It's fun with one

This morning Jalen's friend, Rani rang him up to see if he wanted to go to the beach with him for the day. Of course he did and when they arrived to pick him up they asked him if he also wanted to have a sleepover at his house. He was very excited and got packed up really quickly to go and spend the night. We had planned on taking the boys to the Gorge for a swim this afternoon since the weather is so nice, so we decided to still take Harri on his own. Di was doing In Home Support with Noah and said she was happy to have Kobe home while he was having a nap.

It was so nice to go out with just Harri on his own. Jay and Harri are best of friends, but they are typical brothers and also fight and niggle at each other all day. When Harri is on his own he is a dream. He was so happy to have us to himself for the afternoon.

We were very impressed that the Gorge had lifeguards - it is the first time we have ever seen them at the Gorge before.

We thought we would try out the inclinator for the first time.

It's a really nice view from up on the deck.


Harri was very excited about riding down to the pool. Aaron was especially excited about it as it means we can use it with Noah while he's in his wheelchair. It will be a lot easier, not having to push him all the way back up the hill to the carpark.

After a swim we went for a little walk around to the swinging bridge.

I got to wear my new skirt that I won in Toni's mega giveaway for the first time today. Thanks so much Tone - I LOVE it! It was lovely to wear on this lovely warm day.


Harri took some photos as we were walking. He was cracking all the tourists up as they were walking past as he was being so professional about it. I would tell him to wait so they could walk past and they were all like 'oh no - it's okay' as they loved watching him trying to set up a good shot.

I told him to get one of us kissing and he took this one and then looked at it on the camera and said 'oh that's horrible!!'. Jalen is obviously rubbing off on him as he's now at the age where anything to do with girls and kissing is just discusting.

It was a lovely quiet afternoon with just Harri to hang out with. Aaron said as we were walking that it's 'fun with one' and said how it's busy and not relaxing at all when we are out with the four of them together. We decided we need to take the boys out for more time one on one (or one on two) more often. Hopefully with lots more days of summer holidays until school goes back in early February, we will get the chance to do it a little bit.

Not having fun at the beach

Anyone who knows Kobe, knows that he is totally obsessed with The Wiggles. They sing a song 'Having Fun at the Beach' and that definitely wasn't the case today for Kobe. We knew a lot of our friends from church were going to be staying at Bridport this week, and the weather is so nice at the moment (was 31 degrees at 6 pm for those mainlanders who are questioning whether we were hot as it was 23 degrees - CHRISH!!), so we thought we would join them for a day at the beach.

We arranged for Di and Alison to both do 'In Home Support' with Noah so that they could do a shift changeover where they work for half an hour together. We thought that would give us a day at the beach without worrying about Noah and also he could have a bath as they could do a two person lift to get him in and out of the bath together. He has put on so much weight it's now impossible to lift him on your own and the hoist doesn't fit in the bathroom.

We got to Bridport just before lunch and were excited for Kobe to see the beach as he wouldn't remember it from last year. As soon as Aaron put his feet on the sand he started screaming!

He refused to walk on the sand and kept pulling his feet off and crying. We were at the beach for about 5 hours and the whole time he just kept grizzling and wouldn't move off our laps.


We would slowly try to get his feet into the sand and he was okay until he realised and then he would pull them back up and start crying as he didn't want the sand on his feet!

In the end we put his crocs back on and put up our sunshade tent which he wasn't 100% happy in, but much happier to be off the sand. He didn't mind coming into the water - as long as I held onto him the whole time. I would dip his feet in and at first he would smile and start getting excited, but if I put him in any deeper he would pull his legs back up and try to crawl up my side.

Despite Kobe being a misery guts (it probably didn't help that he isn't feeling great - he vomited last night) Jay and Harri both had lots of fun playing together, and with their cousins.





It was such a beautiful day and nice to sit in the sun and catch up with the girls - a big change from us working out together at the gym every morning :)

Most of them are staying down all week until New Years Day. We would've loved to have stayed too, but we figure it is way easier to just be home with Noah and also Kobe.

To top Kobe's happy day off, we went up to see where everyone was staying. Kobe was playing in the van with the door open and attempted to get out on his own, and face planted straight into the gravel road. He of course screamed and has major cuts and scrapes all over his face now. He settled down pretty quick and was happy enough tonight. It's not going to be pretty for a while though :(

We were looking forward to a 'break' and a day where we wouldn't have to worry about Noah and whether he was happy or needing feeds, meds or suctioning, but on the way home Aaron and I were both saying how much we missed him and wished he was actually with us. It just didn't feel right without him. Kobe was so cute and gave him a big kiss before bed tonight.

Hopefully Kobe will get used to the beach like he did with the bucket at the aquatic centre as we have a lot more time to spend at the beach before summer is over!

Christmas Day

After a long countdown till Christmas, our day started very early with Jay and Harri waking up at 5.30 am. We sent them back to bed until Kobe woke up which was only half an hour later. We joked with the boys that we should make them wait to open up presents until Noah woke up, but we knew that wouldn't be until about 2pm. Harri was very excited about two of his presents - his Hawthorn clash guernsey which he had been asking for, for about 6 months. Whenever we would go to the football he would say 'I want a white top with 15 on the back!'. He was so excited when he opened it up and it even had number 15 on the back for his favourite player - Luke Hodge. He was also very excited about his Star Wars Lego.

Jalen also loves Star Wars and was very excited to get a new light saber that makes sounds and lights up,

Kobe had no clue what to do with the presents at first. He was so excited to just watch what was going on and had to have lots of help to open his presents. The most exciting thing for him of the morning was being allowed to have a Tim Tam for breakfast! He thought he was in heaven.

The boys weren't happy with just Tim Tams and were loving our brunch of their favourite cereal (that they only have on special occasions), crepes with fresh fruit, muffins, juice, and bacon and eggs.
After spending some time with Aaron's family we headed out to Mum and Dad's about lunch time. Noah only just woke up on the way out and stayed awake just long enough to open his presents with Aaron.

Harri was so excited when Nicki and Alex arrived and yelled 'present time!!!'. I had to remind him that first of all you should say 'Merry Christmas', which he did and then yelled 'present time!' again.

It's lots of fun watching the kids open up their presents.

We missed Chrish, Eden and Steph and Jared and Becky and all the kids, but it was also nice just having a quieter Christmas.

It was such a beautiful day. The last few year Christmas day has been windy and cold, so it was nice to go and spend sometime outside in the sun. Noah decided that opening presents was all too much and had a snooze outside under the trees.

The boys asked my Dad if he could get the waterslide going and they had heaps of fun playing all afternoon.


Alex and Kobe both went down once and decided that was enough for them! I think the speed of the slight scared them a bit and they were just happy to sit and watch after that.


That was until Kobe discovered the dishwashing liquid and kept trying to squirt it everywhere!

If he wasn't into the dishwashing liquid he was grabbing everyone's cameras! He would come out with them around his neck and all, trying to take photos. Obviously he is my boy :)

It was nice to spend time outside. Mum worked flat out all day and was in the kitchen while we were all outside. Kobe wasn't happy with that and kept going in and dragging her out to watch everyone on the slide.



It seemed like we ate all afternoon.




It was a lovely day and nice to spend time with the Watsons and Mum and Dad.


Noah finally got to open his presents after we got home later in the evening. I was glad we waited till he was really awake. Kobe had no problem knowing what to do this time and kept trying to rip into Noah's presents for him.

He got lots of things he could look at and use including a disco ball which he loved looking at in the dark last night, some branch lights and a new little DVD player (his old one was broken).

I'm sure Harri will be counting down the days again till next year! It's going to be a very long year.