Happenings

Joe lost his first top tooth on Tuesday morning, while brushing his teeth before school.  It's the first top tooth lost in the tooth wars between Joe and Tom.  It is also Joe's third tooth lost, which now tied him with Tom.

Of course, Joe then lost his second top tooth on Friday morning, brushing his teeth before school.  He was very excited to be back in the lead.  He looks very different with his teeth missing.

Sam wanted me to take a picture of his teeth as well, since he is the only kid without a tooth picture.  So I did.

Tom also wanted his picture taken, but refused to smile or look happy for it.  Here's the best one.

Tom has managed to chew and break the buttons on three of his school shirts this week.  Now I have to find buttons to sew back onto his shirts.  As you can see in this picture, this shirt is missing it's top button.  By the end of the day, he'd chewed the other one off as well. 

I've been trying to expand some of my photography skills lately.  I wish my pictures could match what I see with my eyes, but they're never quite right.  I think with more knowledge, they could.  I took some night sky pictures and loved how this one turned out.  Our night sky has a lot less light pollution than Maryland and it's breath-taking on clear nights.
Here's my favorite.

I took this picture while standing in the yard by the side of our house and looking back up the hill behind our house.  Behind our house is a reserve so no houses or lights.  It was about eight o'clock when I took this picture and was full dark outside.  I think it turned out rather well.

And last, but not really least, we have adopted a new puppy.  Her name is Lacey.

She is 10 weeks old and is a yellow Labrador.  We did not adopt her just to be part of our family.  For several years, I have thought about training a dog for search and rescue, or to be a sniffer dog of some sort.  So that's the plan.  I am pretty nervous about actually doing this and it all starts in about 6 weeks.  She needs to be 16 weeks old before we can join the various training groups that we need to join in order to learn what we need to learn.  This was not a decision that we entered into lightly as we have two dogs we love back in the States.  There will have to be some adjustments made and some training on Domino and Jake's parts, but we hope it all works. 

The boys love her and can't wait to introduce her to Jake and Domino.  They've told Lacey all about the other dogs. 
For now, having a puppy is keeping me busy.  Lacey is doing fairly well on her house training, though the extremely rainy day yesterday set us back a bit. 

Bag of bits

full moon rising

Not much has been going on in our household lately. So I thought I would just give a bunch of random bits and pieces.

On the last day of our summer, 28th of February, we had quite a crazy lightning storm going on.  It was north of us and lasted for a few hours.  We could see it well from our house.  The biggest reason it was unique to me was the almost constant light from it.  The flashes so numerous and close together that it looked constant.

 This picture was taken at 10 pm.  It is typically full dark and there's never very much light across the water.  I posted more pictures of it on Facebook.  It was truly incredible to see. 

  March 1st was Jay's birthday as well as the first day of Autumn.  Our weather is a bit strange at the moment, but is fairly normal for this area.  It will be hot and sunny one day followed by colder and rainy the next. 

Last Saturday, we found a 4 foot goanna outside our house.  It was huge and really neat to see one up close.  It was scared of us and headed up at tree as soon as it saw us. 

I reorganized the kids' bookshelf.  It won't stay looking like this for long, though.  I had to do it in order to find Joe's missing library book.  There it was, right on the bookshelf...just like I said it was.  Joe couldn't believe that it was on there.  At least, I found it.
While cleaning the shelf, I pulled a few books out and read them to Sam.  We seem to end up reading the same books over and over again.  Of course, typically we let the kids pick the books, and they pick the same certain books again and again. 

One of the books that I chose to read is a favorite of mine.  My brother got this book for Joe for his birthday one year.  It's called "The Lost Thing" by Shaun Tan. 

Yes, I know the picture is turned wrong.  Will try to fix it later...

Jay went kayaking with Dave this week and I served them dinner afterwards.  I made homemade salsa and it was declared as some of the best ever.  This recipe is all my own.

3 medium to large, fresh ripe tomatoes, diced
1/2 of 1 green pepper (green capsicum), diced
1/2 of a large red onion, diced
 2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup finely diced fresh cilantro leaves (coriander leaves for the Aussies)
1 jalapeno, finely diced
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 cup tequila 
1/8 lime juice or lime juice cordial

Stir well and chill for at least an hour.  The tequila is optional as it is almost as good without it.

Like I said, not much going on here.  I get to go away scrapbooking for the weekend next weekend, and I am looking forward to it. 
Jay is currently looking for a motorcycle to buy.
Joe is swimming at school for sport every Friday.
Tom is busy scrapbooking right now.
Sam is managing to hurt himself in a variety of new ways.  He cut his top lip with scissors by accident yesterday and added a huge scratch to his face today.

Oh, and due to all the rain, flooding and cyclones that Australia's north has had, bananas are about $4.55 a pound!  No, we are not eating bananas right now.  Cripes, they're pricy.  Our bananas are usually more expensive here than in the states, but not by much.  We usually pay about $2 a kilo or $.90 a pound.