Book Week

This week was Book Week at school.  There were a lot of fun activities for the classes to do and each class made a beautiful banner about space to display in the school foyer, as the theme for this year was 'Read Across The Universe'. 

Harri and Kobe were very excited about the Book Week parade.  Harri had thought of what he wanted to dress up as weeks ago.  His class have been reading Roald Dahl books this year and he has loved reading them at night time when he goes to bed.   He decided to dress up as Willy Wonka. 

Kobe wanted to dress up as a pirate from Peter Pan which was easy.  I quickly had to think of a costume, when I realised that a lot of the teachers dress up too.    Luckily Kobe has a picture book called 'Jackson's Footy' and we of course have a lot of Hawthorn clothes, so my costume was easy to throw together.

When I got to school I got a lot of 'Go Mrs King!! That's my team!' and a couple of 'Hawthorn are losers!' (which actually isn't true at all this year :)  

I wish I could post pics of all the kids from school, as there were so many amazing costumes.  It was really fun and so cool to see most of the kids and teachers at school dressed up.  I feel very blessed to be able to work where my boys go to school, especially as it means I don't miss special days like this, but also get to take part with them. 

Milly People

I'm sure everyone is getting sick of all the dog talk, as it's kind of like when you have a newborn and all you start talking about is your new baby.  I promise every blog post from now on won't be about our new dog Milly. 

We've now had Milly for two weeks and it's strange how quickly she has become a part of our family.  I was really worried that having a dog would be a lot of work, but to be honest she has been so easy.  When we bought her she had already been trained a lot which has made it so much easier for us.  She does have accidents inside at times, but is also good at holding on all night and going on demand when we take her outside.  Next week we start puppy training with her which we are looking forward to. 

Kobe spent the first week up on the couch and wouldn't get down because he was nervous around Milly.  Now he begs to have Milly sleep in her crate in his room at night, and runs around the house with her calling out 'Miwwy, Miwwy!'.

He loves waking up in the morning knowing that Milly will jump up on his bed to have a cuddle.  He's given Milly the typical Aussie nicknames of 'Millzy' and 'Millza'. 
Even though Jalen was the one who started begging me for a dog to start with, I have been surprised that although he loves Milly, he hasn't been the one who pays the most attention to her.  He loves that she will just hang out with him while he's relaxing, and Milly always runs to his bedroom to see if he is in there and jumps up on his bed looking for him. 

It's nice to see the smile on his face and for him to be excited to walk in the door after school to see Milly.  I often hear him saying 'I love you Milly' which is lovely. 

The thing that has surprised me about the most is how much Harri is loving Milly.  He had been scared of dogs for so long, but he's the one who has really taken charge of playing with Milly the most and loves taking her for walks.  It's so cute when he walks in the door hear him say 'how are you going gorgeous gir?!' in a high pitched voice because he's copying how I talk to her. 

I wouldn't call myself a dog person at all, but I've definitely become a 'Milly person'.  When I was growing up with dogs in our family, I was never close to any of the dogs.  It's so strange to have this little puppy follow me around all day long.    Milly loves each of the boys, but she obviously knows that I'm her master.  She listens to me whenever I ask her to do something and is always so excited to see me.  It feels like I have a little toddler in the house again who just wants to be near you all day, as she comes over and just puts her head on my knee, wanting a pat. 

I told the boys that if we ever got a dog that it would be an outside dog.  Because Milly doesn't shed and is a small to medium sized dog I've been happy to have her inside.  She spends time outside when I'm at work and the boys are at school, but she is always waiting at the back door when we get home, wagging her tail to come inside.  

I have to admit that getting a dog was definitely a good decision to make.  We keep talking about how much Aaron would love that we have a dog.   He always wanted a dog, but because I wasn't keen we didn't get one.   It's nice to have some company at night when the boys have gone to bed.   It's lovely to have a little bit of joy back in our family again.  It doesn't take away the grief at all, but it's nice to see the boys smile and laugh again in between their sad days. 

You can check out a blog post by our friend Alison about the photos she took with us last weekend here.

A Family of Seven

Last week I mentioned to Alison that it was probably time to update our family photos since Milly has now joined our family.    We were lucky to get a break in the rain this morning and sloshed through the mud at Waverley Lake while Alison took photos of us.

During the week Kobe has been asking how many people are in our family.  I ask him what he thinks and he counts all of us and says 'five!'.  I then remind him to count Daddy and Noah and he says 'there are seve people in our family now!'. 

