Historic

I remember when President Monson announced that a temple would be built in Italy. I got the chills and was so thrilled...I know the Italian people have been waiting a long time for an announcement like that. I thought about all the great people there and how much this means to them. I would love to go there when it is finished and visit my mission again. Viva L'Italia!

Rome Temple

german pancakes a plenty

Last weekend we had German pancakes with our friends Baron & Jason at Baron's apartment.  He lives in Elizabeth Bay and the views from his apartment are BEAUTIFUL!!

I wouldn't mind cooking and baking all day with the window open and the ocean breeze coming in.  Yes, please!

We ate and ate a ginormous, delicious breakfast...German pancakes with nutella, cream, coconut syrup, bacon, eggs, salmon, berries, juice...anything yummy for breakfast...it was there.

After we ate we walked down to the park by Baron's house and Jared tried to catch a tiny, tiny fish for Rex.  He wanted a tadpole but we couldn't find one.  Yes, we are thieves.  The fish was pronounced dead later that night when I went downstairs to put some laundry in the washer.  In the morning I told Rex and showed him "fishy" (his name) and Rex needed proof that he wasn't alive so he shook the bowl a couple dozen times.  I came back after Rex had some time with fishy and he was gone.  I asked him where he was and he said he put him in the garbage...alright..i always felt like a proper burial was usually in the toilet so that it can be in water...at first he asked if we could cook it for dad because dad likes fish. 

We visited Baron's next door neighbor who is 97 years old.  She was so sweet and excited to have us. baron was so nice to have us all over to his apartment...and he even put Jack to sleep. :)

kip and lucy

 I took Lucy & Jack to Taronga Zoo last week to meet our friends Chelsea & Kip.  They live near the zoo and go often so we decided to drive in (it's about a 35-40 min drive to the zoo from our house).  We had a great time.

We had season passes the first year we lived here and really loved it...I'm thinking we need to renew that.  It is nice to go and not feel rushed to see everything because Taronga Zoo is HUGE!

It was nice to spend the day there (it was a perfect, beautiful Spring day) and it was extra nice to only have two kids to look after and keep track of.  Liv & Rex were at school.  I know I have blogged about this before, but the views from the zoo are just incredible.  Sydney is so beautiful!

Kip & Lucy are both 3 and are like two peas in a pod.  They had so much fun together, chasing the birds, running around, feeding the birds Doritos (hope they are still alive), and making funny animal sounds.

It must have been a successful day because Lucy went on and on about it in the car...talking, talking, talking until she suddenly went quiet...I turned around and she was out cold!  She slept the entire 40 min drive home, plus another 20 minutes after I had picked up the kids from school.  So if you need your child to nap...let them run around a massive zoo for a few hours... :).  Thanks, Chelsea & Kip...let's do it again!

I can sit on my own

Has it really almost been 6 months?  Jack is growing up right before our eyes.  He is still the world's best baby.  He is such a happy boy and loves to flash his smiles whenever he gets a chance.

He recently starting doing this.....

sitting all alone like a big kid...

I am really enjoying him & can't get enough of his cuteness.

Now that the weather is warming up, we are loving Spring and being outdoors more.  He loves his swing out back and doesn't mind hanging out in it.

He thinks my peek-a-boo is pretty hilarious too.

He is becoming a drool machine too...teeth may be on the horizon...we'll see.  The other kids didn't get buckers until they were closer to 9 months...who knows, maybe he will surprise us one day with a nice pearly white in his mouth.

Since Jack was one month old he has had a terrible cough.  In a nutshell he has been in the Emergency Room twice and admitted to the hospital once because of this dreadful cough.  After two chest x-rays the Dr. are still trying to figure out what is causing the coughing, mucus, rattle in the chest combo he has going on.  He continues to gain weight (5 months and 16 lbs...pretty good chub), he is happy, eating well (obviously)..so other than the fact that he was diagnosed with Bronchitis...we are trying to get to the bottom of why he has had a cough for nearly 5 months.

He loves to blow raspberries and talk up a storm and make his older siblings laugh their heads off.

 He loves to sit and bend over and nibble on his toes, fall over, do some more toe nibbling and then roll around until he rolls into a wall and gets stuck...then he usually just hangs out there until someone finds him and picks him up.  He is so low key! 

glasses

I totally smile every time I look at this picture.  Lucy found these glasses one day at the park.  They were dirty and abandoned so I let her take them home.  They used to have lenses in them, but the other day Rex popped them out and Lucy fell in love with them all over again.  She now wears them EVERYWHERE!!

She gets all sorts of comments when we are about and about...especially when she couples the glasses with her cute princess shoes that she can barely squeeze  her feet into.  It is really adorable, the whole combo.  I really love her in her huge framed glasses.

I guess I will be putting band aids on my shopping list

This morning I was puttering around the house putting laundry away.  I thought Lucy was out back with the older kiddos until I walked into her room to put some clothes away and I heard a little squeak under Alivia's bed.  I looked under to find Lucy covered in band aids...wrappers everywhere and an empty 100 pack box of band aids lying next to her.

Awesome!

