Thomas' pirate party!

This Saturday Thomas had his birthday party! 

It was a pirate party!

 My attempt at anchors

 See it is a pirate ship!

 and our oasis table

 and last of all the pirates!

 Here is Mateus and Jimmy

 Max

 Sebastian & Jack

 playing pin the eye patch on the pirate!

 Running to our treasure hunt spots....

 and breaking open our treasure!

 Arthur taking a wack!

  j

 learning to sword fight.

 blowing out the candles!

 orange pirate boats

 hot dog octopus.

and free time-

 Thank you everyone for the gifts!

and sparklers in the rain!

Thomas turns 4!

Thomas turned 4 on July 8th! 

--

 As usual I did a little photo shoot to capture his personality-

 First, here he is with his favorite toy (a transformer) and favorite book (Gulliver Snip- a gift from his Tengelsen Great Grandparents) he reads it every night. Below is his favorite page from the book. It is about a boy who imagines he is in a clipper ship every night when he takes a bath. Here he is sailing down the stairs in a box after he has flooded the bathroom- Thomas thinks this is hilarious!

 And Lego's ...Thomas is always making me "dragons" Olivia helps him draw faces on his Legos!

Here is our little man!

 I love Thomas' blue eyes- 

 Thomas was such a good boy to sit out in the cold during this photo shoot- poor kid has a winter birthday out here!

 Here is his "cheeky smile" as his teachers would say-

 Thomas eats oatmeal (porridge) every morning. He loves it!

 Thomas loves cucumbers. Whenever we go shopping I always give him a cucumber to chew on while I go up and down the isles- he usually chews through two. I buy about 7 a week and have to hide them. He requested to eat one during the photo shoot.

 Thomas is very very affectionate. All his teachers at school and church comment on it. He will often come up to me to snuggle and then will play with my hair...I love it! He is also the ladies man- and will take care of all the girls at church (hold their hands etc...) This might have something to do with the fact that he is enrolled at a private all boys school-

 my favorite part about Thomas' smile is his gap between his teeth and his dimples-which only come out when he does a really big grin!

 Here we are racing to the front gate...he beat me!

 Whenever Thomas gets into trouble he say, "I'm sorry- but I just LOVE you mum!"...that works-

Thomas' best friends at school are Jack and Jimmy- They are all blond and blue eyed so we call them the "three musketeers" 

Happy birthday Thomas!!

The 4th of July

This year for the 4th of July we were invited to a party hosted by a friend from church who works for the US embassy in the foreign service. I thought it would be a small sit down dinner but instead we were surprised to see about 50 other Americans in attendance. Here are some pictures of the party, decorations, and activities set up for the  kids. Aside from the fact that it was very cold (coldest day of the year in 4 years) and rainy it was great to hang out with a bunch of American's and talk about all the things that are different about living in  Australia.

Here the kids are doing sparklers in the rain (sorry for the blurry images)

Olivia above, and Mary below

Mr Thomas

 Last of all some art work by Olivia that she did at the party.

Happy Fourth of July!

Australian education!

So I have been meaning to write this post for a while; I have scanned some of the school work my kids come home with here in Australia. Most of the time it is what I would expect to see in America, but sometimes I get something on the fridge that makes me smile. For instance:

First: art work during the Queen's jubilee

a salamander 

Worksheet on a funnel web spider...I have smashed one before!

 This diagram is probably actual size for a funnel web...it looks just like this!

Olivia's picture of her school- her classroom was in The Cottage- I love the tall gum trees-

 Shark facts....

 A journal entry about getting to pet a "dingo"

 Here she is with the dingo-

and last of all- learning how to count...crocodile eggs!

Aside from school work we also have school projects that give me a run for my money. For instance, I was supposed to bring something in to share with the class from "AMERICA" to eat. Yes, it was international food day. I couldn't think of anything. What is American food?  American food is a melting pot of different cultures and ethnicities; so we have all kinds of food! I looked on the Internet but only 'Fourth of July' food came up....red, white and blue stuff. Then I thought of McDonald's... if that isn't American I don't know what is; BUT I didn't want to buy a happy meal for each kid in the class. I had one hour and I couldn't find anything then Mary said, "what about S'mores" 

This was PERFECT! I bet you didn't realize Australians don't make s'mores! Yes- here is proof: according to wiki: A s'more (sometimes spelled smore) is a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States and Canada consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker.^[1]

I ran to the store and found biscuits (no graham crackers in Australia) and some Cadburry chocolate (no Hershey's in Oz either) and then bought some marshmallows.  This was hard because Marshmallows only come in the medium size (so you need two mallows on each biscuit) and they come in rainbow packets so I had to buy three packets to pull the white coloured ones out. The other colours are flavoured funny--which would not go with a s'more.

I melted the mallows in the microwave and made 20 s'mores and then let them cool and boxed them up. When I dropped off the food I said here are some smoores. The teacher had never heard of them so I had to explain what they were (chocolate, marshmallow and biscuit) and how they were made and when they were made (camping!) After I gave her a 5 minute run down she said, "O- I was hoping you would have brought Pumpkin Pie...." Duh-I'm an idiot! How come everyone can think of American food BUT ME? Pumpkin pie is an American staple, and can be found in Costco...just down the street!

When Thomas had "international food day" I had the same problem...I couldn't think of anything. So I brought in Yorkshire puddings and filled them with maple syrup and sprinkled powdered sugar on them. When probed by the class, I fessed up that none of it was American (the Yorkshire puddings were from England and the syrup was imported from Canada).... but it was the combination that made it unique--the Brits put gravy and potatoes on their Yorkshire puddings not syrup :-) Either way, I brought a treat right?