"Is it Barry?!"

This morning I put Kobe in a little baby carrier that Pip and Ben had lent us. I haven't used it before, so I put him in and came into the lounge room carrying him in it, and said 'look what I found in the garden!'.

Harri looks up really excited and asks 'what is it!?'. I told him it was a baby and he was soooo excited and asks 'is it Barry!?'. He is never going to get over that we used to call Kobe, Barry when I was pregnant. I laughed and said to him that it was Kobe and he looks in and then asks 'where is the other Kobe!?'. It was like he thought he was a totally different baby!!

Helping Hands

Today we had a Stake Service Project at Newstead Heights School. It was in two lots of three hour shifts. I had signed up for the afternoon shift, but because it was at Noah's school and also just up the road I went for a walk with Kobe to check out what was going on during the morning shift. There were about 70 people there in the morning, all busy working.

We were asked to make up 100 communication books for kids with disabilities who attend Newstead Heights and St George's Schools. We had to cut, laminate and cut pages again. Each child had around 100 pages in their book - all of which had to be laminated and cut out.



Kobe charmed all the women as usual.


The real paparazzi was there today. Rob had a great time talking to me about my camera and giving Carol advice about what type of camera to buy. She wants to get a bit more professional now she is a blogger :)

Kobe and I stayed for a little while and then came home to get some lunch, before my shift started. Noah had a very bad day today - screaming all day, so Aaron stayed home with him. Chrish was at our place when I got home, so I dragged him along to the afternoon shift with me. Jay also came along and had fun playing with the kids. Harri desperately wanted to come, but still can't walk on his very sore and swollen foot, so he had to stay home, and there were lots of tears when we left :(

It was actually lots of fun. We had a fun table and we mucked around and talked the whole time.


Everyone worked flat out - some even staying for the whole 6 hours! Go Collette, Jess and Jadey.

It will be interesting to find out how many books were made altogether.

3 boys, 3 tests

Today was a big day for all my three boys at home. Jalen was the lucky one who got to go to school, and didn't have to have any medical tests.

Noah had a barium swallow done first. He has had a few of these, but none for a long time. It's a test to see if he is refluxing. He had to have radioactive dye put into his tummy and then we watched it on an Xray screen. The test showed that he didn't reflux during the test, but that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't reflux at all.

Kobe then had his second hearing test. All newborns have their hearing screened in hospital, but because we only stayed in for one night we missed out on the test and had to have it done as an outpatient. When he had his first test done a few weeks ago he passed with one ear, but not the other. He had a cold at the time so I wasn't worried. Today we had his second test and he passed with both ears.

Last night while we were watching Jalen play basketball, Harri was out in the foyer playing with some other kids. The lady that works there came in carrying him and he was screaming his head off. She said something had happened in the foyer, but wasn't sure what it was. He said that another boy hurt his foot, and he wouldn't stop crying. On the way home he cried and cried and told us another boy had a basketball and it accidentally went onto his foot. Usually if Harri gets hurt he will have a quick cry and then settle down, but he kept going on and on and on. We couldn't see anything wrong with his foot, but he wouldn't walk and kept saying it hurt. I cooked tea and tried to get the boys organised for bed, but Harri just kept crying saying that he wanted a cuddle. I then sat on the couch with him for about 3 hours as he wouldn't move.

We tried elevating it, ice packs, panadol, anti inflammatory cream, homeopathics, and neurofen. He started to settle down but kept crying on and off saying he needed to go to hospital. It started to swell and I started to think that we should take him to Accident and Emergency at the hospital as he just wasn't settling down. A freddo frog settled him for about 5 minutes, but he then started up again. Finally he fell asleep in my arms and I carried him to bed. I thought he would wake up this morning and he would be fine, but at midnight he woke up screaming again and then this morning he woke up and yelled out for us to carry him as he couldn't walk. This morning it was quite swollen, but no bruising.

