creek

2008-07-30T16:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, so yes-- I take forever to post things sometimes. These pictures are from March, from our long Easter weekend. This creek isn't too far away from our house-- maybe 30 minutes past Thomas' school.
We had fun. Sam just has no fear (which gives me fear). Thomas and Penny had fun getting wet. We didn't stay too long though, because some people came over and told us we were on private property. Oops.

This was our 'Baby Moses'. Jason and Thomas made this little cradle looking thing out of sticks and grass and then kept floating it down the water just like Baby Moses.

Lost in Translation

2008-07-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

Someone gave Sam this shirt. I'm not sure where it was made because the tag was in another language-- but this is exactly what the shirt says:

Hi. this is vour friend. I've me from so farto meet you.
Promise e you'll rememeberme forever!
I'll alwaysbe by your side,

Too funny.

Love at Home

2008-07-26T06:30:00.001-07:00

...well, sometimes.

2008-07-26T05:40:00.000-07:00

My kids definitely do their fair share of fighting with each other, but they do actually love each other a little bit too. These are just pictures around the house of the kids doing what they do. Thomas is at school, so there's more pictures of just Penny and Sam.

Can you tell that Penny put some makeup on all by herself?

Penny and Sam do a role reversal.

Penny drew a cute picture...upside down. Hmmm.
For those who don't know, Thomas wears a patch on his right eye to strengthen his weak left eye.

I had the vacuum out, and the first place I clean is under the shoe rack. So Penny and Sam sat down to protest.

Sam always has to do his silly "Cheese!" face.

Sam is wearing Thomas' stuffed dog's glasses.

Sam LOVES to wrestle.

Rock Sculptures

2008-07-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

On the way to church a while ago, as we were driving through Beaudesert I noticed some big rocks in a park. So on the way home we stopped to see what was going on. There were about a dozen big rocks there, and men were carving them. It was really cool. Over the next several days, we'd stop in to check on the progress.

A tight squeeze.

Thomas conquered the snake rock.

Penny and her silly faces.

The sculpture that Penny is letting her doll look up into is my favorite one. It's a face with long hair on the sides-- and below the face is a tree with an owl in it and a hand coming to get the owl. Weird, I know. That's probably why I liked it so much.

This is Sam's 'cheese' face. Anytime I pull the camera out this is what he does.

Penny and Sam check out the playtpus in the rock.

Meet the Cullens

2008-07-19T04:56:00.000-07:00

The Whole Famn Damily

Jason is the oldest in his family of seven. Malcolm and Stephanie are his parents, and everyone calls his maternal grandma 2 Nans. So it's Jason, Peter and his wife Celeste, Joseph, Rachel, Benjamin, Nathan, and Malcolm (2 years younger than Thomas!). Then of course there's me and my 3.
2 Nans and Peter and Celeste live 45 minutes away, Joseph lives 90 minutes away, Rachel lives in Sydney (13 hour drive or 1 hour flight), but the rest of the bunch lives just up the street.

I need to take more pictures of these two. I had to search to find Penny with Uncle Peter and Aunt Celeste.

With Joe at the park.

Jason, Joe and underwear wearing Sam on our back (I guess it's more like our side) porch.

Penny loves her Uncle Nathan (she also has an American uncle and a cousin named Nathan).

I took this picture from the front of our house. Penny was going with Nathan who was walking their dog, Monty.

Penny loves 2 Nans.

The kids wrestling with Grandad. Yes, there's a person under that pile of kids.

Nan entertains our kids and her youngest boy while Grandad trains for the Olympics.

Everyone says Penny is just like her Aunt Rachel. (I better watch out-- wink wink)

Penny hitching a ride on Grandad's shoulders.

Ben pushed Sam on the swings until he fell asleep.

