The fairy princess

Watch out she will cast a spell on you. She walks around the house turning everyone into exhausted frogs

Thanks to Mia for supplying the outfit. It will be returned shortly.

Another builder in the house

Over the years Ella has been accumulating a collection of Dora megablocks and this year she got her own Lego box. Well just like her brothers she loves building things. Also just like her brothers she has to have the floor covered in blocks. Simon and Ben keep most of the mess on the floor of their bedroom. On most days you can only see the carpet just around their beds -- the middle of the room is not visible. However Ella has already covered the floor of her room with junk so she needs to play in the living room.

Blogging Resumes.

Hi All,

Despite promises to the contrary at the beginning of the year, there has been a large gap in the blogging activities of this blog. Apologies to our regular readers or maybe it is just a single reader (grandpa). We actually had a whole lot of draft articles waiting to go, they just never got finished. Hopefully they will make it onto the internet in the next few weeks.

We have just returned from a week in Kangaroo Valley.

It was meant to be a farm stay. However it turned out to be more of a stay in cabins on a farm with six goats and 12 cows. So we were a bit disappointed at the lack of activities for the kids. The only “farm” activity was the twice daily feeding of the goats, which took all of two minutes as the children exclaimed each time - “don’t they eat fast”. The kids had a great time anyway because their parents took them out to see different things. There were some bikes available for riding but these were dismissed by Simon as pretty hopeless. The other attraction was the table soccer – this was more in line with Simon's soccer preferences. He had a great time as long as he was winning. (Might need to work on this attitude)

Lisa and Immi stayed with us for a couple of nights and the boys were happy because Immi brought some Lego. On the Tuesday we went to see Fitzroy Falls in the nearby National Park. It was a bit misty.

The next day was pretty nice and we headed down to the Nowra Wildlife park where the kids got to feed more goats.

On Thursday, we went to a local old village museum and then in the afternoon, I took the boys to the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Nowra. The museum had a good collection of planes and helicopters. Simon was enthralled with the helicopter simulator that they had. Ben was happy playing in the helicopter cockpit, hanging from the levers. Sarah took Ella for a haircut.

We drove home today and stopped in at Berry to visit some friends who have a house there. The kids enjoyed having other children to play with after being stuck with their parents for the last few days.

As we drove into the driveway we we were greeted with the usual chorus – “what are we doing tomorrow”. Nothing like living in the moment.

Meant to be an update on 2009 goals

According to all the self help books the first step to achieving your goals is to write them down. This post was meant to be a backward looking one to see if we as a family achieved our 2009 goals. Looking back through the blog posts it seems we didn’t have any! The best you can say is that we didn’t fail to achieve any of our goals. From my memory I can imagine what our goals may have been. Here goes:

1. getting more sleep
2. becoming nappy free ( I think this was a 2007 goal!)
3. having more time for exercise
4. having a good year at preschool
5. having a good year at school
6. a new job for Michael

Retrospectively, we definitely got more sleep than the year before and while Ella still uses pull-ups at night we are very close to losing them. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get more time for exercise and while we had a good year at school and most of the year was good at preschool the end of the year pretty much sucked at preschool as their favourite teacher left abruptly. And Michael got a new job which is going very well even if the company does make missile systems.

Moving on to 2010 goals, we’ll get right back on that horse and go for more of the same:

1. getting more sleep
2. becoming nappy free
3. having more time for exercise
4. having a good year at preschool
5. having a good year at school (now that Ben is being unleashed on the public education system)

What we did this year – Volume 3 – Paid holidays and Value for money

Our first much anticipated holiday of 2009 was a week on the beach at Nelson Bay in a luxury beach house with separate living areas for kids and adults;i.e., one TV each. The place looked fantastic and was right on the rocks at Anna Bay with a short walk to the main beach. Unfortunately it was wet all week and we had to look away from the beach for our amusements or rather the kids entertainment. See the March blog entry for what we ended up doing. Value for money verdict – Not great as we spent so much money amusing them in the wet weather.

Our next paid holiday – the farmstay – was  much more successful as described in the previous blog entry. Although expensive, value for money was excellent.

