testing me???

It has been a hard couple of days on the parenting front. The kids are adjusting to being back in Sydney. Between the odd sleep patterns and a strange bug affecting their digestive system (Reese now has the nickname Reese 9 poops) it has tough. Plus we've gone cold turkey on the binky. Reese only used it for napping but was addicted and it was starting to be an issue. So instead of a quiet nightly routine of sucking binky and going to bed on her own she now screams and tries to leave her bed. It truely tests both your will and confidence when you have to stand by the door (to manually keep it locked) and endure the crying of your baby. I am really hoping that this only lasts a couple of nights. Especially since Michael is away and I might be tempted to cave in. Tough love sucks.

spring time- watch the clocks.

FYI- we changed our clocks here in Sydney this weekend. We sprung forward 1 hour. Making the us now only 5 hours earlier (plus a day) from Seattle. Slightly easier to call us (hint hint).

No more flights

We just returned from a great but tiring trip back to the States. Our intinary includes stays in San Diego, New York, Seattle and Hawaii....a full coast to coast effort. Plus Nate got to celebrat his birthday in each city- I think he's had 5 turning 5 parties. Lucky kid. Nate has the whole flight thing down- he is a true world class traveller. He gets on the plane steals my itouch and bose headphones and takes long plane naps. I wish the same could be said of Reese. But overall both were good travellers and adjust to different time zones and getting hugged daily by new faces.
It was wonderful to see our friends and family again. We really got to spend quality time with everyone. My sincere apologies for those few who I had to cancel on. We got rushed towards the end of our stay. We did our part to help stimulate the US economy (hope you own Target & Costco stocks)- and even needed to buy an extra suitcase to carry back all the toys, kid clothes, and contraband food.

Now I need to get to thoses suitcases and unpack ;)
check out the photos View Album

Life on Mars

I awoke the other day at 5:00am (thanks to Reese) to look outside and see only orange. It was very surreal. There was a thick red/orange fog that had engulfed all of Sydney. It turned out to be a dust storm bringing in red clay dust from a drought area. A 70 year storm they say. It was pretty interesting to experience. On the downside we had left some windows open and had a thick layer of red dust all over the house. No kidding- the *$&@Q was everywhere. We (in this case me) was cleaning for days and I can still find it in places. We almost changed the theme of Nate's birthday party (scheduled for the day after the storm) to a Mars/Sci-fi party ;)

Check out the photos:

family pasta night

Ever wonder- what do we do on an average weekend night? Some fancy dinner out, club hopping with the international jet set party, black tie event? Nope. We are just as lame here as we were in Seattle. Check out the photos from last Friday night. We broke out our newest favorite kitchen gadget- our pasta maker. The whole clan got in on the action and had a ball. Is it considered a violation of child labor laws to have your two year old make you dinner? It was a flour disaster but lots of laughs and a tasty result.

Nate Reading

Check out this video of Nate reading. We've been working on his reading together and hopefully by the end of the winter /seattle summer he will be confidently reading.

Nate The Artist???

Check out this beautiful work of art that Nate did at school. It is a Japanese paper mache art on a painted canvas. The picture makes it look big (it is ~ 8x11). I don't think it looks like a 5 year old did it. Sure that if I hung in a gallery someone would buy it. Gotta love art.