It's that time of the year again...

when there is a lot of stress in the house as it's footy finals time.  Yeseterday we went ten pin bowling with the Family Based Care school holiday program.  One of the support workers that we love barracks for Sydney and during the week she had been talking to Aaron about the big game last night between Hawks and Sydney.  They both decided that they should turn up in their footy gear yesterday and talked footy all morning. 

Poor Chrish arrived from Sydney yesterday for five days, and had to put up with watching the Hawks V Sydney with Aaron (and Mum) last night.



It was a pretty tense game especially during the third quarter and there were a lot of choice phrases coming from Aaron.  No swearing, just things like 'good on ya ranga!', and 'yeah have a free kick because you're soft!' etc.

It's going to be another tense weekend next weekend.  I have to say that it's probably best that Hawthorn don't make the grand final as I don't think I can put up with the stress like I had to a few years ago!

Best Friends

At least once a week Kobe and I are at the hospital either collecting meds or feeds for Noah, or taking him to an appointment. Kobe loves going there and every time we drive past the hospital he yells 'there 'tis!'. If I say we aren't going there today he bursts into tears as he always wants to go there. I'm not sure whether it's the packet of mixed lollies that he usually gets from the kiosk, or getting stickers from the girls are pharmacy, but he absolutely loves the place.

Because it's school holidays we all went in yesterday to collect Noah's supplies and also to get him weighed as we have no way of weighing him at home.  Kobe was so excited to have his brothers with him and walked up the hall holding both of their hands saying 'best friends!'.

When we get Noah's feeds we always have to take them out to the van on a trolley which Kobe loves, as he hitches a ride underneath.  All the old people who walk past love it and have a bit of a chuckle.

This was Kobe this morning telling the boys they are his 'best friends'.   They definitely have the usual sibling love/hate relationship.  One minute he's saying this to them and the next minute they are fighting.   Hopefully they will continue to be 'best friends' as they get older.

Family Portrait

When we had our photo taken for the Run for a Wish article in The Examiner the photographer was really lovely and patient with us.  Harri kept wanting to take off running like we were actually in a race which kept ruining the photo as he was miles ahead of us.  After a few takes he finally got the shot he wanted for the article, and then got us to sit down so he could take a different shot of us together.  The whole time all I was thinking about was that I wished I had the photographers equipment! 

We looked up the photos online as the other photo he took wasn't in the paper, and ended up buying both the photos and have them framed ready to go on the wall. 

This was the second shot he took.  It's not the type of photo I usually like as it's more posed than I would like, but I still love it.  We are all in it (usually it's just Aaron and the boys), we are all looking at the camera and we all have our eyes open (thanks Noah for staying awake!).  Kobe's serious face totally cracks me up as he is usually anything but serious, but we kept telling him to look at the photographer, and was glad he just did what we asked him.

It's nice to finally have a recent family portrait of all of us together.

12!

Today my baby turned 12!   When Jalen was a screaming newborn with reflux I never could imagine that he would one day be such an amazing young man with the funniest sense of humour.  You always know your babies are going to grow up, but can never actually imagine what their personality is going to be like, and with Jay we couldn't have asked for a kinder, funnier, cooler, and more helpful young man than he is today.

Jay loves that his birthday is always on the school holidays.  He is so devastated to know that next year is going to be the last year that his birthday is on the holidays though, because of the change in school terms in Tasmania in 2013.   We aren't into having big birthday parties for the boys every year.  Jay has only really had two bigger parties with his friends, and Harri has never had one so this year we told them both that they could have a combined party.  They both decided they wanted to have it at Treasure Island, so last week they both had some friends join them for a play and food.

Jay has the loveliest friends at school.  They are all so fun and also really polite.  We are so glad to know that next year he will have some good friends going to the same high school as him (high school!!! I can't believe my baby is going to be in high school!!!).

This morning Jay set his alarm to get up at 5.30am. He came into our room and I said 'don't you dare wake up Kobe - oh and happy birthday!'.  He laughed and then asked if he could go on the computer until everyone else woke up.  Finally at 6.30 am he got to open up his presents.

The best thing about having your birthday on school holidays is that it means you get to choose something fun to do for your birthday.  We were going to go to Crazy Golf like last year, but a few days ago we heard that Zone 3 had opened up in Launceston.  For years Jay had been saying how much he would love to do laser tag and had even asked us if we would take him to Hobart sometime, so he could try it.  As soon as Jay heard it was finally in Launceston and not far from home, he decided that we were definitely going there for his birthday instead.   We scheduled In Home Support with Di so we could leave Noah and also Kobe at home with her.

 The boys had fun playing a few arcade games before our game of laser tag. 

