Holidays

These holidays have been rather low key! We were minus Matthew one week so we took the opportunity to 'spoil' the other two because they were terribly upset at missing out on all the fun at Grumpy and Nana Bev's holiday house!

 

 Nathan took Ryan and Ben go karting.

 

 This must have been early on in the first week before they decided the disliked each other company without a Matthew buffer!

 Ben was old enough to drive his own go kart! When he got out he exclaimed he was so talented that he didn't need to use his brake at all! Not even to come to a full stop at the finish!

 Ryan has marginally more speed than the last time but he certainly is not a thrill seeker!

 We hung out ta the park with Harry on the new flying fox.

 We had our usual Wednesday date with the Forrest kids which coincided with Matt's birthday cake.

I didn't make the cake this year,  had 6 kids in my backyard all day there was no time for baking!

And now it is time to go back to school for the final term of school for 2012! Where had the year gone?

Half of eighteen is....

Nine!

Half way to adulthood!

Very recently Nathan and I realised that Matthew understands what we value and believe as a family and the time has now come for him to practise how to apply those values and beliefs to his life. It is now time to gently loosen the invisible umbilical cord! We know that he knows who we are and it is time to let him explore and exercise how that all fits. Whilst this is terrifying Matthew is eager to please, he is eager to explore and eager to enjoy some new found freedom. Now we aren't packing him up and sending him out in the big bad world all by himself we are gradually letting go. Before he wasn't allowed to play where I couldn't see him. Now when his friends come over they can play out on the street or at the park by themselves. We have been having lots of in depth conversations about how much we trust him and what he can do should someone ask him to do something that he isn't comfortable with or something he knows we wouldn't approve of. He is slowly coming to realise that at times this may mean standing up to adults and being assertive about what he finds acceptable. It is really time to start moulding this young boy into an awesome tween! Because if the next nine years fly by as quickly as the last nine we will all be severely under prepared!

And now for the flowers!

Every year at Floriade we hold the annual Rickard Photography competition. I think everybody else who goes to Floriade does the same because every person walks around looking at it through their viewfinders! This year was interesting because not only did you have massive telephonic lenses on big arse cameras but also smart phone cameras and my personal favourite the ipad! Seriously people were walking around with their ipads up in front of their faces! (Just quietly on one occasion that person was Ryan, with his new tablet!)

This year I was fascinated by the poppy's. The first visit they weren't really flowering.

 But by the third visit they were stunning!

But i found their un-flowering form to be the most interesting.

 They remind me of something hairy and bally! Gross!

 And the way they unfurl! Amaze balls I mean amazing!!!

 

 This image captures floriade for the boys! This is what they think it is all about! Matthew took this photo.

 I was also interested in the yet to flower tulips too. They looked really interesting on mass like that.

 

I love the tulips the best but this daffodil is a close second.

 

 Oh but you cant beat these hairy tulips!

 This is my entry into the photo comp! A white Hyacinth.

 

 This is the Forrest kids entry.

 This is Matthew's.

 This is Ryan's taken through the spit filter on his tablet! I am pretty sure this shot and the filter used is going to take off in photography circles around the globe!

 Another Matthew entry.

 A Ryan entry with a slightly cleaner filter.

This is what the majority of entries looked like! A whopping great big shadow over some random flower!

 

But this is our winner! Taken by Benjamin Rickard.

 

 He wins a packet of smarties for his efforts!

(Or he would have had I not eaten them first before deciding the winner!)

Floriade with family and friends

We have been to Floriade three times already this year! And i still need to visit once more on the last day to buy Mum her discounted t-towel!

 The weather has been glorious in Canberra so far these holidays so we have been making the most of it! First of all we took Uncle Brenty who had never been despite living in Canberra for a while!

 I've taken five kids, by myself and didn't lose one of them!

 I've taken my Grandmother who has been wanting to see it for years!

 Grumpy and Nanna Bev loved it, although she kept exclaiming how there never used to be this many people visiting it when she lived here!

 

 

 Grumpy wondered how they knew he would be visiting today because the sign on the organ says "Why not take a photo with the man with a big organ!" So he insisted on having his photo taken!

 There were hundreds of perspex cranes hung in the trees when we went on the Sunday but when we went back the following Wednesday they had all disappeared!

 Three garden gnomes in a flower bed!

Picture perfect.....for five monsters!

 

 However the frame is not one size fits all!

 We had to have our photo taken with the boat of flowers that Ben's friend Alyssa help plant on a school excursion with the green team.

 The view from the Ferris wheel which I took all five kids on and I was guessing it was because there were so many of us in the carriage was why it swung so much and most of us were petrified the whole time!

 Hardly any people there on the Wednesday unlike the previous Sunday when I had taken nan and Mum and there were millions and you could hardly move!

