Friday, November 13, 2009


Little Isabella turned 1 last weekend. Her and Madi have lots of fun together and she is turning into a real little personality plus. She still loves to run the show and insists on being as close as possible to Rob & Nid when they are around. I only get a look in when they are far away!

And our darling Mitch turned 19 on the 2nd. It's hard to imagine where the time has gone. We celebrated at the RSL club for dinner with the family. YUM!

While Madi and I were away in Canberra at a Girl Guides outing (see story below) Paul was busy pottering in the garden and making a new friend. This lovely girl wandered up the driveway and she ended up staying with us for 2 weeks while we searched unsuccessfully for her owners. She has now found a new home with people who will love her and spoil her.

The Girl Guides fun days are always busy (and tiring for us adults that try to keep up with the girls, lol) This one had a space and science flavour so the girls did lots of science experiments and played games,did crafts etc. It was held in Canberra in a lovely park and we both enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Since then we have been busy changing rooms around and throwing out lots in an effort to downsize. Pretty interesting stuff..........

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Breakfast on the Bridge

Ryan, Jackie & Madi looked extra special in their rain ponchos!
It was Pam's birthday this weekend and Madi chose her this very groovy cake, complete with sparklers and fresh cream!


As a special birthday surprise we made Pam and Mike get up at 4am and travel with us into the city to have breakfast with 6000 other people on the Harbour Bridge! It was a truly wonderful experience. They lay turf the whole length of the bridge and we laid out our picnic blanket and breakfasted as the sun rose. We had a packed a lovely breakie of french bread, cream cheese and smoked salmon, yogurt and strawberries, rockmelon and kiwifruit and apple and guava juice (Madi's new fav) but we needn't have bothered as we were plied with fresh bread, pots of rasberry jam, yogurts, apples and hats to ward off the sun. What a memorable day!






After Pam, Paul and I headed off to the Observatory which kept Madi amused for over an hour and then in the predicted downpour walked to Darling Harbour to meet Ryan and Jackie for lunch. It wsn't quite the ambience we had hoped for as it bucketed down, putting paid to our planned lunch on the Harbour with Dragon Boat racing to watch, however we made the best of it and still enjoyed our outing.



Pony Camp & a visit from our biggest child

This school holidays was a difficult one as I wasn't able to take any time off from work. So we improvised with some girly time with Nanny in the first week complete with painted fingernails and massages in the massage chair as well as several "must watch" DVDs. The second week Madi spent 4 days at Pony Camp and as you can see, she had a ball! She rode the same pony all week (Cricket) and had to feed her, groom her and even pick up her poo! They learnt all about different types of horses and watched the farrier do their teeth and hooves as well as numerous riding lessons. Madi starts back at her weekly lessons this week and can't wait.

We also had a surprise visit from our big child which was so great! It was lovely having my family together and spending some down time with Ryan. He and Juby really hit it off! What a lovely relaxing weekend!

Since then it has been back to the grindstone - full time at work, mowing and weeding in the garden (which is starting to look fabulous! I'll take some photos later today), moving furniture and spring cleaning and a weekend in Sydney which I'll blog about later today also. Busy, busy........

Friday, October 9, 2009

so I'm not that great at blogging.....


Okay, so it appears that I am not that good at blogging! I'll try to make up for that with a quick summary of our last few weeks.........
The end of August saw us head off to Sydney for Hasam El Masri's last home game for Paul's beloved Bulldogs team. We met up with some friends and Madi and Tynan had heaps of fun getting their faces painted, jumping on the jumping castle and looking at the animals from the Zoo that were at the stadium. They try to make it really family oriented these days. Of course we stayed and went onto the field after the game and then back to the club for the presentations. Madi just loved meeting the players and having her photo taken with "Jackie's boyfriend", Jamal Idras. Family joke there........Jackie is actually Ryan's lovely girlfriend but we have teased her all year about liking Jamal.