Cousins
These are our kid's second cousins. The first pictures are from a baptism. Sam was really loving this little girl cousin. At first he wouldn't leave her alone, like he was smothering her-- but then the tables turned and he didn't like that so much.
Below: Libby has stayed the night at our house twice-- once with her older brother (I didn't pull my camera out that night). She's a cutie.

To make you jealous

2008-07-17T06:52:00.000-07:00

It's winter here, but I thought it'd be a good time to post these pictures so you can all get jealous. The beaches here really are gorgeous. These were taken in March at Kirra Beach. As you can see, we had lots of fun. And look at my sexy husband! Woo woo. Penny's swim bottoms are a bit big as you can see in the pictures. It was cute watching her run along holding on to her bottoms.

I love how when you click on the picture to see it bigger, you can see a bunch of skyscrapers way down on the coast. Gorgeous!

Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!

2008-07-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

...it's been the best 8 or 9 years of my life! (wink wink)

So here's our story: Jason was getting ready to go home from his mission when I met him in Mesa. Whenever anyone knew he was from Australia, people would tell Jason that they'd always wanted to go there. He told everyone the same thing-- to come stay with his family and he would show them around. So when I told him I'd like to go to Australia, he gave me his usual response. Little did he know that I would actually take him up on it (thanks to the money I had just saved up to buy a car that instead turned into a plane ticket). The first time we met was March 28, 1998. I arrived in Australia on a Thursday in May and we were engaged the next Friday. We were married 5 weeks after that. (Obviously I hadn't given anyone in my family enough notice to come, but they were able to come to our sealing in Arizona.)

How Jason proposed: He was going to propose on my birthday (May 31), but being Jason, he just couldn't wait. So a couple days before my birthday I was getting ready to go to a rodeo (I was rooming with Jason's sister, Rachel). Jason asked me to go with him. He took me in his room and played the song I'll Try by Alan Jackson while we danced to it. After it was over I thought he was turning down the volume on the cd player, but he came back with a ring! What a bunch of crazy kids.
By the way... for those of you who don't know, I hate country music. So with that proposal, I must have been pretty in love to say yes!

I really can't believe Jason has put up with me for all these years. I'm not a patient person at all, and I think everyone knows I'm a bit of a brat. But Jason is as patient as can be with me.
-Whenever I have to drive somewhere unfamiliar and I'm throwing my little hissy fits, he calmly let's me know I can do it (as he's emailing me different maps to follow).
-When we're eating somewhere new and I take forever to decide what to eat, he doesn't yell and scream at me like everyone else is doing inside their heads.
-When he buys something new and I call it stupid because I don't understand it, he just smiles softly, knowing that I'll soon love it.
-When I'm in a bad mood (that's often) he's not mean back to me-- but he somehow finds a way to compliment me.
-When the house is a wreck, he doesn't give me a hard time, breath heavily in disgust, or even give me a dirty look. He just starts cleaning it himself.
-When I haven't given dinner a second thought, he stops by the shops on the way home from work to pick up something to cook for me.
I could go on and on, but anything I say will just reiterate the fact that I'm a brat and Jason is perfect. So there you go-- for all you out there wondering the secret to a good marriage, you just need a brat and a perfect person for it to work.

2008-07-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

We wanted to recreate our honeymoon for our anniversary. We danced to the same song that Jason sang to me 10 years ago, and then he gave me my present: a digital camcorder. (So I'm sure you'll be seeing more videos on here now.)

Jason's Nan works at Movie World (the Australian equivalent of Six Flags), and so she was able to get us a good deal at a sister company-- Sea World. She's worked there for a while, because she did the same thing for our honeymoon. I took a picture of Jason just outside the Resort, and yes, I know it's a horrible picture-- but it'll have to do.

After we checked in we drove to the chapel we were married in. I was hoping to take the same picture poses we did on our wedding day, but they renovated and changed a lot. So we weren't able to do that, but we still posed like nerds in front of the church.

