Merry Christmas!

Gender Differences

Over the weekend I took a few quick snaps of the kids while they were colouring in. Once Elizabeth realised what I was doing, this is the pose I got from her........

And this is what I got from Joseph.....

Yep, there is definitely a difference between girls and boys in this house!

And a big welcome to Matthew, our newest little blog reader. Matthew- I hope that you keep Mummy so busy that she doesn't have time to complain about the frequency (or lack thereof) of blog posts!

Decking the Halls

Time to put up the 2010 Christmas Tree.

Elizabeth was very serious about her ornament placement.

The lower branches got lots of attention.

I don't think we've ever had ornaments touching the floor before.

Joseph had the honour of putting the star on top of the tree.

The elves were happy with their handiwork.

Photo shoot rejects

We needed a head shot of Joseph for kindy next year, so we did a little photo shoot on the back deck one morning. This is what I get when I ask Joseph to look at the camera and smile, preferably at the same time....

I will spare you from the twenty others- thank goodness for digital cameras. This is what I ended up going with...

Elizabeth's Second Birthday

I thought I'd better post some pictures of Elizabeth's 2nd Birthday before she turns three. So without any further delay.....

Here's Elizabeth with the doll's cot that was my Mum's sisters, then Mum's, then mine and now Elizabeth's....all up three generations and about 75 years old. Brendan painstakingly repaired it, sanded through at least five different paint colours and then repainted it the original aqua. Then I sewed (!) sheets for it. And this is the only picture we have of Elizabeth with it. Why? Well, she basically pulled the sheet off it, said 'wow' and then didn't touch it for the rest of the day. Am happy to report though that a few weeks later she loves putting all of her babies to sleep in the cot.

The real hit present of her birthday was this stroller from Aunty Rosie. Both kids love it and I'm surprised that it hasn't been pulled in half yet. On the morning of her birthday, Elizabeth decided to walk her baby around the corner to the hardware shop with Dad.

Lots of stops to pick flowers and blow dandelions.

Slow progress- ten minutes later and still at the house next door. I just wish I'd followed them for a bit longer- once they got around the corner Elizabeth decided she was sick of walking. So Dad carried her, the pram and the doll all the way to the hardware and home.

The butterfly cake....requested because it had lots of 'wollies' on top.

Seeing the cake for the first time.

Blowing out the candles (with a bit of help from Grandma Elaine in the background).

Giving herself a round of applause.

Happy girl.

Daddy's girl.

Two!

This wild child turned two today......Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl.

Halloween

Halloween is our street is always hit and miss- there is either trick or treaters and no lollies, or bowls of lollies and no one to give them out to. One of our lovely neighbours decided to get us all organised for Halloween this year thank goodness. She organised a meeting time for the kids and any neighbours that wanted to be trick or treated were to tie a ribbon on their gate so we knew who to door knock and who to leave alone. It worked brilliantly and we ended up with about 50 trick or treaters past our place. Joseph was not convinced of the whole plan to start with, but once the lollies were mentioned he was in!

So we pieced together some fairly dodgy costumes......

...Joseph the pirate who wouldn't wear an eye patch and was also opposed to an earring, parrot and beard. He basically looked like a gondolier with a sword.

Elizabeth the fairy/ princess/ butterfly..she never really did make up her mind as to what she was.

The best photo that I could get of them together. Lesson of the day- don't promise children lollies then expect them to stand still for photos.

The neighbourhood kids ready to go- these are the younger kids, the older kids wouldn't be in any photos.
Joseph and Elizabeth - not really sure what's going on.

Warming up to the task at hand- Elizabeth quickly became a very sticky fairy/princess/butterfly. None of this saving them for later rubbish- she ditched her basket and ate as she went!

Poor Elizabeth- by the time she made it to the front door of most houses the other kids had finished. She wouldn't delegate her lolly collecting though, or skip even one house. Luckily the other kids were really good about waiting for her.

Then we got to this house, where a self crowned wizard was handing out freddos.

Lucky last again- it didn't help matters that she would take ages to select her lolly each time.

All in all a good night.

Joseph turns Four

We started the birthday celebrations with cupcakes at Kindy.

'These are much better than the fruit they usually make us eat, Mum!'

Birthday morning with the 'only one thing that I want for my birthday', the $8 truck that he spotted in the toy catalogue months ago.

Happy to be able to finally hold up four fingers!

On our way to the dinosaur museum- birthday boy's choice, which is becoming a birthday tradition.

At the museum.

Joseph went through every birthday cake book, magazine and website available and decided that he wanted this hopscotch cake. I didn't even know that he knew what hopscotch was...

Joseph insisted that he wasn't four until he had his cake, so here he is, now four years old, eating the number 4 piece of the hopscotch cake, of course!

Let them eat cupcakes...