The highlight of Floriade so far was Ben being called up to help by a street performer. When the guy asked for helpers he asked all of the ugly, naughty people who wanted to help and Ben was the most enthusiastic of all the ugly, naughty kids so he got picked! He was quite entertaining, when the guys asked him where he lived he told the whole crowd our exact street address including phone number! So whilst i have the know your own address thing down pat with him we may have to work on privacy issues!

All in all we have all loved Floriade this year. Mainly because we have got to share it with some lovely people!

Three minus One

Matthew is having his first ever solo visit with his grandparents. My Mum decided a little while ago that Matthew was probably old enough to have an unaccompanied visit (and also that she could cope with an unaccompanied visit). So after I thought about it for a while, I decided he could go.

Nathan thinks the timing is rather fortuitous because Matthew has his first school camp coming up this term and had that been his first ever time away from home combined with the closer proximity to home, I may have been tempted to go out to the camp and "visit". (And the school have already declined my offer of assistance as parent helper with the excuse I already do more than enough around the school!) So Nathan feels that by the time the camps comes around I will be experienced at having had a child of mine leave me and won't be inclined to rush out to camp and embarrass him! I suppose Nath and I should be patting each other on our backs to congratulate us for raising such independent, happy kids but it hurts that he doesn't need me as much anymore! By all accounts he is having a ball without me!

When we started planning the trip my brother offered to fly Ryan up as well, as there are 4 adults living in my Mum's house and no other children. They were all concerned that Matthew, who is exceptionally close with his brothers, would miss them. However I knew that Matthew is one of those kids who secretly wish to be an only child so I knew he would rejoice in the solitude and adoration of all 4 adults! And he has! He doesn't want to come home and I am fairly certain my Mum doesn't want him to go home! The only bump in the road may be when he flies home on Monday. Matthew is rather nervous about flying by himself for the first time. I have prepared him by breaking down the journey for him. I have told him that his grandparents will walk him to the gate where the air hostess will take over and take him to his seat where he can play his DS until take off where he needs to turn if off but only until the seat belt sign goes off when he can turn it back on and play until landing time when the hostie will then help him off the plane and I will be waiting at the gate (probably in tears!) and he will be home. Easy!

So what has this little trip meant for the other two left at home? Well it is a very different dynamic, with very different game played. I have watched them play beautifully together until one has had enough and them they go off to their separate activities without a cross word. They play together very cooperatively, unlike when the bossy oldest one is there and they have to play his game with his rule and no negotiation! For the first four days they have been gorgeous together but I am guessing Ben is missing the rougher, rowdier play that he gets from Matthew because he has was rotten yesterday! He has tried to roughen Rye up which hasn't gone down too well with Rye!

The other interesting aspect of Matthew's trip has been Ryan's jealousy! Whilst Matthew wants to be a singleton, Ryan and Ben completely believe they are a part of a package deal! Poor Ryan really couldn't understand why Matthew could go and he couldn't. He tried sucking up to Nanna Bev in the hope that she would then let him go. He has even told her he would prefer to go to her house instead of going to Fiji next year! He has tried to bargain his own trip next holidays (but we are all going at Christmas time!) so we have told him when he is nearly nine it will be his turn too. But for poor Ryan who is eternally chasing down Matthew to no avail, nearly nine is such a long time away!

Poor, poor Ryan

But it really wasn't our fault because all children were supposed to have two art works displayed at the art show. When we were showing Uncle Brenty through the Art show he found one we had missed Ryan's third!

I would have been so upset to miss this one! It is an awesome Viking boat. Especially seeing how Poppy, Nanna and Aunty Teesh have just visited Viking country. Poppy has the hat to match this boat!

Another Mummy brag!

I'm not sure if Ben is a genius, I'm full of it or he is just the youngest brother of three very close together but Ben blows me away at times with his school work!

The other interesting things about the work I am about to show you is how much his hearing difficulties are starting to affect him. The subtle sound differences that you and I take for granted are really starting to make a difference for him.

I will type his story with his spelling and then interpret after!

 

The Thry Billy Goats Gruff.

Thry billy goats sat lonly no green grarss they ceept on rgyueinge about hue got the moast green grarss. Then they stoobd rgyueinge they dsidde we are going on a advencher down the lonly hill  ucross the narsty chroal briege "please due not mack me go ucros first said the litle billy goat"

 If you couldn't read the above bit (and we don't blame you!) it says

 

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Three billy goats sat lonely, no green grass. They kept on arguing about who the got the most green grass. Then they stopped arguing. They decided, we are going on an adventure down the lonely hill across the nasty troll bridge. "Please don't make me go across first" said the little billy goat.

Firstly, he is having trouble hearing the difference between  'b' and 'p' in stopped as well as 't' and 'ch' troll! Secondly I am betting Ben learnt about quotation marks this week at school seeing how he has chucked a few in! I am fairly certain I wasn't using quotation marks in my writing when I was in kindy!

The kids also prepared a puppet show to go with their stories and they performed them infront of the class using the new smart board attachment projector thingys that the school recently purchased!