200m run

I am so proud of this girl! I am so unathletic and here she is acting like it's nothing as she casually takes out 4th place in the 200m yesterday ahead of the faction carnival on Friday. What the heck. I was just done cleaning up in the canteen when one of the year 6 teachers buzzed our phone and told me to come down to the oval as the year 5's were about to run. 

So I did - and got to see my girl take out 4th place much to her delight. Loved it. So proud girl! 

 

ESPS Discos - Round 2 2022

Tonight was Joseph's turn for the disco, we spread them across two nights as we are such a huge school and break them into four sections, two grades in each.

So glad he is happy to be here, we have certainly come a long way.

Oh look it's Madeline living her best life and attending all the discos tonight as well cause mum is here and on duty.

What a life. Must be horrible.

I love that these two love each other. ❤

Not us sneaking Madeline's mate through the canteen entry so she could come and hang out with us again... 

Her sister is the same age as Joseph so they would have been waiting outside anyway until it was over.

Plus there was the added bonus of getting to hang out with one of their mates who is a grade below.

Joseph had a great time with his mates, until he had had enough of being sociable and went and sold drinks through the canteen window with one of the P&C mums.

Well - all done for another year, good times had by all. ❤

ESPS Discos - Round 1 2022

Madeline had her school disco tonight and oh my gosh what a party! I love her cute outfit, I find myself wondering on the daily why she gets to be so much cooler than me?

I especially love the little braid with the flower beads, even if it did take me forever to do and was a pain the butt. She's so flipping cute.

She and bestie Ella got settled in and had the time of their lives...

Including stealing my phone from my pocket to take selfies. She had to deal with me being there as I am part of the P&C and we run the disco.

I love that we manage to get one of these pics each year - these four girls were in kindy together and have remained friends ever since. That was 7 years ago and I feel like they are growing up way too fast!

As the night went on it got super dark in the undercover area, the only light they had was the light coming out the canteen window and a set of fairy lights hung around one side of the undercover area and they loved it! They danced around to the weirdest music... I was actually blown away at what they were getting into - The Never Ending Story and Running Up that Hill (obviously wayyyy too many underage kids are watching Stranger Things, heck no would I let my kids watch it) but they all knew Never Gonna Give You Up as well? So odd. They were fully moshing and screaming along to the lyrics. Good times.

It certainly was an awesome night and I am so proud of the P&C for making it happen!

We even got to use our Winter Wonderland decos again as it was the same theme! Classic.

scrunchies!

 

so... i made a stack of school scrunchies - and sold them! i found a skort in madeline's school tartan at the opshop, but they aren't allowed to wear it to school because it's not an actual part of their issued uniform... so i made scrunchies out of it and gave them to madeline and her friends... then i found another one and did 4 more and listed them on the uniform page - and they all sold really quickly. then, i found a size 4 dress in the opshop and got 12 scrunchies out of it - and sold all those. so this time i went big. found a size 14 and got 24 out of it. that kept me busy for a while! but for some insane reason mum was really impressed with the way i made them, so here's my pattern getting recorded here, just in case i need it for future reference.

cut a strip approximately 6/7cm wide (or 3 squares on the tartan haha) by 40cm long. fold so the front is facing inside and sew straight down the open side. allow 2.5cm each end and leave it open.

turn your tube in the right way and then match up the short ends and sew across

you'll end up with this

fold your sewing inside and you'll end up with a circle with an open piece on the side.

using a piece of elastic about 17-20cm long (i measure it around my wrist) safety pin one end to the seam directly inside our opening and using a larger safety pin, pull the elastic through and then sew the ends of the elastic together to hold it tight.

fold your opening edges in neatly and top stitch the edge to make it neat - and you're done! 

so so easy... and you can make dozens. i made rainbow ones last week too. you can make them out of anything and just use scraps. the best. 

