Our Beautiful Girls…

Here are some of the gorgeous photo’s Helen took of the girls recently. Who needs to pay for an expensive photo shoot when you have a talented sister with an eye for photography.

Thanks heaps Helen xxx

 

 

Please Mr Fix it…

Among other things over the past few months, Brett and I have been trying to fix up a few things around the house, but unfortunately the list just doesn’t seem to end.

The one thing we are trying to concentrate on at the moment is getting our spa repaired.  It seemed to work fine for the first 2 years in the house but then it all of a sudden started to lose water from somewhere and as I was about to pop out Miss Isabella, time just got away from us and the poor spa has been sitting there for the past 5 years untouched

Finally we decided enough was enough and the darn thing had to either be repaired or pulled out.  So out came the rubber gloves and the disinfectant and the spa recieved a fresh new “clean” makeover. The only thing was that unfortunately the problem wasn’t quite what we expected and the spa continued to leak water underground and we now have a spa repair man trying to get us a part for a very old spa. Fingers crossed but it should be fixed by the end of next week

 

The spa after it’s makeover

 

This is the spa as it stands at the moment. Dad and Brett spent the whole day digging up around the spa to find the leak, and instead of finding 1 leak they found 3 leaks

Will keep you all informed and hopefully the next pictures of the spa will be with us in it with a glass of wine

xxx

 

 

October 2009

Well another month has passed but I have not alot to report on as October was a pretty cruisie month for us

Here are a few things that we got up to

   

1/  The girls and I decided that we would like a picnic so we headed out into the backyard yard where it seemed that we were actually the meal… Darn mozzies!

2/  Mums church had their annual Fete and thought what better way to enjoy a beautiful Saturday morning. The girls just loved the animal farm

3/  This is how I found the girls watching TV one morning To my surprise Isabella was quite happy with Piper resting on her back… lol

4/ Piper’s beautiful flower face painting that she got at the Church Fete

5/  The girls headed off to Tayla’s 4th Birthday Mermaid Party… Tayla’s mum did an awesome job with an “Under the Sea Mermaid” themed party

6/  Just haning out with Mummy xxx

 

Hong Kong – September 2009

As most of you know at the start of the month Mum, Helen and I galavanted off to Hong Kong for a “girly” week away of sightseeing and shopping.

Apart from the weather being stinking hot and humid, we had a fantastic time. We arrived on the Wednesday afternoon and started our sightseeing seeing straight away with a visit to Hong Kong Harbour where we waited for night to fall so that we could witness the laser show I would hate to see how many “little black balloons” Hong Kong would release in a day but definately worth the wait .

The following day we headed off on a half day tour of Hong Kong Isalnd and a ride on the cable car upto The Peak. Apart for the slight smog lingering about, the view was absolutely amazing. We then headed off to Stanley Market were unfortunately we only half an hour of shopping before our bus left You don’t get much shopping done in that time when you have to haggle and barter for every little thing you buy. lol

Friday was the day I secretly had been waiting for with us heading to Hong Kong Disneyland The place was a lot smaller then the USA’s version, but definately still just as magical. The one thing I loved was that you are never to old for any of the rides with us going on all the usual like the Carousel, Flying Dumbo’s and of course It’s a Small World. We managed to stay all day and witnessed the amazing firework show over Sleeping Beauty’s Castle after dark Hmmmm guess I’d better start saving so that I can take Brett and the girls

We also headed to Shenzhen in China which was a bit daunting. We were warned by our tour guide that going through customs they have plenty of thermal video recorders testing everyones body temps, and if your temp registered over 37 degrees then they would quaranteen you for 5 days in a hotel… Not the kind of place I wanted to stay against my will. lol  We headed to the 5 storey shopping mall which was just full of tiny little stalls, and you couldn’t even take a step without women literally grabbing you on the arm and trying to get you to head to their stalls. Grrrrrrrr

With very little meal options in China, we decided to rough it and headed to the busiest authentic Chinese Restaurant we could find. Thankfully they had a menu in English, but we gave our poor waitress the giggles when we asked for a fork to eat our noodles. lol Oh well! it was definately more fun giving the chop sticks a go (see Helen’s blog for the pics…) The hardest thing I found in China was their toilets. Of course where we were didn’t have western toilets, just the porcelan hole in the ground. lol I won’t go into too many details, but lets just say it was an experience we just couldn’t pass up

To top this amazing trip off we discovered that our plane from Hong Kong to Singapore was aboard one of the new A380 jumbos WOW what an amazing sight these planes are.

Saving for the next trip now which will hopefully be a family trip to the UK to visit all my relo’s Hmmmmm Maybe we could take the kids to Euro Disney. lol

Take care

Caroline xxx

P.S – GO CATS GO!!!! – Good luck boys for the up and coming Grand Final on Saturday Lets make it 2 out of 3

The past 6 weeks in a nut shell…

Here it is finally and in a nut shell.

