Author: cafedave

It’s the final throes of Christmas Eve and the kids are sleeping, even as the last of the presents and cooking are being put together. With the school year finished, there have been various errands to run and shopping accomplished.

Huff and Puff both had their eyes tested – Huff was a bit sad not to need glasses, and in fact neither of the kids need glasses (yet).

Puff has made the most of the holidays so far by learning about speed-solving Rubik’s cubes.

The kids have been following Mum around a bit, doing errands like taking grandma to the Physio – they had a chance of some extra screen time, which is always a bonus for them. Huff continues to make amazing worlds in Minecraft (the newest addition of bees to the game has been a significant one for her), and Puff is replaying some favourite old games.

At church, we received a few gifts from a friend who lives in Zimbabwe. This is Huff modelling the cap.

One of the destinations for our Christmas shopping was a bookshop. Both the kids made the most of the stay by reading in the comfy chairs.

Puff is now almost as tall as the fridge, as tall as many of our adult friends, and taller than some!

Looking forward to Christmas, then Summer Camp for the next week of updates. In the midst of a massive bushfire season on the back of a drought, we are praying for rain.

We were doing some Christmas shopping this weekend; the kids weren’t quite sure what they wold need to buy for their end-of-year parties. Huff was keen for a cake-sized donut, but we ended up passing. Yes, that’s her “how do I persuade Mum” face.

After shopping, we were mugging for the camera. Puff wasn’t so keen about being in a photo, so he tried to outwit Dad, unsuccessfully in this instance.

Wednesday night we had a chance to see one of Dad’s friends from work (Steve), and then Friday night we had dinner with N & J, who were visiting from Switzerland!

Heading toward the last day of school, it’s mufti days, inflatable castles, and big smiles. Plus perhaps some concerns about next steps (and some dramas around a giant origami project, where Mum and Dad were both helping tape together 5×5 pieces of paper, which ended up being too heavy for the desired project; oh well).

Dad plated up dinner tonight, to line up with Huff’s plate design. She was exceedingly happy.

Oh, and this is as good a time as any to reflect back on the Sunday morning walks to church with Puff. He generally asks on a Saturday if there’s time to walk to church. While we’re walking, he can talk to me about whatever is on his mind.

It’s a good tradition to keep up (plus some exercise for both of us).

We are getting down to the wire with the remaining days of year 6 for Puff.

He had to dress up for his year 6 farewell (as did Huff, to go for dinner with Mum and Dad while waiting for Puff’s year 6 farewell to end). There was some disagreement in the photo posing as to which way to look to be both looking at the camera at the same time.

Puff had a great time with his friends.

He chose his own outfit: a mix of pineapples and bow-tie. 

We even paused long enough for a family photo! 

Puff, Huff and Dad went to church, the bay run, and then stopped for a late lunch on the way home.

We only did a small part of the bay run, as the kids were pretty tired from a late night the evening before.

In this late night they made a gummy house.

 

And what’s a gummy house without a generous topping of sprinkles?

Dad encouraged the kids to take ownership of the Christmas tree building this year.

Huff wasn’t quite tall enough to put the star on the tree.

The kids did almost all the decorating themselves, which is a huge leap forward.

We were also proud of Puff’s academic achievements this year, and Huff’s report card, where she showed a great deal of improvement.

Puff is back from school camp, and had an excellent time, with minimal homesickness.

Mum took Huff out for breakfast at least once during the week, and they enjoyed the time immensely.

Mum was a bit sick for a couple of days this week, so Dad took the kids out for a high-calorie distraction.

Dad took Huff to see Frozen 2, which she enjoyed. There is a certain amount of rewriting history as Huff seeks to align her dismissive view of Frozen 1 with that of her peers, while expressing a greater appreciation for the twists and turns of the sequel.

We had lunch as a mini-family after church on Sunday, which was a lot of fun.

There were free balloon creatures for interested kids. Huff, being more polite than the other child in the queue (who only wanted a balloon sword) was given this amazing clown.

She was very happy with it.

We paused for a quick Dad-and-kids photo.

And the other milestone this week was High School orientation. For posterity, Mum and Dad were both there.