All day he refused to walk on it, and when he did he was really limping. I dragged him to Kobe's hearing test with me and the whole 20 metres he had to walk from the car to the clinic he cried and limped. When we got home he laid back on the couch like he had been all morning and watched DVD's. He was quite happy as long as he didn't have to walk on it. Every now and then he would yell out 'I'm doing a wee!!' and I would run and carry him to the toilet. It really scared me when he yelled 'I'm doing a poo!'. Lucky for me he held on till I got him to the toilet!! Two dirty bums in one day is enough for me!

At lunch time I went into our GP and the receptionist said to bring him in this afternoon. We went down and I had to carry him in. The GP got him to show him how tall he could stand on his tippy toes. Harri thought it was great fun reaching up to the ceiling. The GP said he didn't think it was broken as he could put weight on it, but sent us off for an Xray just in case.

Harri loved having the Xray done. He laid up on the bed and thought it was so funny that the man was taking pictures of his feet. When the guy said that he was done, Harri sat up and said 'is it fixed now!?'. The guy had a bit of a chuckle.

We went back to the GP with the films and he said nothing was broken but there was a lot of swelling and most likely a lot of internal bruising which would be why he was getting so much pain. He told us to keep doing what we are doing and it should settle down soon. Harri was so proud to come home and show Jay the photos of his feet.

Map and Lap

Today we went to see Jalen in his schools' 'Map and Lap'. They had to get sponsors to raise money to buy equipment for the classrooms. They then had to answer questions - either about Australia or the world. For every question they got right they got a point. They then had an hour to walk/run around the oval. For every lap they did they got another point. They could get sponsors to either donate some money or pay them an amount per point. The class that raises the most amount of money wins a pizza lunch, as well as a movie afternoon including a DVD of their choice plus all the popcorn and drinks they can eat.

Harri was so excited to go and watch and Jay's teacher told Harri he could join in if he wanted. He didn't hesitate to run out and grab Jay's hand and ran with him.

It is such a beautiful, warm sunny Spring-like day (can't wait for SPRING!!!!). Jay's teacher kept commenting on how much Harri loves school and how Jay and Harri get along so well. She hasn't seen them at home when they are arguing! :)

The teachers had fun clucking over Kobe.

Olympic Excitement

About a month before the Olympics started Jalen was getting really excited about it. He would constantly tell us how many days until the olympics were going to be on, and kept asking us lots and lots of questions about it - 'what do the rings mean?', 'how many countries go in the olympics?', 'when was the first olympics?', 'have you ever been to the olympics?', 'which one were your favourite olympics?'......

Jay had more questions than we had answers for, so we would tell him to go and look up on the net (didn't want to be like the Dad on the Bigpond ad who told his son that the Great Wall of China was built to keep the rabbits out! ;) He would then look it up and would tell us all these facts about the olympics - 'did you know at the very first olympics they competed with no clothes on!', 'the next Olympic games are going to be in London', 'the first Olympic games were in Athens'. Once his class at school started their unit on the olympics Jay already knew it all, but was so excited to do it at school as well. He loved looking up the official website and would print out the pictograms to go with each sport.

On the night that the olympics started Jalen desperately wanted to stay up to watch the opening ceremony, but it was on way too late so we recorded it so he could watch it the next day. For the past two weeks he has been glued to the TV whenever he is home. Harri has also gotten into it and Jay often gives us bits of information that he heard from the commentators. He also loved reading the paper every morning and seeing the medal count.

The boys both loved watching the swimming especially and also the track and field events. Harri was totally obsessed with Stephanie Rice and Grant Hackett for some reason. Whenever he would see Grant Hackett he would yell 'there's Green Packet!'. It cracked me up. Now at least he calls him 'Grant Packet'.

Harri would always ask 'who does Stephanie Rice go for?', and I would say she was from Australia and he would get so excited and say 'we are from Australia too!'.

Now whenever Harri sees an Australian flag he gets so excited and says 'its an olympic flag!!'. The other day we were grocery shopping and Coles had Australian flags all over the store. Harri was so excited and said 'Olympic flags Mum!'. I said to him that they were actually Australian flags and he was so excited and said 'we go for Australia Mum!'. A lady walking past cracked up laughing.

