Medieval Moments....

So how did you spend your Sunday?

I spent about half of mine driving and the other half walking :)

The children and I along with another HS family, woke our tired sleepy children at around 5am and bundled them into the car for a 3hr drive to Balingup for their annual Medieval Carnivale  It was a good thing I was following, as  "Serena" our GPS, was up to her usual tricks....

But we did eventually get there and a great time was had by all. :)

We did get some head turners though, as the other family we went with were our new homeschool friends with 6 children...and with Jamie being away at work....11 children aged from 2 - 13. Three adults, 2 of which were the Mums....well i can only imagine what thoughts would have gone through passers by ;p

Samuel discovered just how heavy chain mail can be...

We watched the Irish fighting the Irish....

the Irish won by the way ;p

The Royal Parade

The sign seems a bit redundant...

d'uh, we KNOW there were no cars in medieval times!! ;p


You see Samuel over there? I swear he thought he was there alone!
He was #11 in the headcount EVERY TIME     grrrrr!

It even blew smoke!!!
Not sure what the brightly coloured roosters behind it are about though??

Eeeeewwww!  I have to wonder how many little
kids had nightmares after meeting this pair??
Are they even in the right time period???

And can you spot the odd one out??

Kaytie really wanted to have her photo with the princesses and missed her first chance. So after the parade she worked up the courage to ask. The redheaded princess at the front said yes and she slipped up there, meanwhile i was trying to get a good shot, and could see someone 'professional' was also trying to get a shot... I sooooo should have got out of the way and let him take it....NOBODY realised she was there, and everyone no doubt wondered what the 'crazy lady' was doing reaching up into their stand, well they all laughed with surprise when a little 6 yo climbed down the steps :D At least she was matching in her purple shirt   ;p
 PS I never realised Medieval princesses had lip piercings. Did you?

Well that's about all the photos i took. But we did soooo much more, i found some great books to add to our ever growing library. I almost, nearly possibly desperately, wanted too, to buy the whole set of Asterix comics for Samuel, but at $20 a pop, even with a promised discount, i thought better of it :)  We learnt some great stuff and would have liked to have gone on the Saturday, especially for the Saturday night, for the "Dragon Burning"
The children had a camel ride each, I am waiting on a video to be emailed through kindly taken by our friends. They also had a turn at 'crossbow shooting' at some wooden soldiers. There were free Celtic face painting - though we avoid face painting after an 'incident' in 2007! (read as a 2nd chicken pox infection!!) There were drumming workshops, Celtic dancing, all sorts of performances through out the day and a few other things we didn't get to do and see. Oh well there is always next year, though we have heard there may be a bigger one, by different people in March!! Maybe we can drag Jamie along if he's home LOL  so as not to cause gossip again ;D

It was an awesome day out and extremely cost effective as children under 12 were free. I bet they regretted that when they saw 11 children wandering up to the gates with only 3 adults between them  LOL. It was very family friendly also, though a few of the knights seemed to forget that with their antics after defeating their opponent :/ I am also thankful it was a winter event as A) it would have been AWFUL for the people wearing full costume- corsets and petticoats included! and B) I think if it had of been Summer, we would have seen a lot more 'busty wenches' and inappropriately dressed fairies :S 

All the children behaved impeccably, considering how much they had to walk, and how many exciting things were available for purchase. Speaking of money (sort of) I was introduced to a neat website via our HS friends. It is called Zefty  It's an online virtual bank, where you, the parent, are the bank manager/teller/atm.
you can set up allowance/pocket money accounts with 'direct debit' weekly amounts or credits into their 'account' or you can 'deposit' into it dependant on their chores done. There is no actual real money whizzing about cyberspace, and the children are unable to make an actual withdrawl without you, but they can print out a cheque if they require real money, which you then cash for them and adjust their balances. I would consider giving my crew pocket money just to use this website lol :) it is also available as an iphone/ipad/itouch app. for when you are out and about....now if i only HAD an iphone/ipad/itouch to use it with..... ;p lol.

We set off for the long drive home after stopping in at the local info. centre for our obligatory purchases... i was disappointed to find they had sold out of stubbie coolers :( and had to settle for a magnet.


"Serena" was not over her mood from that morning...

Huh??

eh??

Well it's a good thing I knew my way home!!!

But we made it home safely, but woke up this morning with the 3 eldest children sick with fevers and nausea :( (they didn't eat anything at the fair, we packed lunches in the camp fridges.) I guess 'time travel' doesn't suit them ;p
Claire and Sophie on the other hand made up for them and destroyed the house faster than i was able to keep up with them :S Then again, maybe they did the normal amount of Tag Team Terror, and i just didn't have the extra 3 pair of hands to help??

and ....
So humbly craving the continuance of your honorable favor towards me, and th'eternal establishment of your happiness, I humbly take leave.

