Same But Different

i have been meaning to post this for about 5 months now and just never get around to doing it.

so today is the day i am finally getting to it.

on our big family holiday last year we went to Adelaide

(also need to write up a post for that to !)

and re-took a photo of jevan and the boys which we took when we went in 2012.

it was pretty hilarious trying to do it from memory and

 a small instagram photo that i found on the train to glenelg to help get the right poses.

the only thing jevan and i could agree on was the spot where we took the photo.

it was cool to see how much our little people have grown in only four years.

 2012

2016

and then of course we had to add our little cheeky billy to the mix.

we can't wait to take one in 2020,

who knows there might even be an extra addition then,

haha NOT.

three little boys is plenty for this little family.

The Milky Way

for the last year i have been wanting to learn

 how to take those amazing milky way photos.

you all know what i'm talking about,

they are crazy cool.

anyway,

jevan knew this and organised someone from our church to show me how to do this.

we headed to Mount Banks on saturday night.

we even got taught how to make a fire 

(without the assistance of firelighters.)

the boys loved their s'mores.

they ate way too many they were all complaining of tummy aches by the end of the night.

i had the BEST time learning how to take these photos.

i'm so excited with how these turned out,

i was so surprised.

the milky way was amazing,

it's the first time i've ever seen it,

and it was the first time i spotted the southern cross also !

the world we live in is a beauty.

Boy's Got Imagination

out of all the three boys zayden has the biggest imagination.

these last 2 weeks it has been at it's prime.

this morning he imagined that he was at the beach,

he got all the pillows from everyones bed

(totally had to take some deep breaths about the mess)

and made water and waves that he was going to swim in,

he even made a baby pool so the "little babies won't drown."

we got out our yellow towel and made that his sand area.

while i was "sun baking" (aka having a nano nap)

he went to the garage and got his bucket and spade,

he was digging and making sandcastles,

he slapped on some sunscreen,

actually he made us ALL put sunscreen on

-his dad would be so proud.

he took his shirt off but left his "board shorts" on and jumped in the water (pillows),

and swam for a good hour in there.

he's the best.

i love watching where his imagination takes him.

although i am starting to get concerned that his needs to broaden his friendship circle,

right now it consists of his baby, bear, teddy, hulk and "raffey."

the boy needs friends lol.

The "Love You's"

our nightly routine it followed pretty much religiously.

not only for my sanity but for the boys safety aswell.

they brush their teeth, go to the toilet, have family prayers, say personal prayers, 

kiss, cuddle, tucked in and then we say our "love you's."

zayden and braxton always try and outlast each other when it comes to the "love you's"

they always want to be the last one to say it to me.

last night our "love you's" conversation went like this ...

Z: I love you more

B: I love you for eternity

Me: I love you for always

Z: *screaming* I LOVE YOU FOR JUST TWO MORE DAYS !

it made me laugh so hard.

thank you zayden for being very specific to the length of love you are giving me.

Date 4/12

so this month was meant to be my month but jevan took over it.

his date was trying a new cuisine that neither of us has tried before.

so we got brave got a bus into the city and ended up at a japanese restaurant.

it was DELICIOUS !

the pork and chicken buns were the most amazing things i have tried.

i probably could of just ordered a whole bunch of those.

we also tried ramen.

we have seen it and heard about it so we thought lets do it.

the buns though,

they were our favs.

after that we were tossing up whether to do lindt cafe for dessert,

we had walked past this delicious ice-creamery type dessert place that we were pretty tempted by

but we still headed to lindt instead.

half way there we thought we wouldn't make our bus home

so we turned around to go back to the ice-cream place for dessert.

we were so excited for it

- we cold pretty much taste the ice-cream in our mouths.

we had already decided what we were getting.

we got there - they were CLOSED !

bummer right ?!

that's what we get for not being satisfied about our choice in the first place.

so we walked past a doughnut time on the way to the bus stop and got that as a runner up.

they were ok but it was no lemon meringue that i could taste in my unsatisfied mouth.

we also got to go on a double decker bus right at the top,

naturally that has been on my bucket list.

