Perth Week 7
30th May - 5th June 2011
This week has really flown by, and we thought this would be a relatively short post because not too much happened. As we reviewed the week, more and more things stood out from our adventures.
Alysha really wanted to teach our lesson for Family Home Evening on Monday. She chose the topic ‘Book of Mormon’. It was really sweet -she got us to sing “Book of Mormon stories” she then showed us pictures and asked us a number of questions and kept looking at us for reassurances that the answers were correct - she did a really good lesson. We also wanted to teach the principle of observance and concentration so for our game, Anna got three non-transparent paper cups on a plate. For each child in turn, we placed an M&Ms chocolate under one of the cups, and then switched the cup around a number of times, the kids had to follow where the M&M had gone and when the cup switching stopped, they were to pick up one cup and (hopefully) reveal the M&M. If they guessed right, they got to eat it. All 3 kids and Grant did very well and showed us, that when chocolate is at stake, they can concentrate.
On Monday night, Grant flew out to Sydney again to meet with a client for the day. It was probably his last meeting with them, and he handed over ongoing work. He can now focus on his job in Perth and I am really glad he wont be going away as much as I’m a real scardy cat when Grant’s away.
On Tuesday the kids and I decided to venture back to the Music group to check out the other music session and see how it went. Well it was still crazy busy - I counted 50 other mums with their kids. Hyrum and Gracie were very shy, but the music was lots of fun. But I think I have decided to start our own music group up at church and invite other Mum’s to come along.
30th May - 5th June 2011
This week has really flown by, and we thought this would be a relatively short post because not too much happened. As we reviewed the week, more and more things stood out from our adventures.
Alysha really wanted to teach our lesson for Family Home Evening on Monday. She chose the topic ‘Book of Mormon’. It was really sweet -she got us to sing “Book of Mormon stories” she then showed us pictures and asked us a number of questions and kept looking at us for reassurances that the answers were correct - she did a really good lesson. We also wanted to teach the principle of observance and concentration so for our game, Anna got three non-transparent paper cups on a plate. For each child in turn, we placed an M&Ms chocolate under one of the cups, and then switched the cup around a number of times, the kids had to follow where the M&M had gone and when the cup switching stopped, they were to pick up one cup and (hopefully) reveal the M&M. If they guessed right, they got to eat it. All 3 kids and Grant did very well and showed us, that when chocolate is at stake, they can concentrate.
On Monday night, Grant flew out to Sydney again to meet with a client for the day. It was probably his last meeting with them, and he handed over ongoing work. He can now focus on his job in Perth and I am really glad he wont be going away as much as I’m a real scardy cat when Grant’s away.
On Tuesday the kids and I decided to venture back to the Music group to check out the other music session and see how it went. Well it was still crazy busy - I counted 50 other mums with their kids. Hyrum and Gracie were very shy, but the music was lots of fun. But I think I have decided to start our own music group up at church and invite other Mum’s to come along.
Since Grant was away and Alysha had been doing so well with her homeschooling after school I decided we would go out for dinner to McDonald's for a treat . It was nice not cooking tea and the kids had a great time playing on the playground after dinner.
When we left, I did something very stupid - Aunty Clare had given us a Tom Tom navigation unit which is a bit of a new toy, and I used it to see if I could find a faster way home - Well we ended up completely lost somewhere in the city. We had driven round for about 30 minutes with both Alysha and Hyrum crying in the back, scared and tired and wanting to go home, it ended up being not a fun night, but we did eventually make it back home. Not sure what went wrong there. I guess it is only as good as the instructions you give it - I had pushed the ‘home’ button, and where we had ended up was definitely not home.
The next day we all went to pre-primary for the day to be a Parent Helper. Gracie and Hyrum had a great time, playing with all the games, puzzles and books. It was really nice to spend time with Alysha helping her in school. Also it gave me a great chance to have a first hand look at how it all works; for the longest time Alysha has been telling me that she doesn’t do any learning there and she just plays all day. Well, I found out that is completely not true, she does learn but things are taught through activity-based learning, and not writing things in books like she’s used to. So while I was there she did phonic activities with added syllables games, maths, and music beats and more human body activities. It did make me laugh to think that Alysha has no idea that she learning all these things just in a different form. It also made me feel a lot better about sending her to pre-primary.
It has been really nice spending so much more one-on-one time with Hyrum & Gracie during the day and doing special things with them. They play so nicely together (most of the time) and you never know what they will get up to next. They had great fun making huts, playing in our garden, and doing role playing games together.
