family life, Holidays, My Week According to Instagram

My Week According to Instagram – The New Year Edition

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 Hello, hello! I’m terribly sorry if you’ve been hoping to read a blog post, I thought that I might get a few done over Christmas/New Year, but obviously I was terribly wrong! We have had a great family getaway. I hesitate to use the word holiday, as to be truthful it was simply exhausting, but we have had lots of fun, and Alex and I are so very glad we made the effort to do a road trip with the five kids, even with the 14 month old triplets!

We arrived home yesterday so I’m busy unpacking (or well, I should be…) but I thought I’d participate in Tina Grey’s My Week According to Instagram, which will give you a brief overview of what we’ve been up to lately. I’ll start on January 1 and continue until yesterday.

So January 1 we said Goodbye to our family at Trinity Beach (near Cairns) and started the road trip home. Unlike getting up there, we took our time going home. It was a bit sad for the cousins. The  distance means that they don’t get to see each other often and they had got on famously. The big boys had been so good with the babies also. They all had a great time.

On the road again.

Our apartment in Townsville. Joey particularly loved looking out the large window onto the street below. I just love how he often stood there with his hand on his hip. Heart melt.

This is J Boy’s heart. Kind of.

Ma and Pa. It was the end of the day. Can you tell?

The resort we stayed at Yeppoon had a lot of wildlife. It was an exciting moment for the kids when a goanna ambled by.

The rooms were dodgy, but the pool was amazing! The kids loved it. But I’ll tell you what, watching five kids in the water is very exhausting for two adults!

But it’s all worthwhile for happy family memories.

You’d think their appetites would be huge at the end of the day. But no, the triplets have started eating their toes while they are being fed. They think it’s a great game. I find it frustrating, but it is super cute.

 Going to the Yeppoon Beach with my big boy.

And my monkey.

“Take a photo of this shell Mum.”
Next onto Bundaberg. We often visit Bundy and it’s become a compulsory stop visiting our very friendly barber, Mr. Matt. There was no one else I would let cut the little boys hair for the first time. He was skilled enough to do two at once! There were tears though. They look so grown up now. (No instagram pics to prove it yet!)

We stay at Bargara when we’re in town. The kids love going to “Grandma’s Beach” opposite the beach house my parents own.

One of my favourite pictures of the whole trip. Missy was just so overjoyed to be out of the car after a six hour drive and was running in circles around the beach, arms outstretched, chatterin

g away and enjoying life. My sister has labelled this “Missy’s Happy Heart.”

Finally, back in the car for the last leg home. I had put tinsel up at the start of the trip, but the kids wouldn’t let me take it down after Christmas, although that didn’t stop them breaking it! I loved turning around and watching this moment as T-Star and the baby in the back were laughing uproariously.

We added another two hours to the trip home by going to Brisbane first to watch our nephew (from Cairns) who was in Brisbane playing cricket. 

The Warrego Highway. Almost there.

 No time for photos since we got home. Made dinner and got tired cranky kids to bed. Sat down ‘briefly’ to eat dinner while watching TV. Bad move. Went to bed late after doing a quick tidy (not that it made any difference) before tumbling into bed. I suppose I ought to get back to work now! It’s all about organising, tidying up and re-establishing routine today. (And probably for the next few days…)

Happy New Year to you all! What have you done so far in 2013?

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Easter, family, Holidays

Easter 2012 – 2012 – Good Friday

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The fun being about being in Bundaberg over this Easter was family. We stayed at my parents house in Bargara. They were there and my 2 sisters were there and our brother joined us late Saturday night. Of course my kids were overjoyed that all of their cousins were around.

On Good Friday we went down to the river and had some fun with my brother-in-laws boat.

I came down for a few hours in between the triplets feeds. Just long enough to go for a ride on a giant shoe with my two sons! One loved it, one didn’t! Can you tell which was which?

After I left and went back to feed the tiny hungry mouths I understand that the Accountant had a lot of fun. At least that’s how I interpret the photos.

