Little chicks

We have a number of chooks in our back yard that give us lovely fresh eggs and the other day two more little chicks hatched. I did not know that it only takes 21 days for a cute yellow fluffy chickadee to arrive but now I do.

We have an interesting set-up for getting our little chicks. The rooster does his thing with the chooks who are Rhode Island Reds, like out of the movie, Chicken Run, but these chooks do not like to sit on eggs so onto the scene arrives Snowflake our bantem hen, whose job it is to sit on the eggs.

She loves doing this and seems to get quite irritated if she is not either sitting on eggs or looking after the baby chicks. The funny thing is though that as the baby chicks grow and turn into Reds like their real parents, they outgrow Snowflake but still run after her like she is their mother. It is so funny to watch.

Oops this photo looks like Oliver is delivering the chick himself. :)

We have a dog...

His name is Oliver 'shaggy dog' Triffitt. His hair was getting so long that it was starting to look ridiculous. All the curls were so heavy that they were coming out and his hair was over his eyes.





So to Pip we went for a haircut and now it looks much better.

Second daughter, first tooth

Three days ago, Hallie lost her first tooth. She has such tiny teeth anyway that it was very cute to see her with this little gap in her mouth.

The tooth fairy brings $2 for teeth ($5 for front teeth, obviously inflation has hit hard since I was a child) but Sarra very diplomatically pointed out that seeing as Hallie has only very small teeth, she might only get $1.50

Westbury PS goes country

Last week the girls had their cross country day, along with every other school it looks like, judging by some other blog posts. Hallie had hers first at school which was basically just a fun run around the oval. She is the one with the green top on.

And they are off...

Jumping through the hoops...

In her Prep class she came first out of the girls and second overall behind Jordan Waddingham. I was there shouting encouragement to Hal but in my mind I was going, "come on beat him Hallie, you can beat a boy".

It was great to watch as Hallie and Jordan were out in front with miles before the next runner and they were neck and neck until Jordan just pegged her at the post. It was so cute to see her little legs pumping hard as she is the smallest in her class by far. "Don't worry Hallie", I thought, your Mum was short and fast too (remember those races Chelsea?).

The ribbon was very politically correct. It said, "I participated in an event".

About an hour later I drove down to the town common for Sarra's cross country event which was a bit more serious. They had a 2km course to run and the first 3 runners across the line would be going on to race in the Northern Midlands - a cross country involving a number of schools.

Sarra ran around with her best friend, Naomi and they ended up coming second and third.

It was funny to watch them together as when one would stop with the stitch, the other would stop too and bend over holding their side.

They would grin and then start running again. I'm glad they get to go to the Northern Midlands together. Obviously the girls are much better runners, than they are swimmers.

I was a really good runner in primary school, holding records and winning all the races when we had the Independent Schools carnival where all the private schools competed against each other.


At Little Athletics, the girls would complain if I was in the race as I would always win. Alas that is where the bragging rights end as when high school rolled round, everyone else got a growth spurt and passed me so I ended up concentrating on team sports like hockey and netball and loving that instead. Oh well it's nice to have some medals, even if they do only say Under 8s and Under 10s (LOL).

Sarra streaming across the finish line.

6 month milestone

Baby Jonty is now no longer a newborn baby. Six months is a big milestone in the life of a baby and I can't believe how fast it has gone. Those who see Jonty alot know that he is small in stature but big in heart. He cracks a grin as soon as you engage him in conversation and the smile lights up his whole face.

He started sleeping through the night at 8wks and was doing well up until 3 wks ago. Since our half-hearted attempt at the rice cereal, I hadn't done anymore solids but yesterday I decided, enough was enough with the waking through the night again and I plied him with solids and he slept through. Let's hope he keeps that up.

So far Jonty has not been sick much, just the usual that plagues babies and more often than not, he has been easy to settle and has never cried for no reason. He puts himself to sleep and loves a cuddle. He is very easy-going, takes ages to feed (but down to 30mins now) and like the rest of our kids has heaps of hair with a few big curls. We love our baby Jonty.

Can I have a biscuit please...

I cannot count the amount of times Oliver asks me this each day. He loves biscuits. More than any person I know. It doesn't matter what type they are, Savoy, Shapes, Sao, Salada (like the alliteration Collette?), he will quite happily sit there and consume a whole box.

Simon's favourite treat is biscuits with dip or a nice cheese so he has moved the biscuits up high so Oliver cannot see them. But Oliver seems to be able to sniff them out and this is what I found coming into the kitchen this morning.

A while back he asked me for a biscuit and I said, 'okay but just a couple'. Sure enough I found him with the box half eaten. I said, 'Oliver, I said you could only have a couple'. 'But Mum', he says, 'I don't know what a couple is'. So I told him a couple was 3 and a few days later when he asked me for a biscuit he said, 'I will just have a couple, is a couple 3 or 4 Mum?'