Dance Exam Results

Bethany got a pass plus in Jazz.  I kidnapped her from school and took her out to lunch to say "good effort!".
Ballet exam Distinctions are 75% and above.  Beth got 70% and Leila got 72% so they both ended up with Merits.  We are all pretty pleased with that.  Beth was a bit miffed that Leila got a medal along with her score, but that's life!  Apparently The Royal Academy of Dance is changing the syllabus beginning with the early years, and the medals are part of that "upgrade".

Here is a photo of Bethany in her Ballet class.  They had a show and tell class and allowed the parents in last Saturday.  Bethany seems very confident and capable, she seemed to get her hand up first for most of the questions.  Leila was in a downstairs studio tap class when I took this photo, but I still had Hannah with me.  I provided Hannah with a steady supply of treats to get her to behave sufficiently so that I could stay and watch: tiny teddies and fizzy orange drink worked fairly well, but she would much rather join in!

Jordan’s Birthday

Just a few photos from Jordan’s birthday.
We had soup and sticky date cake with Liz’s extended family.
I am very impressed with Liz’s craft cupboard. Mine is getting very messy, and needs a big clean out.
We gave Jordan an invisible-ink UV pen/flashlight, and a musical superman card that Hannah had scribbled all over the inside of.  We gave it to her to "sign" but didn't take it away fast enough!

Snowman at the bus stop

We had quite a bit of snow fall over the mountain recently. It also settled on a lot of the lower hills, so it was a lovely event.
I didn’t manage to take my girls up to see it, so I was really happy to come home on Monday and find a snowman at our bus stop.
It looked just like he was waiting for a bus.
Two of the girls were asleep in the car, so Bethany got to look at it first.

Then Leila (it was a great way to wake her up as I got her out of the car).

And finally Hannah, who missed out really, because she didn’t get a look until the next day. I wish I knew who put it there. It even had gum nut eyes.

Sandcastle

I bought a wonderful book called "sandcastles made simple" by Ms Sandy feet a few months ago, and today we finally trialed some of the techniques.
Damien had cut the bottom off a few buckets and a garbage bin so we could pour water in and easily compact the filled bucket before lifting it off and carving the castle.  This was made using a medium bucket.  It is not much, but it is a start.
There was some fairly serious evidence of waves eating the dunes recently (we are at sea level behind the dunes a couple of streets back).   I had to instruct my girls not to go near the dunes because some of them had "overhang" and looked ready to collapse.
Leila had fun in the seaweed piles: it was really wet and quick sandy underneath.  Bethany made Hannah into a mermaid.  It is nice that the weather is starting to warm up, and Damien went for a run along the beach.  His ankle still swells up after running.

Hannah's Birthday no. 3

My sweet little Hannah is now 3.

She wanted a duck party. Her Birthday was during the school holidays, so most of her little friends had siblings home from school. We waited till we knew what the weather would be, and then organised a Duck Picnic at Richmond.
The kids had a fun time exploring. Bethany took off her shoes and dipped her feet in the water, so naturally all the other kids wanted to as well (fine by me, but not so fine for some of the other parents). We fed the ducks, and went for a walk under the bridge. It was all very casual: no games, no lolly bags, just enjoying each other and the springtime outdoors.
We found a beautiful tree on the far side of the bridge that had a low bouncy branch, so all the toddlers got to have a turn sitting and bouncing in the sunshine.

You will notice that the Birthday Girl got to wear her new Disney Princess Nighty.  I've hardly been able to get the wretched thing off her since.
After our bouncing, we walked back and had the birthday song, cake, duck biscuits, strawberries, jelly jigglers etc.
The cake was made using a Wilton tin which I attempted to hire from the Bellerive cake shop (I’ve made friends with the cake lady, and she refused to charge me). It was fun to make, but somehow it felt less creative than other methods. I think I felt like I was cheating.

All went fairly well until Ben Mitchell noticed that his toddler Julia was missing. We all looked about calling her name, and then Ben saw her in the river. Just her little head was visible, stretching up to breath, and only a little over a metre from the bank. Ben ran to the water whilst trying desperately to unhitch his new baby (who was strapped to his chest) so he could jump in. By the time he got there Julia was several meters down stream, further out, and in truly desperate trouble. Her mother caught up, charged in and fished her out. There was a lot of crying (all round, me included) as little Julia got her breath and everyone tried to come to terms with what had happened. It was such a near miss:  if Ben hadn’t spotted her when he did it would have been all over for Julia. Especially as the water was brown and quite opaque.  Julia's parents are among the most vigilant that I know (Ben's a psych nurse, Kristy's a teacher) so it just goes to show that these things can happen to anyone.  It took days for everyone to properly debrief.
Everyone scrounged for blankets and dry clothes. Naturally, we all started feeling paranoid and counting kids after that.
After most of the others had left, our family, the Brighton Chick cousins, the Burton girls and Granny went on to have a play at the park and a visit to the ice cream shop.