It was Alex’s first time on the knee board. He came home itching to ski – a pastime he is rather fond at, although rarely has the opportunity to indulge in. I suspect that when the kids are old enough we’ll be able to convince our Accountant to become a boat owner. Nothing like being able to get out on the water for a bit of fun and family time.
Because look how precious time with family is. J Boy spent the whole time plastered to his older cousin’s side. In PNG they have the term, “cousin brothers”. I think it’s an apt description for these two.
Sadly I had to leave the crew at the river and return home to feed three tiny mouths.
Not so sadly, I got to hang out with one of my very best friends throughout the afternoon and evening. Kylie and I started year one together many moons ago. The saying that the old friendships are the golden friendships is so true. Love hanging with my BFF!
Kylie was pretty comfortable hanging out with my family. Here she is holding a bub with my sister. She was very disgruntled that this baby vomitted over her, she thought she had been so good at avoiding spew all afternoon. Don’t think you can hang around me for any length of time and not go home with vomit on you somewhere…
Oh and we had some very delicious barramundi for dinner. Yum. Yum.
OK. Will continue the weekend in another installment!
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Easter, family, Holidays

Easter 2012 Update – Part One

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We had a lovely Easter.

The triplets did their first family road trip. We went to Bundaberg. I spent over two years of my teenage life in Bundy, and I still have a great fondness for the place. My parents have several farms there, so we are still frequent visitors.

Bundy is almost 5 hours travel time from our house. I’m proud to report that we did it with 5 children, including three (3) babies in 5 1/2 hours. It took us the same amount of time on the way home. We were so proud of the babies. They did such a good job. On the way up we stopped at the little country town of Wooroolin. I sat in the park and breastfed two babies, Alex bottle fed the third. The big boys played on the playground for 10 minutes and then T-star pretended to drive the car and J Boy sat on top of the trailer we were towing (because we can’t fit anything apart from people practically in our 4WD). We could have sat on the side of the road anywhere and the big boys would have been happy. We changed all their nappies and were on our way again.

Here are some happy snaps from along the way.

Big Boys in the back.

The Daddy

The Mummy

The road.

The babies

I’ll leave this as a to be continued. It’s getting late. Chook has been sick the last several days and has interrupted me, it’s very late and I’m tired.

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family, Holidays

A Brief Holiday?

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We are currently having a short family holiday at the beach. It’s raining right now. It has been raining since we arrived, and I don’t expect it to stop until after we leave. We knew it was going to be raining, but figured a getaway would be still worthwhile since The Accountant unexpectantly has got a few days off before starting a new job. (A good thing!)

The rain I can deal with. It’s the boys that tend to be more of a challenge. All three of them. 

The Accountant has been dying to re-live his childhood memories and take Buster four wheel driving. We’ve never had a 4WD before, so it’s been something he’s been waiting to do for a long time. So, we went for a long leisurely drive along the beach today.

The boys did remarkably well for being in the car for so long, but what else could we do after all, it was raining, so we may as well go for a drive along the beach. The Accountant was happy. We bought an ice-cream from “Mr. Yum Yum” the beach 4WD vendor and then the boys were happy. We even got out and had a wet walk to Freshwater Lake which made us all happier.

We also had a look at Double Island Point.

It briefly stopped raining while we had lunch, which made The Accountant feel like swimming, only it was raining by the time he drove to the beach. So after he went for a swim in the pouring rain while the boys and I waited in the car, we continued on our way to the hotel, where he forgot that he had promised J Boy a swim in the pool – of course he didn’t feel like swimming at the point, so put it off. When they finally returned, I had a nice hot spa ready for them to jump into. While The Accountant got The Baby ready for joining them in the spa, he looked up to see J Boy weeing into the spa. Dealing with this incident so distracted The Accountant that he let go of The Baby, quite forgetting that he had just taken a dirty nappy off said child. By the time he remembered this critical information The Baby was happily sitting on my pillow, deciding it was much more comfortable then several spots on the bed. (Of course leaving spots on the bed.)

It’s lovely getting out of town, really, it is.

With two young boys, I don’t think it’s quite correct to describe it as a holiday however.

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