Deep into the second term at school and we welcome the falling leaves of autumn...

 It's Disco time at school! Leyla and Sarah in their colourful best ready to do some serious dancing.

 Some Serious Dancing.

 In the cooler side of town, La and her mates are gearing up for their turn. Fun afternoon out for everyone!

 The schedule of parties continues throughout the year and this weekend it was La going trampolining for Alyssa's birthday.

 An evening out for Jye's birthday down at a local pub - here's another L & J creation that was picked at by everyone who walked by (too tempting all those skittles!!)

 Someone for everyone.

 Jye with his little crew helping him celebrate.

 That's right girls, job's on - get raking!

 Oh well. Pick up the rakes again...

 Or not.

Hello Autumn. We love your cool colours.

It's always a treat when Mother's Day rolls around - most notably when I'm not made breakfast. Go ahead and make dinner by all means, but leave me and my muesli alone....

 A plethora of cards greeted me in the morning.

 Thoughtfully recognised for all my hard work...

 ...and doing a great job at it too.

 Art is Love.

 Thankfully!

 And my thoughtfully bought gifts - La was spot on with the Family Rules, glad that me being a broken record is sinking in!

Not a bad little sandwich to be in xx

Just a window into our world...

 Leyla trying on La's gymnastics gear trying to convince me to join her up.

 I think this was a teacher/student conference based on each other's performance. Elegantly handled and very diplomatic from the bits that I overheard.

 She looks sweet...

 We've been joining Lucho and Jill for a spot of tennis on Sunday morning. Mind, with this one above it's more like tennis disguised as chasing balls...

 La made it into her local district cross country and this year had to run an epic 3km and she came...

...17th overall! Well done La - champion effort!

We are always trying to come up with new and inventive ways to send our birthday love to different folks. Here's a little taste of the outtakes...

For something to do and for Sami to fly we spent part of the holidays down in Wollongong.

 Everyday we dropped Sami off at the launch site and we pottered about ourselves exploring, playing in the park, at the beach and going on hikes.

 We tramped the Werrong Walking Track down to Werrong Beach.

 It was infinitely easier going back up believe it or not, we had to scramble in some places and, as it turns out, it's a nudist beach as well. We kept our duds on though.

It's too hard to be at the launch site everyday and not have an ice cream at least once from the very persuasive Truck parked there permanently.

 We stayed at a neat and tidy, no frills "leisure" park which suited us perfectly. It had everything we needed and was a short walk from Fairy Meadow beach. The main attraction was the heated pool and spa that served as our pre-dinner activity every night.

 Board games. So much fighting fun.

 Spot the weirdo.

 Stanwell Park beach - it was still swimming weather according to La apparently.

Taking in some of the local sites that the girls and I had visited before with Ma Ma, Pa, Lou and the crew at different times. We showed Sami where Uncle Steve jumped out of a plane...

 ...where La jumped off Wattamolla cliff...

...and the serene beach in Bundeena. Great little break down the coast that coincided with some great flying weather for Sami. Job well done everyone!

We needed a break after Term 1 and the holidays came around just in time! First, fun and friends...

 We accidentally had a fun day. We went to collect La from Sienna's house after a sleepover and found no one at home. Linda directed us down the park and we realised that there was a super fun (and free!) colour run on for Youth Week and so we jumped right in.

 The start of the run where all the kids did multiple laps to get multiply covered in colour dust.

 Even though Leyla came unprepared in thongs and a nice shirt, she ran as though there was a sheep station involved and thoroughly enjoyed herself. As an aside for anyone interested, the shirt washed out as good as new surprisingly enough.

 There was free food and heaps of activities for the kids like drumming and tug of war - couldn't have had a more fun day....by accident!

 Lucho came to hang out with us one of the days so we had a cafe stop while we were out and about running errands.

There's always a few extra faces floating about during the holidays - anything to keep these folks occupied suits me. Stay tuned for Part 2...