phone photo dump

All right so I thought I would put up a bunch of random photos that I have taken with my phone from the fall/mostly winter season. We are just about to head into spring and I want to make sure I have some of our random things here from the past season.

Picking up Daddy from a flight one night

GQ model, ok not GQ because they can be quite raunch but he's got the looks! This was waiting for a taxi one morning when we were picking up the old smobi car from the shop. Ej loves riding in taxi's-probably because it rarely happens. Funny thing-the car was stolen again that night....boo!

 The awesome jacuzi tub we had when we stayed down in Byron bay in May. We had quite a few family baths in this tub through that weekend. It was great. It was like having our own hot tub without worrying about sharing it. Absolutely wonderful!

 Such a little cutie. Cant find this hat now...which is sad. It actually fits the Mr. Moon (he bought it for himself a few years back) but it fits Ej as well...the hat just doesnt stretch around his head. And yes he was buckling into the car without a car seat. It was one of those moving the cars around and didnt want to switch the car seat because it was a block or something. You dont need to scold me, I know.

 Ej enjoying some sushi at the mall. He is lucky he is in a place where seafood is so prevalent and fresh and good. He loves shrimp and although he usually picks a chicken roll I am so glad that he likes sushi. Here this is a very cheap way to eat while out. Sushi rolls run around $2 or just over which is the cheapest "fast food" you can find and its healthy to boot!

 A friend offered me a ticket last minute to the Jabbawockeez when her husband couldnt attend with her and I had a blast. They were a great show!

 Our favorite cold weather drinks here. There is no swiss miss hot chocolate, but there is Cadbury and its wonderful! Milo is an aussie favorite and Ej prefers this to cocoa. Its a barley drink but flavored sweetly. The caramel flavoring is for my cocoa...mmm..mm.good for the couple of months cool enough for these drinks.

 One night Ej followed the example of his father and gave me a foot rub and leg rub. It was great. Hopefully he keeps that up!

 Not a great face for the little man but in June our friends had a sweet little girl and they named her Sommer-yep after me! I feel very honored and special that she is my namesake. She is a sweet little one and I grab her up as much as I can and take in all her baby goodness!

 One night our family went to Southbank and the friday night markets were up. There is always a booth on the end that sells corn on the cob, a favorite of my little man and mine. We each scooped one up that night, we didnt want to share.

 The night of the Jabbawockeez show-dont know how these pics got out of order

 Ej got a nasty cold. Because he tend to have asthma symptoms it usually goes into his chest. I thought we may have bypassed it this time, until the end and then it hit him hard. He actually had an asthma attack in the car on the way home from shopping one night, when it was just me and him. I was a bit panicked. I was trying to get home as quick as possible to get him on the nebulizer-meanwhile it was pouring rain and the windshield wiper (aka-windscreen here) busted off on my driving side. Luckily a light turned red and I was able to fix it well enough to get home. This was Ej the next morning getting another treatment. Luckily he is old enough now that he sits well for them and doesnt fight them, even asks for them sometimes when he is coughing a lot.

 For my birthday I bought tickets for the cirque du soliel show "Ovo". It was awesome and although you can not take any pictures inside I was able to take a few outside the big top as we waited to enter. This show was better than ka and Love in our opinion but I know everyone thinks differently on the cirque shows. Our favorite is still mystere of all the ones I have mentioned though.

 After the smobi being stolen a second time we finally ended up selling it for parts. We didnt want to put any more money into it to fix it up to make it road worthy to sell, we didnt want to risk parking it anywhere long for fear of our bad luck and it getting stolen a third time, and I would not even touch the cursed thing until the tow truck came to get it because every time I drove it, that night it would get stolen. Seriously the police were very suspicious of me the last time I reported it stolen. Here Ej is holding the plates (since we could not keep them as souveniers) as a memory of the experience before shipping them in to get proper paperwork finished.

 A beautiful but cool afternoon with Ej riding his scooter around the garden of our flat and me soaking up the beauty of where we live. I get caught up sometimes in the daunting duties of everyday life in a foreign country that I have to remind myself to stop taking things for granted. Seriously we live in such an amazing place.

 Mr. Moon and I waiting to head into Ovo

I have a plan to sit down and write a bit of my every day life living as an american in australia soon. You know the nitty gritty stuff that most people dont think about. Stay tuned...

Dinner Time Creativity

So dinner time is one of the hardest times of day. We are all a bit tired, and of course hungry. By that time I have to withhold food from a very hungry little guy whom fits the old saying..."the way to a mans heart is through his stomach" to a tee. All in the name of love.

Sometimes during cooking time Ej gets to watch tv, sometimes he will sit and do an activity I set up-like playdough, sometimes he constantly whines and tries to get things out of the pantry and sometimes he plays on his own and comes up with things like this..