For our final paid holiday of the year, we wanted to try something different and for this one we took guidance from my parents. I convinced Michael that a cruise would be a good idea – one leaving from Sydney and returning to Sydney. That way there would be no extended travel with Ella as sitting still for any length of time is not one of Ella’s talents. I made sure I chose a ship with a really good kid’s club as I was hoping the kids would be spending a lot of time there. We ended up going on an American ship called Rhapsody of the Seas for a 10 night trip up to Queensland and back. It was fantastic. The kids really enjoyed kids’ club and we really enjoyed dropping them off there! Seriously, it was in management parlance a ‘win-win’ situation. We got plenty of time to ourselves to go to the gym and lounge around the pool reading our books while they were constantly entertained and stimulated. I even managed to catch 2 movies and a show. We are already planning our next year’s cruise……

The ship was quite big with approximately 2500 passengers. We had two cabins an inside and outside one across the hall from each other. The boys slept in the outside cabin with the window and the inside cabin was the girls cabin. In the boys cabin, the third bed was one of the those beds that drops down from the ceiling like on a train. Ben and Simon took turns in sleeping the top bunk.

 

Each night the room attendant set up the bed and also created an animal out of towels. This was a big thrill for the kids each night. Ella was most annoyed when one night we went back to the room early before the beds has been turned down and the towel creature had not been created.

We had good weather for the holiday this time and were able to make good use of the pool and the other out door activities including the climbing wall at the back of the ship although we only tried it once as it got a bit windy and exposed. 4 laps of the top deck was 1 mile. A bit of exercise was needed each day because the food was excellent and there was always more!

 

There was a large buffet at the front of the ship where we had breakfast and lunch. We had sit down dinner in the main dining room on most nights. The plan was for the kids to have dinner at kids club. This only happened once. The kids loved the waiters in the dining room and wanted to have dinner with them (and their parents) on most nights. There was a lot of napkin folding at the table and Simon mastered the “opera house”. A good party trick to impress grandma. We weren’t too hung up on what the kids were eating and Simon got into a bit of a routine. Two servings of fruit loops for breakfast, Caesar salad for lunch and pizza for dinner. He claimed the salad was better than at home.

The ship stopped at Airlie Beach, Cairns, Port Douglas and Brisbane. We used the Cairns and Brisbane stops to catch up with friends. We met up   with our friends Grace and  Carl in Brisbane and their girls Kyra and Sierra. (Thanks for picking us up from the port guys!) .

In Cairns we met our engineering friend Michelle

What we did this year Volume 2 – The farm stay

View Full Album

One of the highlights of 2009 was our farmstay long weekend with  our friends Deb and John at a hobby farm near Foster on the north coast. I organised the holiday with stringent requirements from my friend Deb. For some strange reason she didn’t want to share a house with us so we had to have separate cabins. And she also didn’t want any other visitors at the same time as us. So I dutifully found somewhere that fulfilled these requirements even though this made it slightly more expensive. It was worth every cent. We stayed in two lovely cottages on the property each with a warm open fire. there were plenty of things for the kids to do – animal feeding, tractor rides, horse and pony rides and paddle boats. The ‘farmer’ also took the kids out a few times to give us a break and they really looked after us. Check out the pictures.

What we did this year – Volume 1 – The sub continent visits.

This posting and the next few are a lame attempt to to catch up with blogging. I gave Sarah a list of topics a few months ago but she has not had the time or energy to post about them. Running a household with three active children and a demanding husband plus juggling a job seems to tire her out a bit.[ed. yes it was a bit of a tiring year especially since we did it without a nanny!]

In July we hosted the tour of the Indians with their latest team member Claudia “Bluey”. The kids just loved seeing their cousins and they really miss them when they go. They enjoyed playing video games with them and doing science experiments.

Once again Auntie Mazzie tormented me with gifts of Indian Cricket Team t-shirts to the boys. Her excuse this time was to improve relations with the sub continent. I am still working on a revenge gift for her next visit.

View Full Album

The end of an era - the last Retriever Poker Night

Yes Michael has left his job at Retriever for new horizons. Here is a picture of the last Retriever Poker Night he hosted.

Dress up clothes from Clare

My sister-in-law Clare kindly passed on a whole bunch of dress up clothes she had for her boys. And Ben has made the most use of these. He just loves dressing up! Here is one strange outfit he designed. And he has never seen Michael Jackson!

85 and still going strong

Recently we celebrated Joss's 85th birthday with a wild afternoon tea at our place. There was no alcohol but quite a bit of chocolate and nougat... The photographer was a bit slack so sorry there aren't so many photos. But pretty much the same people came as to Gwenda's 70th party earlier in the year so you can refer back to that blog post. The skies were celebrating too with a double rainbow outside the party.

