soccer 2013

Well we are almost at the end of our busiest soccer season yet.

This year all six of our children played and the three oldest also refereed.

Most weeks the only day that didn't involve soccer was on Sunday.

B2 was the busiest, not only did he play with the under 16's on Friday night he also played Reserve Grade and sometimes 2nd grade, as well as benching for first grade on a couple of occasions, not to mention refereeing on Saturday mornings.

This also meant two nights of training every week.

We are extremely proud of how well he has done this year.

His team were minor premiers, but unfortunately lost both semi finals.

They still have one game left to play as minor premiers, they play in the Champions of Champions match against a team from the other part of the region.

 Here he in playing reserve grade.

B3's team also made the semi finals, they won the first game, but lost the second in a very close game that went to extra time.

We have been very impressed with how well he has played this year and really seeing him become an essential part of the team, his coaches have commented several times on how much he has improved.

 Here is B5 playing his last game, he was on the field here, but spent a lot of time as goalie this year, doing a magnificent job, so we may well see him take this position more in the future.

 The girl playing here, has just finished her last year in small sided soccer and is looking forward to graduating to a big field next year, with real goals.

In this game she managed to score 4 goals!

Must have been the power of Mum sitting there taking photos!

I wanted to get photos of all the kids playing but due to having to swap with B1 one week as he had to be at the field for a meeting I missed out on getting any of B4.

B1 went back to playing soccer this year after a 3 year break and played seniors, his team were minor premiers as well but lost in the semi finals as well.

B1 has not quite finished his soccer season yet, because he gets to referee the under 16's grand final on Friday night, this only became possible because his brother's team lost, if they had won he would not have been allowed to do it.

B2 also has a sideline on a grand final.

When they referee grand finals they also receive a medallion as a memento of the occasion and the announcements are made at the presentation dinner- academy award style, so it is quite a privilege to be chosen.

I am sure we will never have another year of soccer like this year, 

which I am extremely grateful for, 

but now that it is almost over I think I did very well not to collapse of soccer overload 

and looking back have quite enjoyed watching all my children play and cheer them on from the sidelines!

b3's first march

Sunday was Vietnam Veterans Day (formally known as Long Tan Day).

B3 as a member of the Army Cadets was required to attend the march and ceremony.

 His cadet unit.

 

Here is a close up of him marching.

 The ceremony was held at our Cenotaph which is by our river, 

the late afternoon sun gave a beautiful light to the ceremony.

After they were dismissed before walking back to the car.

an 102nd birthday celebration

 Not many people live to the ripe old age of 102.

This weekend we had the pleasure of celebrating VCH's grandmother's 102nd birthday.

 

When you get to 102 your birthday becomes a grand affair.

On Monday the aged care facility had a party for all the residents who have a birthday in July.

Friday saw a special morning tea for her- I couldn't make it but VCH went along and said she had them all in stitches- she is a very funny lady and has a keen sense of humour that is still going strong at 102!

Sunday- her actual birthday we headed off to a nearby village and had lunch at a historic pub that overlooks the river. 

With lots of family there it was a lovely time and the kids had a ball.

 All the great grandchildren that were there.

She now has 3 great great grandchildren, with the latest one arriving the day before her birthday!

 five brothers and one sister with Great Nana.

 Our Family

 VCH with his brother and sister

The Girl with Great Nana.

She told me Great Nana looks cute! 

Here are links to her 100th and 101st birthday parties.

easter highlights

Just a quick pop in with a few photos of our Easter highlights.

We had a very simple Easter this year, no baking, no Easter crafts, no making gifts.

We pared in back and kept to the bare minimum, 

because today we are having a birthday party at our place to celebrate our two oldest boys 16th and 18th birthdays.

I didn't want to over stress myself and wanted to keep everything simple, 

we have been busy finishing a few projects for our entertaining area and getting the kids kitchen finished and out of here!

I will be showing you our entertaining area soon, but first here is our Easter.

All photos are straight off the camera- I have no time for editing today!

 My one and only purchase for Easter this year was these two bunnies from Woolworths.

The Easter egg tree was easy to do, just a stick in a jug with sand and place eggs on it- 10 minutes!

I changed my blackboard trays to appropriate Easter messages and put our Easter Lambs here.

 The entry way has a quick scrabble message,

and my favourite lamb and some of the eggs I made last year.

 This was also the very last Easter Egg hunt with all our children.

Now that he is 18, B1 has been disqualified- we let him sneak one last one in, seeing his birthday was only last week.

We have been doing this egg hunt in our garden since we moved out here and have never had a problem with the eggs, this year we lost two eggs to the wildlife! 

Must be some chocolate loving bandicoots or something out there!

 We finally got around to curing our new pizza oven and enjoyed our first GF pizzas in it!

They were delicious with a lovely smokey flavour!

 Hope you all had a Happy Easter and remembered that Christ is Risen!

Will be back with some party highlights and some new projects to share!

a camp, a creek and a cake

On the weekend we enjoyed a camp at a canoe centre near our local area.

We had a wonderful weekend away enjoying the fellowship and company of people from our church as well as our sister church across the river.

