Category: week in review

This week our church had a festival outdoors, for Christmas in July. We had badge-making, face-painting, and a bouncy castle, so it was a bit of a dream day for the kids. Here’s Huff.

After that was all over (Dad had good time making coffees for people), the kids did some climbing on a climbing frame.

Sunday night, Dad and Puff put together some IKEA furniture. It was character building for everyone.

And then Monday night Puff was playing recorder at the Opera House. Huff and Puff had dinner with Mum and Grandragon beforehand.

Puff did a great job, and really enjoyed the night.

We’ll be back later in the year for violin.

We’re well and truly back into school season again now. Pupil free days are over, and we’re back to the routines that go with school time.

On the weekend we ran some errands (buying some vegetables to cook for church dinner) and stopped for lunch together. Huff and Puff had some Japanese food. Here’s Huff thinking carefully about how to extract edamame beans.

We had some hospital visiting to do, and they had exercise bikes to try out. This is a photo from when they were still working as expected.

And there were plenty of ramps for Puff’s wheelie shoes.

And that’s it for this week.

Last week of the holidays, and Dad at work again for the week, so not as many photos. Dad and Puff went for a walk on Saturday morning to drop off some flyers in letterboxes and stopped for a coffee. Puff was pretty excited to see the cafe, knowing there would be a break from walking.

We walked a bit further down to see another cafe and Mum and Huff came and met us. Huff liked the look of a particular piece of cake, though her eyes were a bit bigger than her stomach.

From there we went to IKEA for a family trip, and oddly bumped into our next-door neighbours! It’s a small world.

For church, Huff was keen to try out the new cardigan / jacket that Grandragon made for her.

Then we visited Grandma and Doc, where the kids were watching their favourite “seagull” bad lip-reading song.

And another quick snap of Puff, who is getting ever taller.

This was a full week of school holidays. The kids have been on a range of adventures, including spending some time in different car boots.

Dad has been working this week (apart from a day of sick leave) so most of the time-spend with the kids has been early morning walks. Puff went for a walk with Dad while there was still mist on the park.

He was pretty excited to see frost on the ground (not quite snow, but pretty good for the suburbs)

Saturday we had a food court lunch, and then spent the evening catching up with old friends, who have ducks, chickens and rabbits in their backyard.

Sunday morning Dad walked with the kids to church. There were a lot of ducks in the creek.

Sunday afternoon we visited a bookshop before calling in to see Grandma and Doc at their house.

Monday, Huff tried out rag curls in her hair for the first time. She was pretty happy with the results.

And Huff was less happy trying out a game of bingo.

Another big week; we had a busy Wednesday so Dad was on the school run: Puff needed a lift to a school across Sydney for violin rehearsal (and then another lift later in the day to retrieve a forgotten violin).

On Friday, Puff had a school assembly where they were performing an item. He managed to do a good job in the dance item, and still somehow convey an appropriate sense of decorum in his part in announcing which class had won the award for being best behaved.

As part of the adventures in the week, we had a sleepover. Huff and her cousin had a chance to pose for this photo.

And Huff finally had the chance to make the fruit skewers she’s been desperate to make: she did a great job!

Meanwhile Puff keeps on writing scratch programs, and Huff keeps doing craft projects, practising her writing, and telling amusing stories.

A few little highlights this week. Puff has been playing a video game that has a special feature that unlocks at midnight. Now I know (and I suspect he knows) that it’s possible to change the time on the phone and just access the feature this way, but he was keen to have a “midnight fishing party”. So after his normal bedtime routine on Friday night, Dad woke him up at 11:30pm, having made some popcorn and grabbed some lollies, and we finished the game together. I think it will be a good positive memory for him in years to come? Who can tell?

Saturday we had a rare unscheduled day, so after Dad made some hotcakes from Huff’s new 4-ingredient-recipe book, we headed up to the mountains. A quick detour for lunch with Grandragon later and we were in Blackheath where the kids were enjoying the view, and Huff in particular was trying her luck with some climbing.

She’s very adventurous, and loves to run and explore.

On the way home we stopped at the Katoomba festival for an early dinner, and then went home. We were all rugged up, enough that Puff wanted an ice cream for dessert (not much of a queue for dinner).

We also had parent-teacher meetings this week, and managed to cram in a long-overdue visit to the local library for some more reading materials.