Joss was looking very well and this article suggests why.

Why I don't need to shop for Ella's clothes

I rarely have to shop to buy Ella's clothes. That's because my friend Lisa passes on all of her little girl Imogen's hand me downs. And they are top quality stuff. Here is a picture of the latest batch. Ella enjoyed 'sorting' them out.

It used to be a treat for me to shop for Ella's clothes until I took her recently to Kmart. I swear I was shopping with a teenager! Everything I chose was automatically rejected and there were tears... I bought the things I wanted and they were popular in retrospect.

Dress ups with Imogen

You know how they warn teenagers these days to watch what they post on the internet because when they grow up and apply for jobs prospective employers will find incriminating photos of them doing regrettable things. These are such photos of Imogen Spence and Simon and Ella %% Harris. (just to trick the search engines Lisa)

late bloomer

yes Simon finally lost his first tooth.

record sleep ins

This year is the year for record sleep-ins in the Harris family. One morning recently all 3 children slept till 7:30! And when Ben went for a sleepover with Granny he didn't stir till 7:45!

All I can say is after 7 years of waking up before 6am its about bloody time.

Question: what month is ripe for bad gorilla jokes?

Answer: 'Ape'ril (courtesy of Simon's latest joke book)

This post is just about what happened in April.

There were two big birthdays -- Ben turned 5 and Simon turned 7. We had a combined birthday this year which was pretty successful. We had the sports guys come and entertain the 20 or so under 7 year olds attending.

Other developments:
Ben and Ella started a weekly dance/drama class called MovenGroove. This was instigated after getting sick of dragging Ben into the swimming pool for lessons and deciding I needed a break from swimming lessons. 'Unfortunately' Mums aren't even allowed in the room for MovenGroove. I thought 'Humpty Squad' was good where I could sit and have a cup of tea while watching on the sidelines but this is even better. They do open the class occasionally for the parents so tomorrow I will get to watch them moving and grooving. Theyalways seem to have enjoyed the class but aren't that enthusiastic about it. Its not cool for Ben to be enthusiastic about that sort of thing but it was very hard to find a class they could both do together. Maybe next term we'll do Tae Kwon do for preschoolers.

They have also decided the gym creche is fun so I am trying to take them there once a week for a bit of Sarah time. Are you sensing a theme here? This is just the sort of win-win situation we like. Happy mother. Happy child. Happy family.

Simon's big discovery this month is "virtual lego". Lego has produced a virtual designer which you download and you can build lego in software. There is a huge collection of bricks and then when you've build it you upload your creation to a website and have the opportunity to "buy" all the bricks in your creation. They will even customise the packaging for you. Simon is desperate to buy some until I explain the shipping costs. You can also upload pictures of your real creations as seen here.

The weekend business report.

On Saturday, we discovered we had a budding young entrepreneur in the family. Last year Sarah bought Simon a book about making paper planes. He has been busily making planes for the last few months and has a big box of them. Despite the global financial crisis Simon decided that he would share his creations with the world (for a fee of course)

In other news we went to the school disco (aka fund raiser). Ella won a prize for "crazy dancing". There was not a lot of uptake of the paper plane offer but Simon is determined. When we returned from the disco he arranged for Emma from next door to come over and view the exhibition. She left 40c poorer but much happier as the proud owner of two Simon Harris originals.

Wet Weather Guide to Port Stephens

Two weeks ago we had a weeks holiday at Anna Bay in Port Stephens. We were all really looking forward to a nice summer holiday at the beach. The previous week had been really hot and we hoped the weather would continue. We had a shaky start to the holiday.

We left on Sunday, the temperature was predicted to reach 40 degrees C. Packing for holidays is always stressful - there is a long list of things to bring for the kids besides just their clothes. Sarah was also bringing about twenty books - I don't know when she was expecting to read them. Sometime Sarah forgets that she has three kids that need to be entertained. Besides remembering all the things to bring, the other problem is fitting it all into the car. Despite having the Odyssey (aka the jumbo), there is limited boot room with the third row of seats up. So on Sunday morning I had crossed off all the things on the list and managed to fit it all in the car and we set off as planned at 10:30. It is about 2 1/2 hours to Anna Bay from our house. We arrived there seven hours later!.