homeschooling is go

who on earth knew it would come to this? these kids had their last day at school on friday - after the prime minister asked those who are able to keep their children home as of next week to do so. i had said from the beginning that i would leave my kids at school for as long as i could - or so long as i felt they were safe - and i have honestly believed this entire time it was the best place for them! i felt so emotional dropping my kids to school for the last time for who knows how long and even shed a few tears... all these empty classrooms all over the place... it just feels so final! the schools here will continue to operate until the end of the term, but basically for supervision only as working parents try to work out what they will do for the coming term.

soooo parents will be homeschooling, which started monday this week, until the education department works out how we will move forward, which could even be online supported homeschooling... we will just have to wait and see. i can honestly say that homeschooling has never been anything that interested me, people go to university to train to teach - and in my opinion they are the best people to do so, but i will absolutely step up and do whatever i can to make sure my kids have the best education they can during this. i know i can do it - but i am also well aware that it is not going to be easy.

wow. just wow. i still cannot believe how rapidly and crazily this has moved forward. to prevent further rapid spread of covid-19, drastic measures have been taken - as when it gets out of control, healthcare systems in all countries will not be able to cope. so... the very best thing we can all do, is remain at home, to stop the spread and keep ourselves and others safe. it is the only way.

borders within australia have been closed off too now - and further to that, the western australian regions will be bordered off too as of midnight tonight. this is not great news to us, as we will be unable to go to the farm once those border locks go into place as mum and dad are in a different one to us. but we will do our part and make this work, along with millions of other people.

so long as we are working together, we can beat this. one day things will go back to normal - and i already can't wait.

the unicorn squad

some of the girls in maddie's grade at school have gotten together and formed a club that they refer to as the "unicorn squad." i'm not entirely sure what the point of it is, but i (along with the other mums) think it is adorable and love to see them having fun together. we walked to school with two of the other girls this morning and i couldn't resist snapping this picture of them, with their pastel backpack goodness, just before we reached the school. 

life is so much better with friends... 

and i am grateful every single day that she has good ones ♥

school's out!

school's out for summer! i cannot believe another year is over and done. i picked up my kindy boy and year one girl for the last time today and braced myself for the next 6 weeks of holidays ahead. i'm so proud of madeline, after winning the citizenship award in her class last week, she's also brought home an honour roll certificate this week... this girl is on fire!

we have been so so blessed with our childrens teachers this year, madeline had the absolutely amazing miss hannah, who loved her so much. she was kind, gentle and genuine and clearly adored her, always having extra chats with her, emailing funny (and not so funny!) stories to me and taking a genuine interest in her and the rest of the class.  we found out just earlier this week that she isn't returning to ellen stirling next year and we are so sad about it. teachers like that are few and far between and we just love her so much!

joseph has been looked after by mrs. black, who was also incredible, coaxing our shy little boy out of his shell and teaching him to love school and learning. she's so lovely... i'll miss seeing her each morning too... here's hoping she has alex one day too, fingers crossed!

can you tell they are a little excited about holidays? (okay, i must confess this is somewhat of a lie... madeline was devastated about leaving miss hannah behind and whined all the way to the car about how it "wasn't fair" and can't i go and have a sleepover at miss hannah's in the holidays? haha. we do hope to see her again though as she doesn't live all that far away and did ask us to email to keep in touch. ♥

so where to after school? the water park of course... i am fairly certain this will be our home for the next 6 weeks. the kids love it here, there is plenty of shade for baby and i - and it's going to be a long, hot summer!

joseph: kindy 1 open night

guess who made it through kindy?! this kid!! i can't believe my little blue eyed babe has made it through in one piece and is now offically on his way to pre-primary next year. what a champ!

we attended the kindy 1 "open night" this evening, where joseph hid behind me and wouldn't join his friends, as he'd spent the morning sick and hadn't even been able to go to school... but being the mean mum i am, i made him go so he wouldn't miss his kindy grad. to be perfectly honest, he wasn't pleased with the situation, but i am glad i did. each of the kids had their picture on the class screen one by one, with what they want to be when they grow up. joseph said: when i grow up, i want to be a hot wheels driver. absolutely no surprises there! he is obsessed.