It has been really nice spending so much more one-on-one time with Hyrum & Gracie during the day and doing special things with them. They play so nicely together (most of the time) and you never know what they will get up to next. They had great fun making huts, playing in our garden, and doing role playing games together.
One day Hyrum asked me if we could do home schooling together, so I got out some of the activities and he just loved it. Of course Gracie joined in and they lasted for an hour which I thought was really long for them. Some of the things we did was letter recognition games, music games and of course Polkadots healthy food game (his favorite). Hyrum has also started loving the computer (just like his Dad). After watching Alysha for so long he has finally worked out how to use the touch pad on the laptop to make it do what he wants it to, so he asks all the time if he can go on the computer. They start so young now.
On Thursday night we had dinner early and after dinner I took Alysha out on a ‘Mummy and daughter date’ (I highly recommend it). We went to the shopping mall and she bought two birthday presents for her friends having birthday parties. It was really nice spending time with Alysha, she kept giving me big hugs and said “I love you Mummy your the best Mummy in the world.”. She was just so excited to be out with me and very excited to be looking at all the toys and trying to decide what her friends would like the most. I was very impressed with her, not once did she ask for me to buy anything for her, she is a very thoughtful young girl. On the way home it was dark and she said to me “Mum you do know how to get home don’t you?” I guess we have gotten lost one too many times.
On Friday we went back to the library for story and rhyme time and the kids seem to really enjoy it, I guess they are starting to get used to it now. In the evening I went to the temple, and did a sealing and initiatory session is was just so beautiful, and peaceful I did really miss not being able to go with Grant, but what a wonderful fulfilling place to go and be spiritually strengthened. I love living so close to the temple it is such a blessing to us.
On Saturday we went on an adventure to the Museum of Western Australia, the main one of 6 museums in Perth. They had a little area for kids, where kids could be hands on. They had loads of stuffed animals and birds, drawers and drawers of lifelike bugs, insects, and they also had loads of things preserved in glass bottles - which freaked Alysha out a bit. (she kept saying please can we do now Mummy I don't like it here). From that area, we went to an area that talked about the beginnings of the earth and showcased all kinds of rocks and minerals. We never realised that there were so many different types of rocks and so many different colours. Alysha and Hyrum loved counting all the colours pink, red, green, gold, and purple rocks among other beautiful coloured ones. They also had a display of all the meteors rocks that have landed in western Australia and some where very huge and would of done some serious damage.
We also found the dinosaur skeletons which were very cool. I don’t remember having been so close to skeletons like that before. It was Hyrum’s turn to have a freak out when out of the blue, there was a loud dinosaur roar, and he ran out of the room screaming with his hands over his ears, poor Hyrum. Alysha’s favourite part was finding the butterflies, there were so many different colours, after we had finished exploring we went out to the courtyard for afternoon tea and the kids treated us to a ‘show’ on a rock. Alysha can turn anything into a stage she just loves to perform.
When we got home we turn our kitchen into a pizza restaurant and the kids had lots of fun making their own pizzas, it was very funny how we all have our own ways of how we like to make our pizza, but even though they were all different, they where all very yummy, home made pizzas are differently the best.
We received news yesterday that our family had been extended with the arrival of Amberlee’s new baby girl. It was hard being so far from my family at this time as I really would have wanted to be there for support. Anyway, I guess that now makes me Great Aunty Anna :-)
There has been a noticeable change in the weather this week. It has been colder, jumper weather outside, and a couple of days this week it was grey and raining. But it is still reasonably mild and today was sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and the next week is supposed to be sunny, with highs of around 20 degrees.
As we are currently without Sunday callings at church, we have joined a Family History course together during Sunday School time. We are both beginners, with a desire to understand how to do more of the ‘searching and finding’ of our family history. We invested some time during the week on the new.familysearch.org website linking together what we had done previously. Though as far as we can tell, this is really just a repository, and to ‘find’ lost ancestors we need to use something like ancestry.com. Has anyone used this program? Are there any others that are recommended? (Most of our ancestors are from New Zealand, Australia and the UK) we are both excited about doing family history together, I want to try and add photos in to where I can find them.
Until next time
Cute moments
Gracie new phrase this week is “I’m sorry Mummy” she has been saying this all the time this week before we ever does anything wrong - very cute.
Below is our new home in Perth ;) we live in Mount Lawley, its a really nice area to live in.
action packed week as always! loved reading all about it xo
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