Maya's New Braces

Maya got braces a week ago. I think she looks adorable with them. She is still adjusting to getting her lips around the new mouthful she has but she is doing a great job taking care of her teeth with them on. Maya put a post on her blog about getting braces. She would love to see your comments there.

Michael and Whitnie's New Dog

Michael and Whitnie adopted this dog about a week ago. I decided to blog about it for all of our family members who will be happy to see photos. They named him Digger. He is a one-year-old Australian Blue Cattle Dog.

 Michael taught him to shake on the first day they got him.

 

Annabelle adores Digger. Michael took Digger to visit Mark's family and Annabelle was having a great time running around the park after Digger.

Dad and Mum had as much fun playing with the Frisbee as the kids and Digger did. That's one of the things I love about my parents - they love to join in the games.

 

 

 

 

Dinosaur Park

We took Maya and Kate to a nearby Dinosaur Park earlier this year. We found that the girls were a little old for the things that were at the park but they did have fun panning for gold and playing on the playground.

 

 

Last time I took Maya to this park she was five. We have a photo of her at that age hanging upside down on this dinosaur.

We did come across the world's most dangerous creature. Fortunately it was fenced in. Maybe with some love this creature could be tamed.

First Earring Change

The 6 weeks between when Maya got her ears pierced to the day she could change her earrings couldn't go by quickly enough for her. It was a very important decision which pair of earrings she would wear first after she took out her studs. She settled on a pair of spiky earrings that Alyssa gave her.

 

First Anniversary of Dog Ownership

We celebrated one year of having the dogs on April 13th. Wow, has it really only been one year? Maya and I love the dogs (Josh not so much) but my goodness they are a lot of work! It seems so long ago that we were patching up that hole they dug in our kitchen wall. That was nothing compared to the state our back yard is in now. I keep assuring Josh that we will get it looking nice again - even nicer than it was. Any offers of help in the yard are welcome!

Trip to California

Josh and I spent a week in California in early March. Our first day there was the day of the Oscars so we had a quick visit to the Kodak Theater.

Josh won the Oscar for best documentary entitled "Our Outback Adventure" that can be seen exclusively at either our house or Tara's.

We also got to meet some of our favourite stars. Me with Colin Firth (who won best actor today).

Josh with Cate Blanchett.

The Hollywood sign.

Josh has rollerbladed many years ago and I have never been, but we really wanted to go for a skate along the Santa Monica beach so we rented some skates and were off. We managed to keep our balance for the most part - Josh had one fall and I had a good amount of arm flailing but it was good fun.

I would definitely feel safe in the water with this good looking life guard at the tower.

The Santa Monica Pier.

Harry Potter Party

Maya chose to have a Harry Potter party to celebrate her birthday. She has loved Harry ever since we started the first book two years ago. She is now on book 4 on her second time reading the series and she (plus Josh and I) are all counting down to the final movie this July which we will see at the midnight session.

The good thing about Ethan and Kate both having HP parties last year is that we got to use lots of their costumes and ideas! Maya (dressed as Hermione) was, of course, Gryffindor. We only sorted people into Gryffindor and Ravenclaw houses and everyone except Maya was sorted randomly.

My favourite class of the day was Potions. I didn't come up with any wizardy names for the potions/experiments that we did but they were still fun! This is called Elephant's Toothpaste. The ingredients made a foam that came oozing out of our bottles.

Another potion we made is called Tie-dyed Milk. You put a drop of different food colorings into milk and then add a couple of drops of soap. It is fun to see what happens after adding the soap. If you have never done this you should try it with your kids.

All of the kids loved the "stupefy" game we played. It was a game of musical statues - when the music stopped they were all stupefied (frozen) which generally involved falling dramatically to the ground.

I love Ron and Harry dancing together in this photo.

And Hermione dancing with her Gryffindor house mate here.

We loved Corinne's idea of having a car pinata so we did one too. The kids got to be the womping willow and the car didn't stand a chance.

 

This reaction is from the David Archuleta CD from Ethan, Joshua, Sam and James.

A cauldron full of butter beer.

Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans

The snitch birthday cake was a little sad. Maya wanted a lamington snitch cake and I had a few challenges. The first was when Lucy ate the cake as it cooled, obviously too close to the edge of the breakfast bar. Luckily I had bought an extra mix. The finished product was dry and not very lamington-like. At least there was other yummy food for the kids to enjoy.

At the end of the day Sam and I enjoyed a cuddle.