For the past two weeks the boys have been having their own olympic games. Jalen made his own torch and they loved the gold medals that I had made for Primary music time, and had been awarding themselves with them all week. They set up a volleyball net inside using a sheet between two chairs and used a balloon as the volleyball, they also tried their hand at the gymmastics!


Yesterday Jalen was still sick, so he had the day off school. He didn't mind as it meant he got to watch the closing ceremony that we had recorded the night before. Last night he was complaining that there was 'nothing on TV' and wanted the olympics back on. This morning Jay and Harri were both glued to Sunrise as they watched the Australian Olympians arrive in Sydney. Jay cracked us up and some guy got off the plane with a medal around his neck and Jay asks Aaron if it was so and so. Aaron had no idea who he was even talking about, and either did I and Jay goes 'you know Dad - the rower!'. He knows them all better than us.

Today at school it was Jalen's turn for 'speakers box' (sharing) so he took Aaron's Sydney 2000 book that we bought just after the Sydney olympics and lots of the newspaper articles that he had saved from this olympics to talk about. It's going to be a long 4 years for him to wait until the London Games begin!

Conference Sunday

Today was Stake Conference. Jalen hasn't been feeling great for the past few days and last night he got a lot worse, so he stayed home with Aaron and Noah today. It was a beautiful drive to Devonport, with the sun shining and the snow on the mountains. I remember that on the drive to conference 6 months ago there was also snow on the mountains, but at least this time it is Winter!

It was nice to see Nan and Pop both there. They hadn't met Kobe yet, so they were very excited to meet him. Nan kept saying 'he's a happy kind of a fellow isn't he!?'. Pop kept rubbing his hands and saying 'he's thirsty!'.

After conference everyone headed to the bluff for a picnic lunch. I think half of East Ward was there. This pic is just for you, Kieran!

It was a really nice sunny day, but a little bit windy. We all thought it was quite warm (for a Tasmanian Winter's day anyway), but Steph (who is still adjusting to Tassie weather) kept saying how cold it was and thought it was a good idea to go back to the car. It's a bit tricky with a newborn out in the cold.

Harri had about two bites of his roll and then thought it would be fun to feed the rest to the seagulls.

The kids (big and little!) had a great time playing and collecting rocks off the beach with Grandma.





Uncle Chrish kept pinching Kobe! He was telling us he will probably go back to Sydney in about a week. I figure if we can find him a good job, a good woman and a good house to buy then he will stay. We had better get cracking!! :)

Kelsea's 2nd Birthday

Today is Kels' 2nd birthday, so we drove to Devonport for her party. When we got there she was having a great time running around with her cousins who had come up from Hobart.

She seemed to like the present we bought her and kept saying 'people, people!' (little people).

The kids had a great time eating, playing with the bubbles and running around outside.

Chrish was the music man for pass the parcel. Bet he was glad he was down from Sydney to do that! ;)

I'm not sure if Noah or Aaron was more excited when the music stopped on them. Lucky for Aaron, Noah unwrapped a layer and won a Mars bar and Noah is a good sharer! ;)

It was nice to catch up with the whole family at once again. It's great having Chrish down. Anyone know of any good jobs for him, so we can keep him in Tassie!?!?! ;)


Mother's club meeting on the couch.

Becky made Kels an awesome Dorothy the Dinosaur cake. It looked great.

Stake Talent Night

This weekend is Stake Conference and for the activity tonight we had a talent night. The boys were very keen to go in the talent night doing their stacking cups, so the last couple of nights they have been practicing with music. Seth Woolley said when he saw the boys names on the program he thought for sure they must have been singing the Hawthorn club song. On the program they were down as the fifth act, but all of a sudden they became the second act. They did a great job - warming up the audience by getting them to all clap along with the music.

The audience seemed to enjoy it with lot of cheering, calling out to them and clapping. Harri was a crack up, watching the audience the whole time he was stacking.

There was a wide variety of acts which was good.







Sorry Wheeler team, Gibson's and Triffitt's - I didn't get any pics of your act as Kobe decided to wake up and cry during it. Not sure if that is any reflection on your act! ;D Here are some of the captivated audience. Chrish flew all the way down from Sydney for it!


Some slippery guy in the audience! ;D