Day 243 - Play date

Today we went for a play date with the gorgeous Duve family. The girls love playing with Ella, Brydie and Kaleigh. Today Olivia was my shadow and didn't play much with the girls, but did happily pose for a photo with gorgeous Kaleigh while having a drink and some morning tea.
Thanks Teresa and your gorgeous girls for a lovely morning. Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Day 242 - Beautiful Sue

Today Sue made a surprise visit with a beautiful gift for me. When we were at the Craft fair earlier this year, we purchased some beautiful Alpaca wool which Sue lovingly knitted me a beautiful scarf with. I have to find somewhere special to wear it and somewhere safe to keep it!

Day 241 - Play dough fun

Today was a day full of fun with the girls. We played outside in the sun for a while. After they had a sleep I promised the girls we would play with play dough. As you can see by Olivia's face in the photo it was a lot of fun. I think they would have played with it for hours if we had enough time for that.

Day 240 - An expensive treat

Banana's have been a rare treat in our house. At $15 - $20 a kilo we haven't purchased them for a little while. So when we went out to the Fyshwick Fresh Food Markets, I found some bananas for $9 a kilo. Still a little pricey, but certainly not the cheapest I have paid for bananas, but a price I was willing to pay after having banana withdrawals for a few months. Oh and yes, they were delicious!

Day 239 - Happy Birthday Taylor

Today we caught up with the extended Kenningham family to celebrate Taylor's 10th birthday. We went over to Meg's place and had some party food while the kids played. Ava was ever the social butterfly and played with the girls, while Olivia hung out with Shane and I until she found a quiet place under the kitchen table to play with some of Taylor's toys. Hope you had a lovely day Taylor!

Day 238 - Ready Mum!

Picking up the girls from daycare is always a different experience everyday. Today obviously Olivia was  ready to go home, as soon as she saw me she put her bag on her back and started to say goodbye to everyone. It was very cute to see, at least I know she missed me today!

Day 237 - A very interesting read

Sue told me of the book called 'The Help' which I thought sounded great. She leant it to me this week. She promised it was an easy read, The first 2 chapters have been as promised. Now I just have to find the time during the day to enjoy this great book.

Day 236 - Wall of Art

I finally got around to hanging up the art work they have done at school on their bedroom wall. I think they are so very clever, of course I am not biased at all.

Day 235 - My little gardener

We have been blessed with some unseasonably warm weather. So it meant we could get outside and have a play in the garden. Ava loves picking anything that is within her reach. Today she found some leaves to pick and play with. Luckily she didn't play with the flowers we have blooming in our garden!

Day 234 - Elefun!

Today I thought it would be a good day to play inside with Elefun - the elephant game that blows butterflies our of the elephants trunk. It was very interesting watching the girls when I first got it out. Ava seemed a little worried and edged herself backwards, while Olivia picked up the net and was ready to catch them. Only her catching them was picking them up with her hand and putting it in the net all while squealing 'I got them. I got them!'

Day 233 - A friendly rivalry

As avid AFL watchers there is always one round in which Shane and I develop a friendly rivalry. Of course that is when Sydney play St Kilda. Today Shane and I took a little time out and drove to Sydney to watch Sydney play St Kilda. It was a lovely day in Sydney and I was very grateful that Sydney pulled off a miraculous 3rd Quarter turn around to win the match.
I snapped this photo of Ted Richards at the end of the game with my iPhone because I forgot to charge my camera.

Day 232 - Happy Birthday Jack!

Today we went to celebrate our mate Jack's 2nd birthday. The girls had a lovely time playing with their friends and eating the party food which Megan had prepared for us. Jack's birthday is the last of our Mother's group friends for the year. Next birthday will be our 3rd, luckily we have a few months up our sleeve!

Day 231 - Perfect timing

We have a chaise lounge which is a favourite of everyones in particular Olivia and you have to be very cautious when you sit down on it when Olivia is around. If you sit on the end of the chaise, she thinks it is like a mini trampoline and jumps up and down the lounge and launches herself onto your back.
As you can see by today's photo, she literally launches herself. Luckily Poppy knew to brace himself ready for the attack!

Day 230 - The list goes on and on...

I have many different to do lists floating around my house. One for school, one for things around the home and another just to jog my memory. The problem is I keep adding to my lists and never seem to cross too many things off. Hopefully during the holidays I will be able to cross my lists off.

Day 229 - Parcel in the post

I love getting mail that is not a bill for me to pay. Parcels mean something exciting is arriving. It isn't often we get a parcel, but today arrived the gorgeous prints from Helga Dalla and her Twins of Australia photo shoot we did. It was quite difficult to pick three prints of the girls but I think I have picked well. I absolutely love them. Thanks to you Helga.

If you'd like to take part in the next edition of Twins of Australia click here.

Day 228 - Partial Quarantine

Today we were put into quarantine at home after we had Olivia tested for whooping cough. I don't really think she has it, but it is a precautionary measure. So I thought with some warmer weather we would at least embrace the outdoors with some bubble fun to stop us all from going stir crazy all week.

Fingers crossed, all will be clear when we get the results back.

Day 227 - Rocky eat your heart out

I have been going to a boxing class at PhyZeek Personal Training with Mike for a few weeks now. It is always a hard and fast workout. You walk out hot, red and quite often very sore. Thank god for taking along my own personal cheer squad to get me through the Burpees, the mountain climbing or the hill run. Thanks Mel.