after the class (minus my child - insert eye roll here) sang us a song - baby shark (i hope someone looks this up 20 years from now and is just like oh what fresh hell is this!! haahaha) we got to look around the class and see their work and art and take some pictures in their little photo booth. what a cutie!

the kids even had a "guess who i am" art piece hanging up. we easily guessed josephs...

i am 4

i am a boy

i have a baby called alexander

♥

i am so excited for my big boy and everything he has ahead of him. i hope all his dreams come true and that perhaps one day, he'll get to be that hot wheels driver! 

easter class gifts

sorry for the terrible picture... but i just wanted to show how easy it is to make a treat for the whole class (side note, compared to last years effort of making vanilla confetti cupcakes for maddies pre-primary class, i guess this is a bit of a fail haha. lucky for me neither of the kids seem to remember that.)

these were so easy to throw together, it's simply a card made on red stamp, i made them two to a photo size print and printed them off at our local big w (10c each, so 5c per piece once cut) then taped on one of these cute easter animal chocolates from aldi. (bag of around 18 for $2) took me all of 10 minutes and the kids will love having something to hand out to their friends tomorrow. easy!

school photos 2017

i cannot believe how grown up my little girl is. we got her school photos back last week and here she is looking much older than i'd like her to... this mum thing is hard when they insist on growing up! ♥

faction carnival!

today was our first school faction carnival. madeline was thrilled to have been put in giles (red) and insisted we march down to the shops and buy some red hair spray, as her already red hair wasn't red enough! haha. we then had to drive to school with towels in the car seats to make sure it didn't get everywhere as it took a while to dry! but she looked sooooo cute!

especially when little brother insisted on having his hair done too. lucky red is his favourite colour, he had plenty of red clothes on hand to support his sister, and even better it was easy to spot him all day long as he ran around with some of the other small kids... all i had to do was look for the streak of red!

♥

at precisely 9am, the kids all marched out on to the school oval, to the blaring sounds of "eye of the tiger" waving their coloured banners and chanting the name of their faction. it was so funny. i couldn't help cracking up, especially remembering that we of course did the same thing when i was in school.

it was pretty uneventful to be perfectly honest, but i had fun chatting with the other mums from maddie's class while we waited for our kids races. maddie ran second in her race, but watching the little video i made for doug to watch, she wasn't even running! she was kind of galloping along, looking from side to side and just taking everything in. i told her that next time, she needs to focus on the finish line and run directly to it, instead of being distracted by what is around her. (side note: how true is that for us in life?! how much easier would we make things for ourselves if we just focused on the finish line and where we need to be, instead of the shiny things around us? i feel as though this will be part of a lesson one day!)

right as the junior carnival was ending, i lost sight of joseph for the first time - then saw him again, just as one of the teachers was about to announce over the pa that they'd found a child. oops! lucky for him though, they'd taken him up to the winners podium so he got to stand up there in glory for a minute!

giles was well in the lead as we left, and we found out at the end of the day that they had won the whole carnival! hooray!

maddie with her 2nd place ribbon. let's hope for first next year! ♥

p.s. all of the factions at her school are named after well known australians in history:

giles - red 

eyre - blue

forrest - green and

gibson - yellow

pretty clever i think!

pyjama free dress day!

we lovvvvve our school. madeline is having the time of her life and learning so much. best of all, there are so many fun things, fundraisers, special lunch days and awesome themed free dress days! earlier this year, we had a purple haze day for the starlight foundation... and today was wear your pyjamas to school day! she was so excited to go off to school in her pyjamas this morning and wear them for the full day. and the best bit about that for me, was that joseph didn't want to get dressed while madeline was in her pjs, so i took them both to school like that. win! it's so much fun for me to see them (trust me joseph already does too!) love school, knowing how much it excited me at that age. yay for school! ♥