I always said I didn't want to have a blog header without Aaron and Noah in it, but I really wanted to include Milly in it too, so I decided to include a photo collage of Aaron and Noah that I have near my bed.   I of course would much prefer to have Aaron and Noah's legs in the photo, but I love how it turned out.
Alison picked up a cool chair from the op shop just before we did the shoot which was fun to use. 

Harri has really fallen in love with Milly and wants to be the one who does everything with her.   Notice I said with her, not for her.   He's more than happy for me to clean up after her (if you know what I mean!) and take her outside early in the morning.  He's quickly finding out though that since he wanted a dog, he has to take responsibility with looking after her as well.  They're best friends already.
Jay got quite emotional about having another family photo shoot without Aaron and Noah in it.  Last time Alison took photos for us it was just two months after Aaron passed away.  I remember that day as I just felt so empty and sad.  The photos she took were beautiful but we were all just still in so much shock.  We had forced smiles on our faces, but our hearts were broken.

I still feel so sad and so do the boys, but we have adjusted a lot better to life without them.  It's very hard all the time but this photo shoot was a lot easier as I felt like our smiles were a lot more genuine.

There are a lot of other beautiful photos which I will share later.  Thanks Alison for taking them for us. 
I love them!

P!nk - The Truth About Love

I was so excited to find out that when TOFW was going to be in Sydney, that P!nk was also going to be touring there.  Aaron and I were so excited to go to her concert in 2009 and always said that if she came back we would definitely go again.  I tried to get tickets as soon as they went on sale, but they sold out really quickly.  

A few weeks before we were going to Sydney for TOFW I thought I'd just check back on the website that sold tickets for P!nk and couldn't believe that they had released some more tickets.  I quickly rang my Mum and brother and sister Nicki and Chrish to see if they wanted to come. I would've gone with or without them, but they were all keen.  Chrish pretended he wasn't that keen, but I knew he would love it :) 

The night before we went to TOFW we were so excited to see P!nk at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.  

I had to admit to the ladies from TOFW that I was actually more excited about seeing P!nk than going to TOFW, even though I knew that I would love both. 

I knew that there would be a lot of acrobatics like at the last concert.   It was amazing seeing her fly out of the floor.  The videos are (mostly) short because they are from Instagram.  This was her first song. 

'Raise Your Glass'

She did a few songs from her new album as well as lots of old ones which is good as I like a lot of her older songs more.

'Trouble'

'Sober'

I used a beautiful version of the song 'Perfect' at Aaron's funeral, by Boyce Avenue.  Now whenever the boys hear the song it makes them sad and they tell me to turn it off, but I still love it.  I felt like it was what Aaron wanted his students to always remember, as he always believed in them, especially when they didn't believe in themselves.

This was my favourite song of the night - 'Just Give Me a Reason'. It is a duet which she sings with Nate Reuss and he wasn't there, but featured on the screen while she sang live.  It was awesome hearing the crowd singing along with her.  Excuse the small video quality.

I  had already watched the whole concert online so I knew what her last song was going to be.  It made me smile as it reminded me of the gym as 'So What' is one of our favourite bicep tracks in Pump.  It was amazing seeing her fly all around the room, singing the whole time, even when she was upside down.

We had parked in the car park behind the Entertainment Centre and there was a crowd of people gathering after the concert, hoping to see P!nk come out the back before she left.  Because there was such a long wait to get out of the car park, Mum, Nicki and I jumped out of the car while Chrish was driving out of the car park very slowly.  He ended up getting to the bottom level before we got to see her come out, so he parked the car and jumped out to see if he could see her too.  We were excited to all see her come out and wave to the crowd. I actually didn't even realise it was her at first as she had a beanie on. The crowd were screaming, but I was assuming it was just a dancer who had come out before her. I did capture it on my phone though.  

On Sunday night there was a story about her on 60 Minutes and we were excited to see that they had filmed it on the night of the concert that we went to, and they even showed this part when she came out. 

If I were rich I would love to go to Melbourne and see her again before she finishes her Australian tour, but I guess I'll just have to wait until she comes back again next time. 

Harri's Prayers Were Answered

Every night before bed we have a family prayer together.  Harri asked one night if he could say the prayer that night and during it he said 'please bless us that we will get a dog because it will comfort me and make me happy, and please bless that it will be a black labrador'.

He knew he was being funny and we were all cracking up laughing, and the next night he said the same thing.  At that stage I had already made the decision to get a dog, but was just waiting for our trips away to Melbourne and Sydney to get one so I hadn't told the boys we would be getting one.

Jay and Harri are both so happy about Milly and Kobe is slowly coming around, but he's still not really sure when he's around her.  He is learning to be more assertive with her and is excited when she listens to him.

Jay loves her a lot, but out of all three boys Harri is the most excited and spends the most time with her by far.

