Holiday fun at Mundaring Weir

I despair with children in the house with devices and am constantly trying to find a way to get them out of the house, so that we don't spend the entire holidays that way. Easiest way is to invite their mates so they bring the party along with them. I love Mundaring Weir, nestled in the hills, so todays excursion was out there with their sibling mates from school.

We parked at the top, bush bashed down to the weir...

and found this cute little cubby made into a fallen tree on the way...

Then had a wander across... side note, I don't remember it being nearly that high, but last time we came they were doing maintenance and we could only walk up to the barrier gates, not all the way across. 

We stopped at the cute little guard house for a picture of course. 

Then the kids took off across the walkway, running, of course, while I followed a bit slower. 

It's a long way down, with the most beautiful views!

On the way back, we stopped in at the Mundaring Sculpture Park, seriously one of the best parks around! The kids love the mix of play equipment and nature play and never want to leave, every time we go there. All 5 of them got to it, working out an obstacle course that even Alex could follow and played for ages.

Alex eventually got tired of them and ran off to chat to these little old holidaying men sculptures before we eventually headed back home. I kept asking him what they were looking at and he'd race back in front of them and say I don't know! I can't see it! Hahahaha.

Was a great day out with our mates ❤

Ledge Point

Today the kids and I headed up to Ledge Point for the day to hang out with the Macqueens who were camped out at the local caravan park. The kids always want to got camping, but we have neither a tent, or caravan as an option, so this was the next best thing I could offer.

We started with a drive up, then met them at the beach near the caravan park. They had driven down onto the beach and parked on the sand, so the kids went straight for the water, Alex got dumped by a wave almost immediately when he let go of Maddie's hand and came running back to me...

Madeline was absolutely in her element, straight into the water and messing about with Uncle Mat

He even picked her up and threw her into the waves a few times!

Joseph was less than impressed. It was too windy and the water was too cold and he wasn't having a bar of it. You can almost taste his excitement in this picture. Ha.

Needless to say, that made it a little hard to get a nice beach pic of the three of them. Oops, oh well.

He was more than happy to play in the pool though, once we got back to the caravan park. 

They splashed around forever before sausages in bread for lunch with weet-bix slice for dessert... real little Aussies! 

Some snacks for the adults and an afternoon of laughs, running, tag, playground and icecream from the caravan park general store. Don't even ask how much they cost haha.

A day well spent with the bestie. Our kids had to be friends too... they had no other choice. ❤

tie dye gang

this little squad had a party day today at our house. planned completely on the fly, i just happened to have tye die and pot painting kits for an upcoming primary activity... which worked perfectly.

first up we tie dyed in the backyard. i've actually never done it before and it was really fun coming up with ways to tie them and patterns before the kids took over squirting dye everywhere.

they were all a bit hesitant at first, but loved it as time went on.

maddie got the most into it of course and made herself an amazing t-shirt that she plans to wear to her roller skating birthday party next week.

and it looked pretty good!

the boys made pillow cases

and we left them out to dry for a bit while the kids painted cardboard pots ready to plant woolworths seeds in and then had lunch.

i truly love this little gang... it won't be long before we have another baby to add either! jen is expecting number 4!

*****************************************

tie dye results to follow;

maddie's pillow case

jacob's pillow case in rabbitohs colours

isabel's effort 

and joseph's

and madeline's tshirt which i love! she did a great job.

a holiday trip to the pinnacles

today we braved the drive to the pinnacles all two hours and fifteen minutes of it with three kids, one who isn't even two yet, oh my word. i'll start by telling you the funniest bit so that you can laugh now and enjoy the rest of the photos when you're done. joseph (six and a half) was convinced that we would run out of petrol and be stranded on the side of the road. now. i completely get anxiety. completely. so, i thought i would make it easier for him to be settled on the way and when i filled up the car with petrol i got a jerry can of fuel and put that in the back too. worst mistake of all time. it's about a 400km round trip, our car can do that easy without refuelling, but i honestly was trying to keep him calm.

the car stank. so bad. it was horrendous. windows up it was terrible. windows down it was terrible. i couldn't just pull over and tip it out because i needed to keep the can obviously, but holy wreck it was so bad. doug and i both ended up with a headache and by the time we were there it was so bad. it's hilarious now, but i legitimately would have done pretty much anything to get rid of the smell. when we finally arrived, we emptied as much into our car as we could and then the rest into mel and aitu's car (who we'd met up with along the way to go adventuring together) before leaving the car open under the back of our car while we looked in the discovery centre for a while. when we got back and it was emptied and aired, the rest of the day was a lot better. thank goodness!

back to regular programming... the kids had the best time! running free and looking at all the rocks (and not touching them of course!) and generally wrecking havoc.

this kid loved it the most, he had a big sleep on the way up and was full of energy to explore and roam free in the big open spaces.

the pinnacles are these incredible limestone structures that formed about 25000-30000 years ago when the sea receded. you can read more about them here

our bestiecousins. so blessed to do life with them!

this place honestly had views for days and after doing a few laps of the park roads and getting out to inspect some of the stops, as the sun got low, we got ready to find somewhere to eat and share the ridiculous amount of food we always pack when we are together.

nice seeing you again pinnacles.

wa you are amazing. i'm quite happy to be stuck in such a wonderful place.

and the company isn't bad either. ❤

 

maddie at wab

miss madeline got to have a little time out today before her grandfathers funeral tomorrow at the west australian ballet! aunty dom and nannaleah gave her a pass to attend a summer holiday workshop as a christmas gift and today the day finally arrived.

she had a great day dancing with a bunch of other little girls and enjoyed every minute of it. what a lucky girl!

she told me they did a "fishy dance"  and did other exercises and worked at the barre.

i have loved watching her dance more and more around the house as she has become more confident, even making up her own little dances. it is so sweet to watch.

there's only a few more weeks before she'll be back in the studio at step up and she already can't wait... so today was a great opportunity to break up the long wait to be back there.

thank you pinkers! ❤

sam comes to stay!

dinner with the squad at grilld in hillarys the night after sam arrived

-not pictured: me, with a baby attached to my chest

on monday my friend sam from england arrived here in perth! we "met" via the internet just over two years ago when i purchased a set of prints (a family proclamation, the articles of faith and the living christ) from a random etsy store (lemons that are pink) which turned out to be her! after the prints were customised and sent, we kept emailing - and two years later, she finally decided to come on out to perth and visit me, whilst on a holiday in australia.

for those of you reading along with wide eyes right now, thinking this is a terrible idea, you're probably right. i'm not going to lie about that! sam booked right as i found out alexander would be joining us, he's less than a month old, not sleeping much at night, and sam and i had never actually met in real life. it could have been an absolute disaster. but it seems to be going well. we are having lots of laughs and the kids love her, so that's good so far! haha.

sam says her motivation for coming to perth was (aside from meeting me and my little fam) to cuddle a quokka. i don't know how cuddly they are, but i hear they enjoy a good selfie... so we will find out on monday next week when we go to rottnest for the day. believe it or not, it will the first time i've been there too, even after living in perth for my whole life!

so please imagine her joy when i took her to the margaret river chocolate factory today to show her the giant chocolate quokkas they sell. she was pretty excited about it!

welcome to perth sam! i can't wait to show you all the awesome things we have hidden away in this amazing state! ♥