We have also spent lots of time with Isabella, Rob & Nid. Isabella is such fun now that she is getting big.

Madi lost her two front teeth within a few days of one another and is patiently waiting for them to grow back. I can report that they are about to make an appearance. She also has another lot of "shark teeth" at the bottom with one tooth nearly fully grown behind and no sign of the other falling out. Unfortunately she also had her first filling at the age of 7 1/2. Only a tiny hole in a baby tooth but it needed fixing.

The highlight of our last few weeks has been a 5 day trip to Melbourne to see my beloved Nana. She is nearly 95 and expecting her first great, great grandchild. It was so great to spend time with my Nana and the rest of my beautiful family.
The other purpose to our trip was to finally see all the Ned Kelly highlights throughout Victoria. Madi has been obsessed with Ned Kelly for a long while now and knows more about his short life than most adults. This has led to improved internet searching skills as well as a leap in her reading ability! On our trip down we spent the day in Glenrowan exploring the town and where he was captured as well as the museum dedicated to Ned and a replica of the cottage he grew up in. Add to that a wild robotic version of events and Madi was in Ned Kelly heaven! The trip to Melbourne wasn't complete, however, without a visit to Old Melbourne Gaol where Ned was incarcerated and hung at the age of 25. It is a great place to visit - really spooky though. They have left intact the wing where they did the hanging as well as the beam and trapdoor. It also houses the death masks of all the prisoners hung there. This photo shows Madi holding a replica of the armour next to Ned Kelly's death mask. She was fascinated!



Late September saw Madi playing her last game of soccer for the season. We couldn't resist the funny photo! She has had heaps of fun with the boys and Jimmy was a great coach. We had a celebratory dinner at Emily & Todd's last Tuesday which was heaps of fun. The kids all get on so well.
On the Sunday of that weekend we met up with Tim, Kim and the kids in Canberra for brunch at Tilly's (YUM!!) and an afternoon at theNational Museum looking at Pahr Lap's heart, a whole bunch of old Hill's Hoists and playing with a computer program to make our home of the future. I think the kids all had fun! Remember when we used to swing around on those old metal clotheslines??? The kids these days don't have any where near as much fun as we did! A little shopping at the DFO topped the day off nicely.
Last weekend was very nasty weather so the gardening we had planned had to go on hold. Never mind - the ironing is all good! We took another trip down to Tilly's just to make sure that it was really as good as we thought the first time ................ yep all good! I tried the pancakes with berries and double cream this time.
This week has been Madi's first week of school holidays and since I have had to work Madi has been to Nanny's twice and spent the day with Susie, Amy and the kids on Wednesday. I took Thursday off and we went to the movies as well as indulged in a little retail therapy - yipeeeeeeee. Last night was a BBQ for my friends 40th and today is an engagement party this afternoon. And so it goes on....................Sorry for the almost point form catch up. I will try to do better next time!!













Sunday, August 23, 2009

a busy weekend!

It has been a busy weekend here in the Bayliss household and sadly I don't have any photos to go with it.............
Madi played soccer Saturday morning and we then picked up her friend for a playdate in the afternoon. Mum and Dad meanwhile were game enough to start cleaning out the garage. We had to send Madi in to get her to open the front doors as we couldn't get in at all (I kid you not!) Definately not before time that something happened in there! Saturday evening I took the girls to see Bandslam - one of those tweens type movies that they loved - home late after dropping Madi's friend home.
Sunday morning we decided to journey to Canberra for a bike ride. After picking Amy up (another of Madi's friends) we headed off and rode the 18kms around Lake Burley Griffin. This is a HUGE effort from Madi who until a couple of months ago refused to try to ride her bike at all without the training wheels!
This afternoon we popped into Poppy's for a visit with Isabella and a cuppa. Lots of fun as usual - Isabella is growing up WAY too fast!
The usual Sunday night bath, hair wash, ironing etc and now it is off to bed....................zzzzzzzzz

Tuesday, August 18, 2009