critters and jitters

I often feel like you could film an entire nature documentary right in our apartment complex grounds. Ginormous spiders: got em. Bright turquoise butterflies: check. Thousands of ants clamoring down an ant superhighway: present. Tree climbing possums: accounted for. Who needs tv when the nature channel is your own backyard!

Just another few that would make the film:

a baby owl with glowing yellow eyes - staring right at us! so cute and fluffy.

momma owl keeping tabs on junior. dad was higher up the tree too.


on a far less cute note, this was waiting to scare the pants off us right at the front entrance


that bad boy is so big I think he's less 'stick bug' more 'entire tree bug'! seriously - almost three bricks long. scared. the. pants. off. us. gives me the heebies just writing about him!

only 6 more sleeps until we depart bugville for a while! i'm so mentally checked out already it's ridiculous. poor ryan, he still has to study and write an entire exam-the night before we leave. how brutal is that?! i'll try to keep my hysteria on low key to not distract him, but it's gonna be tough!

getting our halloween on - aussie style

Australians aren't really big on Halloween. They know what it is and it is starting to get a little more popular, but it is nothing like it is at home. There's no trick or treating, no decorating your house or carving pumpkins. Kinda sad for a little Canadian family who think Halloween is so much fun!!

But, it wasn't a total loss. There was a 'family fun day' at a local park that we went to and even though it was so hot, the kids had fun.

jumping in a bouncy castle

osh with special guest Thomas! osh loves Thomas and was very excited that he was there.

see...told ya he was excited!

we waited 30 minutes for the kids to go inside Thomas and play with all the levers and knobs and stuff. they were in for not even 2 minutes (it was really busy!). remind me not to go to Disneyland anytime soon!
we got a last minute call from an american family inviting us to a small halloween party for the kids. these are the treats we made to take with us: eyeballs on a fork!!
theoretically these are really easy to make. donut holes dipped in white chocolate, mini m&m and then red food coloring for the veins. of course they don't have donut holes here (don't get me started!) so we had to make those too. they look fun and they were so yummy!
playing the classic 'eat the donut with no hands' game at the party. they both kind of looked at us like we were all stupid: 'why would we waste time trying to eat it with no hands when we can just grab it and shove it in our faces!' oh, i did mention this was a last minute invitation right? hence the space man pj's for osh as a costume!
little fairy going after a donut
we did get to trick or treat to a couple ward members homes. osh was excited to get some treats and has spent the last few days taking them out of his bag, lining them up meticulously and then putting them back in the bag. oh, and asking me if he can eat chocolate bars for breakfast!
aviana excited to have some loot too!

so, halloween wasn't a total write off. in fact, it was fun! i'm so glad because i was feeling pretty sad about the whole thing. it turned out to be a great day with the kids.

now, for those of you tuning in for the countdown, it is only 19 more days until we come home!!

hate mail

i found this in our mailbox the other week:



it's terribly polite for hate mail! not sure which neighbor sent it to us, most likely someone on our floor. i don't blame them. i wouldn't want to live near us either. let's face it, a 3 year old and an almost 2 year old are not exactly experts at being quite. they yell, scream, cry, laugh, shout, sing pretty much from the moment they wake up until they go to bed. if you remember what our place looks like then you'll know there just isn't a lot of space for kids to play. it's not that they are standing at the front door screaming, it's that the living room (the main place the kids play) is right at the door! not sure how i'm supposed to fix that.

in an effort to be more neighborly, we have been trying to spend a little more time outside. we took the camera with us on our last walk around the block and here's what we found:

spring time here is synonymous with jacaranda trees. these magnificent purple trees are everywhere here. they make a beautiful contrast to the green of the other trees and we have really enjoyed seeing them. they are starting to drop their flowers now, but they were exceptional a few weeks ago. we'll look forward to these every spring!





no idea what the technical name for these flowers are. we call them toilet brush flowers!


trees here don't lose their leaves in autumn like at home. trees lose their leaves at random times of the year - like this one...


...which also grows beans! i've noticed a couple different bean growing trees here. who knew?!


4 weeks till we come home! i bet our neighbors are as excited as we are!

as promised, the aviana pics from our mock photo shoot the other day. she wasn't a whole lot more willing than her brother to sit still, but there were still a couple cute ones.





the days are getting hotter and longer (as my children continue to wake up even earlier in the morning! 6:30 am has turned into 6 am lately. yuck.) and i've been trying to find things for us to do so we don't all go crazy during the day. these have been two of the most popular things this week:

osh and aviana refer to this as the 'bath'. something fun for the hot days. now i just need a lounge chair and we'll be in business!

this is the first time i've made playdough since having kids. we've always had the storebought stuff for them to play with. the kids liked to help make it though and the smell and feel of it totally reminds me of childhood (my mom always made us playdough).


nothing extraordinary, but the kids have had fun.