Damien hadn't swung Hannah for a while.  He got a bit of a surprise at how much of a thrill seeker she's become "Higher daddy!".
We had crumbed fish for dinner and I think (apart from Julia’s accident) it was a pretty much perfect day.  The girls love using the second-hand port glasses for fizzy grape juice.  Hannah's other presents included a dress and a tutu skirt, some books and crayola washable markers.

Glasses for Bethany

Bethany's rotton mean mother wouldn't believe her when she said the board at school was fuzzy. Some time ago there was a lovely episode of Charli and Lola on the TV, where Lola wanted glasses and it became a bit of a hot topic for a while (Lola wanted glasses, so Bethany wanted them too). I just assumed that she was copying the TV, even when she pinched a set of her Dad's glasses, took them to school and told everyone that she had to wear those ones because I couldn't/wouldn't buy her her own...

I did get Beth's eyes tested back in Kindy. They were fine.  I was planning on getting her tested again, sometime, vaguely in the future, but it wasn't a priority until her teacher commented that Beth squints at the board and has had to be moved to the front of the class so she can see.  Oops.

So, Mum ate humble pie and dutifully got her daughter re-tested. Sure enough, she is very slightly short-sighted (her prescription is very similar to Damien's first pair of glasses). There were tears at the optometrists when I couldn't buy glasses that very minute, but the little girls were tired out and impatient, and I wanted to do the job properly. I told Beth we would need to try on about 20 different pairs before we could be sure we had chosen the best ones. A few days later we had our chance (while Leila was in a dance lesson). We raced around 3 different shops at Eastlands, and we found the perfect pair. It was hard for Beth to wait for them to be ready to collect, but she was very happy with the result.  We bought a strap, and also got them engraved straight away so that they are harder to lose.  She's lost them once already (in the Richmond River) but more on that later...

Ballet exams

More Dancing pictures I'm afraid!
The first one is little Hannah when she discovered that someone hadn't quite shut the door to the studio. Over the last month or so it has become increasingly difficult to keep her out of the classrooms, but all that should change this coming term...

The next pictures are of Leila on the day of her Ballet exam. Both the big girls seemed happy and confident. I think that Ballet is their favourite.

I do wish that I didn't have to put that dumb left side parting in as part of the ballet bun.  It just doesn't work with the right sided Granny Chick cow-lick they all have inherited.  You wouldn't believe the fuss over hair at this dance school.  The dance teacher won't let us put the bun ribbons on ourselves - she has to do it herself her own way, pinning each bow loop down with meticulous accuracy.

I am looking forward to getting the exam results.  Bethany has great timing and does some really fancy footwork (she was exited to wear a "character skirt" and shoes this year) and Leila does the most amazing high running leap with her legs in almost-splits position.

Apple Pie

I couldn't help but photograph this beautiful creation Damien made for our family. Very yummy. I loved the little heart - somehow I just didn't expect Damien to come up with something like this!

More evidence of why he topped the class (at his co-ed school) in home economics.

Leila's party

Here is Leila's cake from her 6th Birthday. I've got a few more pictures to add to this post, and will edit it later.

The mermaid tail and "seashells" are made from a fruit roll-up. The "sand" is brown sugar.

One of the best items of food at the party was cookie cutter jelly: I mixed 340grams of jelly crystals with 600 mls of boiling water and let it set in shallow trays. At the party I sat each dish in hot water for about 15 seconds, and then let the whole lot slip out of each inverted tray onto individual vinyl placemats (it helped to ease out one corner of the tray with a butter knife). The party guests then had a great time cutting out shapes with small cookie cutters.

The girls (and one boy) also decorated cookies I had pre-baked (shaped like sea creatures)and made shell necklaces and bracelets(Damien drilled some bought shells for me, and we also used some chickenfeed beads with a sea-theme). There wasn't a lot of time for the traditional party games because we were all too busy "making and doing".

Other food items were sushi and fish shaped fish fingers (or "fish flips"). I didn't do cupcakes, because if I do, the kids don't eat the cake. This year the cake was a sticky date cake underneath all that pretend sand.

Early on during the party I did a quick face decoration on each of the girls using sparkly eyeliner gel. This was faster than using my usual face paints, and less messy.

I will add a list of the guests when I edit this post later.