School, Sport and Work

How good are school holidays!? We are loving them so much and they feel like they are going way too fast. It's so nice not to hate school holidays anymore. For a few years after Aaron passed away I dreaded them, as they were just so long and sad without him and Noah around, but now we really look forward to them. 

We have already done so much these school holidays and I just sat down to start blogging about some things we have done, when I realised that there's a lot that happened last year that I haven't recorded here. 

I was chatting to a friend last night about our blogs, as we have noticed that all of our friends who used to blog regularly don't blog anymore.  I think I'm at a bit of a crossroads with my blog right now.  I absolutely love having our family memories from the last 9 years in one place, but I just don't have the desire to blog like I used to. 

My posts are getting spaced out further apart and it's not because I don't have anything to write about, but life is just so busy now (especially as I've been working full time) and the boys are getting older and I'm becoming more aware of what I'm recording here. 

There's so much that I don't say on here because the boys and myself like a lot of things to be private, and I don't think it's fair on them to write about a lot of what they've gone through, but at the same time I don't want to forget anything.  It's hard finding a balance between recording memories (the good and the hard) keeping things semi private for the boys but also blogging just because I want to. 

That is one reason I have always kept my blog simply as a family blog without doing any sponsored posts or promoting anything - as it was just an outlet for myself.   I didn't want to feel pressured to have to write, but now I'm kind of feeling pressured to keep recording the memories because I don't want to have to look back in years to come and wish that I kept it up. 

I absolutely LOVE Instagram (my name is Lisa and I'm an Instagramaholic) and that has given me another avenue to record family memories which is so quick and easy which has actually made blogging seem more like a chore.

So for now I'll keep blogging and if one day you come back to check on us, and it's been a while since I posted it's probably a good thing and just means that life is busy and that I no longer feel the need to record memories on here.

So before I post what we have been doing on the holidays, there is lots to catch up on from last year. The boys all had a great year at school.  Jalen loved his first year of college (year 11 or what we call college in Tassie).   It was so nice that all of his close friends ended up going to the same school, so he had a really fun year and suddenly became very social.  I have to keep reminding myself of what I was like when I was his age and remind myself that hanging out with Mum all the time isn't as much fun as it used to be :)
 
I have been waiting for the 'horrible teenager' stage with him but it has never come. Of course he's not perfect (he would say he was!) but I'm very lucky that he's an awesome kid and he keeps me sane as he is lots of fun and remind me a lot of Aaron now.

Jay did drama last year at school and it was fun to go and watch his performances.  

Now that he's settled into work he can see that all the nagging from me to get a job was worth it, as he's loving having his own money.  He often comes home from school (he has to catch a bus home from town) with new clothes that he's bought after school.  I'm loving that I no longer have to buy him clothes and he loves that he can get whatever he wants, as long as he has enough money.

This year the boy's school had a school fair again and 'squad' came along with it to support Jay who was helping out for the night.  Not sure where Jay is in this picture ;) ;)

You would've thought that the school fair day was Kobe's best day of his life! He was so excited about it and talked about it for so long.

Jay was very lucky and actually finished school a month before the rest of us did.  I had the afternoon off on his last day of school and picked him up and asked him if he wanted to go out to celebrate and get something. He requested KFC :) 

Kobe had a great year in grade 2. He loved his two teachers and did so well at school.  Because I was working so much I hardly got into the boy's school this year, but his teachers were lovely and would often email me to let me know how well he was going and what a lovely boy he was in class. I would also get text messages with photos of what he was up to at school which was so nice.  

It would break my heart when he would have something on at school that I couldn't go to because I was working.  He was excited to share things in assembly at different times and would often say 'I wish you could come and listen to me talk in assembly'. He understands that I can't now that I work at a different school, but it does make me feel sad that I can't be there. He gets so excited when he is awarded a certificate at school. 

He's always loved reading, but is now obsessed with it and keeps saying 'I don't know what I would do if books weren't around Mum!'.

He's the funniest kid and makes me laugh so much. One day I went to make sure he was brushing his teeth before school and found him like this! What more do you need than a whoopy cushion and an iPad!?

 Kobe absolutely loved playing soccer this year.  He was so funny to watch and would either be day dreaming or tearing up the field as he would try desperately to get a goal. If he ever got a goal his celebration always cracked everyone up. He was so excited to get a trophy at the end of the year.

I can't believe that my baby is going to be in grade 3 next year! He's very excited about it and has some good friends in his class next year which is great.  

For Book Week this year the kids at the boy's school had to come along as something Australian.  That made it very easy as they were keen to go as a footy and cricket player (as did half the school) and we had books to go with it which was good.

Harri has kept me the busiest all year with running him around to soccer and basketball.  He is obsessed with sport and is so much like Aaron in that way and unfortunately his passion for sport is the same as Aaron which means there's often lots of tears. 

He has been in a lot of different things this year including the schools triathlon with his friends Henry and Harry.  Harri did the running leg and they did really well. I didn't get to go along as I was working but I pics sent to me during the day from Henry's Mum which was lovely.  He also did really well at the school's swimming carnival.  It those days that I really wish I wasn't working all the time, but I'm very grateful to have work and the boy's understand that as well.

Harri was also chosen to first of all represent his school, and then the northern schools of Tasmania in soccer. He got to play against schools from the North West and he had the best day (even though they didn't win overall).

Harri loved being in grade 6 last year and had two awesome teachers. I was so happy that he had a male and female teacher.  I had always hoped that he would get a male teacher before finishing Primary School so it was nice that he had that in his last year.  He was excited to get his Year 6 t-shirt which everyone signed on the last couple of days of school.

He had a great night at his leaver's dinner (I have lots of lovely photos but don't want to share photos of the other students on here) and even though he's really ready for High School he was very sad on the last day because a lot of his friends are going to private schools this year, so he won't see them as often.  He does have a nice group of friends going to school with him as well and he makes friends so easy, so I know he's going to love High School.

He loves chatting to Terry the crossing guard each morning, so I had to snap a photo of him walking across the crossing on his last day of school. 

Harri's male teacher was teaching part time and also doing post grad studies on teaching EAL (English as an Additional Language). He had to do practical hours of teaching EAL in schools and asked me if he could come and do them with me one day a week for five weeks. It was lots of fun working together and I loved getting to know him more, and hearing stories about Harri at school.  He would always tease Harri the next day at school and would tell him that I had told him different things about him.  

We had lots of laughs together and after a couple of weeks he was taking a lot of the lessons with my students so I missed him when he finished.

Even though it was very hard to leave my old school half way through the year, I have absolutely loved my new school.  It's an awesome school which values and celebrates diversity.  24% of the school are from an EAL background (my colleague and I had to run an EAL staff meeting and worked it out) and there are always new students arriving who are either from a refugee background or are migrants. It makes it very busy for me and my colleague as we are always settling in new students but I love it and especially love the pastoral care side of my job. 

Because there are always new EAL students arriving I was offered to increase my hours and went from working four days a week to working full time.  I'm very grateful to have the work and love it and had to quickly adapt to not having as much time at home to get things done here. I have had to just not expect the house to be as clean and had way too much takeaway for dinner, but I was happy to pay that price for full time work. 

I'm so happy to be at the same school again this year and will be working full time again.  I hope that these holidays will help me recharge my batteries before things get hectic again with work, school and sport starts back up.

This year we will all be going to four separate schools and I'm feeling a bit sad that it may be our last year together as Jay works out what he wants to do next year for Uni.  I just wish I could stop time right now and stop them growing up so fast.