On our honeymoon, we went to a casino and we both had seafood plates. Mine had baby octopus in it, and Jason made me gag after I started to chew it because he said it would crawl out of my throat. This time we had dinner at the Resort, and we were laughing when we saw they had baby octopus at the buffet (a $65 buffet! but SO not worth it). So of course I had to prove that I still had the guts to eat it.

After dinner we were going to go to the same above mentioned casino, but on the way back to our room, my shoe broke! I got some killer shoes in Sydney (that post will come eventually), and the heel was starting to break off. Let's all shed a tear for my killer shoes. So instead of going out, we took a nice long bath. Oh, and when we first got to the hotel we both took nice long showers. I showered until my fingers were wrinkly-- yes, that's right, I used water, and I wasn't afraid to use it. So stick it, Australia! Yes, we were naughty and we totally ignored the sign in the bathroom saying to only take a 4 minute shower. (We also ignored the signs above every light saying to shut it off to save power, and we ignored the sign saying to hang our towels so we could reuse them. We did it, and we'd do it again. We felt we deserved that after 6 months of 2 minute showers. I very much enjoyed shaving my legs while the water was still running too. Sorry, are you picking up on the resentment?)

So that was our honeymoon. Thanks so much to the in-laws for watching the kids so we could enjoy each other.

p.s. Sorry the pictures are out of order-- I'm still learning.

...and, you see that picture of the food? Can you see the baby octopus sitting on top? It looked so cute. And then I ate it. But no, it wasn't alive you dorks, so don't even ask.

Sharing

2008-07-07T19:02:00.001-07:00

This is what happens when I'm too sick to care what the kids are doing. Usually I'd make them sit down to eat, but I didn't even care that they were dripping yogurt everywhere. I love how Sam is trying to eat the apple with his spoon. After they were done they put their yogurty spoons back in the drawer. Lovely.

As if I'm anywhere near a Princess, but...

2008-07-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

I actually kind of agreed with what this said...

You Are Ariel!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

A Pitiful Fourth

2008-07-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

We don't care that we're in Australia, we were still going to celebrate the greatest country in the world's independence. So we had our own little pitiful celebration for the fourth. And actually, we celebrated it on the fifth here, but that meant it was the fourth in America (we are 17 hours ahead of Arizona time).

Jason and the kids went to buy some sparklers, and we didn't realize until they opened them that they were shaped like a flower. Different. And it's been raining pretty much all day here (woo hoo, our tank is getting full), so they couldn't go too far outside with the sparklers. I stayed on the couch the whole time-- I'm not feeling well (I think it's finally time to take out my tonsils).

A little explanation: remember it's winter here, so it's cold. Also, our house isn't insulated (how dumb is that?), Thomas lost the remote to the rinky dink wall unit, and there's not a fireplace. My kids always kick their covers off at night, so to remedy that problem, I put two pairs of pj's on them to keep them warm. You can't tell in these pictures with Penny and Sam, but I wanted to explain Thomas' get up.

Dragon Fruit

2008-07-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

We had seen a Daniel Cook where he was tasting different fruit. He said his favorite was the dragon fruit, so I thought we'd give it a go. It looked like it could leave some nasty stains, so I wouldn't let the kids touch it. My fingers were red for at least a day. But it was good. Not really good, but it was good. It seemed like a combination of a fig and a kiwi. It tasted like a fig, but had all those seeds in it like a kiwi. Anyway, I had seen it at the grocery store for $15 a kilo (2.2 pounds)-- but I got this at a fruit market for $3. I'd be interested to know how much they are in the land of the free...

p.s. I know that Sam is too old to have a pacifier, but he had a virus when I took this. He would just whine and whine unless I stuck his 'plug' in.

