Category: week in review

We’ve had a week of catching up on sleep for the kids (with somewhat less success for Mum and Dad – a few incidences of waking up in the middle of the night: Huff seems to be having some nightmares at the moment).

With Puff doing more desk-work after school, and Huff’s ever-present enthusiasm for all things crafty and drawing related, we had a look at a small table for the kids.

Success! It was the right height for them (and is a bit adjustable for the future). The kids celebrated by doing painting, and then playdough. 

The next morning the kids helped Dad make breakfast – crepes. Puff broke the eggs into the small bowl, and Huff poured them into the mixing bowl: it was good teamwork, but made it tricky to get to church on time.

For his birthday, we bought Puff a watch to replace his ill-fated Octonauts watch. He really likes it – Dad is hoping he can look after it for quite a while.

We also called in to see Aunty S – the kids like visiting Grandma and Doc’s house because of all the games they have: this visit it was Mousetrap.

See you next week!

This weekend we spent some time celebrating Puff’s 6th birthday. Just 311 short weeks ago, we were welcoming him into the world for the first time. 

We were celebrating with a trip to Canberra to see Questacon, catch up with some friends and, as it turned out, to go and see some snow. Friends generously loaned us most of the snow gear we would need, but Huff needed some gloves. She picked these cat mittens.

Dad took her out for a cookie – she picked  the gingerbread, had a tiny bite, and said “this tastes bad”, by which she meant it tasted like gingerbread. We swapped biscuits, and she was much happier.

Puff (with his dress-up glasses) thought he would take the car (no car-keys in the ignition) for a quick spin in the driveway.

We drove to Canberra on Friday night, had a leisurely cafe breakfast (and Dad had most of a game of chess with Puff), then headed to Corin Forest for some snow. Puff was pretty happy with his jacket.

Dad (who hadn’t been to the snow before) had a good time trying to make snowballs and snowmen with the kids.

We even broke out the old compact digital camera, and Dad tried his skills at photo-bombing.

We tried for a family portrait, but Dad’s arm wasn’t quite long enough, and we had trouble keeping everyone’s attention for long enough. Olaf looked good though.

We visited some friends, and the kids had a chance to play with their high-tech nerf weapons. Unlike the owners of the weapon (their Dad told me), our kids wore the protective goggles.

Sunday we went to church at St Andrews, then headed to Questacon: we had free passes as part of the membership to Museum Victoria we picked up last year. Dad and Puff tried this giant slide.

We looked at lots of the science things in the first couple of rooms, then spent some time in the 0-6 play area. Huff loved the pretend zones – she was a baker for a while.

And an astronaut.

She tried filling up cars with petrol and crank-starting them.

It was a good ending to a weekend away.

Then tonight, we had sparkler candles.

And a moon cake, and other space-themed food (rocket hot-dogs, space punch, and meteor meat balls). He was really happy with the surprise (and some visiting family).

Other milestones

• a break from (iOS) screens for the weekend: this was not a popular decision with the kids, but we survived it.
• Huff continuing to balance disobedience with saying how much she loves whoever it is she was disobeying moments before
• Huff understanding some more of the Christian gospel – when we were talking about the Easter story, she knew about the resurrection.

Making the most of some leftover flexitime, Dad managed to have lunch with Mum and Huff this week: Huff was pretty keen on eating these noodles, at least for a while.

The highlight of the week was cousin E’s birthday party. Here are the cousins playing together: they were having a good time with the balloons for quite a while, though Puff needed a little bit of coaching as to when was an appropriate time to take a balloon from a 1-year-old (never).

And in preparation for the now-postponed book week parade, and its “connections” theme, Dad and Puff have been working on this circuit, and its Meccano base. It’s gone quite well, and now we’re ready ahead of time, which is a good thing. Stay tuned for visuals of Puff’s costume for book week: it’s a very cool one.

Other highlights of the week included:

• Huff’s increasing familiarity with the alphabet, her ability to count to 20 with only the occasional casualty somewhere in the teens, and her starting interest in recognising numbers.
• Puff coping better with homework, and his ever-improving reading skill, and balancing that against the frustration of not playing screens when’re there’s homework to do
• Some late bedtimes, and the ongoing struggle between books that Puff finds interesting and books Huff finds interesting. It’s good to see the connections being made in both their minds between what we’re reading at home, and what’s being talked about at church.
• Getting to catch up with a number of friends, and in some cases, their babies as well.

Mostly pictures from the weekend – Puff went to his long-awaited kids’ baking class over at brasserie bread. He had a great time making some different bread-y things, which we shared for lunch.