Autumn Trees

the boys really love autumn trees.

we will be driving along and one of them will scream

"AUTUMN TREES!"

which seems really sweet but when your not expecting it and your in a confined space,

can really get my goolies.

so zayden and i decided yesterday that we would go and 

see how many different coloured leaves we could find.

we headed to nurrgingy because we also wanted to tie in feeding the ducks in our outing.

these ducks are awesome.

they would come up and eat the bread from zayden's hand

- they were either super friendly or super greedy?!

but zayden thought it was the best thing.

we went for a scooter ride and found yellow, red, brown and green leaves.

we had an autumn leaf fight,

got sticks and shot at the sky, 

(whats with boys and guns?)

collected leaves and threw them down the waterfall,

we were even lucky enough to see some leaves fall down from the tree

and after all this we had a play at the park.

Annual Vanilla Slice

mothers day weekend bought with it the annual ormsby trip to the blue mountains.

we have been going up there for the last 5 years now

and getting treats from the same bakery.

it's not our favourite bakery now but as jevan says it "it's tradition."

so we go and buy and then reminisce how the vanilla slice was delicious the first time we got it.

the boys love it so that's all that matters.

this year they two older boys got the penguins and zayden got his cupcake.

he went for lamington and came away with he cupcake

and then told us that "next year when we go to the 'backery' can i get a 'laamington'."

after we stacked up with goodies we headed to Govetts Leap lookout in blackheath.

this lookout is pretty spectacular.

it wasn't the lookout i had planned to head to but

thanks to google maps we ended up here.

good call though google maps.

there was a waterfall form the look out,

the boys thought that was pretty cool because 

we could hear the water crashing down from where we were.

we went on a short little walk to another look out down the bottom which after a morning spent playing rugby suited the boys perfectly.

but that didn't stop them from complaining the WHOLE 15 mins down to it.

i love this tradition which started all 

because of our love over a vanilla slice we got randomly one day at a random bakery.

 this photo cracked jevan and i up.

here we were trying to get a nice photo together.

we look to see if it turned out alright and see that boy on the left hand side,

photo bombing OUR photo.

don't ask us what braxton is doing here.

Mothers Day 2017

mothers day was last sunday.

the thing i get most excited about on this day is getting the little crafts that the boys made at school

and seeing what they picked me at the mothers day stall.

this year i got another teddy from makai 

- he is collecting quit the collection of plush toys for (himself) me.

and brax chose block letters that say i love mum.

i got my first pre-school craft from zayden ever this year 

and he thought it was pretty neat hiding it until sunday.

braxton made me a video in his class and told me all the reasons he loves me.

i think the teacher had to tell him to stop because he went on and on and on and on AND ON.

makai wrote me a card that said 

"Here Mum,

You are the best mum in the hole uenevers,

By Makai."

my most FAVOURITE part of this whole day was the musical item the boys did along with the primary and young womens at church in the morning.

they sung a mash up song between Mother I love You and Teacher Do You Love Me.

it's called Mother Will You Love Me/Mother I Love You.

i balled my eyes out like a baby.

i even had to use Zayden's shirt as a tissue because i was unprepared.

seeing my boys sing 

"Mother will you love me, mother will you care for me? 

Even if i turn away or disobey or go astray, Then will you still love me?"

with their big eyes and big smiles looking right at me.

- who wouldn't cry.

it was tender.

those words rang true to me.

my mum always loved all of her children even when we did turn away, go astray or disobey,

her love was always there.

and that is exactly how i want to be with my boys.

she is the greatest example to me of what a mother is.

after all the deliciousness we got at church,

we headed to grammy and grampy's house for lunch and played games for hours.

we came home and had a delicious meal of hamburgers,

we were so stuffed from church and g&g's house that we couldn't even think about dessert.