3 Things

2008-07-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

Tagged Again
3 Joys
-Jason
-Peace & Quiet
-I would say my kids, but they stomp out the peace and quiet

3 Fears
-Anything bad happening to my teeth (you're not alone Sarah)
-Snakes, I hate hate hate them
-Getting chased. I can't play tag or hide 'n seek because if someone is just about to get me I scream and stop running

3 Goals
-Get organized
-Clean my house a LOT more often
-Try harder...at everything

3 Current Obsessions/Collections
-Anything American (God bless her)
-Blogging
-I love anything that's mini-- but I don't collect anything (I have enough crap)

3 Random/Surprising Facts
-I've never broken a bone and have only had 6 stitches in my chin (other than childbirth stuff you don't want to hear about)
-I wear my retainer every night (I wouldn't normally need to, but with all the stress lately I clench my teeth at night-- and if I don't have my retainers in, my teeth start to move around)
-I was in a radio commercial in High School. Cochise College was offering up to 2 free college classes to St. David Seniors, and I was the only one who took advantage of it-- and that's how I got on the commercial. They wanted me to say who I was and what I wanted to do in the future. I didn't have any definite plans as to what I wanted to do, other than travel (I haven't changed either). But with the persistence of the DJ and my mom, I ended up saying that I wanted to further my education and travel. I never took any more college.

I Forgot...

2008-06-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

I forgot to put this picture on the frog post. This is at Thomas' school. Scary, huh?

Also...
People always ask if the water really spins in the opposite direction here (in the toilet). It's hard to tell, because it doesn't really spin, it just kind of splashes down. Maybe one day I'll record it so you can see for yourself.

But can you see the button thing on top you push to flush? They all look different, but there's always two buttons: I'm sure you can guess that one button has a more powerful flush. When I first arrived in Australia, we went to the mall and I went to the bathroom there. Luckily Jason's sister was in there too so I could ask her how to flush. Some buttons are marked, some aren't. On this toilet pictured it has two equal sized buttons, but on one side it's marked in half. Some toilets have one small button and one big one. Like I said, they're all different, but they do the same thing. So there's your Australian Toilets 101.

5 Things

2008-06-29T19:01:00.000-07:00

5 things on my to do list:
-get dressed
-clean my messy house
-buy a dryer so I don't have to hang dry
-try to find another house to rent since I hate this one
-figure out what's for dinner

5 jobs I've had:
-Baskin Robbins
-Village Inn (hostess with the mostest)
-Cold Stone Creamery (my favorite)
-Mother of 3
-Sex slave

5 places I've lived:
-St. David, Arizona
-Aurora, Colorado
-Mesa, Arizona
-Cypress, Texas (my favorite)
-Cedar Vale, Queensland Australia

5 favorite snacks:
-Reeses (they don't have them here-- hint hint)
-Chocolate covered honeycomb
-Kingsons (Australian cookie)
-Tim Tams (see 'favorite things' post)
-Whatever looks good

5 things you don't know about me:
-I love to sew (nothing complicated, mind you)
-I check my friends' blogs every day
-I check to see if anyone commented on my blog several times a day (yes, I'm that pathetic)
-I HATE to iron (for Jason's recent birthday present I ironed his work uniforms-- and believe me, that was a big deal)
-I'm NOT a social butterfly. I just heard this on an old English movie, Billy Liar, and I was so happy to hear someone else saying the same thing that I think:
"I don't like knowing everybody. I don't like becoming a part of things. What I'd like to be is invisible. I'd like to be able to move around without having to explain anything."

5 things I'd do if I was a billionaire:
-Get out of debt and make sure I never got in it again
-Share the wealth with family and friends
-Travel travel travel-- I want to go everywhere
-Buy several houses throughout the world, and have a maid and standby cook for each one
-Let Jason retire and do whatever he wants just for fun

5 things I love other than the obvious:
-I love to dance!
-Colors (I can never choose just one favorite)
-Cuddling up on MY big comfy couch (please get here soon) with my Jasey Pase to watch MY huge tv (please please please get here soon)
-Driving somewhere fun and reading books to my kids on the way (Roald Dahl is a fave)
-The smell of rain and puppy breath (not necessarily together)