October October October

Well October has been and gone and who would have believed I would have kept up with this Blog writing malarkey.  I thought I might have lasted until February before giving it up but hey at this rate it’s actually looking good for me to make all the way through until the end of the year.

Well the sun sure did come out in October; it’s been a hot one thus far.  Every year I seem to forget just how hot Summer gets here, I guess it’s a bit like child birth where you forget the pain (who am I kidding. You never forget the bloody pain of child birth).  So yes, it’s starting to come back to me how hot it gets and just how frizzy my hair goes in this weather.  Incidentally, this will be my seventh summer here in Oz.

Anyway let’s get on with things, let’s recap October.  Now remember it’s hot and my brain doesn’t function quite as it should in the summer months, so the following is not in chronological order and I may ramble a little, scrap that I may ramble a LOT.

Dressed and Ready to go for First Night at Cricket

It would be fair to say that October is quite possibly Jacobs’s best month EVER.  He finally got start cricket lessons.  Kids are really supposed to be 5 years old to play but since Wynnum District Cricket Club had requests from a few 4 year olds this year they kindly agreed to let him play, thankfully, as I didn’t relish the prospect of telling him I had got it wrong and in fact he would have to wait until next summer to play.

Bella Watching the Kids at Have a Go In2Cricket

The program is called “In2Cricket – Have a Go” and he will play at this level until around the age of 7 when he will graduate to the proper “In2Cricket” program and start playing matches.  At the moment there is around 10 cricketing skill sets and each week they practice 2 of the sets.  They then have a break where the kids enjoy a free sausage sizzle, after which they break in to age groups and play a various version of the game depending on their age. 

Jacob Takes to the Field

Here is a brief explanation of the game Jacobs age bracket plays.  Basically there is a rounders style field and in the middle there are 3 small cones with a ball on top.  The child who is batting has to hit the 3 balls as far as they can (trying to keep the ball as low to the ground as possible).  Once they have hit the 3 balls they take off running around the bases laid out on the field.  All other kids are the fielders and it is their job to fetch the balls and place them back on top of the cones.  If the batsman manages to get around the bases before all balls are back on the cones then they score a run, if not they are out (well regardless they are out really anyway because they only get 1 turn each).  I hope that sort of made of sense to anyone reading.

Team Talk from Coach Noel

Well of course Jacob LOVES cricket and it is the highlight of the week.  He has about a 50/50 success rate at scoring runs.  I am really glad he is enjoying it and I think it will teach him some good discipline, the coach Noel has a no nonsense approach, which people who are familiar with my parenting style will know, I really appreciate.

Jacob Chasing Kites at the Kite Festival

The annual Kite Festival was on this month and I took Jacob along for the first time this year.  A few people I know bagged it a bit but I actually quite enjoyed it and Jacob thought it was great chasing the huge balloon style kite around.  We are going to go again next year and take Jason and Bella along with us too.

The Boys at the Gabba

October also saw Jason’s Birthday, which was an interesting day.  Jason took the day off work and in the morning we headed into watch the Queensland Bulls play cricket at the Gabba.  I would like to say a good time was had by all but that would sort of be a lie.  Bella ran wild and we stayed for probably all of 45 minutes before enough was enough and we headed on to our next destination.

Bowling

As soon as you have children your Birthday is no longer about what you want to do and more about what the kids want to do and what Jacob wanted to do was to go Ten Pin Bowling.  Thankfully it was a week day and as such we were the only people in the whole bowling alley, yep you guessed it, Bella ran WILD.  Whilst the boys bowled, I went sliding up the alleys on my backside chasing Bella at LEAST 3 times.  The boys enjoyed themselves and Bella too but as for mummy, she was just STRESSED.

Lunch at the Bowling Alley

After bowling Jason and I had neither the nerves nor energy to head to a third place to have a nice lunch so we just ate fast food at the bowling alley, fast food that was in reality slow food, remember I did say we were the only people in the building. So we waited and waited and waited and waited for our cold hot dogs, half a dozen hot chips, and some product that claimed to be a chicken nugget.

Frozen Como's

After an eventful morning/early afternoon we finally made it home and were finally able to relax with a few beers and some Cosmo cocktails, my new favourite tipple.  I bought Jason a $5 frozen cocktail bucket from K-Mart.  All you do is add vodka and water and chuck it in the freezer, 8 hours later and you have the yummiest frozen cocktails ever.  It was very refreshing sitting in the backyard drinking them as the kids ran around playing with the hose.

Krispy Kreme Donuts - Who Ate the Missing One?

Halloween was a bit of a non event.  Every year I always say this year I am going to do something special for Halloween and then I just never seem to quite get around to it.  We had Trick or Treaters for the first time ever and for the first time ever we hadn’t bought anything in for them.  Jason had to part with some of his Krispy Kreme donuts, which wasn’t really too much of a hardship as he had a box of 12.

Halloween Dress Ups

The kids did have a little dress up on Halloween ready for Jason getting home from work but we didn’t have any actual Halloween stuff so they just used the limited supplies that we have in the dress up box.

And that was October’s highlights. 

Jacob Cooling Off

Jacob

Jacob had his orientation day at school, unfortunately because the school is brand new and hasn’t finished being built yet, he couldn’t have a proper orientation day where they get to meet their classmates and spend a few hours at the school.  All we got to do was have a tour around the school grounds.  Jacob is excited because there is a fantastic play park for the Preps, Grade 1’s and Grade 2’s.

I can’t believe my beautiful baby boy only has a few more weeks left at Kindy before he breaks off for summer holidays and starts school in January.  Where did the years go?

Trying to Tame the Mane

Bella

Bella’s hair has grown wild this month, no seriously it is out of control but I don’t want to get it cut because it will mean she really isn’t a baby anymore and well to be honest her wild hair really complements her wild personality.