Life Post Visitors

It's so hard when people leave!  For Charlie and Elly especially, since they get so much more attention.  It's hard to spend enough time with them when there is a new baby demanding every minute of your attention!  Life got back into a regular routine pretty quickly, with Charlie being back to school, and we also discovered a really cool new (free!) playgroup at the Ngukuthati Centre, which is on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  There is so much outdoor space for the kids to run around in (fenced in and shaded!), and they feed you a full lunch (they often give juice boxes which Charlie and Elly are just thrilled about!) and they give away a $30 gift card every time too!  (I've never won and every time they do the draw Charlie always gets so upset that we didn't win! It's pretty cute)  

So we've been spending a lot of time at that playgroup, and Charlie has also started the 'hippy' program which is awesome!  You get assigned a tutor and they give you these booklets with activities in them to do with your kid.  It's for the year before prep and the year during prep, to help parents know how to help your kids in school.  It's a really neat program and also free!  I'm not sure if Canada has this many cool free things, but Australia is awesome for kids things.

I went to go wash my hands and I came back and Elly was getting Hazel dressed!
She's such a good little helper!

3 Months old!

Monday Morning Meltdowns 

Charlie made this for me of mothers day - I wish I got rests! Hahaha

Hazel wasn't a fan of the swing...

Charlie was so proud that he scooped all the cookies out on his own!

First time playing Qwirkle with the kids!  We didn't keep score,
but the kids enjoyed "making matches" with the colours and shapes

Charlie loves building things!  Whatever he finds, he will build with it!
This is a Rescue Bots centre made out of paint bottles

Elly loves going to music class because they pull out heaps of toys at the end!

Almost every day Elly falls asleep on the way to get Charlie (this time they both fell asleep on the way home!) 

Elly is such a girl!  She loves getting her nails painted and
Charlie usually wants his done too once he sees Ellys nails!

Charlie had to get 2 cavities filled, so he got knocked out!
It was fun before, and traumatic after... When he woke up he was freaking out because I
wasn't there!  Which is silly because they told me they were going to come and get me so I would be
there when he woke up, but they didn't.  So of course he freaked out!
Then I had to rush over with a hungry baby Hazel and I left Elly in the
paediatric ward watching a show and told her i'd be back and then she freaked out and a nurse
had to bring her over and they were all 3 screaming.  It was very dramatic and then this porter
guy (who was really small) had to push a giant wheelchair back into the paediatric ward carrying all 4 of us.
What a sight we were to see!

The Cahoons in Mt. Isa

The day after my mom left Andrew parents arrived!  They told us to think of what we wanted them to do while they were here so we put them to work!  I found some mesh on the buy and sell page here and David tacked it up all around under the house to try and keep the bugs out!  He also built an amazing little cubby house with a slide, rock climbing rocks and a firemans pole, with a little sink underneath!  The kids think it's great!  He also put up a tire swing and Jill kept us full with yummy food, as well as spending hours holding a fussy baby.  They also helped us get our little garden going and hung up clotheslines under the house. They helped us out so much, we were very happy to have them and I regret not taking more pictures!  Charlie and Elly also loved having extra attention (it's tough to give them attention when you have a fussy baby!)

They started working on our new fence and every night they would fence over our driveway with us trapped inside....
no one ever told us it was going to happen or asked us if that would be ok!

Sisters!

Elly hounded papa to put up the tire swing! We weren't quite ready for the
real one so he rigged up a makeshift one for her!

Sometimes the teachers from Charlies kindy will send me pictures of him, he loves to build things 

Hazel got blessed while the Cahoons were here which was nice!

Everyone (but me) had a nice Sunday afternoon nap!

Getting our little garden going!

Grandma Comes For A Visit

My mom got here on March 16 and boy we were all glad to see her!  Not only did she bring suitcases full of Canadian chocolate chips and fruit snacks and toys and baby clothes, but the kids were thrilled to have someone pay attention to them!  Hahaha - it sounds kinda ridiculous but its mostly true, new babies take up all of your time!  So my mom spent most of her time waking up early with the kids and getting them breakfast, taking them for walks, getting Charlie to Kindy, reading Elly books, doing all the dishes, vacuuming, doing laundry.... the list goes on!  She was so helpful and it was really nice to have an extra set of hands around and another adult to talk to!  And wow did that month she was here go by fast!  We got to do a few fun things and show her around Mount Isa a bit, and we spent a lot of time at the pool too!  Grandmas are the best - we sure do miss her!

Charlie built this super cool airport at Playgroup!

We went to an outdoor movie - Emoji - but it started raining before the movie was
over and we never found out how it ended...

We made cute little nest cupcakes with coconut grass and jellybeans
for Charlie's kindy easter party 

 

Elly got this giant easter bunny in nursery, she was thrilled!
(Luckily she forgot about it and we ended up chopping it up using it to make cookies a month later...)

Easter Egg hunt!

I found these cool eggs at Kmart where you have to carve them open with little plastic tools
and there is a toy inside!  It sounds cooler than it ended up being...

Elly thought Hazel needed to wear a headband!
It looks like one of those old fashioned toothache bandages... 

We spent a lot of time at the pool while my mom was here! 

Hazel looks thrilled to be getting a kiss from Charlie!

 

 

This kid loves building things!
This is Old McDonalds (what the kids think McDonalds restaurant is called...)

My mom took us to the Isa Hotel for lunch, Elly had been wanting to go there forever,
every time we passed the play park on the way to the library! It was really yum.

I had been wanting to go to this "Isa High Tea" place since I'd seen it so we went!  It was a good deal and delicious and the kids were thrilled with it and it's a good thing we went because it closed down the very next week! 

 

 

Charlie drew a chalk picture of our family - so cute!!

 

Went to the lookout on my moms last night! 

This is too funny, but probably shouldn't have happened...  a real life doll for Elly! 

 

 

One month old!  Right after this picture I somehow lost all the little month papers....
so that was sad and also annoying because I hove no idea where they went!!