Big Changes

We're Moving!!!

Kim has excepted a job up north in Queensland with another mining company. He'll work on site, and won't be required to wear a suit everyday. That'll be really nice for him with how hot it gets, but I'll miss not seeing him come home from work looking so handsome.

We'll be living in a small town called Bowen. In one direction it's 40 minutes from the mine site, and in the other direction it's 40 minutes to Airlie Beach. Most people don't know where Bowen is, but do know about the vacation spot Airlie Beach so that makes it easy for people to get an idea of where we'll be.

The upper arrow is where we're moving to and the bottom arrow
is where we're moving from.

I don't think it'll be too hard on the girls. They 're not in school yet and don't have friends that they hang out with everyday. It is disappointing having to move from the friendships I've made here in Gawler and the activities we've been active in, but we'll jump into Bowen and will see what it has to offer. I plan on sending the girls to Kindergarten, so I'll have to find the one I like pretty quick because Emmy starts in a year and there are usually waiting lists so I have no idea if we'll even be able to get in to the one of our choice. After Kindergarten I'll have to see their learning preferences and styles and if homeschooling will be an advantage for them if they need a faster pace or more of a child led learning process. That is a whole other post, I'm getting off topic here....

Here's some Bowen Facts for you...

• Located in the dry tropics. Bowen has all the warm sunny weather of a tropical climate, but it is much dryer than one would expect for tropical beaches.
• The Great Barrier Reef is only a boat ride away.
• At Bowen's latitude the Trade Winds provide a pleasant breeze. The warmest month is January, with an average maximum temperature of 31 degrees C (88 degrees F). The coolest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of 25 degrees C (77 degrees F) and an average overnight minimum of 14 degrees C (57 degrees F).
• Bowen is on a peninsula, with ocean on three sides. This gives eight beaches surrounding the town, namely Kings Beach, Queens Beach, Horseshoe Bay, Murrays Bay, Greys Bay, Rose Bay, and the Front Beach. There is also the clothing-optional Coral Bay.
• In late 2006, the movie Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was filmed in Bowen.
• The town has retained much of its old world charm, and visitors to modern day Bowen could easily feel themselves transported to the 1940's or 1950's. (This is true for the majority of country towns in Australia )
  
• Bowen is the gate way to the Whitsunday Islands with more than 70 of them!

If you've been wanting to visit us out here then you should stop waiting around and buy some tickets and mark your calendars because this is THE PLACE to catch us for some pretty exciting things to do.

We're really looking forward to the change and adventure of living in a new place. We have no plans to buy a home up there, but I do have a feeling that we might. I've never felt connected to our house here in Gawler even though our home is nice and I like the town. There are houses you live in and there are houses that are home and I can't wait to find a home house, if that makes any sense! Pictures of our rental property will be posted soon!

Disney Live - My little Cinderella & Snow White

On Australia Day we took the girls to see Disney's Three Classic Fairytales Live. We got the tickets 6 months ago and it feels like we've been waiting forever!! The show was short versions of Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and it lasted around 2 hours. The girls were pumped and very excited to see it. I made Emmy a Cinderella dress and Lilah wore a super cute Snow White dress (Emmy's hand me down from Disney On Ice). The reason I made Emmy's dress is I couldn't find one that was cute as the Snow White dress I had bought before. All the Cinderella dresses looked so cheap and they were $50! I'd rather spend the $50 making one, so I did, but it didn't cost $50...what a deal! lol

I waited to dress them until we got there because it was really hot outside and I didn't want anything spilled or stuck to their dress during the 45 min drive to the city. As I was dressing Emmy I could tell she was very proud and just glowing. Kim dressed Lilah and while we walked to the venue she insisted on walking herself and bouncing her dress. Too cute!

During the show they got treated to Princess Snow Cone Cups, Popcorn, Cotton Candy, and I nearly had to give both an arm and a leg! Such a rip off, but they loved it and I like them to have the cups from all the shows we take them too because it prompts memories and in the end that's what it's all about....creating memories!

I was curious to see how Lilah would do during the show. She's often scared of people and loud noises and is easily overwhelmed. She wasn't clingy or afraid of anything and she was even wanting to stand on my lap to make sure she could see with no obstacles. We had good seats, 14th row, but when you as tiny as she is there's always someone blocking your view. She wasn't all that much taller than me when standing on my lap so I let her do it. When the "Be Our Guest" song started she totally let go and really started dancing. She was grooving to the beat and was so into it! I wish I could have got that on video haha. Emmy just seemed to be mesmerized while trying to take it all in.

