Relatively quiet...

The last fortnight seems to have gone by quickly, but relatively quietly...  Winter is definitely on its way, and we're all starting to feel the cold... Claire's switched to her winter uniform at school and is cute as a button in it...

Last weekend, daddy spent most of the weekend pruning a tree out the front of the house... On Saturday night we all headed over to Chloe and Amy's house for dinner... The group is rapidly growing up... Here's Lachie with his group of girls...

This weekend started with a lunch with daddy's school friends (which meant the girls were mostly ignored all morning)... The girls, making the most of it spent hours dancing and singing to Katy Perry and One Direction...  Here's a quick video of Keira's rendition of Katy...

In the evening, to do something just for the girls, we drove into town to see the Vivid Sydney exhibits.  Akira and Emika were also there, so the kids were very happy.

When we came across this exhibition, Claire immediately saw an opportunity to recreate a scene from one of her favourite movies (at the moment - Madagascar 3)...

Here's Claire and Akira posing at the Rocks...

You have to look closely in this photo, but it seems the lights really affected the kids!  This seems like a modern day Children of the Corn...

After getting home around 11, the whole family enjoyed a nice sleep in followed by scones for breakfast.  Afterwards while mummy and daddy cleaned up, the girls geeked out in their office...

And for lunch... yummy macarons made by mum's friend... Yum.

Camping at Cattai...

This past weekend, we took the girls out for another weekend out camping.  This time we went to Cattai National Park on the Hawkesbury River... And once again, it was a great weekend!

 Once again we spent the weekend with the Cocking's and Bastianon's... which meant the kids were roaming and playing non stop for the two days...

The smallest two of the group, Ellie and Keira...

The park was in full autumnal colours, and the kids took advantage of the growing piles of leaves...

Keira especially loved the idea of playing with the leaves...

Especially throwing them on daddy!

Saturday afternoon the kids found a family of kangaroos grazing nearby...

Sunday morning and we awoke to a rather cold foggy morning... Once again, kangaroos were in the field grazing while we got the fire going again...

Claire was the first awake in the morning (after a rough night feeling a bit sick)... So we explored a little before the others woke...  That said, when she first woke up, she insisted on going outside of the tent as she 'could hear the others talking'....

Once we got the fire going again, the kids all surfaced....

And the kangaroos continued to graze nearby...

The kids were getting hungry...its hard work enjoying a nice warm fire in the morning... Time to get the parents up for breakfast.

Happy campers...

Daddy got a lot of cuddles in the cold...

 As did mummy...especially as it was Mother's day!

After breakfast, to ensure they were fully ready to start the day, nothing better than a nice hot cup of coffee (or hot chocolate!)

Keira was very cosy in her PJs, ugg boots and hot chocolate...

Keira took some time to pose...

The kids all went for a ride in the back of the 4wd... 7 kids packed in the boot makes a lot of noise... and just to prove the point, have a look at the video after the photo.

Claire made sure she didn't miss her obligatory shot with Akira and Thomas...

 Keira had some practice playing badmington and was very impressed when she could hit it...

Claire took Thomas for a ride around the camp grounds...

Before finishing the weekend with a walk down to the river...

All in all it was our second great camping trip, and it looks like we've well and truly planted the camping bug in the kids!

Daddy's gonna take us to the zoo...today!

After our last visit to the zoo (which was a little wet), daddy promised the girls a trip again on a nice day... So this morning we headed out in the nice autumn weather for our second visit to Taronga.

As you can see, the girls were a little excited, running from the car park into the park as fast as they could manage.

In what is becoming a tradition, we hopped onto the sky safari to get an overview of the park before exploring... Keira was happy to see Sydney at the zoo!

Dad figured it was about time to get another photo with the girls.  Claire said that daddy has changed a lot since she was a baby...

 Here are some videos of the girls faces in the gondola.

And just our beautiful girls.

Here's a photo taken back in August 2010 at the Singapore Zoo...

And a similar one taken today at Taronga.  We think they are growing up quite nicely.

Here's Keira in a port-hole looking at the seals, and another to provide some scale.

The girls spent some time in the playground pretending to be monkeys!

Climbing monkeys.

Swinging and sliding...

Beautiful girls with a beautiful background...

Here are the girls doing their impersonation of Barbie (when she goes to Princess Charm School)...

Here's the scene they are trying to emulate (where Blaire learns poise and balance)...

And again their individual efforts (with a plant and a book)

After a quick stop for lunch, two very tired girls headed home with a very tired dad!