Amusing Andy

Tonight I took Jay and Harri to an in-store book signing by Andy Griffiths. He is the number 1 selling kids author in Australia and Jay absolutely loves his books. He writes hilarious stories that kids just seem to love - all about bums, and crazy things that are very far fetched, but very funny.

Andy went to Summerdale Primary School today and one class from Punchbowl went up to listen to him, and Jay was very disappointed that his class didn't get to go - especially as they have been reading his short stories together as a class all year. When I told him that he was going to be a Stories Bookshop he was so excited to go and meet him.

We were pleasantly surprised to see Kylie, Patrick and Lauren there as well.

Jay was one of the first kids to get him to sign his books, and Harri really didn't care as he had no clue who he was! :)

After school Jay had a brainwave for an idea for a book for his 'JUST! series', and wrote down a little blurb for the back and designed a cover. He called it 'JUST Mahem'.

After Andy signed his books Jay said to him 'I have an idea for you for a book' and gave him his piece of paper. Andy looked at it and said it looked great and loved the cover design and asked him for his address and wrote it down on the piece of paper and asked if he could keep it. He said he wanted it so he could write back to him. Jay was very excited!

He spoke for about 40 mins or so and interacted a lot with the kids. He was very amusing and told them how he came up with stories and got them to help work out story lines as he went along. He also showed them how he just writes his thoughts down in a cheap note book and also used a couple of props to make up a very funny story about a baby and Godzilla.

He was telling them lots of funny things - like how to annoy your teacher by putting up your hand and saying silly stuff. That of course set the kids off and they would put up their hand and he would point to them and they would say something silly to him! I think he may have been regretting what he taught them! He then kept cracking jokes about Launceston being a 'town full of idiots!'. Jalen was asked about a time he told his little brother or sister a lie to trick them and he told him about how he saw a daddy long legs spider in the bedroom and told Harri it was a redback.

It was lots of fun and nice to see how excited the kids were to meet an author. There were so many boys there - lots around Jalen's age. It was great seeing them all come in with their books (must be the teacher coming out in me!). On the way out Jalen, Lauren and Patrick were lucky to be handed a free book of three of his short stories. Only a few kids got them so they scored well! The boys had a little look around the shop before we left. It is a great little bookshop for kids with lots of little areas for them to sit in and play in. It also has a coffee shop which is a bonus for the parents.




On the way home we called into Maccas for a treat on the way home. It was a nice night and nice to spend some time with just two of my boys after being stuck at home for days with Noah and Kobe :)

Speaking of Kobe - he had a much happier day today. The poor boy is really getting sick of being inside. I had to take Noah and Kobe out today to get Noah a different antibiotic, and when I asked Kobe if he wanted to go in the car he ran to the door and started banging on it and cried because we weren't leaving right then! He was so happy to be out - even if it was just at the hospital!

Cranky Teething Boys

Today is one of those days where you don't really enjoy motherhood and wish that you had a paid job that you could go to rather than being stuck at home all day. Lately we have been feeling like we have 'cabin fever' as Noah has had some time off school. He had a chest infection at the end of last week and although he isn't overly sick I feel more comfortable keeping him at home at the moment as he is really cranky and no one looks after him quite as good as Mum does :) He is also teething and finally his two adult teeth are about to break through his gums in the front. He lost his baby tooth there about 3 years ago, and because of all his meds his gums are very swollen so it's been hard for the teeth to come through. So for the last couple of weeks we have had a very cranky boy.

Kobe has also had a cold for a week or two that just doesn't want to go away. He has also been teething and surprised me with two new teeth last week. I thought he was just waking because he didn't feel well with his cold. He hasn't wanted to eat much at all and refused to eat his weetbix for breakfast, and instead just screamed.


I know I look like a terrible Mum taking a photo of their child in distress, but this went on for about 15 minutes as he kept chucking a tantrum and going to the nappy bag as he knows I usually have little containers of rice crackers and biscuits in there.

I kept showing him his weetbix but he kept crying, so I made him some vegemite on toast. He then cried even more and kept wanting me to open the nappy bag up.

Forty five minutes later we compromised. His breakfast still sat at the high chair, but he agreed to have some saltanas which I thought were a better option than biscuits for breakfast.


I was hanging out for lunch time when I knew it would be nap time.

It was a bonus that Noah decided to have a nap at the same time - finally some peace in the house!

Kobe woke up in a much better mood. Hopefully tomorrow will be a much happier day in the King house!

Super Soggy Saturday

Today the Hawks are playing against the Kangaroos at Aurora stadium. We knew they would be having a 'Super Saturday' at Aurora yesterday, but it was a really rainy day all day. Aaron said he wasn't really in the mood for going as he had a big week and Noah is also sick and a bit chesty so it wasn't going to be a great day to take him out anyway.

Harri said he was keen to go and watch the Hawks train and wanted to get his face painted, so I thought I would take Jay and Harri and leave Noah and Kobe at home with Aaron. Jalen also wasn't feeling so great, so it turned out to be just Harri and I, at a very soggy Super Saturday.

You can't actually tell from the photos but it was drizzling the whole time. Harri was excited to see Hawka, even though he seems him all the time. Funny how a guy in a silly costume can make kids get so excited!

Simon ended up bringing Hallie, Oliver and Rohan along as well. Rohan is a big Hawks supporter and also Hallie (yay - go Hallie!!!) and Oliver was telling me that he also goes for the Hawks.

Harri got the Hawks stripes painted on his face and so did Rohan. I actually thought they looked like tigers, but luckily it wasn't Richmond colours :D

Hawka kept the kids entertained by kicking them a footy over the fence.