When it came time to say good bye to the princesses I was hoping that Emmy would be ready to go and not be upset, but she was a little bit disappointed. Since then she's asked me several times if she can go watch the 'princess show' again. I tell her .....' in six months we'll go to the princess castle and she'll get to meet them and hug them" she just looks at me like I'm nuts, lol! I can't wait though!! Their faces at Disney World will be worth all 30+ hours in air, 36 hours roundtrip by car, and every dime spent!

So excited for the show to start!

I really wish this picture didn't turn out blurry! She was being such a big girl while waiting for the show to start!

While waiting they popped into the isle to do some dancing and they liked seeing all the other little girls walking by in princess dresses!

Hey you....look at mommy! I know you're over getting your picture taken!

Lets get back to our seats, the show is about to start!

I had to just hold up the camera and take the picture, so they are not very good, but you can get the idea. This is Cinderella and the Prince when he finds out who she is.

The costumes all looked great! The only character that wasn't a real person was the step mother. She was really really tall and had a person inside walking her around I think.

Gaston was atleast 6'5 and much better looking than the character was meant to be, hehe, but I didn't mind!

I was excited to see the Beast's costume. They did a really good job and they guy playing him was good at mimicking the Beast's walking and jumping!

Saying goodbye to the Princesses!

They filled the air with confetti and you could hear all the kids "ooowwww" ing

I took this one in complete darkness....it was while the confetti had just been dropped and she was anxious to get a piece!

Funny Faces

I was trying to photograph my new fabrics for the sewing page, but the girls were interested in playing games. They kept laying down on the fleece and saying "take our pictures, take our picture!!" I gave up working and we played for a while :)

I'm not sure why a couple of these pictures came out on their sides....huummm!

This one is my favorite!

Big Kisses!

Meeting The Fairies

Last week we took the girls to the grand opening of the Mt. Barker's new Fairies store/studio. They had the two main characters, Harmony and Rhapsody, to say hello to the kids, take a picture, and sign anything you bought or brought. We got there just in time to push our way into the door and right in front of me... only 3 feet away was the creator of The Fairies!! She gave a speech then the new owner of the store spoke. At the very end they called Harmony and Rhapsody to appear just the way they do in the TV show. It was so fun and the squeals of delight were so loud when they first "appeared"! Because we got there right before the speeches I wasn't aware that we needed to get tickets to see them. I was just about to walk through the door into the dance hall where the meet and greet was going to be set up and they were taking tickets and reading off numbers. They only had 1 room for meeting and 1 room for waiting with entertainment and then the normal seating area. Each group took about 10 min's and there were 20 people per group. When I got our ticket finally we were number 4, so I was a little disappointed with a 40 minute wait, but that quickly changed about 15 min's later when people were coming in and they had #10 and group one hadn't finished yet!

This was the main seating area where the parents sit to watch the girls on live TV from the dance class. Over all the girls did really good waiting, especially compared to some of the brats that were there!

I can't get her to smile---ever!!

While waiting and full of excitement, Emmy did some fairy dancing!

Daddy handled the wait pretty good as well.

hheheh I got her smiling while she's trying to escape because she didn't want to pose with me for a photo!

Finally we got into the "entertaining" area. They had coloring pages and pencils.

Again....Lilah's not wanting to have her picture taken so she's hiding behind daddy's leg.

Caught you!!!

I'm just as fast as you....caught you again!

awwww

I think the novelty of our game was wearing off. Just in time as well..........FINALLY it was our turn to enter into the meeting room!

Emmy was pretty shy, but that is normal for her, but she didn't hesitate when it was her turn to walk up to them. I also heard her say "Hi" to them.

All the kids were given bookmarks, and you would have thought they were made out of gold the way she loved it and guarded it until we got home.

Now it was Lilah's turn.... you can see that she had her normal sour face on. She wasn't scared to stand up there with them without me, but it looks like she wasn't too impressed either, haha. She defiantly knows who The Fairies are and requests to watch their DVD's all the time, so I was hoping she'd be a bit more excited, but I think she did enjoy herself.

All in all it was a fun family Saturday. I was very proud of the girls because they didn't ask mommy or daddy to buy anything for them. These stores are loaded with merchandise...it's even hard for me to not want to buy it all for them! They don't ever really throw a fit over something they want because they know I won't give in, but every where you looked kids where walking around with bags of stuff and I figured she'd want one too, but she was so proud of her bookmark! haha Before we left we grabbed the girls a "fairy box" that had popcorn, jello, and a cookie with a bottle of fairy juice. They had a good time sitting in their car seats eating their fairy treats while we drove home.....talking about it all the way there!

