Home for the Holidays!

Being home has made me lazy I guess... I'm almost a month behind - oh dear!

When we arrived, there was no snow but that changed pretty quick! There still isn't that much snow, but it was enough for Charlie to play in! Throw a few snowballs, shovel a few driveways and make a first snowman!  It's quite funny Charlie loves shovelling!

It has been so nice to be home and spend time with family and friends!  There are a lot of pictures to come...

I thought the hot tub would be too hot for Charlie but he LOVED it!

Cute boy in the (very little bit of) snow

All bundled up

Shovelling!

Lucy and Elly

Making cookies!

Besties and their babies

2015 babies!

Charlies first snowman!  We named him snowball

Cousins!

Elly got to play baby Jesus!

It was so nice out - we had to go to the park!

I can't believe this adorable girl is 3 months old!  She is crying less which is nice... she also smiles a lot and does it with her whole face!  She is really starting to respond to faces and makes the most adorable noises!

We got to be around for Alex's graduation from fire school!

The museum was closing so it was open for 48 hours for free!

So smiley!

Decorating the tree

Charlie was great with decorating the tree! and he loves taking the ornaments off too...!

Making gingerbread houses

The finished product

This is how we stay warm in the great white north!

Spring Has Sprung

Well now that we are home and I have some help I have time to catch up with this blog, which really needs to happen because I need to get it printed for the year soon!  After my mom left there was more adjusting that needed to happen - two kids on my own - ah!  It actually went ok once we got a better baby carrier (ergobaby) for Elly, then we could just go about our regular business of going to playgroups, the park, grocery shopping, the zoo etc.  That girl likes to be carried!  I honestly don't know where the time has gone - it seems like Elly was just born, but then I look at her and she's huge!  As usual, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking...  (and as usual I would like to complain that this stupid site never puts my pictures in in the order I download them in...)

Charlie likes to feed Elly bottles sometimes!  It's so cute

One month!

Charlies friend birthday party!

Happy Birthday Charlie!  Dirt cake - yum!

This was how we were watching General Conference... Charlie was quite good at listening!

Elly-Belly!

We were testing out Charlies earphones for the plane ride

She's so cute!

Ipswich had a giant water slide and there was a little free one for the children!  Charlie loved it

I realize we don't have many pictures of Elly when she was really little!  So although this one isn't that good, it is one of the only ones we have - sad!

Elly is a little houdini!  She escapes swaddling like theres no tomorrow!

Our first outing after my mom left was to playgroup at the park!  Charlie had a blast despite falling off the teeter-totter and his extremely dirty face is proof!

I had been planning to make coloured rice for ages for Charlie to play with and it finally happened!  It is very messy...

On Charlies actual birthday I took him to a special event at the library.  Well it was outside of the library - they made huge sand pits and the little kids one had diggers and all sorts of sand toys and the big kids one had lots of jewels and seashells and treasure the kids could dig for.

Charlie had tons of fun - not that you can tell from his face here!

After school we took Charlie to a work site to see real diggers!

Charlie has a hard time keeping the rice contained...

First family walk with Elly - you can barely see Elly poking out of the bottom

There was an amazing sunset!  Australia has great ones constantly

Another one so we can remember how small Elly is

My mom bought Charlie a set of books for his birthday, and after reading a few of them a few times the pages started to fall out!  So I wrote the publisher to tell them their books were falling apart and she said she would send us a replacement. Two days later this huge box showed up and she not only sent a replacement set but a bunch of other things as well!  Good customer service!

This was the little invitation for Charlie's birthday party!

Charlie loves washing his diggers!

At Charlie's birthday - Inflatable World!

Sebastian - Toby - Charlie

Charlie had so, so much fun!

Elly had fun too...

Presents!  

Elly's "o" face

Charlie loves reading books - he knows all the titles of his books!

Charlie testing out his sandpit with his diggers

Two months old already!