He was actually quite funny. Because it was so wet the ground was very slippery and he kept on slipping over. He would get up and pretend he had pulled a hammie and would go limping off.

The team only came out and trained for about 20 minutes because it was so drizzly.


I expected them to go straight into the rooms because of the rain, but a few of the players came over to the fence to sign autographs which was nice. There was only a small crowd of people there so it was nice to get up close to them. Harri was so funny as his favourite player is Luke Hodge. He was right next to him signing autographs and Harri kept yelling out 'Hi Hodgey!! Hi Hodgey!! Hi Hodgey!!'. He finally looked up at Harri and said 'how you going mate!?' and it made Harri's day. As he was heading back to the rooms we grabbed him for a photo. He is such a lovely guy and didn't mind stopping for a photo at all.

A lot of the other players we close to us including Jarryd Roughead and Buddy Franklin and I kept saying to Harri 'say hi to Roughy' or 'say hi to Buddy' and he kept saying 'I don't want to!' as he didn't care at all about them being right near him - he only cared about seeing 'Hodgey'.

As we were leaving the players were getting on the bus so we also got a photo with Alistair Clarkson who was also really lovely.

Despite the cold and rain it was actually really nice just being out with Harri on my own. We don't often get to spend time alone since Kobe was born. When we got home Kobe couldn't take his eyes off Harri's face all painted up. It was so funny watching him stare at him, trying to work out what was going on.

Let's hope the Hawks have a better game today than they did last week!

Monster Challenge

Last night we had a Stake Young Men and Young Women's activity called the 'Monster Challenge'. Aaron was once again the MC for the night (or 'Challenge Master' as he was otherwise known), and I organised lots of different challenges for the youth to participate in. Sacha made up an awesome flyer for it, so everyone was very excited about it. So excited that we had a lot of youth turn up - about 60 or more.

We started by putting them into 6 different groups. Each group was given a different coloured face paint to put on their cheeks. The first challenge was the 'late for seminary race'. Each person had to get dressed, skip with a skipping rope -in gumboots, dribble a basketball around witches hats and then pass the clothes onto their teammate at the other end, who did the same thing.

After each challenge scores were put up on a great scoreboard that Sacha also put together. For a win they got 10 points, and 2nd place got 5 points.

During each challenge Sarah played some great songs and sound bytes which really added to the fun atmosphere.

Throughout the night we had four food challenges which individuals or pairs from each team could compete in. The first food challenge was who could eat a dry weetbix the fastest.

The next challenge was the 'balloon pop'. Each person had a balloon which they had to put behind them. They then all had to run around and try to pop each others balloons while trying to protect their own.

The second food challenge was one done in pairs. I got a lot of my inspiration from the TV show 'Ellen' as she always has really fun games. The person sitting at the table was the 'mouth' while the person behind them acted as their arms, by putting their arms through. They were both blindfolded and the person at the back fed the person in the front green jelly with snake lollies in it. It was hilarious to watch.



It was fun seeing everyone's expressions as they watched the different challenges. Everyone was cracking up laughing.


The next challenge was 'musical cushions'. Two players from each team competed and were blindfolded while they danced to the music. When the music stopped they had to find a cushion to sit on. It was so funny watching them as they had no clue where the cushions were. Sometimes they were so close to one, but would then walk in the opposite direction.

The next challenge was a Q&A one with trivia questions from the movie Monsters Inc and also about the monsters on Sesame Street. I had made a powerpoint so as Aaron read the question and possible choices out, they would also project up on the wall. Indiviuals competed for their team and had to line up as the question was being read.

After the four possible answers were read out they then had to run to grab the monster toy in the middle of the hall. The first person to grab it got to answer the question.

I was worried there were going to be a few injurys as everyone was very competative.

We then played 'Actionary' which I don't have any photos of as I was busy helping out during the challenge. Actionary consisted of a mix of 'charades', 'pictionary' and using playdough. I had a list of words and the actions that went with them. One person from the team would run in and read the word and action and would then have to go back to their team and either act it out, draw it or make it with playdough. When they guessed it correctly another person from the team would come to get the next word.

The next challenge was tunnel ball. Aaron was in his element all night giving instructions, blowing his whistle and cracking stupid jokes (like calling himself 'man in a hot scarf' as an example when he was explaining how to play 'actionary').


We finished off the night with some great food challenges. The first one was who could eat a red chilli and raw onion the fastest. Not surprisingly it was all boys who wanted to compete.

This was by far the funniest thing of the night to watch. I felt so bad for them as they were all dry wretching about half way through. I brought along some milk for them and was laughing as they polished off 3 litres of it - trying to tone down the burning in their mouths!

The last food challenge was absolutely discusting. We had a blender and put in a heap of different foods that normally wouldn't be put together - tuna, baked beans, vinegar, sweet chilli sauce, olives, lettuce and dry biscuits. Once it was blended up they had to see who could drink half a cup of it the fastest. One of the guys actually drank his down really quick and then wanted more!! Gross!

Everyone who participated got a laminated certificate and the winning team also won a medal. Well done 'Team Mike' (thanks Jayne and Tayla for the photo of the winners that I 'borrowed' from Facebook!).

Thanks to everyone who came and for participating so well and helping make it a really great night! It was nice to have so many kids show up for it and also so many leaders.

Thanks again to Mum for babysitting for us - especially when Noah wasn't having a good day. I think she must be hating that I am now working in Stake YWs as we are getting her to babysit so often! We may as well just build a granny flat out the back so she can move in! ;)