Uncle Eden is here!

Steph - you will be happy to see that Eden has finally arrived safely. Eden is here for 5 days to go on a big fishing trip with a heap of the guys from church. I can tell Eden is getting older as although he loves his fishing still, he isn't keen on leaving at 3am tomorrow morning! Before he wouldn't have thought twice about it. You definitely value your sleep more as you get older!

He was supposed to arrive this morning at 10.30 but missed his plane. We didn't think that we would get to see him until Saturday when he got back from the fishing trip, but we had a nice suprise tonight with him dropping in with Mum.

The boys were excited to see him, although I don't think Harri really remembered who he was - he kept calling him 'Jared'.


Eden is loving our cool Tasmanian weather (not!) and told us all to start praying for good fishing weather. Hopefully they won't end up getting snowed on.

Liberty Swing

Today we went and picked up the key for the Liberty Swing, and also had a lesson on how to use it. It is a swing designed especially for wheelchairs - you wheel the wheelchair straight onto it and lock it down and then swing it.

Noah's special school had it installed at the beginning of this year. I believe that it cost around $30,000! Now that we have a key we are able to take Noah there anytime we want. It will be great as there is a nice little park across the road from the school (both are a 3 min walk from our house) so as the nights are warming up and getting longer we will walk up there and Noah can have a swing, while the boys play at the park.


Harri was very excited as there is also a little seat the he can sit on to have a swing.

They won!

Aaron is very excited as the girls basketball team that he was coaching, won the grand final yesterday. It was very unexpected, but they did very well and won all four of their games , and then beat Scotch Oakburn in the grandfinal.

Aaron even got a medal for coaching them.

Primary Presentation

Today the Primary kids gave their yearly Primary Presentation at church. I volunteered to take on the roll to put it altogether this year (silly me - I didn't realise what a big job it was going to be!). We are given the theme, songs and scriptures we are to use and the rest is up to us. Throughout the year we collected the kids talks that they would give every week, and then I chose the best talks to go with each scripture and song.

Each of the kids did such a great job. Their singing sounded so good today and all of them did their talks so well. Noah even got to participate this year with the help of Aaron and his big mack switch. Jalen recorded his part into the switch and when it was his turn Aaron helped him to press the switch. Funny thing was that I think Noah was actually asleep during his part and woke up later on!

After the presentation was over we had a little party to celebrate. The nursery kids also came out so Harri was very excited. Lisa asked Harri if he was okay (making sure he was able to get some food) and he replied 'yeah - having lots of fun!'.


We are sad this year as 5 of our kids in Primary are turning 12 and going up to Young Men's and Young Women's. They all did a great job and I got a bit teary at the end when they got up and said it was their last presentation. We will miss them heaps in Primary.

More excursion photos

Di emailed me these photos over the weekend, of Noah at the museum on Friday.

Happy 1st Birthday Chloe!

Happy 1st Birthday Chloe!!!

We can't believe that you are already one! We hope you have had a nice day. We are sure that Mum and Dad would have spoilt you. Make sure you eat lots of cake and lollies :)

Basketball Tournament

Aaron just got back from coaching his second game of basketball in the inter-schools tournament today. Last year he coached the boys team, but this year the grade 10 girls asked if he would coach them. They are really understanding and know that he won't be able to coach them on Sunday (they play both days on the weekend) but are happy for him to just come and coach on the Saturday.

The girls won both of their games today which means they have one more game to win tomorrow and then hopefully tomorrow afternoon they will be in the final. Aaron is usually the only teacher from the school who turns up to watch the kids play. He also went to watch the boys team play today.

The students are really appreciative that he comes to help out, and today the girls gave him a gift voucher from Balls n Bumpers to say thank you to him for giving up his weekend. I'm sure he will find something gold and brown there that he will be happy with!

Spider Boys

Today Aaron was coaching the Kings Meadows High School grade 10 girls basketball team, during an inter-school tournament. We decided to go into town as well, and took the opportunity to do some shopping while Noah was watching basketball with him.