What's Cook'n

The girls have been doing a lot of pretend baking lately. I ended up giving them some of their Christmas presents early that I had made for them because they saw me making them, so it wouldn't have been to much of a surprise, haha.

Here are a few of the felt doughnuts...

and I made laminated recipe cards with a real recipe for plain cake doughnuts and I used pictures for everything so little pre-readers can understand it too! It really works too. Right after I gave it to Emmy she was telling me, "Mommy, we need 2 cups flour!"

They also got pretty little frilly aprons and lots of felt iced sugar cookies with sprinkles. The aprons were made just a bit bigger that way they'll last a few years before I need to make them new ones.

Everyone wanted to try Emmy's cookies!

How cute are those cookies!?! I love them!

Lilah is feeding her "my pal: violet" some doughnuts. Yummy!!

I asked her if she loved her doggie and she said yes and then showed me by hugging her, haha,

Sitting on the job while her doughnuts are being cooked in the microwave.

It didn't take too long before she was back to her native state: nakie!

Christmas Morning

The night before I don't think the girls went to bed until nearly 10pm!! I had all the presents wrapped and hidden in my sewing room and Kim was busy in the garage putting together the swing set. Sometime around midnight we dragged the swing set out into the yard and I wrapped silver garland along the top with a huge silver bow in the center. We were planning this to be the last surprise of the morning! Kim and I got out of bed early this year to start preparing things for the Christmas Lunch we were hosting for Kim's fathers side of the family. Next was Lilah to wake up and I kept her with me avoiding any sight into the living room and around 8:30 Emmy woke up. Sadly we don't have many pictures this year as we were video taping it and since Kim was preparing food and I only have two hands! But we did get a few.The first thing we went to check was to see if Santa ate our cookies and the girls found a special letter just for them!

I forgot to get a picture of all the presents before the kids started ripping into them..oops!

Whoa...doesn't she look way older than 2 3/4 in this picture!!

Sharing their Learning Leappad.

Lilah really surprised me this year. Her opening style is MUCH different from Emmy's. She likes to rip into them as fast as she can and do them one after another. Emmy's style is to open them, look them over completely, then open the present, and play with it for a bit before moving on to the next one. This caused problems at the end when Emmy had 4 large presents left and Lilah had none.

My Brodie Noochies with his stocking. He got two different types of treats and a new squeaky chew bone that he hasn't played with much. I think Lilah likes it the most haha.

Here's a quick view of most of the bigger presents. They got tons of little stuff and I didn't want to bore you with all that crap so it's not listed.

Emmy got Baby Star Song: My Little Pony So Soft Newborn, Ponyville: Pinkie Pies Balloon House, iDance Buzz Lightyear and iPod, and a REAL Sewing Machine Toy.

Lilah got Star Song "Style My Hair" : My little Pony, Little People Farm Yard, Little People Zoo, Learning Leappad by Leapfrog, and Baby Alive: Feel Good.

They also had some gifts that they each got the same and some of them included the Bug Catching Set, Swords (they pretend to be Barbie in Barbie and the 3 Musketeers), and Dress-up Cat Costumes made by me.

Gifts to share were the Momma Piggie with her piglets made by me, a Crocodile and Frog Game, and the Swing Set!

Around the 25% of opened gifts Lilah disappeared and I couldn't find her. I knew where to look right away.....OUTSIDE. She loves to go out in the morning though the doggie door. Sure enough, she had stumbled upon what Santa had left and was happily playing away on it! haha So Kim and I opened up the curtains and called for Emmy to come outside and see what Lilah was doing and found. We pushed them on the swings and let them try out all the different things on it before returning inside to open the rest of the presents.

Daddy got a Chili Plant Kit from Emmy and Lilah gave him a new Leather Wallet. Santa was extra good to me this year and I got a Wii. I can't wait to get the old school Mario Brothers!! Emmy has already claimed it as hers, haha, she loves the Resort Sports and Disney Princess Enchanted Journey. We need to get her the child sized control so she can have better control of the game.

A tip for new parents that may have not thought about this yet is to pre open all presents and get them out of the twisty things and the difficult packaging. Make sure if it needs batteries that it has them and that the toys are out of demo mode and turned to ON mode. No matter what it is your child immediately wants to open the box and see, feel, smell, and sometimes taste haha their new toy and if they have to wait 5-6 minutes after each toy while you fight the packaging it makes it a little frustrating for them and very frustrating for you. So do yourself a favor and go the extra mile before you wrap them....you'll be very glad you did on Christmas morning!!