Please remeber Lisa in your prayers

Last October you may remember me writing about my amazing cousin Lisa King loosing her son Noah. Yesterday her husband Aaron died suddenly from a massive heart attack at the age of 39. This is so shocking, tragic and hard to comprehend. Please remember Lisa and her three boys in your prayers. To read her story you can visit her blog and you can also make a donation to help them through the coming weeks.

Australia Day

I like to celebrate Australia Day in our home. I love sharing a bit about Australia with the kids and this year I also went into Sam and Ella's classrooms to talk about Australia and share a couple of stories. It was so much fun! Owen came with me on the school visits, it was fun for him to be my helper and see a bit of what goes on at school.

For family home evening on Monday night we made chocolate and strawberry Lamingtons to share with Sam and Ella's class mates. There are no bakeries here to buy them from and so the only way we get them is if we make them. They are fun to make but very messy! Especially with 4 kids helping out. I'm still sweeping up bits of coconut.

All in a Weekend

The weekend always flies by so fast! This weekend Sam played his first game of basketball for the season and got four goals! Go Sam! Here is a picture of him with his good buddy Harper. They got to be on the same team which they were both very excited about!

Ella went to a her friend Caroline's pony birthday party. Unfortunately a big storm came through and so they did not get to ride the ponies as planned, just got to look at them longingly outside in the rain. Oh well..


And Will got to wear some new birthday clothes from Grandma Bingham to church today. Thanks Grandma!

And this afternoon, Sam and Owen helped make homemade tortillas to go with the tacos we had for dinner. They all declared that they taste better than the store bought ones!

And now we're ready to start another week!

How to turn a fussy eater around

Sam is not the only fussy eater in our home. Owen (4.5) has proven to be quite stubborn about trying anything new. Owen doesn't have any trouble chewing his food like Sam did, but just likes to stick with a few favorites. Saturday night we had Thai green curry for dinner. Ella and Sam tucked in, but Owen chose to go to his bedroom, with the light out instead of touching his food. About half an hour later, he finally came out, willing to try some food, if he could play Uno at the same time. Owen LOVES Uno and is pretty good at it. Every time he plays a card he has to take a bite, a game we played last week with when he was struggling with potatoe and leek soup. We've now discovered that Owen will eat just about anything, and finish his plate, if he can just play Uno at the some time!

Here's Owen enjoying his Thai green curry...

They should have these at Burger King!

We're on a vegie kick at our house at the moment and are trying out two new vegetarian cookbooks we received at Christmas time. Tonight for dinner we had Black Bean-Chipotle Burgers. Half way through his burger Sam declared enthusiastically "They should have these at Burger King!" The funny thing is we've only ever taken the kids to Burger King once and they hated the chicken nuggets we got them. Also, Sam, until the last year was a very fussy eater, after some help from a speach thearapist who specialized in helping kids with eating disorders, Sam is gaining ground fast and now will try most things, a huge improvement on 18 months ago. So for Sam to declare that he loved his burger and that they should make them at Burger King sure made his Dad and me smile!

Happy First Birthday Will!

Our little baby Will turned one today and is not so little anymore! Sam, Ella, Owen and Elliott were excited to help their little brother open his presents. He received three new baby toys from Oma which he loved. He also got a stuffed monkey which the kids all help make at Build-A-Bear last week. In our family everyone has a special blanket and stuffed animal to take to bed and Will has been trying to snuggle up to his sibblings stuffies and needed one of his very own.

For dinner Ella decided we needed to have pizza (the family birthday dinner of choice) and a pavlova for the cake. Will loved it all!