When we were about 30 minutes away from Anna Bay, I realised there was one thing I had not put on list - the keys to the house. I asked Sarah if she had packed them. Well the answer was no. So we turned around and headed back home. Luckily the kids slept most of the way back. At about 3PM we headed off the second time, finally arriving at the holiday house at about 6:30 with two stops for MacDonalds at the same Macdonalds.

The next day, Monday was nice and warm and we all headed down to the beach to see Sarah's friends Mark, Tim and Mia who were also staying in Anna Bay. The boys splashed around in the water and played on the rocks. Ella and Sarah went shopping for food. We couldn’t really swim because there was an onshore wind that was slowly covering the beach in blue bottles. I popped a few for Ben and then a few more…after a hundred or so I pointed out to Ben that the beach was covered in them and he didn't need to keep showing me each one.

Tuesday, the weather was not looking good and we headed to the local fun park - Toboggan hill. The boys each had a go on the climbing wall, although Ben was a little bit scared once he had got a few metres off the ground . We all had a few runs on the toboggan and then the kids had a go on some kids dodgem cars. Everyone had a good time.

Wednesday was pouring rain so we visited Fighter World at the local air force base. It was a bit of a rush through as the children darted between the planes. The main attraction turned out to be some old arcade games. We didn't last as long as I hoped there. Our next door neighbours have friends that own a play centre down in Charlestown about an hours drive south through Newcastle. We drove down to check it out and have some lunch. The kids were pretty happy - Simon especially when he found that they had a playstation.

Thursday and the weather was looking slightly better so went to another beach called "One Mile Beach". It wasn't that warm but at least it wasn't raining so the kids could spend some time digging holes. The other reason for going to this beach was that it had a different orientation to the ones that were still covered in blue bottles. Just our luck though, the wind had changed and this beach had even more blue bottles on it. There were so many they were in piles a few cm high. We went back to have lunch with Tim and Mark. Now Tim is a bit of gourmet - makes his own ice cream. What a shock I had when we had chicken nuggets, mini sausage rolls and pizza for lunch.

Fridays was looking bleak again We couldn't take it anymore so we decided to come home a day early.

Not our best holiday ever although I am sure the kids had a great time.

Bye Bye

With Ella starting preschool this year, it is time for our 4th child to leave home. Busy Lizzy (aka the craft nanny) will be looking after the children for the last time on Friday. Lizzy has been with us for 3 1/2 years. While she has been with us Lizzy has given us a taste of things to come in 15 years time. Lizzy is studying part time at university and Sarah has been helping her with essays and assignments. Lizzy sleeps over occasionally and we worry when she goes out and isn't home by the time we go to sleep at 9:30PM. Hopefully we will be staying up later when the kids are older so they don't have a 9:15 curfew.
The children will all miss Lizzy terribly. They all love:

• the shopping trips to toys r us where they plan their birthday and christmas present lists
• the fantastic chicken schnitzel dinners
• the coffee shop trips for the baby cinos and cookies
  
• the painting and other craft activities. Whenever the children get a craft present, we say "you can do that with Lizzy"
• the fun times.

Sarah and Michael will miss:

• the ironing and the washing
• the clean house
  
• the chicken schnitzel dinners
• having time off, knowing the kids are being looked after so well.

Goodbye and thank you Lizzy.

The first day of the rest of my life

Last week, preschool started. This year Ella is joining her brother at Children's Cottage. This Wednesday Simon is starting school. Ever since I started working 4 days a week (4 years ago) I have been dreaming of the day when all three of them are in school and I'll get a few hours to myself. Poor Sarah will have to wait another two years for this to happen to her. Although I am swapping my first day off with Sarah just to give her a taste.

I know you are not really interested in my ramblings, what you really want to know is how did Ella go. Did she cope at preschool? Did the preschool cope with Ella. Well everyone was happy. On the first day she stayed to 12:30 and on the second day after telling Sarah to go in the morning, Ella and Ben stayed until 2:30 and the teachers even got Ella to have a sleep. Hopefully things will continue on like this.

Working together

Whenever Sarah is baking in the kitchen, Ella likes to lend a hand. Mainly because there may be the chance to lick the spoon. Since it is summer at the moment, the idea is that you do the baking in your swimming costume so you can jump into the pool while the biscuits are in the oven.






Producing this blog takes a lot of effort so I have started training Simon in the fine art of blog writing. Although he does use the computer, he seems to spend most of his time playing online games rather than writing insightful and funny blog articles.