Friday, 11 October 2013

Mary's Baptism Photo-shoot!

So every year I try to take a quick photo-shoot of my kids. Here are Mary's 8 year old photo's and some info about Mary this year. 
 Mary is in year 2 (grade 2) at Coatsville Primary School. Her teacher is Miss Hemming 
 Mary's best friend is Natalie. Mary is very social and will have a 'bad day' if she doesn't get some one-on-one time with a friend or parent. With that said, she prefers one or two people over a whole group of people.
 Mary is very detailed and cares a lot about her appearance. She would rather go to school hungry (no breakfast) than compromise her hair. She loves jewelry and nails and all things glam. She loves skirts and dresses, but lately prefers to wear basketball shorts, and a t-shirt with some flip-flops + jewelry. Mary will ALWAYS wear her hair in a pony tail (I had to talk her into wearing it down for these pictures) 
 Mary LOVES babies and will spend hours of one-on-one time with them. She recently told me, she wanted to be a baby doctor, I told her that was called a paediatrician! 
  Mary got Stan's brain. She can out spell Olivia, and picks up math rather easily. Her favourite books to read are 'fairy books' she reads about fairy almost every night...which is good since she keeps loosing teeth. She gets regular visits by the tooth fairy. 
 Mary plays on an under 9 girls basketball team. She is going on over a year in basketball now and is quite good a defence. Her height is an added bonus!
 Mary also does swimming lessons and little nippers (surf life-saving) during the summer. She also started piano lessons this year.
 Mary can be very gentle and kind, but she also likes to be the second mom and if anyone in the house gets a lecture, she usually chimes in her two cents.
 Mary doesn't like sandwiches...of any kind. She usually gets raisin toast in her lunch or a bread roll.
 This year Mary has developed a tolerance for boys. She used to cry if there was one in her swimming class, this year she is the only girl and she is handling it well. To top it off there is one boy named 'Hayden' that might have a crush on her. She might have a crush on him....
 Mary has two hobbies at home that she LOVES. The first is Cooking. Mary is very meticulous when it comes to following a recipe and measuring out ingredients. She has a gift too- her food sometimes turns out better than mine!
 Her second hobby is painting. She got an easel from Stan earlier this year, and will spend hours, drawing out pictures, and then painting over them. She really enjoys paying attention to detail and has quite a bit of patience with both cooking and painting and school. 
 I think Mary is gorgeous! I love her dark curly hair, it is so thick and grows out so well. She is very tall and muscular. She got a good mix of genes. 
 Mary has a delicate balance. She loves her sleep and food. I taught her about Maslows hierarchy of needs and she likes to remind me which areas in her life needs attention. "mom my social needs are not being met, so I need to have a play date."
 Mary's nickname is Mary-Bear, but her middle name is Adelle. She loves both. 
 Mary got her ears pierced for her 8th birthday. She is wearing pink diamond studs.
 Mary can be quite shy at first and usually likes to hang back and assess before jumping into a situation.
 Mary's body temperature is about 10 degrees warmer than me and Olivia's. She is constantly hot and I find her sweating at night. She tends to sleep in 'not much' compared to Olivia who can go to sleep in a layered sweatsuit.
Mary is the teachers pet every year. She LOVES her teachers and loves school. I think out of all my kids, she is the most well-rounded and has a bright future ahead! LOVE you Mary Bear!

Tuesday, 1 October 2013

School Holidays, Footy Grand Final, & the Royal Melbourne Show....

It is spring break here in Melbourne!  We have two weeks off of school until we head into our last term of the school year. On the last day of school each of the kids had to dress up in the colours of their favourite footy team (Australian Football League). AFL is really only a game played in Australia and in Australia only Melbourne is really into it. It is a mix between rugby and American football.

Saying Melbourne is "into it" is an understatement. The majority of people LOVE footy season. The games are on TV all the time, the stadiums are almost always packed and people can be quite "feral" (as the Aussies would put it) when it comes to team spirit.

Olivia decided to barrack for Carlingford (because her BFF and boy-crush, go for them (and on the last day of school you get put into teams with other kids who barrack for the same team).
 Mary cheered for the Swans (who I have a deep respect for). Long story short: footy was so big in Melbourne (a while ago) that a certain footy team (Collingwood) decided they  no longer wanted to share their sports training facilities with the Australian Olympic team. Collingwood said they needed the extra practice. It went to court and the footy team won. The Olympians had nowhere to train, so the Sydney swans gave the Olympians their training facilities and moved up to Sydney.
Thomas barracks for Hawthorne (which was the team that won the grand final this year). Stan and I are undecided. Most families barrack together and you cannot change your mind from year to year...otherwise you are called a "turncoat." In Australia you barrack vs. root for a team. Rooting is a very crass word which means "sex" in Australia, so to root for a team would be even more of a shock vs. rooting a person.

Once school was out we have had lots of time to play and hang out with friends. This Saturday we went to the royal Melbourne show, which is basically a big carnival. The kids had a blast.
 
 can't believe Olivia and Mary went on this one-
 Thomas and I did this one together-
 and the bubble balls (my kids favourite)-

Monday, 30 September 2013

Mary Turned 8!

My baby Mary has just turned 8 years old!  I think she is gorgeous in every way. Her two front teeth are missing, her hair is nearly down to her waist and she has started to mellow down when it comes to loosing her temper (Aaahhhhhh).

This year for her birthday she wanted a baby bunny party. All her friends adore our fuzzy dwarf lop eared bunny Chloe, so Mary could think of nothing better than MORE bunnies. I found a little place that brings baby pets to parties, wraps the animals in little tea towels and the kids get to pet them and snuggle them. There were bunnies, guinea pigs, chicks and ducklings. Here are some pictures. It was lovely.
 Mary & her BFF Natalie
 Elara (our neighbor and friend from church)
 Maddy (Olivia's friend) got a baby chick to fall asleep in her hand
 Paige and Kaitlyn
 The host of the animal farm was very good with the kids
 Mary and Roary
Millie and Mary.

 Mary has the easiest group of friends. They are so polite and low key. After an hour with the baby animals we broke open a butterfly pinata, had some pizza followed by cake and ice cream!
 Happy birthday Mary
 Blowing out the candles!
 
 And opening presents. In Australia you do not open gifts until after the guest leave (this goes for baby showers too, bridal showers everything!)
 Mary chose to have one friend sleep over (millie) so she got to see what Mary got.
 On Mary's actual birthday we surprised her with breakfast in bed....
 Then we took her to the mall to get her ears pierced. We make the girls wait until 8 years old to get their ears pierced, Mary had been wanting them done for a couple years now, but I wanted to wait until she could take care of them. 
Such a big girl now! 
Happy birthday Mary!