Maddie is 3!

So why not have 3 parties?? One on Sunday ("the fairy one"), one at nursery on her birthday, and a tea party at home with Mum, Dad, Sam, Granny and Granny Mave. The above photo was taken after the Sunday party during present & card opening. There were too many presents to get through on the Tuesday so we let her open her party friends' presents 2 days early.

Anyway, back to party #1 - Williamstown Scout Hall, Sunday 3rd:

Cakes arriving from home



Riding around waiting for everyone to arrive



Gus having his face painted by Daisy & Tom's Mum (Sarah in the adult world - thanks Sarah)



Waiting for my sparkler to finish burning so we can all have a cake!



Check out this technique for opening a wrapped up hula hoop - she ends up inside the present somehow!



Pirate girl (well, just being a Rainbow Fairy would have been too boring!



Parties 2 & 3 are going to have to wait until I have more time to blog - the photo uploading takes too long on this!

In other news - we have our Australian Citizenship tests tomorrow! Here are some example questions - answers on a postcard please:
In what year did Federation take place?
What date is Australia Day?
Who was the first Prime Minister of Australia?
What is the first line of Australia's national anthem?
What is the floral emblem of Australia?
What is the population of Australia?
In what city is the Parliament House of the Commonwealth Parliament located?
Who is the Queen's representative in Australia?
Australian Citizens aged 18 years or over are required to enrol on the electoral register: true or false?

I'll leave you to ponder those Earth-shattering questions. I'm off to revise (ha ha - it is a multiple choice test!).

March already...

...It's amazing how quick time flies when you have a baby and move house all at the same time! We are all doing very well here, thanks for the messages and enquiries last month, but we were not that close to the fires. That said they were still only 40km away which when you have a 100km/h wind isn't really that far.

It has been an emotional few weeks here with nearly everyone knowing someone who had relatives or friends affected by the bushfires. Now though (as of last night) the threat has been declared over thanks to a couple of days of cooler weather and rain. In fact in a rather cruel irony they even had snow in alpine Victoria today (one of the gateway villages to the lower snow resorts, Marysville, was completely wiped out by the fires).

On a happier note, we are now in the new place which has felt like home almost since the moment we walked in with all our boxes. We are slowly getting unpacked. We have had fitted wardrobes put in the bedroom & I have ordered my shed (very important!).

It's great to be on a nice quiet street, lots of other families around and a park at the end of the street too. Maddie even cycled there last time we went, almost on her own! (Only needing a little bit of help to keep straight - she can't pedal and steer at the same time yet.)

As I type it is raining again, 4th day in a row that we have had some rain which is very good news seeing as it had been I think 30+ days since we had any before that.
We still aren't getting enough, it never sets in. Funny to think after leaving the UK we would one day be hoping for it to start raining!

Anyway, time to go to bed now. I will try to post more often!
love from us all
Dom

Samuel Adam Burton...

...is 10 days old today. It has gone so fast!

He arrived just in time to meet his grandparents - born on Friday 2nd and Mum and Dad left to head back to Thailand via Perth on Saturday, so they got a few cuddles in - see below.



So far he has been a very contented little man. We have been doing OK too, aided by lots of visits from friends and the previously unknown-to-us Aussie tradition of bringing food round for the new parents. We have now sampled all of our local friends' baking & cooking and I think we only cooked one meal in the first week! Even now we are sitting on 4 chocolate brownies, a quiche (in the freezer due to surfeit of donated food!) and a zucchini (er, courgette) bake.

Never being ones to sit still we are in the final stages of buying a new house (sorry to those reaching for the pen to cross out another entry in the address book). We move on 12th Feb - hopefully that is enough time to sort it all out as that's when we need to leave this house!

The new place is on a nice quiet road, and it is a better proportioned house with lots of potential. We know we love it here in Williamstown so we are hoping that this will be our final move for a while - our family house where the two of them can grow up and go to school..Wow, that feels very strange to say that!

Just thought you might like to see that despite the new arrival Maddie still knows how to show off and capture the camera!


That's all for now, more posts soon as I document the chaos of moving house with a 6-week old baby!

Dom

New Year, New Baby!

Here he is...


Born at home on Friday 2nd January at 7:15am weighing 8lb 4oz.

Once we decide on a name from our two final favourites, we'll let you know...

More on him soon!
Dom

New House Needed

Hope everyone had a merry christmas and a happy new year!

Well, forget what I wrote about the Mornington Peninsula in the last posting here.
Actually, not all of it, just the bit about us moving down there. It is still a lovely place but we have had a rethink and decided that it is better for me to live 5-10 mins from work and 75 minutes from the Peninsula's attractions than the other way around. So we're staying in Williamstown - we have too many reasons to stay, the only downside is the house prices here. (There has not been a crash here like in other parts of the world, and most expectations are for the market to be flat over the next year. Properties are taking longer to sell though.)

And we have finally SOLD OUR HOUSE! We settle on February 12th so we have 6 weeks or so to find a new one. We're hoping to find a place to buy but seeing as there's not much time, failing that we'll rent.

Dom