While Puff was cooking, Mum, Dad and Huff had breakfast in the cafe next door. There was a lot of putting stickers onto books, which is something Huff is currently passionate about. Huff is now at the point where she can say her alphabet flawlessly, which is an exciting little milestone.

From the baking class, mum and Dad went to a cafe, and distracted the kids with some screen time. This continues to be a divisive issue between parents and kids, and we’re currently leaning toward further limiting the screen time.

After the cafe, we used our Museum Victoria pass to visit the Australian Maritime Museum which, though interesting, had little on a Saturday to entertain the kids. Even a trip for gelato wasn’t quite enough to boost their spirits.

Given how enthusiastic they were about running around outside the museum, we thought it was high time for a park trip.

So we went to a nearby park at Pyrmont, where Puff climbed a rope structure while Huff scooped sand. After that, despite the cool temperature, the kids spent some time playing in the park’s water fountain area. Huff *loved* it, scooping up the water from the fountains (she was a bit confused as to where the water was originating), and running back to the sand to make wet sand, so other kids could make sandcastles.

We called in to see Grandma and Doc, and some uncles were doing some map-reading, Puff learned how to read and write grid references on maps.

Sunday morning Puff wanted some time with Dad, and wanted to walk and get pizza, so Dad obliged. We caught up about what’s happening at school for him – he has a pretty complex timetable!

That night, so that Huff wasn’t left out, she and Dad went out for gelato. It was a bit late in the day, and she fell asleep not long after noticing the super moon out the car window.

And then today, Mum brought Huff into the city to have coffee with Dad. There was a lot of chocolate on the top of the babycino, as you can tell!

Everyone is slowly getting better (Huff has a bit of a cough), and so we managed a few more interesting things this week. A trip to sushi train saw Puff mostly reading his dinosaur book: this seems to be an activity that Mum and Dad enjoy more than the kids do – they’re quite adventurous until it comes time to eat the food, and then they lose their nerve a little, and revert to eating edamame beans.

It was open week this week at school, so Mum, Dad and Huff had the chance to see some of the things Puff has been doing in class – here he is making numbers with a flip chart, and matching visual aids.

We let the kids play with some screens during a cafe trip on Saturday morning, knowing that it was going to be a day with a fair bit of queueing, and helping them pace themselves.

The kids went to their first ever Colin concert the same day – we queued up to meet Colin: he was incredibly gracious and patient with everyone who wanted to talk to him.

Screentime in cafes notwithstanding, we’ve been encouraging the kids to play offline a fair bit – in the foreground, Huff is playing with a cash register, while in the background Puff built a complex structure for his little toys to jump around on (yes, this was inspired by a video game, but at least it’s a jumping-off point for some creative play, right?)

Huff is a big fan of adding washi-tape to her drawings at the moment, making lots of little artworks that are adorning various parts of the house. It’s impressive to watch her skills with tape dispensers and scissors.

Dad and Puff spent most of this week being sick. It’s still a bit of a mystery, but Dad is now taking antibiotics, and Puff has been resting up for a few nights. We thought he was well enough to go back to school on Monday, but after school, he only lasted until 4:30pm and went to sleep. (Note that while Puff isn’t 6 yet, the pharmacist said he was big enough to have the 6+ Strepsils).

Despite both feeling unwell, Dad and Puff both went to a nodebots day on Saturday, playing with circuit boards and getting them to do different things. It was a fun way to spend a day, and a chance (hopefully) for him to seed a few ideas for when he’s a bit bigger. We’ve since played with the gear again, so that’s a promising start.

Huff is becoming more confident at climbing around. Not sure if this particular photo was her showing off her climbing, or combining that with avoiding the dog, but she’s having a great time.

She’s having a great time at breakfast here: she’s been very cuddly this week, and more keen than usual to have her Dad around.

We also watched a few DVDs: How to Train your Dragon, Monsters Inc, and Up. They were all a bit too scary for the kids in places, but they generally enjoyed them. We might have to tone things down again for their ongoing movie watching (or skip more scenes).

Hopefully, everyone will be well by next week.

Back into the routine of school again, with swimming lessons to start up in another couple of weeks.

Mum and Huff came into the city to have lunch with Dad one day this week – Huff was pretty excited to see Dad, and was happy walking along the streets with him.

On Saturday, we had nothing booked in, so we drove up to the mountains, hoping to see snow. Sadly there was no snow, but we had a lot of fun. The kids had something of a picnic on this cushion-covered spot in the cafe we visited in Blackheath.