Puff is mostly reassured that school is going to be a lot of fun, and there will be lots of great learning opportunities and a good school culture.

A quiet week leading into Puff going to his year 6 camp.

Everyone was tired after a long week with some late nights, so we went out for a late Saturday breakfast as a family, and played some Tantrix and Hive while we were waiting for the food.

We bought Puff some new clothes as he has outgrown most of his old clothes: he keeps getting taller.

At church the next day, Huff made friends with the visiting preacher’s daughter and took her to the nearby playground for a while (with his permission).

Mum stopped to get a selfie with Puff before he headed off to camp.

So did Dad.

Puff had taken Dad’s old toy duck to camp.

Tuesday morning it was much quieter in the house with only one child to take to swimming lessons for safety week.

Looking forward to having everyone back together again tomorrow night!

Back to a normal week again. Dad had been looking for a suitable location to take Puff out for dessert (or similar) after youth group, and this week we managed to find a place that was open. Sadly he wasn’t a particular fan of the food, nor of the coffee.

We went out for breakfast on Saturday morning with the nieces.

Huff has a tendency to pose for photos at the moment, so we have been sneaking photos of her before she has a chance to pose; you can see a little of how smart she is in this photo.

Whereas this is more about how much she loves donuts.

The kids were babysat by their aunt and uncle on Saturday night, which was more of an emetic experience than anyone was expecting. This led to a very quiet Sunday, while they recovered.

Dad was away overseas for almost all of this week, so the majority of the photos are from Mum. Shortly after Dad’s flight, Huff had her school Colour Run.

The next day, even after some hair washing, her hair was still somewhat colourful. She was enjoying the extra questions from her friends about her hair colour.

Later in the week, she picked up some chalk hair colours to practice with.

Here are the kids waiting for Dad to get home. They were very keen to be reunited.

After school we went for ice cream as a family.

It was good to be back together.

Puff is getting ready for a set of changes – high school is next year, so there are many changes afoot at school; he’s still passionate about a lot of different things, especially maths and video games.

After the dance recital of last week, Huff took flowers to her (very surprised and grateful) teachers.

On the weekend, we tried a few different ways to spend time together. Dad took the kids out for breakfast, we had some time at home together, afternoon tea for Grandma’s birthday, and Puff went to the first part of a SWAG sleepover before sleeping at home, because the next morning we had…

The walk to d’feet motor neurone disease. Dad and Aunty S were a bit competitive in who could raise the most money, and we had some supportive people (including Huff and Puff) come along for the walk.

Unhappy with that walk distance, Huff, Puff and Mum and Dad went home via IKEA, where we picked up some storage items to help the kids further tidy their rooms.

Puff, whose LEGO is now much tidier, celebrated by putting tougher this robot snake.

See you next week for all the updates on what has happened.

Quiet school week for the most part, with a few other adventures.

Grandparents and special friends day at Huff’s school, where Puff came along to play in the music groups.

There was some brief downtime before he had to be back at school again.

Aunty C came over to see Huff’s classroom.

Huff managed a quick post-swimming cannoli before school.

With Dad having some day surgery during the week and managed a quick school pickup between the last video call and getting ready for the next day.

Oh, and on the weekend our annual Sculpture by the Sea tradition continued.

We had a friend’s engagement party on Saturday night, and then Puff and Dad walked to church together on Sunday.

And Tuesday night was Huff’s dance recital. Grandma came along too.

Huff was glad to have her grandma there to watch.

Mum’s birthday this week, but a bit low-key in its celebration. We had Chinese dinner that the kids enjoyed dressing up for, and then suddenly it was Friday night, and time for Puff’s first night as a youth group kid. It felt like a major milestone. He had a great time.

We had the kids’ cousins stay over much of the weekend. It turned out, there was no flour in the house, so our ambitions for home-made pancakes were dashed. Instead, we headed out, and the kids had a variously sugary breakfast.

The next morning we were out again for breakfast on the way to church – we even managed to arrive on time!

The kids did a great job getting through their breakfast and were well behaved.

We’re still working out a regular pattern for family dinner that has the kids going to bed at a reasonable hour during the week, and isn’t too saturated with different types of media.