Day 226 - A crafty affair

Today I went to Canberra's Quilt and Craft fair. It was a lovely day spent with Carlyn and Sue looking at all the lovely patterns, fabric and quilts the clever people made. One day Carlyn and I may just have something hanging for display there! (one day Carlyn!) In the mean time I have so many projects to complete before I begin some more. Now to just find the time to do that.

I have to thank the lovely Dianne from The Quilt Basket in Victor Harbor South Australia for allowing me to take a photo of the gorgeous selection of fabric for my photo of the day.

Day 225 - Happy birthday Cohen!

Today we got to celebrate Cohen's first birthday. It was a lovely day to celebrate such a special day with the gorgeous youngest man in my life. It was a traditional first birthday with fairy bread, lollies, chocolate crackles amongst lots of other finger food.

Congratulations to Jodi and Brett for surviving the first year and rearing this gorgeous young man. We look forward to the next 12 months and watching him grow and change.

Day 224 - Lemon

Tonight we went out to dinner on a whim after work and daycare. It was after dinner Olivia decided that she would like to try a lemon. It must have been quite nice because she didn't want to put it down.
I wonder how regularly she plans on eating a lemon.

Day 223 - Pancakes

We have been looking at Procedure writing with Kindergarten over the last month. We have made birds, rabbits, smiley face biscuits and today was the culmination and we made Pancakes, with the help of the wonderful Pastor Matt, who makes delicious pancakes every Thursday morning.

Day 222 - Growing and Changing

We are studying Growing and Changing at school at the moment and we have planted some beans to watch them grow and change. We have roots started to grow in some, which is very exciting for Kindergarten to see. I wonder how much they will have changed by the time I get into work next week.

Day 221 - Happy Birthday Austin!

Today is my nephew Austin's birthday. We celebrated his 9th birthday together with dinner and of course more cake! He is the last of our busy month, well definitely the last that I have to make cake for.

Hope you had a special day Austin. We are so happy that we got to share it with you.

Day 220 - I mix.

Cooking has always been something that I haven't braved with the girls very much as for some strange reason they don't like the hand mixer, so I tend to bake while they are having their nap. Today, Ava woke just as I started to make Bill Granger's Brownies.
(find them here: http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/recipes/article/-/8131141/bill-grangers-brownies/ )
Of course mixing with a wooden spoon did not scare Ava in one little bit, in fact all I heard was 'I mix mummy.' like a broken down record. It was lovely to have a helper in the kitchen, now to just brave having them both help out without a fight. I'll report on that when I am brave enough.

Day 219 - Musicians

A quick snapshot of a cold winters day spent at home looking after Austin, Andrew and Madison along with Ava and Olivia. The musical instruments are always out and about. I am pretty sure Ava will start singing 'I am a fine musician, I practice every day....' one day soon.

Day 218 - Feeding my obsession

A trip to Costco without children gave me great time to peruse their cookbook section. I have only been to Costco twice and I have purchased 3 cookbooks from there already. Today I found this Donna Hay cooks guide. I am going to try her Vanilla Cupcakes on Monday. Lucky I don't go to Costco everyday.

Day 217 - Dinner with friends

Tonight we went out for dinner with some lovely friends from the Canberra and Region Multiple Birth Association. We had a fantastic time, with a special delicious menu from Gab at La Scala which he named 'The Yum, Yum, Yummy Mummies Menu'. We dined on cured fish, prawns, crab pasta, steak, pork and a white chocolate panacotta. Totally devine and decadent. A night filled with great food and plenty of laughs. I am looking forward to our Christmas get together not only for the company but to see exactly what Gab will put on our menu then.

Day 216 - Starting School Is Cool!

Today I went with Kirsty and Cheryl from school to hand out balloons and pamphlets about the Starting Schools Expo which is happening in Queanbeyan on the weekend. We handed out balloons to kids of all ages and tried to give them to a few older customers who thought they'd look a bit silly walking around without a balloon with no children! Hopefully we found a few more enrollments for Kinder next year.

Day 215 - Another birthday, another cake.

July and August seem to be a very busy month for birthdays. We average about 1 a week from the middle of July to the end of August. That is a lot of cake! Today it is Jenny's birthday. So we got together for family dinner and cake. A simple chocolate cake was the order which I was extremely grateful for as it was a work day, with no time to cook. The smarties were a suggestion from Madison, which I am sure Jenny loved the most. We have a week until the next birthday, a good week for fruit and vegetables only!

Day 214 - Making time to catch up with Nanny

This morning we had a Skype conversation with Nanny. Both girls were very excited to see Nanny especially on the computer. Madison and Jenny came down just in time to say hi to mum and hear about how her trip is going in Canada.

Day 213 - Monorail, monorail, monorail!

We took the girls further into the city to do a spot of shopping today. My shopping mission was very unsuccessful, but I did have a look at the new Westfield shopping centre. If only I had a never ending cash supply and I am sure I would have shopped up a storm!
We caught the monorail around the city and the girls loved it. They kept us and the other passengers on the monorail by singing and chatting away. Next time we go to Sydney a trip on the monorail is a must just to see the priceless look on Olivia and Ava's faces.