He took the license plates from our old beater car that we finally sold to the wreckage yard and fixed them in the cracks of the benchtops. Then he lined up his cars on the stool and played happily. Those are my favorite evenings. My son entertaining himself and showing some innovative creativity. Funny thing was this night-he must have liked the look of the cars lined up because he left those and then flew his airplanes over the ramps of the plates. These are the moments I want to bottle up forever.

balcony play

So when I put up the little video where I had a conversation with EJ on the last blog we were sitting on the balcony of our flat. It was a gorgeous morning, and I know that when it warms up we will not be able to play on the balcony in the mornings anymore because we will just want to be in the shade. So we are enjoying it while it lasts.

That particular morning I decided to continue to push myself and do something a bit messy. NOt my cup of tea as far as parenting, my anxiety just sky rockets and then I turn into dictator and it ends up not being fun. So I am stretching myself and I told myself I would be ok with the outcome. I did set out guidelines for EJ to follow....try to keep it in the containers as best as possible and no throwing it. THat was it, then I had to just look the other way when it started getting around on the floor. It was the balcony which made that a little easier but this was a good experiment for both of us. Ej doesnt like to sit for any amount of time and I swear that little motor body of his revs more rpms each day. He is nonstop in motion....I really hope the saying of boys being easier when they get older is true because he completely wears me out all the time!

I even tried to let him play without me right at his side for a bit, to try to get him to play on his own without me coming up with the imaginative play. We were playing with "cloud dough" by the way. Just 8 cups flour and 1 cup baby oil and its awesome! I could have sat and played with it forever, it crumbles and yet you can mold it. The missionaries came over that night and played with it some more too!

I sat Ej right in front of the glass fencing we have so that he could look at the veiw and birds and things. It was a great morning. I have recently come across a blog called 'Making Boys Men' at www.makingboysmen.blogspot.com.co.uk and seriously she is really inspiring to me. I love to get Ej outside and doing things and with living in a flat its not always easy because I have chores and things I need to get done. And while her family lives in a home with a yard it made me realize I can do so much inside stuff outside with him on the balcony on those days I can't get him out to the playground or wherever and she has loads of ideas. Great for girls or boys, she just happens to have boys and great ideas. So we have been working on spending time outdoors even more than our usual-which is quite a lot considering we walk to the shops multiple times a week and do an outdoor playgroup,etc.

And I love being out there with him and getting some fresh air and sunshine and listening to the birds. I absolutely love listening to the birds here, even the crazy kookaburras that sound like crazy monkeys in the trees. I never thought I would like listening to different bird calls, but I have fallen in love with it here and will sorely miss it here. I will have to try to find a cd with some of the local birds to take back to the states. The above picture Ej doesnt look enthused but I think I just caught his face wrong as the camera snapped. He loved playing with the dough! I am not sure what we will do when it warms up this spring and turns so quickly into the summer, we will have to change outside time to later and maybe do our water activities first thing. I cant wait to see how Ej does in the water this year after his amazing leaps he made last year. We just got him a wetty(wetsuit) on sale this weekend so that when we go to the ocean or wherever he wont have to take as many breaks to come on the beach and cool off which was so hard to do last year. We basically had to bribe him with food to come in so that he could warm up and head back in. This year will be nice to have the wetsuit for that reason.

neighbor friends

 Our next door neighbors are from India and they just had a baby girl. With the arrival of this precious baby, the mother's parents came to visit and help.

 I was so happy that a sweet little newborn would be next door so that I could love on her and get my baby fix in, but then they gave us news that they are moving into a larger flat in the other building in our complex...boo! While we still can get together, its just not as easy as walking 5 feet down the hall and ta da. But we are happy for them!

 We had then and their parents over for dinner one night and we cooked American fare and asked them to cook an indian dish but mild heat for our weak american taste buds. They just laugh at us in our intolerance for chili. It was a lot of fun and we cooked some bbq chicken, a gnochi dish, salad, and some baked sweet potato and pumpkin (ok so the pumpkin is aussie). They brought over a chicken and rice dish that I dont know how to say and a plain yogurt type salad to go with it to help with the heat if it was too strong. I loved their chicken and rice and it was mild enough I didnt need the yogurt salad. Yay!

While the grandparents were here, EJ actually took a huge and I mean HUGE liking to the new grandfather. He made him play soccer in both of our flats and catch and all manner of young boy, older man activities. He didnt mind the language barrier (the grandfather could speak a bit of English but his accent was very thick and hard to understand at times) and just liked having that attention that only a grandfather figure can provide. I was in heaven because EJ often misses out on any of that sort of interaction and so I didnt try to hinder it all.

Their new little baby is lovely and so gorgeous. SHe has an absolutely full head of thick glossy black hair and like I said I am glad she is around to let me love on.