Food lists and battleship games.

Isabella handed me the cutest letter this morning. It was in an envelope labelled "food I like"
and inside was this gorgeous list to help me plan what to feed them. Every month or so I ask them for what they want to eat as I can get brain dead and stuck in ruts with food for them. They eat quite a good range of foods, but there are things they will not eat and it has to be approached the right way to get them to try new foods. So I need to have a idea bank to turn to, especially when I don't want to deal with the stress of trying to get them to try something else.

The cutest thing though is Bella's phonetic spelling, it makes me wonder how she hears things, and also how well I pronounce words. My favourites from this mornings list being
'fish and vechdurboolz' (vegetables)
'tarco and rapz'
'buter chickon (with ris)'
'bakbinz' (baked beans)
I have to sound the words out loud sometime to get some of the harder ones, I think this next one
'icecrems and semcherees' (I think that's with some cherries), which is so cute because she loves cherries but has never had them with ice cream. But I could find out that it is something completely different that I just wasn't getting!

Anyway, so cute. The others were pretty straightforward, but I just love how she thinks like this, I'll give Mum a hand with dinner plans.

Also a miracle has occurred with Micah, I nearly died last night from shock when Micah and Bella got out Battleship and were playing together last night. Micah got it for his birthday last year and has played it once under pressure from me to give it a go. He is hard to get interested in new things, and is obsessed with pokemon, and computer games and dsi games. We have had to limit it so much because he wants to play on any of them constantly. He has been hard to get outside, hard to try anything new, he even escaped from after school sports and snuck to catch the bus home because he hated going! He is a really fantastic reader when he is interested, but sometimes I have read the fist couple of pages with him until he gets interested, and then he takes over and I don't see him for a couple of hour til the novel is finished! Anyway, I'm sure you get that he is hard to get to DO anything new, or sometimes just anything that doesn't involve computers!
So to see that he had got it down and wanted to play with Bella. They were so cute and I told them how lucky they are to have each other to play with and that they can always be good friends for each other and have fun together. Then Micah said "this is such a fun game Mum", and I said "isn't it more fun than playing the computer?" Micah said "Yeah, heaps more fun." He looked up at me with the sweetest smile. I ended up letting them stay up an hour later as it was just so gorgeous and I was just so happy that they were getting it!!
There has been a change is Micah in the last few weeks, which has been leading to this sort of attitude, and it makes me so happy. I was feeling so lost with what I could even do to help him as he wasn't really happy and involved, and nothing I tried seemed to be working.
I love my sweet kids.

Halloween party

The kid's school had a halloween party which was much anticipated as the teachers were doing games and the girls planned what to dress up as. I tried to steer them away from the witch idea, which Bella was so keen on as nearly EVERY one of her friends was going as. I have issues about being the same as everyone else. I want the kids to think about what they really like and are interested in. Amalie went as red riding hood, and Bella after many, many suggestions was excited to goo as Cat in the Hat. I made that hat for her and when I showed her she said "That doesn't look like Rat in the Hat!" Seems like we had a communication problem, or at least an understanding problem! But she won second place for best costume, and she looked so adorable, though I can't find a decent photo. They had lot's of fun with the slime and other games. Micah had a great time too, but didn't want to dress up. I don't have to worry about him doing things to please his friends, he doesn't even like to wear free dress on free dress days at school!

Swimming Carnival

Last month the kids had their school swimming carnival. It rained on and off during the day, mostly the kids didn't even care. Amalie was so funny because she just wanted to swim all day and Micah wanted to come home with me instead of on the bus, but we couldn't get Amalie to come. She made friends with a year six girl who gave her piggy backs around the pool and swam with her wand was just so sweet!

Anyway, Micah was the only one who competed and he got first place for the first race. I always feel bad for Micah because he is always competing against kids older than him because he is in a higher grade plus he is not interested in sport at all, unless it is bike riding or swimming. Plus the cute guy is not competitive at all, he is either interested or not. Anyway, he came first in that first race and said "I've had enough, I don't want to race any more."

Ballet with the kids

I'm going to have to get the hang of this again! My photo's came out in the wrong order and I can't get above this photo! James surprised us with tickets to see Swan Lake for Bella's 6th birthday in October. He got tickets for all of us which I wasn't really sure about. The kids were really excited, even Micah asked if there was a ticket for him and was so happy that there was. It was performed by the Tasmanian Classical Ballet Company and was very beautiful. We went for the matinee and it was probably half full of children, there were big groups of little girls who I'm sure were attending with their whole ballet class. It was very cute. But it was soooo long. They had three intermissions and it went for almost three and a half hours! The photo above is Micah glad to get out between act two and three. The below photo is what Micah looked like during pretty much the whole performance. I was hoping he would fall asleep so he would stop complaining! But it didn't happen. The girls absolutely loved the dancing, loved all the ballerinas, but even their enthusiasm didn't make it to the last hour! Amalie and Isabella came home and copied the dancing they remembered, it was gorgeous to see their interpretation and to see them still dancing from it two months later now. So it was worth it, at least we are opening up their mind to some culture.

Hello hello

Hmmmm, you probably thought that you would never hear from me again. And I don't know that I thought I would come back, but I have such cute kids who are doing things I just don't want to forget. I went to a Stake YW activity about journals and felt so bad that I have not recorded enough of my children's life already. Sometimes it's hard, and I make no promises, but I'm doing this for me and them, so I'll try to do what I can.