As we were walking past a shop, some ladies asked the boys if they wanted their faces painted for free. It was a new shop that had just opened - The Confectionery and Party shop. It is full of cool things for parties such as different balloons, cake decorations, party decorations, costumes and lollies. Jay jumped at the chance to get his face painted and didn't hesitate to tell the lady that he wanted to be Spiderman.

Harri has never had his face painted or seen it happen before, and started to freak out! He kept yelling 'No Jay - no Spiderman!', and was very worried as he watched Jalen get the paint on him. The lady kept telling him it was okay and after he saw it transform into Spiderman he thought it was pretty cool.

The lady then asked Harri if he would like to be Spiderman too, but he was a bit nervous about it. She then said she could paint a spider on his hand for him, but he decided that wasn't good enough and thought he would get spiders on his face too.


While they were getting their faces done, Aaron and Noah turned up. Lucky they had the camera with them! :) Some ladies came out of the party shop and gave each of the boys a cute little pumpkin bucket full of jelly beans, with a helium balloon attached. The boys had a great day in town!

Bush Dance

Tonight we had a ward bush dance at church. They hired a really good band and had it all set up with trees on the walls and hay bales etc. It looked great. The boys were really excited to go, but Jalen surprised me so much! He loved dancing and danced all night long!! He kept on asking either Aaron or I to dance with him, and when we were too tired he would go and grab someone else! I just hope he is the same as he gets older.






I think Jade was glad to have a partner, but maybe she wished he was just a little bit older! Jay was actually a pretty good dancer and he told me that all the Young Adults in his group kept telling him that he was a good dancer.

Harri had one dance the whole night - the Hokey Pokey, with Carol O. The rest of the night he had heaps of fun running around with the other kids his age.

Half way through the night they had a pinjata for the kids. I think Bishop told Harri to pretend it was Aaron's head!



There was one funny dance where someone in each group was 'the pin' or something like that. Part of the way through the dance 'the pin' had to run somewhere and hide, and then at the end of the dance each group had to go and find them. Mick thought he was very clever when he went down the manhole and under the floor! It took his group a long time to find him.

Annette took this photo on her camera of Bonnie and I cracking up laughing at someone - not sure who it was - probably Bishop who was spinning everyone around so hard and making them dizzy.

Noah was really happy all night. He loved the music and kept smiling. Maybe he was just laughing at Aaron and I dancing!

Class Excursion

Today Noah's class went on an excursion to the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Inveresk, and then walked to City Park for lunch and a play. A maxi taxi picked up Noah from school to take him and Di, and after the car wash today Harri and I decided to meet his class at the park so we could play and also take him home, to save the school having to get another taxi. It was also a nice opportunity to spend some time at the park with Noah and Harri while I had Di helping.

Harri and I got there before the class did so we spent some time playing and then went to see the ducks. Harri was over the ducks very quick and kept on pointing over the monkeys and said he wanted to go there.

Noah's class finally turned up and Noah looked so cute with his friend Holly pushing him along.

We said hi and then Harri and I went over to the see the monkeys. Di told Harri all he had to do was look in the mirror :) On the way to the monkeys I wanted to stop and take photos but Harri wasn't impressed!


As we were walking back to the playground I saw Di and Noah talking to a couple. I had no idea who they were from behind, and thought Di must have ran into some friends. I got a nice surprise to see it was Noah's other carer - Bridget and her fiance Mal. We hadn't met Mal before so it was lovely to meet him and to see them so happy together. Bridget will only be working with us till mid December and then she then gets married and moves to Hobart.

The kids then had a lovely time playing.

Harri was being mothered by all of Noah's little girlfriends. It was nice as they were all helping to watch him so I got to sit with Di and Noah for a while.


I went to check on Harri and came back to find Sian and Grace laying on the blanket with Noah talking to him and rubbing his head. It was so lovely.

He has made some lovely friends this year and it is so nice how the kids just accept him and aren't scared of him at all. Di was telling me yesterday that there is a new boy at school who just kept asking questions about him all day and was very curious. We forget how the kids are just so used to him now and accept him for who he is.