I thought the easiest way to do this being that it has been sooooo long, is to create a few collages of the past 6 weeks. So here we go!

June/July “09″…

1/ Back in June we headed up to Bendigo to go to the EK/FB Nationals. Other then being freezing cold and a little damp, we had an absolute blast.

2/ The girls just love blowing bubbles in the backyard, and I must say that I am pretty impressed by this photo. It’s not easy taking a photo through a bubble. lol

3/ At the end of June we headed back upto Chewton/Bendigo to see Mum and Dad Baynham and headed out to the Bendigo Market for stroll. Once again the weather was a little chilly and wet

4,5 & 6/ We headed to the Rocket Park with playgroup for a sausage sizzle and a play, and besides the chilly breeze, we had such a perfect day weather wise

 

Piper’s 3rd Birthday…

On July 11th Piper celebrated her 3rd birthday. We didn’t organise anything too big as they always seem to get a little out of control (the parties that is). So we just headed to McDonalds for dinner and then off to the Melbourne Zoo with all the family  All the kids (big and small) seemed to have a great time, and it was amazing to see how the zoo had changed in just a few years. The animals enclosures looked amazing and very “natural” looking, and with more renovations underway, I’m sure we will be back in the near future.

 

Just Stuff…

1/ Bella has been very helpful around the house lately and keeps asking to do chores so that I will pay her money? lol  It’s quite amusing as we haven’t really discussed pocket money just yet. I think this is a sign to start. lol 

2/ Now that Piper has turned 3 she has actually moved up to the next level at swimming and swims on her own without daddy in the pool :) She is doing so well and has started swimming without the aid of floaties, and her teacher told me the other day that she is a real water baby Lets just hope she keeps up the great work

3/ I think the picture says it all… Yes Piper got into my makeup draw and decided that it would be fun to cover her face in my dark eyeshadow. lol  She was so proud of herself

4&5/ Last week Brett and I decided to take the girls into the city on the train. In theory this seemed to be a good idea and sounded like lots of fun, but for some reason (maybe an hour train ride of sitting there looking out a window???) they went a little feral and naughty and we ended up cutting our outing short and headed home Little buggers….

6/ On Saturday morning the girls decided to get up nice and early around 6am, but daddy and I had other thoughts and fell back asleep for another hour until I woke to the sound of the kitchen cutlery draw closing. We then realised that the house was very quiet and once investigated, we discovered that our “little darlings” managed to get a hold of a large bottle of talcum powder and covered Piper’s entire room and had it mixed in bowls with spoons.  :(  Luckily Brett and I saw the funny side of this and took a few pictures before the clean up and her room smelt nice and fresh. lol

Till next time

Caroline

P.S – Only 16 (nearly 15) more sleeps to go until Helen, Mum and I head off to Hong Kong. Can’t wait!

The month of June…

Whoops! Sorry everyone but I’ve been a little slack with my updates, so here is the month of June in a nut shell.

 

We started off the month with Bella having crazy hair day at kinder. I’ll be honest and say that I forgot for the first day and madly had to take out her pigtails and just randomly replace them, but luckily for me she was happy with that. But thank goodness I remembered for the Wednesday and we were a little more prepared

We also headed up to Bendigo for the EK/FB Nationals which was lovely and cold. The kids didn’t seem to mind the cold weather which was good and it was great catching up with a load of friends  

The kids just couldn’t help themselves and had to pose with “Axe Man”??? (No questions please because I have no idea who he is??? lol)

This FB wagon turned up just as we were getting ready to leave and it was exactly how we want to do mine (expcept for the colours). We couldn’t help but drool all over it. lol

 

The girls felt the need for a little “Bubble Mania”

We were back up at Chewton and Bendigo last weekend for Kate’s birthday which was lots of fun. We headed off to Bendigo market in the morning and then to the local RSL were Ma and Pa Baynham kindly shouted us all lunch And what a good lunch it was Mmmmmmmm.

Other then this not much else has been happening. Today I am enjoying taking it easy and tinkering on the computer, while doing the odd chore here and there but generally having a slack day. This is my first day where I have had no plans day or night for such a long time. I could get quite use to this. lol

Till next time.

Caroline xxx

I’m glad that’s over…

WOW! what a week last week was. It started off with our usual full on Monday and it just seemed to continue from there. Nothing too fantastic happened but I just never seemed to get a free moment and it didn’t seem to stop until this Tuesday. Then to add to it all I ended up having to stay back at work one night and didn’t get home until gone 1am, and of course the next morning just so happened to be the morning that Piper thought she needed to wake me up at 6.10am for chat… Grrrrrrrrr.

