September sees Tamika turn 10

Wow! Where have the last 10 years gone. This month we celebrated Tamika's 10th birthday.
I remember ten years ago before having Tamika I was in hospital for 2 weeks before with extremely high blood pressure. I was induced two weeks early much to the delight of my sister Rebecca who was taking off to go and live overseas for a year and was hoping to meet the baby before she left. Her wish came true as I gave birth to a healthy baby girl 6pound 2oz (she was small) the night before Rebecca and Anthony fly out.

Unfortunately her birthday was a miserable day so we had to change our plans at the last minute. We were going for a picnic but instead we went ten pin bowling and then had morning tea at Max Brenner. YUMMY chocolate! Later in the day we had some extended family over for afternoon tea.

She will celebrate her birthday later in the month with her friends at a horse riding party but we had to wait until Matt wasn't working to be able  to fit it in.

She received some lovely big girl presents. Jewellery both gold and silver as well as pearl earrings, clothing and even an iTune voucher.
Tamika is growing into a lovely young girl who would do anything for the people she loves, especially her brother (on a good day) and all her cousins. She has a wicked sense of humour, has a wonderful personality and is gorgeous. May you continue to grow in the right direction and know that anything is possible as long as you believe in  yourself.

Yeah- Tamika Won the Grand Final

What a proud start to the weekend. Tamika's school Junior Netball team made it into the grand final for the Seven Hills District. They were the first junior team at school to made it into the grand finals for netball. 

It rained on and off all day and we waited for a call to say it was cancelled. The ground was slippery, it was coming on dusk but they worked hard as a team and won the game 5-3. 

Blacktown Music Festival

It is always proud for parents to see their child participate in any activity. Wednesday 1st September for the second year in a row took part in the Blacktown Music Festival held at Bowmen Hall Blacktown. This is an event held over two night which celebrates the education of students from schools around the Blacktown District.
Tamika has been practising her songs for the mass school choir all year. Her most favourite (and the one we got sick of ) was Popular (from Wicked) and Rockin' Robin. It was an extremely long day for the students involved as they had been at the venue all day practising and then until 9:30pm performing.


This year saw Catalina (cousin) perform in one of the items. She was in the Junior Choir item from their school.
All school students did well and we could see that Tamika enjoyed her experience.

Experimenting - Jumbo Cupcake

The lastest crave in cooking is Jumbo Cupcakes. Tamika wants one for her birthday cake but I had to experiment with cooking times and the mould itself. A fancy little contraption....

We put together vanilla and chocolate. The base was vanilla and the top was marbled chocolate and vanilla. We decided this time not to fill it but next time I will, maybe with jam.

Poor logan had to sit back and watch Tamika lick the bowl and then eat the cake. He enjoyed the icing though, chocolate with M &M's. I wasn't impressed with the icing. How do you ice and decorate the cake and the cupcakes attractively? What is the secret? It is really annoying.

Vegetable Garden

We spent this weekend fixing up our vegetable and herb garden in the backyard ready for the summer season. Trying to save a bit of money on the vegetables... healthy eating soooo expensive, but we worth it. We have lettuce, spinach, roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, snow peas, cauliflower, strawberries, passionfruit (as long as it recovers from the frost), rocket and sweet corn.
Thinking of all the beautiful salads we can cook with these lovely vegetables.

The Rocks Walking Tour

I took my year three class on an excursion into the city to go on a guided walking tour of the Rocks area to learn about the arrival of the First Fleet and convict life. The students complained that it was a long walk around but they really enjoyed it and once we got back to school I could see they learnt alot about that time.

http://www.rockswalkingtour.com.au/

Each child was given a convict that they had to be for the tour and walk around the city to the significant convict places learning about what the convicts did and why they were here. One convict even tried to escape and got as far as Indonesia and another one was sent to Pinchgut ( now Fort Denison) for being a very bad convict.

Netball 2010

Another year of  netball is nearly over. Tamika's team haven't faired very well on the competition status this year but I think that is because they were placed in a higher grade since they did so well last year.

On Sunday 8th August Blacktown Council held a Gala day. It was a VERY long day, but Tamika and the other girls in her team enjoyed it. They also learnt alot as the following week they won their game 14 - 5. That was only their second win all season.

Tamika was determined NOT to let go of the ball and make it hers.

Gluten Free Expo

On Saturday 7th August we headed to the Olympic Park Area at Homebush for our first Gluten Free Expo. Logan had been waiting for this day to arrive for a very long time as Nanny Lynne told him that he would get to tast alot of food and go away with samples.

We lined up early expecting it to be busy, we of course were the only ones there 45 minutes before opening time. Once inside there were sooo many products no one would become hungry. There were stalls advertising new Gluten Free Products and some that were selling their products at a discounted price. Take the loaves of Country Life Bread, usually $6 a loaf in the shops at the expo we picked up 5 loaves for $20. Bread freezes....

We came home with bag loads of food and then I had to clean my pantry to try and fit it in, cereal, biscuits, pasta, cake mixes, snaxs etc. The most delicious item at the store was the 'Cake Mark coconut delights'. They may be Gluten Free but they sure as hell aren't healthy. Weight Watchers would die at the points... lucky I only had a half. Now I will never look at them the same way again.
Yes, it will take Logan a quite a while to get through this pile of food.

