mark & johanna's wedding

we had the greatest joy today of seeing our friend mark marry his sweetheart johanna. we have known mark for many years and have been by him throughout a very messy divorce and are so thrilled to see him smile again. he is a completely different person with her and is just so completely happy.

there was so many tears, and so much love in the room as they said i do in the little barn at the perth zoo. 

an absolute dream venue, expect for the fact it was pouring outside. but as they say, rain on your wedding day is lucky, so that's one more thing to be grateful for.

no matter the weather though, nothing was dampening the mood and it was a beautiful day.

the reception was at the guildford hotel and the building was gorgeous, the decorations were perfect and the food was amazing. marks girls looked like absolute dolls and his new bride jo was a picture of perfection with her (in her words) 90s vibes wedding dress complete with florals in her hair. we love her already.

the cutest couple out ❤

and i guess these guys are kind of cool too haha

what a beautiful day. we were so lucky to be a part of it. congraulations to mr and mrs vincent!

❤

zoo with the milnes

today we ran off to the perth zoo for the day with our four kids and loved every single minute of our time hanging with the animals. it was a gorgeous day, not too hot and as the kids skipped around and rode in the mini wagons we hired (worth every cent by the way... do yourself a favour and hire one if you ever decide to take your kids to the zoo)

i love the perth zoo, it's in a great spot, has so many fun animals and so many different places to explore. we had no problems keeping the kids entertained has never been so easy.

i mean seriously, look how happy they were!

joseph spent most of the day cruising as his dad pulled his wagon, when he wasn't trying to get to close to the newest love of his life, miss charlotte milne hahaha

as you can see, they were getting nice and cosy, look at that smoochy face on him!

we ended the day with my favourite thing about the zoo, the carousel! i have been in love with it forever and always remember the one time we went to the zoo a few years back and it wasn't running that day, i was devastated! i think i was probably more upset than madeline was. it is just so lovely, with a great history behind it if you take the time to read the plaque in front of it.

of course our day would not have been complete without a selfie of the adults that made this new squad possible. we love the milnes like crazy and are so glad to be able to have some time with them after so long apart and get the chance to make some awesome memories! ♥

a trip to the zoo

today we braved the perth zoo with 7 adults and 8 children... and what a day it was! we were so lucky to have gone when we did, the perth zoo currently has 16 lifesize dinosaurs around the zoo and they are amazing to see! i couldn't even believe how cool they were... and the kids couldn't get enough, especially my dinosaur obsessed joseph.

a life size t-rex on the main lawn

baby felix had the time of his life, snoozing away in his pram and waking up every now and then for a feed... he is such a little doll

joseph and jonas (or j+j as i started referring to them as...) had the best time hanging out together and checking out the wildlife. i am so glad to see that they get along and are enjoying their time together, cousins are a wonderful blessing.

some of the kids outside of the bear enclosure... 

these people make me so happy, i have said it before, but will say it a million times, my parents truly are to very best people i know. i know they are loving having all their children and grandchildren together ♥

and i'll be honest, they really do demonstrate eternal life goals. they have been married for 45 years this year and are still as madly in love as the day they met.

my dad and i... what is life if you don't force your parents to talk a selfie with you every now and then

i think i could say quite safely that everyone's favourite part of the day was riding the vintage perth zoo carousel. it has been there forever... and i even have photos of me riding it as a small child. so seeing maddie on there today loving her life, made me crazy happy!

we love you perth zoo and promise we'll be back sometime soon!

zoo trip

(our epic family selfie at the end of the day... you know we are cool, just admit it.)

we went to the zoo on tuesday!!!!! maddie was gifted a family pass for her birthday last year from one of the girls i work with, who is ultra generous and such a sweet heart... so now that it's not ghastly perth summer and i'm not extremely pregnant, we decided to make a day of it. i haven't been to the perth zoo since i was in school and i was thrilled to see how fun it was and how family friendly all of the exhibits are.

(hanging with the gorillas inside the front entrance)

joseph decided he wanted a feed when we had been inside the zoo for exactly three minutes... just long enough to buy a map (side note for next time, the perth zoo has a free app available from the appstore with all the same information available...) so we spent the next 30 mins hanging out in the mothers room while maddie and doug checked out the penguins and their feeding time. oh the joys of a breastfeeding mother. haha.

(doug and maddie with the lions sign... as doug is a mad brisbane lions: afl supporter he couldn't resist)

maddie looked as though she had won the lottery, as she ran ahead of us to each enclosure, asking a million questions and pointing at everything on the map... i wanna go here, i wanna see thisssss. she is so funny, and was determined to see everything and get there as fast as her little legs would take her.

joseph spent pretty much the entire day like this. all through the animals, all through lunch - with a brief time laterin which he woke up and grizzled, then promptly went back to sleep. what a dream child. thank goodness for the cozy bugaboo cocoon. i was actually petrified that he wasn't going to sleep that night but thankfully he did okay.

i am so in love with this picture even though doug rolled his eyes hard at me when he realised what i had done. in australia it is well known that people with red hair are affectionately (and sometimes not so affectionately) called rangas, which is short for orangutan. so of course i could not resist snapping this shot of my two rangas watching a real ranga. so many jokes, so little time...

i also of course had to get this one... you can barely even see the tiger in the background, he was being a little antisocial and kept hiding from us - but for good measure... "to the tiger in the zoo - madeline just said pooh pooh." of course i couldn't get her to even say it at the time, but as soon as we were away at another enclosure the dag starts saying poopooo poopoooooo at the top of her voice. two year olds certainly do what they want, not what their parents want.

i loved the australian animal area, including this fabulous huge numbat carved out of wood, seeing as the real ones didn't want to come out and play... i always picture my dad at times like that cracking jokes about the animals... i am sure he would say that the zoo has an empty enclosure and charge people cause we wouldn't know any better and then laughing to himself. nothing like a good dad joke hey!

i was also a little disappointed, as i really wanted the tasmanian devil to look like it does in the warner brothers cartoons and be whizzing around in a whirlwind... if only. they are incredibly cute, although doug assures me that they are not in any way friendly.

random things like this make me happy - i wonder how long it has been there...? it's by the elephant enclosure and looks soooo old, almost like something out of one of the temples in thailand - like in tomb raider? it's gorgeous though!

and there were these cages, which although they are a wonderful memory and look amazing from a historic point of view were so sad. they are the original cages from back in the day when animals were simply kept. not loved and cared for, more something to have and show off. it is wonderful to know how cared for the animals are now - and these cages create a good comparison for the public to understand the difference.

the saddest part of my day however was the fact that the vintage carousel was not working. i seriously almost cried! i have photos of me on it as a child with my mum and i was hoping to be able to do the same with madeline. it is so old that it is heritage listed (i read up about it here before we went) and so cute. the only good thing about it being out of order was that i was able to take some beautiful pictures of it without anyone around it, but i was still pretty shattered. but... on the bright side - i guess we will have to make another trip to the zoo to have a ride!! :) was such a fun day - can't wait to go again!