B(J)slkcs
OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox

A little bit of soul searching ....

....has been going on by me, for a loooonnnggg time. but over the last year or so, I've been doing it a lot more than i used too. Perhaps it's because i have my nights alone 4 out of 5 weeks? or maybe because I am starting to feel like a "proper" grown up? probably both.

I've been thinking about what things mean to us and how we live our lives, and the values/virtues that i hold dear (and hope Jamie does too). I've been thinking a lot about what is important to us. So we are going to make a few changes in our lives

Sooo, in all my thinking and after chatting with Jamie, plus getting the all important OK from the children.......

deep breath.......

We have decided to give up Christmas....*cringe.....waiting for reactions....*

Phew...

Well ok, not give up exactly, but more like exchange it for something that is more meaningful to us.
 Christmas, especially now Jamie is FIFO, has always been just a date for us, one that now means more money for us, as no one else wants to work those days except him.  Neither Jamie or I have any religious beliefs about Christmas, and I have spent the majority of my life having multiple christmas' anyway, to be able to see everyone :) 

Sooo what does all this mean to you, my lovely family and friends...well not much really.
It DOESN'T mean, that if you send us a Christmas card we will post it back to you saying "no thanks"
it doesn't mean we won't wish you a Merry Christmas if we speak to you on the phone or via email.
It doesn't mean we will shun the shopping centres because they have Xmas decorations up.
It does mean, that we (seriously, i mean it) would not expect any gifts from anyone, but wouldn't deny you the pleasure of gifting.
Oh and it also doesn't mean we will give up the annual Santa photo - I like that, as it gives me a definite point in time to show how the children have changed over the year.
 It just means that we won't have stockings 'from Santa',
 won't have a big ol' fake tree covered in plastic baubles, even though they ARE so puurrrty :D
and it doesn't mean we won't have any special celebrations or special meals. who knows we might mark the changing of the seasons with some gifts and a special meal? we'll just do what works for us.
 The children are all 'cool' with the 'no santa' thing - though Lily did take it the hardest,(damn you Polar Express!!)  but she is good now.
I've never been fully comfortable with the whole Santa (and tooth fairy/easter bunny) thing anyway, but I admit, I have on numerous occasions used it to my advantage ;p.
We are trying to slow down our pace a little more, and pay more attention to ourselves as a family, I seriously need to give up or at least curb my internet addiction! that is a key goal of mine!!! and we want to cut out all the "junk" in our life. I've noticed the children (especially Samuel) are getting a bit caught up in the whole "I want, I need, gimmee gimmee" aspect of Christmas. Also, after nearly a year in suburbia, i have had my fill and want to 'go bush' obviously not so easy when we have 3am wake up calls and 7:30pm arrivals at the airport for Jamie ;D, but we are planning to move a little more rural. Like they say you don't know what you've got until it's gone :)

Birthdays have always been more important to Jamie and I anyway, so we intend on focusing on them as a start. We would like to start some family traditions of our own. And..... well i haven't got that far in my thoughts yet, but I just wanted to get it out there and let you know what we're thinking.....and give us plenty of time in case we change our mind ;P

So I'll leave you with my revelations for the night...one thing at a time huh ;p and will try post some photos next time.

Happy 100th Birthday for Monday (22nd) again Nanna, Sorry we couldn't be there :c

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

PS. Just so you know, we aren't going to turn into a bunch of hippies dancing naked 'round the moon or anything!!  could you just imagine Jamie with dreadlocks and body paint!  *snort..BAAHAHAHAHAHaargh! thump!*
 sorry about that! I fell off my chair laughing!!!
no, we will still be completely normal and bathe regularly :D
LOL...body paint.. heh heh heh.

You do the math....

Jamie just sent this info via email to me.....


 $22k per piece of Pipe
x 12m Long 
x 168km
x 2 Pipelines

(not his photo)

...and that’s just to get the Gas to Plant...



my calculator crashed! How about yours??
OXO B

It's OFFICIAL!!

well ok almost official...

We are now Western Australians (almost)

gosh i must love you guys, going outside in the freezing wind/rain to take photos of this!!

obviously not the real plate tag...yet???

there are an awful lot of personalised plates over here,

maybe we should try our best to fit in right??