We had  a ball, the kids had a ball.

On the Saturday afternoon the kids had fun trying out the kayaks and tubes in the creek.

This creek has suffered dramatically from the recent flood.

It is connected to the hydro-electric power station and they release excess water into the creek which create rapids that are used by the canoe centre.

Unfortunately the recent floods created a cave in in the tunnel that houses the release valve.

A lot of soil was also dumped from a nearby property, by the flooding into the creek, thankfully they have been able to remove most of this.

At the moment the canoe centre is in negotiations with the electricity supplier's insurance company to fix the problem, in the meantime they have lost thousands of dollars in income because there is no water running through the creek.

The kids were able to play in the training pool, but because of the flooding and the lack of flowing water it was quite muddy- not that the kids seemed to mind!

B1

B5

 B4

B3 after his paddle.

 The Girl, VCH and B2 chose to go to the nearby river for a swim.

Saturday was also a very special day B1 had his 18th birthday!

I was going to make a cake to take with us but ran out of butter, 

fortunately some others thought to provide a cake.

Happy 18th Birthday B1- can't believe that you are now an adult!

last week

I know another MIA week!

I am going to try getting up a bit earlier this week and make sure I fit in a post before breakfast.

Problem is that it is so dark now in the morning that it is hard to get up at 6am.

Anyway I thought I would share a couple of shots of happenings here over the last week.

 B2 celebrated his 16th birthday on Wednesday.

He requested a sponge for a birthday cake and I am very happy with the gluten free, sugar free cake I whipped up and will share the recipe later in the week.

 B3 came home with his army cadets uniform on Wednesday night.

He was supposed to get it a couple of weeks ago, but time prevented it happening, but he finally got it last week.

For those who tried guessing what my little sneak peak was-

it is a new outdoor kitchen.

There are just a couple of little things I want done and then I will show you all the details.

We worked on getting the area cleaned up and putting things in the cupboards and a couple of decorative things- see the chalkboard.

VCH enjoyed cooking Saturday night's BBQ up there.

 

The weekend also saw the end of an era when we ripped out the swings and cubby house.

The swing set was built by the previous owners so has probably been up there for 18 years or so.

We added our own cubby, removed from our previous house and connected it to the fort on the side of the swings with a bridge.

The children and their friends have spent many hours playing in there.

Unfortunately the timber on the swings was rotting and the swings themselves had seen better days.

 The cubby was also looking worse for where after the various renovations it had received from certain children mainly B1 and B4 over the years.

Now they have stopped playing in it, it was a good time to pull it down.

In the mean time I am looking for another swing set on Gumtree that the younger kids and visitors can use until they grow too big!

But as usual here at five brothers one sister we have plans for this space.

 Another job I was able to tackle was planting out this garden.

We have been waiting for some dry weather so that VCH could get some topsoil for the garden, 

thankfully with a bit of sunshine it was dry enough to collect.

I want to have an eclectic, redeemed, flower garden and I am using some bed-ends I found on the side of the road and a few other things to help me.

 Here is The Girl as we found her late yesterday afternoon.

Certainly an interesting sleeping position!

I will be back with some roadside finds and that sponge cake recipe to share later this week!

reorganising our home school

I have been reorganising the children's work spaces for the coming year.

I thought you might like to see them while they are all neat, tidy and fresh,

 as I can guarantee they won't stay like it!

 What used to be B3 and B4's desks have now become B5's and The Girl's.

I felt they needed to have a real work space this year and 

not just work on the little stools around the coffee table.

We don't have a dedicated home school room so these are all in our living room.

B3 has moved out into the study with B2, as B1 is now finished his Home Education.

We bought the desks and shelf and chairs at IKEA two years ago.

It all fits this wall space perfectly.

 The EXPEDIT shelf houses B5 and The Girl's school books as well as resources that I will be using with them.

 I have colour co-ordinated the children to within an inch of their life this year.

The Girl of course is pink.

The pink clipboard will hold her check list each week.

 

Here is B5's desk, pretty much the same as The Girl's except his things are all green.

The dining room is on the other side of this wall and you can see a glimpse of our kitchen in the background.

This is B4's new desk all set up and as you can see matches his school colour of blue.

The desk is in the corner near our fireplace.

 This bookshelf was moved from the corner where B4's desk now sits.

It is on the other side of the opening into the dining room, the bathroom entry is on the right.

My picture books were here, but I needed somewhere to put this shelf.

I was going to move it into the little boy's bedroom and take their bookshelf but decided against that idea and ended up pulling down the book rails and putting the books onto this shelf along with some of the group toys they still use, like the wooden blocks, musical instruments, playdough, and dress ups etc.

I have labelled the shelves, what goes where, with my label maker.

The books are grouped in either genres or in the case of some with authors.

We have a collection of Pamela Allen, Mem Fox and Eric Carle books.

I put the globes on the top.

Two are vintage and two are modern.

I would love to get some more old globes but they are hard to come by at a reasonable price.

So now that I have their work areas organised I will have to make sure I get some work organised for them to actually do when we start back,

 which won't be until we come back from our beach holiday!

I will be back to share how I organise our school work later in the week.

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