Whale Spotting

Yes, of course we missed the whales by 15 minutes. Tamika had a by for netball so we decided to do something productive and get out of the house for the day. Packed some goodies and took off in the direction of North- Head in Sydney (on the recommendation of The Daily Telegraph's Best Places to spot whales).
Arriving there we found volunteers from Macquarie Universtiy counting the whales... and found that a pod of teenage whales had been seen about 15 minutes ago over towards Vaucluse and they were waiting for them to come over towards North Head to leave Sydney. We waited... and waited... and waited, but they never came.
Tamika  and Logan were disappointed but I didn't tell them that we had left it until the end of the whale watching season to head out.

They didn't go away totally disappointed as they had seen bunkers in the area from WW11, seen a lovely cliff face of Sydney and off course had lunch out at a park, cheese and rice crackers were on the menu.

Disney On Ice 2010

The kids with their cousin at Disney on Ice.

The characters on Disneyland Adventure.

The characters on their boat ride around Disneyland.

AHHHH! until they see the alligator.

The amazement all everyone's face as they watched the show.
Matt thinks it was the best one he has seen, but he has gone to Disneyland so it means more to him.

It truely was a great show. I loved the Disney characters and this was the first time we have seen Alice in Wonderland in a show like this. Logan loved Buzz Lighyear and Tamika loved the whole thing ( Alice a favourite).
Can't wait for next year - a new one for boys. It has Lightning McQueen.

Reptile Park- Gosford

During these holidays we took a trip to the Reptile Park in Gosford. I haven't been there since I was a kid and I was sure that I could find it to be able to drive myself. Mum decided that she wanted to join us on our outing. So we packed our lunch and the kids and took off. It was a cool morning with some clouds and a chance of rain, but we took out chances.

It is a small part that has a lot of hands on exhibits and animals for the kids to touch and feel. The Galapagos Tortoise was extremely big, active and alert. It was only about 30 years old. They actually let these tortoises out for the visitors to touch and watch them feed. Logan loved watching the dingoes play. Tamika enjoyed touching any animal that came her way (though she wasn't too sure on the baby alligator, lucky the staff had its mouth clapped shut). Their alligator lake was full of the sleeping creatures. 

Bowling

Wednesday Tamika and Logan wanted to use their discount tickets that they got from school to go Bowling. It has been years since we have been bowling, Logan was only about 2-3 years old last time.

All the Wii fit practise has paid off for Tamika, but poor Logan didn't expect the ball to be soooooo heavy.

Blacktown Holiday Show

Tamika told me she was far to old to watch this...

but she sat reluctantly on the floor at the front and watched

the Madagascar 2 Africa show at Westpoint Blacotwn with Logan. She didn't really have a choice as Logan wanted to watch it and we had a WHOLE day of shopping ahead of us, including a new pair of black winter boots for her.

My favourite was Alex the Lion.

Illawarra Fly and Tree Top Walk

Last weekend we went for a day visit day the South Coast. We had wanted to visit the Illawarra Fly and Tree Top walk for a quite some time. It was a bit overcast but we took our chances.

On the way down we stopped in at the Nan Nan Temple just past Wollongong. Logan didn't like it but Tamika was quite intrigued by the atmosphere, especially when the monks came out for their walk around the quarters.

The kids had an absolute ball looking at budda's in their gardens.

We continued on our journey inland through the windy roads and National Park until we reached the Fly and Tree Top walk, which by the way is in the middle of nowhere.

http://www.illawarrafly.com.au/

It had become a the bit chilly during our drive. We got out our picnic rug and picnic lunch and ate it in the car park, trying to beat the little spits of rain.

The organisation and interest for the both Tamika and Logan were kept high as they given them each a question sheet to find the answers. All the answers were on their information boards along the way, except the back page which had a find-a-word and collective nouns, even I had trouble with these ones.

Once they got back with all answers they were given a prize - an ice block.

The view was amazing! It would be even better on a beautiful blue sky day, but hey you can't pick the weather. You could see right back to the South Pacific Ocean and down to Shell Harbour. The highest point was the tower at 45m with 106 stairs to climb. Logan didn't like this bit very much... I wasn't to sure on the suspended bridges out over the rainforest floor, nothing hold us up but VERY strong and thick cables.

I wished we had managed to leave earlier as we could have gone to two outdoor attractions in the same area. We have been wanting to visit the Minnamurra Rainforest for the last 5 years. Another day trip in Spring this time.

Winter Holidays- so far.

We have had some lazy days these holidays. We have seen friends, had play dates and a sleep over. Played some board games and caught up with Nanny most days. Logan and Cooper were so exited to go and see the new Toy Story 3 movie out at the cinema. We didn't see it in 3D but I don't really think it mattered. The cinemas we so busy that we had to sit in the first two front rows ( never have I sat that close). Logan has been madly colouring in pages printed off the internet and creating his own Toy Story film strips. We have been on a few walks as well, lucky as some days I was feeling so tired with lack of stimulation. With the cold we have had a few days inside watching movies, mind you I still haven't managed to watch any of my movies.

An Eight Year Wait.

This year we have been in our house for eight years. When we first moved in we ripped out all the smoke ridden carpet, pulled up tiles, then sanded and stained the floor boards in every room in the house. Yes, including the bedrooms.

This year we decided that it was time to allow our feet to have warmth once they were out of the        bed covers first thing in the morning. 

Last weekend we ordered carpet for all three bedrooms, then had the massive task of clearing ALL rooms in two days. The carpet was installed yesterday and it looks great. Both kids took the opportunity to move everything around in the room and I had a massive clean out.



When we woke this morning I felt as if the rooms were warmer and it warmed my heart to find both Tamika and Logan sitting on the floor in their room playing.