I did laugh out loud and then tell her to stay put while I got the camera.  After the photo shoot I talked to her about what band aids are for...she knows, but they are just too fun to waste.  The bottom of Alivia's bed is decorated so beautifully with an assortment of band aids.

I think she thought I was distracted with the camera and was attempting to open another band aid. 

 Don't worry, I busted her in time before she had it ripped open.

She is a chronic hide under the bed to get into mischief kinda girl.

nose to nose for one minute

Alright!  So, my kids fight like cats & dogs on a daily basis.  Sometimes the fighting turns into playing and sometimes it turns into hitting, screaming & scratching.  Well, I was getting SICK of it and told the kids that if I heard them fighting they would have to go nose to nose for one minute....which sounds like 5 years when a child hears you say they have to do something for one whole minute.

****

I also make them say. "oochie, koochie, I LOVE YOU!! I am SORRY!!" nose to nose, of course.  They have to stay nose to nose longer if they don't say it to each other. They will occasionally yell that the other person has a runny nose or bad breath, but I tell them their one minute isn't up. Believe it or not, as soon as I hear them starting to fight I say, "oochie, koochie" and they usually stop. 

I don't know where the line came from.  The kids were fighting and it was the first thing that popped into my head.  They thought it was hilarious, so it works for me. :)

by the spoonful

I made a salad for dinner the other night and Lucy really loved it.  We had all finished eating and she sat there eating salad by the spoonful.

She started hamming it up when she saw me bust out the camera.

She ate all of it and there was a good 1/3 left of the salad.

I thought her cute, on the wrong feet, Dora boots swinging back and forth were too cute!!

painted paws

umm, I am not really sure how it happened but it did....Jack is BIG!!  I can hardly believe it.  I put him in his walker thinking, surely he is too small....nope, he loved it and could even scoot around.  I put him in the kitchen and he ended up in the living room. 

He is such a good baby!

Craft time at our house is fun...the kids love painting...they paint on paper for half a second and then they paint their bodies...every time!!

Liv creating her masterpiece...

Yes, Rex does have undies on....

The painted hands are their favorites...

more painted paws

The color looks kinda alien-ish, kinda creep me out!

{Rex's paws}

The kids paint, color & use markers on our table.  So, I let them put their hand prints on the table too...it will come off eventually.  I sold all of the stuff I really liked when we moved here, and since we are not here permanently, we don't want to invest lots of money on furniture.  Our Salvation Army table suits us just fine.

{Lil Lucy's paws}

{Jack's paws...kinda..it was a little hard :)}

{Liv's paws}

Jack was perfectly content just chilling on my hip while the kids painted.

Brazilian

Our friends, the Collings, invited us to a great Brazilian restaurant in the city.  Jared & Aaron both work in the city so Julia & I (yes, we are Julie & Julia...like the movie.hahaha) rode in together and met the men. :)  It was fun, just like Tucanos.

We ate and ate and ate until our bellies were full of meat...and yummy grilled pineapple.  Jack was eyeing the food...

Go Cougs!

We like to follow the BYU games here.  Most of the games are played on Saturday in the US so our Sunday so we are usually at church when they are actually being played.  Last weeks game against Utah State was on a Friday night so we were able to catch it on Saturday...tooooo bad they lost miserably. 

The kids like to get all decked out.

cheer and sing the fight song!

Hopefully things will look up for the Cougars soon!!

Atama, kata, hiza, tsumasaki ...

Atama, kata, hiza, tsumasaki ...head, shoulders, knees & toes

Every Friday the kids have a Japanese class at school.  They are loving it.  Jared works with a woman from Japan and the kids like to test out what they know whenever we visit the office.  Liv & Rex have been trying to teach me some things and they just laugh at me because I am pretty horrible at it...I get all the words mixed up. :)

only old people need make-up

 The girls made dolls with some of my fabric.  Rex made a turtle.  Pretty tender huh!?

So I had to record some of my favorite quotes from today....they were gems.

Rex, "Mom, are you a cow?"

me,"umm, am I a cow?"

Rex,"Yeah, are you like a cow because you have milk to feed Jack?"

This morning the girls were getting ready for a birthday party and Lucy came in with a face full of make-up.  The girls are a little obsessed with make-up.  I told them that it is ok to wear sparkles and lip gloss on special occasions, but they would have to wait until they are older to wear real make-up.  Lucy made her sad face and asked me why.  {this is my favorite part}  Alivia said," It is because kids look ok without make-up but grown-up ladies do NOT look good without make-up." 

I had a great laugh!

Oh....and one last little gem from today.  On our way home from the birthday party Rex told me a zillion times that he was busting to go to the bathroom.  I pulled into the driveway, Liv hopped out and Rex took a minute to get out for some reason.  When he arrived at the downstairs bathroom Alivia was occupying it.  Next thing I heard was,"Mom, Rex is peeing in the garbage can." Huh? Pardon me?  Are you kidding me?? And then I hear Rex say, "I couldn't help it, I couldn't hold it."  We have THREE bathrooms in our house...the garbage can?? I guess it is better than the floor or in the closet. :)  These kiddos keep me on my toes.