A Dedicated Ballerina

For her birthday back in November, my Mum sent Ella a pretty dress-up skirt and a pair of slippers. Ella puts them on first thing every morning and often will only take them off when we leave the house. She thinks she's a ballerina when she has them on and just loves them!! After 2 and a bit months of almost constant use, the slippers already have holes in them and are getting a little smelly!! I'm trying to come up with a way to mend the bottoms and give them a wash !

Ella at 7:30am this morning.....

The holey shoes!

Australia Day

Today is Australia Day and so the kids and I spent the day making Australian food, singing Australian songs and pretending to get on a plane and fly to Australia. It's not quite the same as going to the beach and/or having a picnic which is probably what we'd be doing if we were in Australia!

Today we made Lamingtons (cake squares coated in chocolate icing and coconut!) and Anzac biscuits. For the N. Americans reading this, Australians call cookies biscuits and the closest thing to biscuits we have are scones. Anzac is an acronym for Australian New Zealand Army Core and the biscuits were originally made for the Australian and New Zealand troups in WWI.

Tonight we dropped off some Lamingtons and Anzac biscuits with some friends. It was fun to share a little bit of Australia with them.

Here are Sam, Ella and Owen mixing up the cake for the Lamingtons. What you can't see is me, 6mths pregnant, standing on the chairs above them trying to direct traffic! I sure hope one day they all enjoy cooking!!

Lamingtons, the finished product - YUM YUM

ANZAC biscuits...

Sam enjoying a Lamington. He also had four ANZAC biscuits today!!

Happy Birthday Laurel Lee

Today is Auntie Laurel Lee's birthday and Sam, Ella and Owen wanted to wish her happy birthday!
Have a great day LL!

Mum, What's that white stuff?

That's what Sam asked me this morning when we stepped outside to go to the gym. Yep. it was snowing! Nothing settled on the ground, but we did have fun watching the snow coming down all day, until about 3pm. Sam and Ella got their snow gear on - who knew that we'd even get some use out of it in Georgia! I thought for sure that was one box we wouldn't have to unpack!

If you look very closely, you can see a little bit of snow on the top of the fence post!
After playing outside while it was snowing for a while, Sam and Ella came back inside and made snow flake paintings using white paint and foam.

The rest of the afternoon we spent inside. Ella has been spending hours making patterns with Legos. Below is a picture of what she made today. She has been coming up with endless color combinations and designs.

6 Months and Counting Down

I can't believe we're almost half way through January already! Which also means that I've hit the 6 month mark and only have 3 more months until the baby is born. Sam, Ella and Owen all love to pat my tummy at the moment and point to where the baby is. Sam and Ella count time by holidays. Next we have Australia Day (Jan 26), then Heart Day (Valentine's Day), and then Easter. And the baby will "come out" after Easter. Hopefully we won't have long to wait, the baby is due Easter Monday and it sure would be nice if it arrived on time, or even a little early!

Just after the New Year we went on a day trip to a State Park just over an hour away called Magnolia Springs. We don't know much about the area yet and so we thought we'd just get in the car and go somewhere. The park was once the largest prison of war camp during the civil war. The springs are a good source of fresh, cool, clean water and so I guess it was a good place to put a lot of people! The day we went there were only a handful of other people around, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves.

Owen, Ella and Sam enjoying their picnic lunch.

Owen collecting pine cones. "Pine cones" was also his new word of the day.



And a picture of the springs. They don't look too exciting in this picture, but up close we could see lots of turtles and a few fish. The water was really shallow which made it easy for the kids to see too. There was also a sink hole in one spot where the water was bubbling up which reminded me of the Kimberly Springs outside Deloraine in Tasmania.

On January 6th, Owen officially hit the 18 month mark. He is trying his hardest to keep up with Ella and Sam and already has a pretty wide vocabulary. He is small (in the 10th percentile for height and below the chart for weight) and so people are often surprised to hear him talking because he looks so much younger.

Here is Owen going "shopping".
And Owen riding the vacuum cleaner. A new trick he picked up while Chris was home on holidays. Now he wants to do it every time I vacuum. Not an easy task when you're 6 months pregnant!
Owen loves to play dress-up. I think he makes the cutest little dinosaur! The costume is a size 3-4 but he loves to wear it any way!