Harri wakes up as soon as he knows that Milly is awake and as soon as he's ready for school he asks to take her out in the backyard so he can play with her before school.  After school he can't wait to get home and wants to take her for a walk or play with her in the backyard.  It's so nice to look out the window and see Harri playing with her.

 Harri couldn't wait to take her to school to show his class.  He loved telling his class all about her. 

The next day I took Milly to Newstead Heights where I used to work to visit the kids.  Some of them were fascinated with her and others didn't care at all :)  It was so nice to visit and see the kids and staff who I miss very much, but I'm loving my new job.   Jack was so interested in her and kept reaching out to grab her, and when I would put her down he would drop his bottom lip as he wanted her back up again. 

 Milly also visited Kobe's Kinder class and the kids absolutely loved her.  They were all over her.

I'm not a dog person at all so even though I knew that it would hopefully be good for us as a family to get a dog, I wasn't sure on how it would go, especially as we've had no experience with dogs.  I grew up with dogs, but never really had much to do with them.

I was dreading the work that there would be in having to train a puppy, but I feel so lucky that we were able to get Milly.  Being five months old she is still a puppy, but has grown out of the young puppy stage.  She's the most placid little thing and has been trained a lot from the place that we got her from.   She sleeps all night and is 95% toilet trained.  She knows how to sit, and has lots of fun in the backyard retrieving toys that we throw to her.  The best thing is that she has a fleece coat so she doesn't shed at all. 

She's definitely not what I imagined when I thought about getting a puppy. It has been so much easier than I imagined so far.  I just hope we aren't in a honeymoon period, like when you bring a newborn home and they sleep all the time, but then they wake up and scream for three months solid ;)

It's so strange seeing a dog around the house.  Jay and I were laughing together last night, saying how strange it is that a few days ago all she knew was being around so many other dogs, and now she's very comfortable being inside a house with lots of noise.  She's so good at going to sit on her mat when we tell her to. Obviously she likes the Muppets!

Because I was never close to our family dogs growing up, it's so strange to have this little dog following me around all day.  She definitely listens to me more than the boys and wants to be wherever I am.  She loves to be cuddled and often just comes over to me and plonks her head on my leg to get a rub.   I guess I'm going to quickly become a dog person!

Milly has settled into our family so quickly. The boys loved putting a Hawks scarf on her tonight for Friday night footy. 
Harri keeps saying it feels like a dream and he keeps thinking that she has to go away again soon.  He's so happy that his prayers were answered. 

It's a Girl!

My boys have been begging me to get them a dog ever since Aaron passed away.  Jalen became really persistent about six months ago and kept telling me how much a dog would help him.  The debate about whether we should get a dog has gone on and on.

I'm not an animal person at all and have been totally against getting a dog.  I was mostly worried that the novelty would wear off for the boys, and then I would be caring for the dog all the time on my own.    Since moving to our new house, things have started to settle down a bit for me and I feel on top of things a lot more as I was feeling really stressed living in our old house with so many memories of Aaron and Noah there, which just made me feel so sad.   I then started to consider that getting a dog may be good for the boys and also for myself, and started to look up information about different breeds of dogs just out of curiosity.

When we went to stay with my brother Christian in Sydney recently Harri absolutely fell in love with his labrador puppy Tess.  He was devastated when we had to leave her and has been begging me since to get him a dog for his birthday which is in September.  He would crack me up as he would send me funny messages from his iPod when I was out asking me to go to the pet shop to buy a dog.

After getting back from Sydney  I really started to think about getting a dog seriously.  I saw how happy the boys were when they were spending time with Tess in Sydney and knew that even though a dog may be a bit of work and we would obviously have expenses associated with having a dog, I could see it would (hopefully) be worth it all to have another member in our family who could bring us lots of joy.

When looking at breeds of dogs I kept going back to the labradoodle.  I did a lot of investigating and decided it was time to seriously take a look at them.  I told our friend Alison that I was thinking about getting one and asked her if she wanted to come and look at them with me, at the Tasmanian Labradoodles breeding facility.   

The owner Paul was really lovely and spent about an hour with us showing us around and showing us all the different dogs. We were very impressed.  They look after their dogs so well and he knew all of the parents names, even though there were so many of them.

He showed us where the smallest puppies were kept while they were still with their mothers and showed us some puppies that had just been born before we got there. They were so tiny and cute.

 Kobe was with us and had no clue we were looking to buy a puppy for us as we kept telling him Alison was thinking about getting one.  He kept saying 'all of these puppies are so cute Mum! We should get one!'. 