Also last week we managed to find time to catch up with Tayani who is one of Bella’s kinder friends from her old kinder. The girls hadn’t seen each other since before Easter and it was so cute to see them both so excited. I think they could have played all day

(Tayani, Isabella and Kinder Teddy)

 

Amoungst the mayhem was Helen’s birthday, so it was nice having to stop for a while and head out to lunch and celebrate. We headed off to Kelly’s in Cranbourne which I must say was very nice. The food was beautiful except for the little “extra” ingredient dad found in his meal which was a decent sized piece of glass. He was very lucky he didn’t swallow it as the size it was it probably would have sliced his throat the entire way down. Anyway all sorted and he got his money back and other then that the time out was great.

(I know I am definately going to get into trouble for this one but so be it )

 

I’m still undecided on this picture as to who set the toys up for their photo shoot? I thought it was just a general shot that Bella took the other night when she was playing with our camera, but since taking a closer look and seeing what “positions” the toys are in, it kind of reminds me of something that my darling husband would do??? Hmmmmmmmm

If  it is the work of Miss Isabella then I know who she takes after in the family and if it was my darling husband then I think he needs a little help. Lol  I shall investigate and let you all know who the culprit was.

Hope you all have a great long weekend (I know we will).

Caroline xxx

new addition to the family…

For the next week The Baynham household has a new addition to the family that goes by the name of “Teddy”.  I was greeted by a very excited Bella on Monday who was chosen to take the kinder teddy home for the week. He came complete with carry bag and journal, so as you can imagine he is being taken everywhere we go. I just have to remember to take a few photo’s so that I can complete my homework over the weekend and create a double page in “Teddy’s” journal.

It is very interesting looking through the journal to see how “Pink” Teddy use to be, and did wonder how he would go in the washing machine but decided he is probably best left alone as I don’t want to be the one to end Teddy’s adventures.

 

Hong Kong is slowly creeping up on us. I made my final payment over the weekend which was very exciting as it is finally starting to sink in that we are actually going   I now just have to try and save as much as I can which isn’t quite going to plan. Doesn’t help that my car had to have a service and that I needed to get 2 new tyres for my car. Oh well, there is always tax money

Till next time.

Caroline xxx

What’s new?…

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post but I really have no excuses this time. lol

We are trying to get back into the swing of Term 2, but for some reason it’s taking a little longer then expected. Bella has started at her new kinder and is loving it which is a huge relief.  Her teachers have informed me that she has settled really well with her new environment, and she comes out at the end of the day with a big smile on her face and tells me all about the things she has done. Kids really do adapt to change quite well. It’s us parents who have the trouble.

We have had some wild and woolley weather recently which I am just loving. 51mm fell in Cranbourne North over the weekend which was great but the winds were just a little too squally for me. Luckily for us we had all our fences replaced 2 weeks ago and it was so nice not having to worry about the old ones getting blown over. lol   As you can see from the picture, the fences were in a pretty terrible state. 

THANK YOU Pat and Jeff so so much for the new fences

We have also had the unfortunate luck (or should that be fortunate luck) of our oven dying. It has never worked well since the day we moved in but over time I figured out how to get by, and was silently rapped when Brett suggested that we replace it with a new one. We didn’t get anything flash but the new oven works like a dream   It runs so quiet and I can now bake a cake without having to turn it every 10mins and no more burning the top while the centre is still raw. AWESOME!!!

On a much more exciting note Miss Matilda turned 2 on Saturday (I can’t believe she is 2 already), and even though Helen didn’t organise a party for that day, it seemed that secretly we all wanted to help her celebrate as all the family seemed to visit the birthday girl at the same time.  Luckily for Helen she had 2 cakes on standby to feed the tribes. lol

Well, now you are all caught up so until next time

Caroline xxx

Easter 2009…

Well now that the Easter Bunny has been and gone, I am getting a little worried as to what I can now use as bribery on my girls. lol

Me  threatening to call the Easter Bunny and telling him not to come was working great but what now?

Other then us all being sick with the cold/cough bug going around, we had a fabulous Easter

On Good Friday Brett, the girls and I headed to the Cadbury Easter Egg Hunt at Cruden Farm in Langwarrin. The girls did an awesome job of collecting eggs to the point they collected a total of 243 little cadbury eggs. Way too many for our liking to the point that Brett took a very large container full to work yesterday and tried to off load some as we currently have chocolate coming out of our ears.

On Easter Sunday we headed to an awesome park in Rowville which the kids (big and small) just loved. There are so many different and interactive things for the kids to play on and even though we were there for 5hrs, the kids never seemed to get bored

On an even more exciting note. Mum, Helen and I headed to the travel agent on Saturday and booked our trip to Hong Kong   We head off on September 2nd for 6 nights (2 of these nights are in the air) and have already booked all our days with sightseeing and shopping.  Bring on Disneyland   The only downer is that being that there weren’t too many flights available, we are now going to be away for fathers day   I guess I’d better buy Brett something REALLY special to make up for it. lol

Hope you all had a fab Easter and put on as many kilo’s as me.

Caroline xxx