We went back to Logan Brae orchard, where Puff spotted something that reminded him of one of his favourite video games – Leo’s Fortune.

The kids were excited to be back at the orchard, where there’s apple tasting and apple pies (though Huff was more interested in the fresh apples, and Puff’s eyes were a little bigger than his stomach).

We sat down on a seat near the orchard and looked at the mountain and the trees.

On Sunday, Dad took the kids for a pre-church walk. Huff was excited to see a letterbox that had her age on it.

And next door, we found a letterbox with Puff’s age on it. Puff explained we’d have to cross the road and walk further to find a letterbox with Dad’s age on it.

We visited all the grandparents over the weekend, including some board game time at Grandma and Doc’s house, which was a lot of fun.

See you next week!

The school holidays are over already! Dad spend some time on the eve of school going back talking Puff through the upsides and downsides of holidays being finished – turns out it’s mostly the screens he will be missing, and sure enough he had a great first day back.

But first, thinking back through the week. Huff and Puff came to visit Dad at work (and wanted to do some drawing on the computer).

They even caught the train in to work with Dad one morning – here they are waiting patiently for coffee (or at least hot chocolate).

From there, it was a visit to the Powerhouse Museum. Dad had a long lunch (and then stayed back at work), and folded some paper with them. In the meantime, they explored the Wiggles exhibition.

Puff had a great time climbing on the play equipment.

On Friday, Dad took the day off to take care of the kids while Mum had a doctor and dentist appointment. The morning was spent walking the Como bridge. The kids did a great job walking about 3km, and had fun playing on the play equipment in between. This is the trip back: they were a bit tired (should have listened to Dad as to when it was time to go, but it’s hard to turn down a playground).

We had different meals with different people: W, G and J, C, J and E, and Grandragon. There was lots of time playing screens: Tengami, Leo’s Fortune, Two Dots, and more.

Even Huff is interested in watching Puff play the occasional game, putting down her own screen for a while.

Oh, and Huff has started experimenting with pulling faces.

Next week will be one of adjusting to being back at school: there was already a lot of homework to do just from the first night back!

This week Huff seems to have progressed from getting up every night in the middle of the night, with Tweak, and visiting Mum and Dad in the middle of the night, to sleeping through. Time will tell.

We visited Uncle M and O this week, and Huff had the chance to try out a headlamp for the first time. Both kids were fascinated with having a torch they could play with, and had a good time.

Friday morning, Dad and Puff caught the train into the city together to go to coffee mornings before Dad started work. He wasn’t too happy about not playing screens on the train: this was his reaction. Screens continue to be a challenge for Mum and Dad to figure out: how much time is appropriate.

To that end, Puff picked a book about minecraft, and Huff picked a Thomas the Tank Engine book / play set.

Saturday night we took the kids to a bonfire a friend was running. The kids were a bit tired, but had a great time.

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We toasted giant marshmallows: the kids tried to eat them, and had about half a one each.

Huff even made shadow puppets with her hands by torchlight.

Huff went to get a haircut.

And Puff and Huff went on a swing together.

Puff also had his first McDonalds birthday party.

And Huff helped Mum make some cupcakes, to take to a friend’s house.

We had some anxious moments this week talking Huff through her new toy “Caterpillar”, who was briefly ostracised by the other toys for “looking at them all the time”. They have since apologised (individually, with Huff doing all the voices), and are now spending time together, again.

Despite loads of family time this week, it’s been a bit of a photo drought. Perhaps we’ve been letting them play more screens than usual, and more crafting activities, which are less interesting to photograph.

We had a lot of family time over the weekend, including trips to a couple of park. When it was quiet, Mum let Puff run up the slide, with missed success, as you can see/hear in the video.

Huff and Dad went to the Botanic gardens to give Mum a chance to sleep when she wasn’t feeling well. We had a lovely picnic, and watched the ducks wrestle, and even checked how cold the water in the pond was.

We were surprised at how well Huff took to this play equipment: it involved some moving her centre of balance around so she could spin.

A visit to Fagan Park (we’d never been before) was a chance to look around at a lot of types of gardens, and also have the kids run around and burn off some energy. It must have worked: the kids both slept in the car afterwards!

We also managed to fit in a visit to Doc, and a visit to see Uncle M and O, Dad preached at church, and there was the usual work, end of school term, and lots of craft being made. We also had a post-preaching baby lunch with E, uncle J, aunty C, and Grandragon, and then Dad walked home with Huff and Puff, who found it a little too far to travel, but managed to get a second wind at the critical moment.