Amita Update

Amita has been practicing riding her bike without training wheels and she has done brilliantly! 

Amita has been a really awesome big sister lately. She always tries to make Lizzie happy (even when Lizzie doesn't want to be happy). 

Amita has been getting into face painting. She loves trying to paint Lizzie's face and even draws up a plan first. She usually only gets a little bit done before Lizzie gets bored. This is one of her creations that she calls 'Snowflake Sparkle.' The blue bit on her cheek is a snowflake. 

Amita did this painting to send to her Gramps. She told me it is called 'Harry Potter.' I asked what about this painting makes it Harry Potter? Where is he? 

Amita replied (a bit exasperated), "he's in the blue bit wearing an invisibility cloak Mum!"

Touche Amita ... Touche.  

Lizzie Update

Lizzie has come up with a great new pretend game. She is both a pirate and a doctor. She pretends to slice Steve open with her pirate sword and then fixes him with her doctor tools! Just making sure her doctor practice always has a patient!  

Lizzie riding a skateboard the best way she knows how. Sometimes she'll ride her scooter when we walk to pick Amita up at school. However the footpaths are very sketchy and she has to stop at every crack and pothole to show me. It takes twice as long to get there. 

The interesting places I've found Lizzie asleep lately...

Under her bed on the cot mattress...

In the chair outside her room after giving Hoot a drink of water...

In the chair after Steve had to move it in to her room because she was particularly overtired and refused to sleep anywhere else!

Our Easter Camping Trip - by Amita and Lizzie

We went camping near Warwick. I liked sleeping in my tent. It was fun.

I liked going to the playground. We went on a merry-go ground, a horse see-saw, and their were animals near the playground.

I had fun putting marshmallows in the fire. I only like white marshmallows. I love that Nan and Pa got us light hats to go camping. I love you Nan and Pa. 

I like this funny picture because there is Lizzie and me and I'm doing a funny thing. It looks like I'm tired because I just woke up on this froggy (she means foggy) morning. It was cold! 

I liked feeding the sheeps. I love sheeps. The sheeps are so cute. 

I got to pat some chickens. They felt soft like the horse and the sheep. I tried to catch some chickens but they are fast and ran away. A girl caught a chicken and let me pat it. 

Lizzie says : I pat chicken.

Freckles (the horse she is riding) was trying to eat my Dad. Freckles was trying to stop but the lady would click her tongue to make her keep going. I liked all of the spots on the horse. She has eyelashes like me. I love horses!

Lizzie says: I go horse riding too! I love horse riding! (she keeps asking us to go horse riding again)

I was like a ninja jumping on the log like a frog. 

Dad helped Lizzie go on the log too. 

We went to Queen Mary's Falls and there was a big tree that looked like Shrek's house. It was big and lovely. Shrek's house is very cute too. 

Those rocks at the bottom dropped off a long time ago. We didn't see it happen. I wasn't scared of being so high but Mummy was. I was reading all of the warning signs on the path for my family. There was: hold hands with Mum and Dad, don't fall off, don't go in the water, and don't get lost. 

Lizzie says: Go on my walk. 

This is Lizzie, Mum and Amita at Queen Mary's Falls. We felt the water coming off the waterfall. It's very magical because the water can come off (which reminds me, I had to explain to Amita how drop toilets work and you don't have to flush them - she said, "that's so magical!" - first time I've ever heard a toilet being described as magical!).  

There's me and Lizzie. I looked like my Dad because I painted a beard on my face. I wanted to look like a sparkly rainbow but the colours got mixed up. Lizzie's nose is colourful. She looks nice. We went down the hill on our bikes and said, "oohhhhhhh, they, voooool," because it was silly and sounded funny when we went over the bumps. I was going a long way and was balancing and my Mum said, "good job!"

I was Malificent and Lizzie was being Mal (characters from the Disney Descendants movie). We were putting the stick up and down and crossing our legs. We sang the song, 'do you want to be evil like me.' 

This is what it looks like in the movie. I wish I could be Mal because I like her (don't worry, Mal makes good choices at the end of the movie). I love her purple hair. 

We saw a butterfly. I called it Spotty. He was drying his wings. 

Lizzie was so afraid of the butterfly because it flew near her.

We went fishing to try and find guppies and fishies. We didn't find any. My Mummy said there's some at Charley's Creek so we will catch some there instead.

My favourite things about camping were seeing the butterfly, going fishing, going horse riding, seeing Queen Mary's Falls and eating marshmallows. I didn't like the campfire though because the smoke hurt my eyes. 

Lizzie wants to add: 'I go camping now.'

Easter 2016

We have had a relaxing Easter weekend so far. It has even been raining most of today (Saturday) which is the first time it has happened since living here. It's not Easter unless it rains!
The Easter Bunny left some treats on Friday morning and hidden eggs throughout the Garage. This of course helped Amita and Lizzie be in a silly mood (which made for some good photos)!

Lizzie hijacking Amita's bunny ears she made at school.

Here's Amita trying to cuddle her sister while Lizzie is kissing some imaginary thing! Amita has some leftover bunny face-paint on her face from yesterday's school celebration day.

Later on we did a bit of Easter egg and rabbit painting. Lizzie takes an expressionist approach to her painting and is going through her 'black period!' :)

Amita takes her inspiration from rainbows. 

I let each of the girls choose an Easter treat/dessert to make for Friday night. Lizzie's choice was Humpty Dumpty chocolate moulds.

Amita made some little dirt cakes. They taste a lot better than it sounds! We used yogo on the bottom, then a layer of crushed Oreos (the dirt), a layer of green coconut (grass) and some little Easter Eggs to decorate. 

Here they are trying out their new sets of pyjamas from the Easter Bunny. 

We've been filling up our Easter tree with ornaments that represent a story or teaching from Jesus' life. 

We also planted a garden to help us remember the Saviour and his sacrifice for us, and that because He lives again, we will all live again too! 

Laurel Bank Park

We visited a really cool park in Toowoomba called Laurel Bank Park. It is huge! It has some great and different features that I haven't seen before. There are interesting garden statues all over of animals, dinosaurs and even some pixies having a fight! The giant flower beds of sunflowers, lavender and chilli means that there are butterflies and insects flying all over the place. It is sort of half fairy garden - half playground, and we love fairy gardens in this house so we had a great time.

With a cute dog statue. 

In front of all the sunflowers (I think Amita is trying to show me how she can click).

Being adorable on the playground.

Showing off her gymnastic skills. 

With Minnie and Mickey. 

Loving the swings!

Under the big arch - making my Sound of Music dreams come true!

Amita's High Five Award

Amita got the class award this week on Parade. It says:

For being an engaged and enthusiastic learner. 

Amita, you put 100% into all of your work. Well done!!

Amita was so happy that her award says 100 on it. She thought it must be pretty good then!
I don't think Amita has ever gotten an award that didn't say something about her being enthusiastic. On the 2nd day of school her teacher asked me if her jumping up and down on the spot habit was a sign that she needs to go to the toilet. I said, 'no, she just does that when she's excited,' She must be bouncing around the classroom like a jellybean all the time to be an enthusiastic learner!

Spiders

A conversation I had with Amita after she spotted a rather large Daddy Long Legs Spider behind the laundry door.

Amita: I don't like that Daddy Legs spider. It's scary!

Me: Don't worry, Daddy Long Legs are good spiders. They won't hurt you.

Amita: I still don't like it. I don't like the ones with Daddy legs, only the ones with sister legs!