I saw a few older puppies on the website that had been discounted and were interested in having a look at them.  At first I was thinking that I would like a cream girl, but when we got there I actually loved the look of a beautiful older brown girl.   As soon as I saw her I could tell that she was much more placid than a lot of the other puppies and knew straight away that she was the one I wanted.  I organised with the owner which day I would come back to pick her up and Kobe still had no idea that we had just bought a puppy!   All week I was busting to tell the boys that we would be getting a dog, but I wanted to surprise them and I had to wait till I got back from Sydney to get her.

It was strange seeing on their website that they had updated their page and had put my name next to the puppy I had chosen. This photo was taken when she was six weeks old, but she is now five months old. 

Yesterday they emailed me an updated photo of our puppy and I was so excited that I was tempted to tell the boys last night. I just couldn't wait to see their reaction when they realised we would be getting a dog.  All week I had been sneaking out buying different things for her and hiding them in the garage.  I had definitely come around from never wanting a dog!

Last night I told the boys that I had to drop off Alison at a friend's house after school today as she had to leave her car in town for her sister.  I told them it was out of town a little way, so I wanted them all to come with me for a drive, rather than staying home.  Both Harri and Jay were complaining as they wanted to stay home, but I told them they had to come. 

Once we got to the Tasmanian Labradoodles property Kobe recognised where we were and said 'this is the labradoodle place!'.  The boys still didn't catch on and were still thinking we were dropping off Alison at 'her friend's house'.  When we got out of the car Alison started her camera rolling and I told the boys what was happening.  This was the result :) Kobe was worried about the dogs barking and at first he said he didn't want her, but when he realised she was quiet he decided she wasn't so bad.  He was also worried because they 'cost too much money' as that's what I kept telling him last week when he said he wanted to buy one. 

We are now the proud owners of a gorgeous five month old female labradoodle.  There was a lot of debating on the way home about what her name would be, but we finally agreed on 'Milly'.  She is beautiful and so placid and happy already.  Because she is older she has had a lot of extra training which I think is going to make settling her in so much easier. 

There are some very happy boys in our house tonight.   It's so nice to see them smile.

The Block Auction

We are so addicted to the reality TV show 'The Block' and get so excited when we travel to the mainland and have the opportunity to stop and visit the previous Block houses that have been renovated.  We were especially excited to go and visit the latest 'Block' in Melbourne when we went to stay with my sister Nicki and her family, especially as the show was still running and it was the final week of the show.

We were so excited when we saw the building and all the kids were screaming in the car.   It was fun because Nicki and Alex and their kids were into the show for the first time this season, so they were as excited as we were.


It happened to be the auction day when we were there and there was a little crowd around checking it out like us.  Everyone was peering through the fences and having a look into the courtyards that were just done that week.

The courtyard that Matt and Kim did.

The kids loved seeing the real estate posters out the front with the pictures of all the contestants. Our favourite contestants were Bec and George and Trixie and Johnno.

We were so excited to see Channel 9 vans and TV cameras everywhere and realised that the auction was actually going to be happening very soon.  There was a security guard out the front and we were so excited when one of the twins came out for a second. 

Harri desperately wanted to go inside and look at all the apartments that had been renovated by the couples. I kept telling him that we couldn't go in because the open for inspection day was a couple of weeks before.  He kept asking me to ask the security guy anyway, so I told him he had to ask.  He was feeling shy so we went up together and I told the guy that Harri had something to ask him, and we probably already knew the answer.  He asked Harri what he wanted to know and Harri said 'can I go inside!?' and the guy smiled and told him he couldn't but that at 1.30 pm all the contestants would be coming out and would be on stage being filmed for the show the next day, and then the auction would be taking place at 2pm. 

We couldn't believe our luck that we were there for such a big part of the show, and had an hour and a half to kill so we jumped on a tram into the city and grabbed some lunch and then came back so we could watch and be a part of it.

When we got back there was a big stage set up and TV cameras everywhere.  

We were lucky to be there early and got right up near the front of the stage.  We were so excited when the contestants finally came out.   They all looked really nervous.

They all looked so pretty on TV and were stunning in real life. 

It was exciting to watch as they started filming for the finale which would be shown the next day.  

 

The contestants then left to go inside for the auctions and we were so anxious to hear who won, but knew that they wouldn't let us know and that we would have to wait for the show the next day.  We grabbed the host Shelley for a photo before she went back inside. 

We couldn't wait to watch the show the next day and were so happy that all the contestants won so much  money.  We were excited to spot ourselves on TV just for a couple of seconds. These are screen shots from the show. 

 I'm on the far left right next to Jay. 

 

We are already hanging out for the next series and are missing 7 O'block every night.