Noah's Quilt

Last night I got an surprise email from Linde - the lady who co-ordinates the making of quilts for Australian children who have life threatening illnesses. She said that Noah's quilt is almost completed and should be delivered within a few weeks! I went to check out his page on the Quilts for Kids website and it was so touching to see the different squares that people had stitched just for his quilt. These are a couple of the beautiful squares that will be on the quilt.


We are looking forward to seeing the beautiful quilt when it arrives. It's so special to know that these ladies have made these squares just for Noah.

What Number Do You Have?

Harri and Jay have the job of setting and clearing the table off every night. A few weeks ago Harri discovered that all the glasses had numbers underneath them. He started off asking us all what numbers we had, and of course Aaron (the football/Hawthorn mad fan that he is) started relating the numbers to Hawks players. Now every night the boys race to see which player they are.

It's so funny listening to them, as Harri is really getting to know all the players and their numbers - 'What number do you have Dad?', '15 Harri', 'oh you are Hodgie!!!'. Harri now even chooses who has which number as he's setting the table. Every night we aren't allowed to start eating tea until we all check our number and figure out which player we are. It's going to be a long footy season!

Great Company and Great Cupcakes

Last night we had our first official Stake Young Women activity - actually it was a broadcast and we didn't have to do much, but we were still excited to get together with all the girls for the first time.

I didn't know anyone from Devonport or Deloraine, but it was nice to meet them and put faces to names (as I had seen a lot of their comments to each other on facebook). It seems like we have awesome girls in our stake and it makes me more excited to work with them.

Sarah made a heap of cupcakes which we iced together last night before the broadcast. We had to make them look pretty and girly of course! Notice Pres. Jared in the background going to eat one before the girls turned up!

Dishwasher

Not only is this little man getting around the house more, he is also into everything - including the dishwasher! If the fridge or dishwasher is opened he quickly crawls over as fast as he can so he can literally get into it before we shut it up again!

He loves to pull out all the cutlery and throw them all over the floor. Hopefully he will be just as keen to deal with dirty dishes as he gets older!

Clever Boy

The last few weeks Kobe has started to stand on his own and has even taken a few little steps between furniture and also between Aaron and I. This was him tonight - chucking a wobbly because I kept making him stand for a photo! Sometimes he knows he is being clever and will throw his arms in the air while he is doing it, with the biggest grin on his face and will then fall down.

It started by him using his little fisher price walker.. The only trouble is he knows how to walk with it, and how to run it into walls (or Noah if he is in the path!), but he doesn't know how to turn it, so he gets very frustrated when he hits a dead end.

He much prefers us to hold his hand and walk him around the house.

He's lucky he has got two big brothers who can also help walk him around.

Our Caving Adventure

Being Easter holidays and having a week off school, we thought we would save up some of our In Home Support hours for Noah, and have Di come for a big block of time on one day. It's so hard to do very much in a few hours so we thought we would have a whole day where we could do something with the boys that we usually couldn't do when Noah is with us. We thought that going to the Marakoopa Caves would be good as we knew its somewhere we could never take the wheelchair.

We arranged with Nicki and the kids and Mum and Dad to meet us there so we could all go together, but it was obviously a popular choice of activities on the school holidays, as the tour we went to was booked out before Mum, Dad and Nicki could buy tickets. We couldn't wait till the next tour as we had to get back to Noah, so we had to go ahead without them as the next tour wouldn't usually be for another hour.

The weather has turned freezing very quickly (only two days ago I was wearing shorts!), so we rugged up thinking it was going to be extra freezing in the cave. It has also been pouring all morning.

It actually seemed warmer in the cave, as the wind wasn't blowing like it was outside. Harri wasn't sure about it at first and kept asking 'this is going to be scary?'. We kept playing it down saying 'no - it's an adventure! We are going to go and find the treasure', and then he would look really excited and say 'are we going to bring it home!?'. Once he saw how pretty it was inside he was quite happy, as long as he was holding onto someone's hand or the rail.


Every now and then he would yell out 'are you scared Jalen!?', and Jay would say 'nah' and then Harri would be like 'I'm not either'. I'm sure if Jay was though it would've been another story.

We did the cathedral tour which is over 250 steps up. Harri counted pretty much all of the steps on the way up - from one stop to the next. At one stage everyone was giggling as he kept saying '26, 27...'. The tour guide said he hadn't counted how many steps there were and I said 'supposedly there are 27' and Harri was very proud that he was counting them for him.

At the end the tour guide turned off the lights so it was pitch black and asks if anyone wants to sing. Of course no one volunteered so the tour guide broke out in this song that echoed right around the cave. Kobe was way overtired by now and grizzling which was also echoing around the cave. We got him out of the pouch and by the time we got outside he was sound asleep in my arms.

When we got out it was still raining. It was nice to know we could still spend some time 'outdoors' even though the weather wasn't great.

On the way out we passed the tour that Mum, Dad and Nicki and the kids were on. They scheduled an extra tour half an hour after ours,as there were so many that missed out on the one we went on. The boys were so excited to see them, so we sat in the van and waited for them to come out. We couldn't stop laughing at Dad's 'hat'. We weren't sure really what it was - but it looked hilarious.

Poor Nicki had 'little' Alex fall asleep on her in the cave as well, and he is way bigger than Kobe so I'm sure her arms were killing her - especially as she is so skinny now! :D

We don't like leaving Noah out of family things, but it was one of those things that we would never get to do with him anyway. It was really nice to do something different with the boys and know that Noah was dry and warm at home.

Samiuela

This afternoon I went up to visit Bec and Una in hospital, to meet their beautiful little man who was born last Saturday. Samiuela is absolutely beautiful.

His name is the Tongan version of Samuel and he is named after Una's Dad. I think they are shortening it to be 'Samiu' (not sure if that is how they will spell it) which is pronounced 'Samoo'. He has lovely olive skin. It will be interesting to see if he gets darker as he gets older (which is often the case).

Bec looks fantastic (especially after such a long, hard labour), and seems really happy. Una is so excited to be a Dad and said he can't wait for him to grow up so he can take him fishing. They will be awesome parents.