5 weeks till we'll be home!

i'm getting antsy

it's less than 7 weeks until we come home to visit. long enough that it's still a long time, but short enough that i'm getting really excited. i just want to get there already!

it doesn't help that we just had kind of a crappy week - broken car, stress related to that, stress of still trying to do what we need to in a week without a car, stress of sitting around all week with kids going crazy because we haven't done anything because we don't have a car and it's too stinking hot to walk anywhere.

pardon the whining. it really was just an annoying week and it's hard because i know that if we were at home or had some family around, it wouldn't have been nearly so bad. family could help us with car stuff, with going to get groceries, with just visiting so i don't go crazy! the week has just made me miss family and therefore start getting really excited for our visit home.

don't get me wrong, there are great people here too. we had friends come and pick Ryan up on sunday an hour early for church, they went to church early so that ryan could use their car to come and get us. then they waited an hour after church while he drove us home and went back to get them. how nice is that?! so yes, there are definitely people here who look out for us which is awesome. but it's just different.

with family you don't feel remotely weird/awkward asking or accepting help from. they are family...that's what family does. with other people it's just not quite as comfortable, that's all.

anyway - the point is, i'm excited to come home. now let's just pray we can survive the next 7 weeks until the big day comes. ryan has 4 weeks of class left and they are gonna be crazy weeks. he has major assignments due and a huge exam worth 60% of his mark. and then real exams start! yipee.

okay, moving along. i promised some pics of my oshie pie. it's been ages since i've done any kind of 'photo shoot' with the kids - aviana was a baby the last time i tried. today i was reminded why it's been so long! the older kids get, the less they want to sit and have their picture taken!

we got aviana a tutu and some flowers to hold for her pics - to be posted another day. osh had a major meltdown prior to his turn, then got mad that he didn't get to wear the tutu too. we had to compromise and let him hold some flowers. the big red splotches all over his face are from screaming and crying. yup...now i remember why we don't do this more often! i'm too lazy to edit them, so here are just a few raw ones.







what to say about this kid: he is as challenging as he is cute. he has moments of utter sweetness where he is just the best kid in the world, and in the next heartbeat he's pushed over his little sister and is running away from me with a smirk on his face trying to dodge timeout.

he loves reading stories, playing with trains and cars, playing sesame street games on the computer, riding his bike, and being tickled by dad. he and aviana are typical siblings. they love each other like crazy and play so well together...whenever they aren't fighting! he loves nursery and singing songs and he can't wait to go to 'school' (playschool starts end of January for him). when he's happy, he's the best kid. even when he's not the best kid, he's pretty irresistible. maybe that's the problem!

what i know is that this kid is going to teach me how to be a parent. i know that he is only what we've taught him to be. if he needs to change, it means i need to change. that's what makes it hard! i am trying though. some days it feels like it almost comes naturally. other days...not so much. wish me luck, for both our sakes. he's too cute for me to sell him to the circus.

star of the show

Aviana has kinda been the star of the blog here lately. May have something to do with the fact that she doesn't yell "NO!" and run in the opposite direction of the camera, unlike her big brother. I'll pin him down someday soon and write all about him too.

For now, more Aviana! I took Osh to do some errands the other day and when we got home, Ryan and Aviana had done a little photo shoot. Ryan even did her hair...not an easy feat, let me tell you. The girl does not like you touching her hair! But she is stinking cute with those pig tails.







What I tell ya? Cute!

She's just a little chatterbox. Her latest is "what's dat?", which she asks about everything. She also asks "where's (fill in the blank)" but says "who" instead of where. So "where's daddy" is "who daddy?". She has a few favorite stuffed animals, all known by their animal sound. So there is " woof woof" "weow weow" (which is a kitty) and "gak gak" (which is a duck). And when you ask her a yes or not question her answer is either "umm...no", always with the um, or "yup!". She's obsessed with brushing her teeth and would walk around all day with her toothbrush if we let her. You think her dad was going to be a dentist or something! She's a funny funny kid.

I think we are all finally healthy. Only Ryan has a lingering cough. He just has to live through an exam this week and then next week he has off. Woo hoo! It's only spring here, but it's already too hot. We've had our a/c on for the last couple days and I've slept with no blankets the last few nights. And the humidity hasn't even hit yet. Yikes. Not that we're complaining...yet! Maybe we'll be excited for Alberta winter afterall. Less than two months until we come for a visit, not that I'm counting or anything. ha ha

sick and tired

of being sick and tired.

I think we might be on the mend now, but holy smokes, last week, with the exception of Aviana, we were all pretty much laid flat out by colds/flus/fevers/etc. No fun at all. Osh was the biggest concern - he had a high fever for 6 days, but nothing really else wrong with him. How weird is that? We took him to the Dr. twice, but there was nothing they could really do. He's been laying around looking like the saddest thing in the world. And he hasn't eaten properly in a week, so he's wasting away to nothing. There is nothing more heartbreaking than sick kids.

Good news is, today his fever seems to be gone and now he's just moved on to full on cold - coughing, sneezing, runniest nose ever. Fingers crossed we will all be healthy soon! Why are germs the only thing kids share willingly?!

Just wanted to let you know that we are still alive...it was touch and go there for a while! Needless to say, the camera has not made an appearance in a while. But, here's a video and a couple pics from the week before we all got sick.

a new favorite game: superheroes!

could this be a contributing factor to both the neighbors above and below us moving out in the last little while? the new people must love us!

snack time gone wrong.


her new trick with toast and peanut butter is to scrape off the peanut butter and decorate herself with it. i've never heard of a peanut butter facial, but it seems to work for her.