-on a side note i just have to write this down because i want to remember this, 

it has nothing to do with mothers day it just happened on this day.

i love that when jevan gets up to conduct and announces that a car had left their lights on,

he reads the number plate out to the congregation.

what he didn't realise was it was OUR cars number plate he was reading out

 and HE was the last to drive it.

he didn't even realise,

bishop had to nudge him and tell him i had just run outside because it was your car.

My Kai-Kai

today was emotional.

this morning i went to see makai's teacher about his progress this year,

i got back what i wasn't expecting to hear.

that he hasn't really progressed this year academically.

but she did quote "if there was a test for trying their best all the time and always having positive attitude and giving things a go, Makai would score top marks."

this poor boy who gives you his all and will do anything he is asked,

has some kind of learning difficulty that noone can name.

that in itself is frustrating.

i feel like if they gave me a name i could research to get more knowledge about it,

what causes it, how to help him best learn and understand what is being taught.

i would just love to tell people when they ask,

yeh, makai has this.

instead of going ahhhh he's got something we don't know what yet 

but he struggles with this, this and this.

i then called his ot teacher to get a progress report on makai,

she told me she has given up with his pencil grip and 

she can't help him for what he's struggling with in class.

makai has been so so blessed with the teachers he has been given in school.

when i have spoken to him i have always felt that they have really gotten to know him,

i felt like they see the good in makai rather than his failures.

but then you have his ot who might mean very well,

makes me feel like makai is a hassle 

and that he goes out of his way to not listen or to not complete work.

his teachers have all told me how much of a hard worker he is 

and how he always works to the best of HIS abilities and that's all they can ask for.

i am so so SO glad how heavenly father has blessed makai with people in his everyday life(not once a week) that can see his strengths.

they overlook his weaknesses and

 they try to support him in every way they can to get him to that finish line.

but what i love most about them is they don't make him conform,

they know that he's an individual.

what works for the rest of the class may not work for makai

and they try to think of support strategies to help him understand the work that's being taught.

noone wants to hear that your child is struggling or that they are slower and under-average.

you feel like you've failed them in life.

i think maybe i should have read to him more and discussed books?

maybe i shouldn't of sent him the year early.

but then i think this is makai,

this is who he is.

maybe this is one of his earthly struggles that he will have to work at everyday.

i just never want him to think he's dumb because he is so far from it.

he excels in other areas he just needs to find out what they are.

this boy just makes me want to be better all the time.

i'll forever love and admire my kai-kai.

Toowoon Bay

this year jevan and i decided to do something a little different.

jevan would take off a day during the holidays and 

we would spend the day doing something fun with the boys.

the last holidays he took a monday off and we turned it into a long weekend.

we spent it camping up at Toowoon Bay,

(just near The Entrance.)

we had such a great time,

our boys LOVE camping.

they can get messy,

run a muck around the camp site without being told to shush,

they can have days skipping showers and its completely acceptable.

jevan and i love it because they wake up early and go to sleep straight after dinner.

this holiday we ticked off some of my bucket list items.

caves beach - AMAZING !

we had the best time exploring all the entrances in and out of the caves

and swimming in rock pools.

we had seaweed fights and built the land of zarahemla (makai named it)

out of large rocks we found.

sunrise watching.

the coastal walk at the Bouddi National Park.

this walk was beautiful.

the sandstone walls with a never-ending ocean on one side and bush on the other.

it took us FOREVER to walk one way,

so jevan and i devised a plan to help speed up the way back.

one - zayden went in the carrier

two - zayden and jevan were the burgens and makai, brax and i were the trolls.

we had the best fun and by the time we made it back to the car we were all dripping with sweat.

we headed to the pelican feeding at the entrance on the way back to our site.

this was the boys favourite but jevan and my least favourite.

the crowds were insane.

 monday saw us pack up our holiday and begin to head home,

but before heading back we decided to use up our whole day.

we went to Norah Head Lighthouse.

the boys thought it was pretty neat that they got to go right up the top of a real working lighthouse.

then to finish off our holiday we had a classic fish and chips for lunch,

followed by a swim at the beach.

this little getaway was a perfect way too finish the school holidays.

also we ate way too many marshmallows,

- braxton was in heaven.