Not sure how this happened…
Maisie – year 4, Talia – year 3, Alice – year 2 and Pippa – Kinder
Maisie is 8 now – and has been for almost half a year. She loves to read and LOVES school, ballet and dancing and singing and swimming. Her teachers tell me what a beautiful loving friend she is which makes us super proud. She has loved year 2 and is excited about year 3.
Tally turned 7 in July and as I type this is in the pool swimming laps of backstroke and freestyle trying to improve her strokes! She also loves school and is very athletic and still loves her sleep! She is at the top of her reading levels for year 1 and is busy trying to guess what teacher she will have in year 2! When I asked her 3 things that she loves she said “Mumma, Daddy and the hammock”…
Alice is about to turn 6 and finish her first year of Kinder. We have had a busy year with Alice and working out how to control the beast inside her, and with the help of Dr Jo and cutting out numbers and colours from our diet there has been a massive change in her behaviour. She just told me that she loves swimming in the pool, bouncing her ball and rocking in the hammock (she likes to know what Im doing at all times…)
Pippa (or pippy, stinkerbell, tootsmcfruits) is “finally 4” as she likes to tell people this week. She is a clumso – always hurting herself somehow. She tries very hard to keep up with her big sisters. She loves “tiny little babies” which is good because we have a few around us at the moment! She goes to pre school on a friday morning and has lots of friends – that are all boys!
Cause if I don’t write them down – we will forget them.
Maisie and Talia arguing with Alice at the shops:
M: What did the man say?
A: he said he was going to put it on Freezebook.
T: Its not Freezebook, its Facebook.
A: NAAAA, its Freezebook.
L: Yeah – Its Freezebook.
M: No its not Mum.
Alice telling Tally off:
A: AND TALIA the reason you are in trouble is because you cut the stem off your dress!
T: Its not a stem – is it mum?
L: Yeah – Stem of the dress! Get it?
A: SEE – I TOLD YOU.
Its November?!? Crazy. Pippa has just turned 4! Alice is about to turn 6! The end of year invites are starting to book out our calendar. Soon we will be on holidays again! We have had a busy few months with a trip to the snow with our friends, Lisa went to Alaska for Mary Beth and Nats wedding, a family holiday to Wollongong, Cade ran in a 50 km Marathon near Tumut and plenty of other school, preschool, running and church things happening!
Extended Whitbourn Family holiday in Wollongong.
We had a super busy start to the year… so Ill just catch up all at once!
Tumut 2014 was funtastic. The fires were raging, so we had a night in the hills before heading back to Blowering.
January was made even more exciting with our new cousin Klay being born! He is super cute and we love him so much. We couldn’t wait to get home form camping to visit him.
Aunty Jacq and Aunty Nat came to town – it was great to see them both!
Pippy started Pre School on a friday morning!!
Alice started kinder
All the girls ready for school (and mums first morning off)
Pippy and Mumma went to the Play School concert – here is Pippy doing the teapot song
Cade and Lisa hiked Mount Bogong for our 12 year wedding anniversary.
Easter time 2014
We just got back from our week of holidays in Sydney. So much fun – so many photos! Here are some of the fun things that we did on holidays:
As soon as we got to Sydney, we unpacked and then jumped back into the car and headed to Cronulla Beach
We went to a pool in the city – Prince Alfred Swimming Park – with Aunty Nat.
We took the train into the city and went to the Aquarium
Playing outside in the beautiful warm weather that we had
On Saturday we drove into the Royal National Park and went to Wattamolla.
We got to catch up some special friends as well.
We had such a great week away, it was hard for me (Lisa) to leave and have to come back to real life! But we are back now, almost all unpacked and cleaned up! Cade is back to work tomorrow and the rest of us can finish off the school holidays with some play dates and quiet days!
We had some more birthdays – Tally and Cade. The good thing is that they are only 2 weeks apart so we left the decorations up for both of them to enjoy…
Tally had her 6th birthday which meant she was on a party year. We had 5 of her friends over for a party – they had a great time.
Cade went for his annual “run the amount of kms of the age that you turn”. We got him a fire – which we have all enjoyed!!!
I have to admit I think I have taken the bus once here in Albury before. That doesn’t include school buses – Im talking public transport buses… Its just something you dont need to do when you and your friends get cars and drivers licenses at 17! Plus everything (school/shops/work/home) was within 20 minutes walking time.
Anywho – now we live “out of town” and we have a bus stop just around the corner from our house, I decided that we would take a trip into town – with Aunty Hannah hopping on near her house and then we would go into the library to visit Grandma Carole.
So this morning we got ready and off we went. The girls ran the whole way to the bus stop – I had to calm them all down before the bus arrived. We travelled into town and had a lovely morning, stopping in at the library for story time and then having a picnic lunch in QE2 before catching the bus home again.
Pretending the bus was never ever ever coming – it was 2 minutes late…
Martins Albury do a fantastic job
Pippy waving to everyone doing Deanies.
I find these school holidays the hardest-it’s cold and horrible most days and everything is wet outside until after lunchtime, so we are usually stuck inside. This time around has been a bit different. The weather has been ok and we have been able to get out at some stage each day. Last week we went to Wonga Wetlands and surprised Poppa Phil with a picnic lunch and then went on a bush walk with Naa. If you are looking for a place to picnic with toilets, tables and bush walks – we recommend Wonga Wetlands! The girls all had a great time and its such a beautiful place to stop and enjoy Gods beautiful creation.
We are still in the clean up after our trip to Tumut this year, we seemed to bring a lot more dirt and dust home with us! We drove up on Saturday and this year lasted one extra night, so on Wednesday we drove to Gundagai and had one extra night there in the Tuckerbox Motor Inn, which was great, and then drove home on Thursday morning.
Camping with children in the National Park where there are only two pit toilets is hard work, but we were very thankful to have lots of family there to help out. The girls had a blast and are already talking about next year!
Big exciting things that happened at camping – Tally had her first try at water skiing with the help of Aunty Fleur and Uncle Shawn! Pippy had two rides in the biscuit behind Poppas boat. Alice swam in mud. Maisie drove the boat with Aunty Nat!
We had the best Christmas! Christmas Eve with the Shanahan/Stevens Family, Christmas Day church with our extended Church Family, Christmas Day lunch at home with just us and then Christmas night over at Cades sisters house with all 6 families accounted for (just missing Adele!). We laughed, ate, swam, assembled toys, laughed some more and watched our four girls have a super fantastic week.
At Aunty Kates House:
Home on Christmas Day:
Over at PTAZME’s (without the A):