Maeby

Maeby took her hair out of her braids and thought she look great with crazy hair. She asked me to take pictures of her crazy hair so she could see herself. Every time I took a picture she had to look at it and laugh.

Maeby the purple nose Reindeer

The kids love making home-made pizza...especially Maeby because she gets to play with some of the left over dough. This is what happened when I turned my back to get the pizza out of the oven. She decided to sprinkle her pizza with some flour...Yummy!

Finger lick'n good!

Maeby fell asleep on the way home from church, walked in the house and crashed again on the chair.

Maeby taking a nap on the couch...I wish I was.

Attack of the Magpie's - Oct 4, 2009

Liam and the other kids wanted to save a baby magpie that had jumped out of the tree and could not fly yet. It was wandering around in the road and almost got hit by a car. There were adult magpies watching it from all directions. The little light colored one in the distance. During his first attempt, just as he picked up the baby it started squawking bloody murder. Then out of nowhere, he was attacked by 4 others all in a squawking fit. It was like a scene from Alfred Hitchcocks The Birds. He used the baby (which was the same size as the full grown ones really)to shield himself from the attack and eventually just threw it back to all the swarming birds. We were all laughing hysterically as Liam stood there contemplating another attempt, then suddenly, silently one swooped down and pecked him right on the head. Wished we could have got that all on video, it would have been a winner.

As he gets closer he is swooped multiple times.

He finally gets in with the purpose of sticking it up in a tree away from the road so it wont get run over.

So he throws into the nearest tree as he is attacked from all angles. Only the tree he chose was 4 feet tall and right next to the street. Notice the swooping attack, this is the best the crappy phone camera would do.

And there it rests, perched in the top of the tiny tree. Liam is so proud of himself for saving the birdie.

And this is all he has to show for his efforts. The freaking bird pecked right through his scalp and drew blood. Guess we should have just left the darned thing alone from the start. When the kids went to school the next day, they went to the tree to check on the baby bird and it was still there. Liam was so excited and told all his friends, but unfortunately the bird was not there at the end of the school day.

Yarrawonga Agricultural Show Oct 2009

We went to the "Yarrawonga Show", its like a county fair sort of thing. They do it every year in most of the country towns. The farmers bring out their best sheep and pigs and cows etc. There are cool pegging and jumping competitions with the horses, where they run their swords through the rings at full speed, and stab items on the ground etc. It was neat to watch. We got to walk through the show animals and pet them, or as the Aussies say, "give them a pat".

Watching the pegging team competitions.

We took some rides on the bumper cars, the boys loved it, only they kept going the wrong way and blocking up the traffic and the attendant had to go and turn them around so the other cars could go.

Here is Maeby and Willy trying to chase down Liam and Spencer.

Will went with Liam on this crazy spinning ride. Liam loved it, but Willy came out a different color.

 here they are on the upper left, Will is waving.

Now Will is pretending to throw up while Liam climbs out.

The classic '57 Chevy (I think) with the steering wheel on the Left side. Willy wanted this picture for his boss Gary and any other old US car enthusiasts.

It was raining pretty good most of the day, so we decided to walk all the way across the show grounds to the dog show that was being held in a tent where we could stay dry. Plus the advertisement mentioned show dogs and tricks etc. Sounded neat. Only thing we found to be weird was...there was only 2 dogs. All they did is walk around in a circle. One had 3 little puppies in tow, and the other looked like some mangy mutt.

Woof! Just kidding, the rain did a number on my hair.

The kids all got to play with the puppies after the show, that was the best part. This dog won first place.

The owner of the puppies invited the kids to carry them from the show to their stall in the petting zoo since it was raining. They felt really important.

We spent a bit of time in the petting zoo.

The calf totally started sucking on Liam's thumb, you should have seen his face. It was surprised terror, confusion, a look at me and dad for approval then straight to hysterical laughter once he realized what was going on. It was pretty freakin' funny.

The day took its toll on the kids.One thing worth mentioning is the ball pit. I took Maeby and Spencer though the fun house and through a deep ball pit filled with rock hard plastic balls. It was painful and miserable, but worse yet, when we got out, Maeby was missing a shoe! She is pretty attached to her shoe, so she was crying and freaking out. So Daddy came to the rescue and asked the owner if he could go in and look for the shoe. So he borrowed a shovel and went a'diggin. He was about to give up when he made one last dig in the slide area and came up with the prize. Maeby was sooooo happy. Willy was pretty mad about how hard the balls were too and his legs were all red from climbing around in there. Too bad we didn't get photos of the whole thing. At least Willy got to go through the fun house for free!