So after 9 months (ha ha like the peoples!!)  we finally...at least, look like we are, Western Australians.  And it's true what they say about rego here*.  In QLD the truck cost around $1100+ to register for the year (being a V8). We were concerned we wouldn't get the great 'discount' that everyone else gets, because over here rego goes by TARE weight and as you know, the truck is pretty heavy but surprise ,surprise it was only $697!! bargain!! it cost nearly that much for 6 months in QLD. 
*(Yes, 3rd party is compulsory here also, contrary to what we had been told by a few people)

Oh and we had a major relief!!. As you should know we had the truck modified to seat 7, but somehow that modification was never noted on the QLD paperwork, so we got the renewal notice and it still said 5 seats! I rang QLD transport and they said it would have to be sighted by a QLD representative...in QLD!!!   eeeeekkk!  Thankfully we were able to get a copy of the required paperwork, and the WA inspection centre said "yeah, s'all cool" PHEW!! could you imagine if it wasn't good? ugh, i dread the thought!!

So why do i keep saying..."almost"?  well i still have to change my license over, Jamie says i should wait till it runs out next year so it's not a waste of money...but i kinda think why bother waiting...besides i don't really like my current photo - i think i look like a Nanna!! :/

So that's about it lately. I'll leave you with some photos.



Oh the joys of being a big sister...putting the little ones to work!!!
Kaytie is brushing , Claire and Sophie are moisturising :D

And Daddy said he didn't want to play...ha! lol
Our new Lego Creationary game

Our Lego 'room'
you see the head in between Lily and Samuel's? That's "I"
 he was here (there?) for Samuel's first sleepover.
He and his family have just moved from Minnesota.
He has 1 older sister and 4 younger siblings!
10 mins prior to this photo he sang the 'Star Spangled Banner' for them
S.O.S.E.  for the day... check! :D


My two little baby bears. Both had fevers :( I think they were "Daddy-sick" Jamie left on the Thurs morning. Sophie again threw up in the car on the way home from the airport, and she had fevers that night, and Friday  Claire was like this most of the day. She slept the whole time in the pram at homeschool group :(  Sophie should have, but is too stubborn, and conked out as soon as we got home, and her fever came back too.
Saturday they were both back to normal, as if nothing had happened?? Gotta love this though...




LOL, that's not a dirty cushion :D



This is her more regular place, or at least where she wishes she could spend all day! she likes to play

Purble Place, Starfall and Crazy Machines

OK well since, I promised myself i would go to bed at 9pm and it's now 12:20am, i should probably leave it at that


Goodnight sleep tight, and i would be really disappointed if you let the bedbugs bite :D

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox
B(J)slkcs

lol Sophie has just woken up, and is now waiting for me in my bed :D
"Are you going to sleep in your bed Sophie?"   "nnnnnnoo.. YOUR bed" so cute :) I have made a deal with her that she can come in when Jamie is away, but she has to start in her bed...ooops she's back definitely going now oxox B+s

Last night for 34 days...

...and I'm on the computer!!!

terrible isn't it!, well no not really. He's in bed snoring his head off (and has been for the past hour)

We are having another long (ok, longer!) stint so that he can be home for my 30th birthday. I have decided that we will go to the revolving restaurant for lunch because 1) it will be daytime and 2) i want the girls to have a chance to wear their new dresses!!

I have asked the awesomely talented Melissa from my Homeschool group in Cairns to make some dresses for the girls after seeing one she had made for her own daughter. The girls know about their dresses, but what they look like will be a COMPLETE surprise!!


Oh... OK,  you twisted my arm, i will let you see the photos.....

This is Lily's

as if you wouldn't have been able to guess ;p

I LOVE the ruffle bits!!

Kaytie's dress

and the back...

Miss Clairebear

And last but definitely not least, Sophie Rose.....

i also LOVE babushkas!!

Are they awesome...or they just AWESOME!!!! and i love how they are all in the girls favourite colours :)
Melissa has also made us a new friend to go with our unit/theme/book study at the moment.

Meet Madeline

isn't she beautiful!! she is a Steiner doll and the children love her to pieces!

Melissa makes a lot of stock for Spiral Garden, a local (tablelands) home school family business, under the name of Rainbow Made, so if you ever see something of hers you'll know it's good :D

Madeline was going to be the main focus of my post, but i have misplaced my photo files for the moment, so that will have to wait.
I had better leave it at that as i have to be awake at 3am to get Jamie to the airport!!  I am NEVER going to get used to that!!!


OXOXoxoxoxoxox
BJslkcs

hey!hey! you see that!! no brackets!!! LOL that is actually the reason i am blogging at the moment and not sleeping, i wanted to post at least once while he was home heh heh.
think of me at 3am or at least dream of me freezing my little toes off and dragging my 5 sleepy children into the car. at least it will be an almost reasonable time of 5am on the east side !

<3