September in Australia

One day we drove around looking for cows and other farm animals.

Max loves dogs. Dogs love Max. This dog's name is Emily.

A friendly game of Quelf. It has some pretty silly rules.

 The kids do like George's Burgers. The only thing is, George doesn't give out plastic toys like the place across the road.

We had a hit of tennis.

 George in the Max suit, admiring his tail in the mirror.

Our ongoing battle with lice ended when we bought a super-duper nit comb called The Nitbuster.

We buy farm eggs which are fertilised and could become chicks if we just keep them warm for 21 days. This is Max's idea for a future project. We would keep any resulting chickens as egg-laying pets.

Asleep all tangled up together. 

Baggy's present, George breaks eggs, pompom making

Whenever it rains here we can hear a frog croaking in the front yard. George got out there to try and locate the frog this week. Couldn't find him.

It was Baggy's birthday this week. The Cubs had planned a surprise party for him. They were asked to make a handmade present for him. Remember the pillow Max made last week? Now it has the word "Baggy" hand stitched onto the front, and the Southern Cross star formation on the back.

Baggy seemed to really like his present. He asked Max the names of the stars of the Southern Cross. Max knows their names and was able to reel them off. (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon if you were wondering).

The Cubs are going to be in the newspaper this week as the pack has been given an award for having one of the highest retention rates in Australia. 

Lately I have been making banana bread to put in the school lunches. George likes to help out by breaking the eggs. This week he broke 2 eggs without breaking the yolks or putting eggshell into the cake batter. 

We visited our 3 baby boy guinea pigs, who now live with our friends in a guinea pig "Taj Mahal". The dog stalks them all day but they don't seem to mind.

We had a sleepover with our buddies Jack and Andrew. Not much sleeping took place. They had a lot of fun. 

We visited Aunty Shani who unconsciously coordinates her clothing with baby Malakai's. Max and George raced around playing with Holly and Pia.

On the way home from Aunty Shani's we visited Howitt Park adventure playground.

Max is really inspired to repeat the art and craft projects from school at home, like the pillow and this pom pom.

At an award ceremony at the lawn bowls club. We had afternoon tea with homemade jelly slice. 

Going out to dinner at the local pub. The owner gave the kids icecream for dessert.

George got a very sticky face.

Book week, sewing, camping, wombat

This week was Book Week. On Friday the kids were asked to go to school dressed up as a character from a book. Max wanted to be Max from Where the Wild Things Are.

George helped. He was scissor boy and would snip threads for me. Then he wandered off and cut a hole in Royce's beanbag. After that he was relieved of his duties as scissor boy.

Photo: Giorgio Piccone

Max has been making a pillow at school in Art and one day he came home and made one here too. He tacked it together with a needle and thread, sewed it on my sewing machine (leaving a bit to turn inside out and insert stuffing) and now he sleeps with this pillow that he made himself!

Friday came, and Max had to tuck his tail into his costume so that he could ride his bike to school.

Max's teacher was dressed up as Barbie.

All 101 children got to tell the school what they were dressed up as.

George was not the only younger sibling to have gotten dressed up and participate.

George and I did some watercolour painting at home this week.

George calls this "Owl with his beak up".

The CFA (Country Fire Authority, the local volunteer fire brigade) is looking for new members. We went over to the fire hall and found out about what was required. The kids got to have a good look around the fire truck.

One day George and I went to the park, past the tree where the dive-bombing mother magpie lives.

This is the baby magpie shortly before George decided to run at it. I didn't get any photos of the mother magpie flying at George, because I was too busy swinging my handbag at it.

This weekend we went camping. Royce has got a beautiful new 2 room tent. 

A passing troubadour came to the campsite and sang many songs including Waltzing Matilda. Thanks Dave!

They were up early and went fishing while it was still the fishes' breakfast time. There was lots of nibbling but none were caught.

We went for a long walk around the lake and found a dead wombat (it appeared to have died of natural causes) and lots and lots of wombat holes.

At one point, George piped up and said that he would like to live here, become a wombat, and dig a hole.

Photo: Massimo Piccone

There was also a fantastic big trampoline at this campsite.

Photo: Royce Edwards