They were so excited and couldn't wait to get in and be briefed about what to do, and get the vests on to play.

 

Jay absolutely loved it, and so did the rest of us.  We paid for two games when we first arrived, but it was so much fun that we ended up paying for a third game after playing the first two.  It wasn't much more to play a third game which was good - it was only $8 a game, 2 games for $14 or 3 games for $17. The games are only short - they run for 15 minutes, but it's definitely worth the money and we will be going back for sure.  The boys are already begging us to take them back tomorrow, and asking if they can use their pocket money to go back and play again.  Harri still gets to choose something special to do because his birthday was on a school day, so we still get to go to Crazy Golf this week.  It's so nice having so many options in Launceston now of fun things to do with the boys, even if the weather isn't great.

During the week I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said he wanted 'Nan's sponge cake' as it's always his favourite.

Jay loves the show 'Glee' so one of his presents was Glee Karaoke for the Wii, which the boys had lots of fun playing during the day.  It didn't sound pretty! :)

Mum and Dad came to visit in the afternoon. Kobe was hanging out all day for them to arrive and kept saying 'Mama and Grandpa coming 'day!'.

The boys were begging us so much to let them use Jay's birthday money to go back to Zone 3 again tomorrow, that Grandma ended up taking them down again, to have a game with her! What a cool Grandma!

We then all went to the casino for tea.   The boys always get to choose what they have for tea on their birthdays, and without fail it's always Maccas but because Jay is 12 and it's an extra special birthday, we talked to him about how it would be fun to go somewhere special instead.  He kept saying a while ago that he wanted to go to the Prickly Cactus for tea, but the buffet desserts enticed him to go to the casino instead.

He cracks us up so much.  He has the funniest sense of humour and comes out with funny things all the time.  This was him at tea giving us a birthday speech- as you can hear and see we are all 'weirdos'! :) 

After tea we ventured out in the cold to take a few photos out near the fountains.  Kobe was more excited about the fountains than he was about tea!

We feel so blessed to have Jay as our eldest son.  I know he was sent to our family first because of his beautiful nature and caring personality. He makes us laugh every day, and cares so much for his little brothers.  He never complains with how much he has to help us, and always knows how to make us laugh.  He is the kind of kid that could never do enough to try to please you and therefore it's so easy being his Mum as you have no doubts that he is going to make good choices, and do the right thing, even when you aren't around.

We love you Jay and look forward to the next twelve years! We just hope they don't go as fast as the last twelve years did! :) 

Bike Centre Holiday Fun

We love the bike centre. It's such a great place for the kids to play, and it's great having the whole place to ourselves for a couple of hours.  Yesterday we hired it out just to break up the school holidays a bit, and had a few friends come for a play with us.

How cute are Flynn and Chloe!?!

The big 'kids' usually love the bike centre just as much as the little ones.

We've already got it booked for the summer school holidays and can't wait for another play!

3Peat

On Harri's birthday the school footy team that Aaron coaches played in their grand final.  They had a great season and beat all the other schools by an average of 90 points during the season.  Harri, Kobe and I went along to watch and the boys were so excited to be hanging out with him during the day.

We thought it would be an easy win, but boy we were wrong!  It was a really close game, which meant that Aaron was really stressed (imagine him watching Hawthorn play the Cats and then double the stress!).  He actually doesn't really care whether they win or not, but just encourages the boys to play well as a team and knew how disappointed they would've been if they hadn't lost all year, and then lost the grand final.

The week before one of the students from the school Dad's had passed away and some other students had their grandfather pass away, so in memory of them the boys and Aaron all wore black armbands.

I love listening to Aaron in the breaks as he revs them up.  Harri kept quoting what he was saying 'pain is only temporary, memories are forever!', '15 minutes of hard work is all that is left', 'when you are tired look down at your jumper and remember who you are playing for and think of all those other boys who are sitting in a classroom right now', 'look at your arm bands and do it for them!'.

In the end they won by 17 points, and they were all very excited after having such a great year.  It's nice seeing Aaron go so well with coaching his teams.  This is the third year in a row that his junior football team has won their grand final.  Last year they also had a perfect season with no losses.

He's hoping that next year he might get to coach a senior team, but will wait and see next year.

School Holiday Fun

So much for deciding to do something 'fun' with the boys yesterday while we were out and about.  We thought we would take the van through the car wash as it desperately needed a wash, and the boys have always loved going through the automatic car wash.  

Kobe thought it was anything but fun!  He screamed the entire time yelling for it to 'stop!' and kept saying 'it's scaring me!!!'.   It reminded me of Jalen who did the same thing at a similar age.

I guess I won't be taking him through the car wash again any time soon. Looks like it's back to the buckets and sponges for a little while.