Lots of late nights at the moment: wondering what catching up on sleep might look like for everyone – the kids would like to have more sleep, but don’t want to go to bed any earlier or sleep in any later.

Puff is in farewell mode at the moment. He cut short a camp (here he is enjoying a breakfast slurpee… well, it was fruit flavoured) so he could go to his friend’s birthday party, which would be another friend’s final birthday party to attend before moving to Perth.

Here’s Puff having dinner with Dad before the party starts. He watched Despicable Me 3 with friends in one row, while Dad sat with the other parents in the row behind. Everyone was very well behaved, actually.

This week was also athletics carnival week. Mum was there for the day to watch the events. Here’s Huff in an egg-and-spoon race.

We’re well and truly into winter now, and so the kids are warming up their beds with wheat bags (aka heat bags, aka feet bags) – Huff has worked out how to adapt hers to be a set of would-be headphones.

Great quotes from the week: You didn’t come and see Mum in between events? The events must have been close together. Puff deadpan: it’s a very big field, Dad. 

Puff has in fact been trying really hard in sporting things this week, putting in a huge effort in the (optional) 800m race, and swimming much faster than before in lessons. It’s good to see, or at least hear about.

Dad was also proud of Puff, for guessing the pun: what kind of insect hides in your hummus? A hum-mosquito!

The main thing this week was going away for the long weekend to Winter Camp. The first night and day it was raining pretty consistently. The kids were getting their money worth out of wearing their winter jackets. Here they are relaxing at the start of the first night (watching some abc iview on Mum’s phone)

Huff – maybe because of rock climbing a couple of weeks ago – was more into climbing. Here she is trying out a Jean Claude move between two bunks.

The kids enjoyed the creche program with its many craft and Bible talk activities, but a key highlight was the food. Having a buffet for every meal was a pretty great treat.

 

On the way back from camp, Huff fell asleep in the car: she wasn’t getting the best night’s sleep on camp, but she was back with a vengeance for school today. Dad had the day off today, so did the pick-up. While Puff had his music class after school, Huff and Dad played tips in the playground. It was pretty great. Here Huff is in, but she’s standing in a square where she can’t be tipped. She’s about to distract Dad, and then run for the next safe area.

Oh, and she learned “dib dib dib, ibble obble black bobble, ibble obble out; ” from somewhere. These playground memes just have a life of their own. 

Let’s do this week in reverse order. Tonight, the kids are not long in bed having been into the city on a family night with Puff’s boys group, and Dad, and Doc. We had fun wandering a sometimes rainy Darling Harbour looking at some of the light sculptures.

Monday, Dad had a day off, and took Huff out for afternoon tea (Puff was invited, but we had to deal with some other issues at home). We ended up having churros together, and a good chat.

Having promised Huff a bus ride for a while, Dad made good on the promise as we made our way home together from a Sunday afternoon event. Huff is still figuring out what the best order of higher learning might be for her ambition of being an astronaut medic.

We had lunch as a family in a food court: it was pretty exciting on the way there (Puff is getting ready to slide along on his wheely shoes).

And Saturday we had lunch with friends. The kids clearly cope with goodbyes in different ways.

And that’s about it. Dad came back from his conference, the kids played violin (Huff) and acted (Puff) in the school assembly, we watched a couple of movies as a family (Zathura and Spy Kids 3). See you next week!

Another week has flown past where we have been living with a borrowed car. Thanks to the benefactor and often-times reader of this blog.

Wednesday Dad had to catch an early flight, so Mum brought the kids along in the car for an airport run, with McDonalds for breakfast afterwards as a treat. The kids were in their warmest clothes.

On Friday, Huff’s class was running the school assembly: she was in charge of doing the acknowledgement of country, and letting the parents know when they could leave. She was also in an item, and received two awards! It was a big day for her.

Here she is in the t-shirt that she painted for the performance. Her hair was also sprayed blue for the occasion.

The next day, she woke up at 4:30am with a headache, and had trouble going back to sleep. As her symptoms progressed, we decided to take her to the doctor. Here she is leaning on Dad in the waiting room.

The doctor told us it wasn’t a migraine (our thought) or meningitis (we hadn’t thought of that) but was probably a virus giving her a headache. Sure enough, she was fine again the next morning, though we gave her a day at home on Sunday to be sure.

Meanwhile Dad took Puff to church and Sunday school, where he did a lot of paper folding.

Hopefully next week we have a photo of our car to include in the blog.