Living away from some of the things that we grew up with sucks.
Obviously we miss family and wish that we could see them much, much more but we also miss those basics that rock our boats. Now I do manage to buy a lot of aussie products from a company that imports them from Australia. Stuff such as vegemite, golden circle beetroot, copha, dessicated coconut, pascall's clinkers, black and gold's light christmas cake, praise mayonnaise, bundaberg ginger beer, eta barbeque sauce, yes the list goes on and on.
However, one of our fave things that we haven't bought is meat pies and sausage rolls. You have to pay for express shipping {as they are frozen and could potentially thaw} and can only buy them in bulk which works out to be around $6 per unit which is way too rich for our blood!
So Storm finally called it. We had bought a pie maker a while back but never used it. Storm made up a beef mixture and with a little puff pastry made himself some pies.
Yummm. The meat recipe needs a little tweaking according to Storm but now he's got the pastry down pat it's only a matter of time.
Look out Australia Day! We're gonna have a party at our place!
Kendall loves Oreos and is happy to eat them sitting up or lying down.
Sydney loves them too and enjoys her ration that she's allowed per day. Mmmmm...
But when those cookies are down it's time for some serious play with baby.
It's really hard to get them side by side and not fighting and looking in the same direction. This time I could - it just wasn't the direction I wanted it to be.
Galloping around the backyard on daddy's back is so much fun.
Now these piccies were taken a week or so ago in the frontyard.
I love these piccies of Kendall - she looks so pensive and serene.
Here is a piccie of the girls where they're actually not fighting. Go figure. Sydney is trying to comfort Kendall after something dramatic happened {goodness what it was as drama is a common occurrence with our girls!} It's nice to see them comforting eachother though.
Surprise, surprise! Kendall loving on Oscar.
Syd trying to do the same with Rudy.
Now I don't want you to think that I favour Kendall is any way because I seem to have more photos of her. It's just that she sits still for longer. Syd is so obsessed with wanting to look at the camera than being in the photo itself. I'm thinking bribery may be my only form of getting more photos of her. I guess I can always use oreos!
Can you guess who is one of our most favourite Disney character's in the Kulhan household?
Yes, we're rocking the Minnie...
Sydney, being oh, so beautiful.
Giggling girlies.
Kendall rocking the ears.
Kendall helping Syd get her ears back on.
Now it's important to note that we'll rock Minnie in the house only as long as there's no distractions.
And a major distraction is Bob the Squirrel! Bob is here attempting to jump into the fig tree to eat whatever fruit has managed to survive the heat. The problem is that Rudy and Oscar tend to irritate Bob a lot. The issue with Bob being irritated he gives death stares and has the potential to attack. I mean look how he was looking at me! He was ready to spring! The girls love Bob.
Back on point.
Rudy rocks Minnie... {not happily I might add but he still does!}
And so does Oscar {secretly I think he loved it! He really loves pink}
Anyway, because the character of the year is Minnie I've decided that we're going to make the girls room Minnie-esque and can make the changes to a fun, pink girlie room for the nine months we're planning on being here quite cheaply and non-permanently. I'm looking forward to it.
It's a shame as I was planning on mermaids but it really is a painting nightmare and a rather permanent one at that. We'll have fun with Minnie though.
I'm sure you've guessed by now that I'm not exactly loving the weather down here. So much so that we are planning on moving again next year (will know definitely in early January) as we cannot do another summer here - extreme weather or no extreme weather. Dogs included as Rudy is on another stretch of steroids with this skin thing.
Anyway, focus!
So the way that we have been coping with the heat is by spending a bit of time at the Texas State Aquarium. Be it touring the fishies and turtles or playing at the splash park we have managed to get the absolute most out of the yearly membership that we purchased.
The girls have really taken to loving turtles and otters. Imagine high pitched voices screaming in the high-pitchedness that 2 year old girls can bring - "Turtles mumma!", "Look ishie" {Look fishie}, "Beeerrr mumma!" {oh look mummy there's a bird!}, "Duh duh. Duh duh" {Shark in a Steven Spielberg way} and of course the dolphins. Now they don't say dolphin but do their best imitation of a dolphin laugh. Yes, if you didn't know them and just overheard them without any context doing this laugh you would honestly think that they need to go to the nuthouse.
So proud. But it's a great way to stay out of the heat.
Anyway, here are some piccies of them at the splash park. It's so good now that the big kids have gone back to school as it is a lot calmer now and a lot safer for the littlies.
Now it took a while for them to warm up to the whole thing but the other kids that we went with showed them the way. Keep in mind that I didn't want to get my camera wet so most of the piccies were taken from a dry area.
Getting a kick out of looking through the porthole on the trawler.
I felt really bad as Syd's swimming bottom's went through the dryer and the fabric stretched and this stretching was so exascerbated by the water and hung so tragically.
Such a cute butt covered up by such a saggy piece of clothing.
I know I am paranoid about the sun and I was already hung up about the fact that they refused a hat on the day. They're going to hate me when they grow up because of my sun phobia and that I'll insist on something practical over something pretty. I'm sorry but skin cancer runs on both of the families sides so these girls are fairly much doomed to some form of skin problems. Syd already has a freckle on her tummy (how I just do not know) and Kendall has one on her leg. I feel so bad as sun damage is sun damage be it a cancer or a freckle.
I knew going into it that having girls would inevitably make our lives more focused on clothes than it ever has before.
I honestly thought that I would have a bit more time. I thought 8 would be the starting age of being fashion consciousness. Little did I know.
First we start with dad's shorts...
Yes, Kendall is rocking out a "flashdance - flashback" onesie...Who needs more clothes?
Now on another occasion Kendall had to wear my scarf, headband, shoes. The only thing that is hers is the purple dollar-store princess skirt everywhere. I mean this skirt, shoes and headband ensemble has had a lot of wear.
Now Sydney loves sunnies of any sort and can be often found with a handbag of some sort. Any kind will do. I think that she had her dolly/baby in this one all night. BTW - She is wearing her pink dollar-store princess skirt.
I'm so glad that Storm's and my separate dream's that we had about having twin boys didn't come true. Right now I am rocking the girls!
P.S. Mind you - please ask me again about how happy I am to have girls when they're 15. I'm sure we'll be the most drama-filled house on the block. This is from experience of my own teenage years.
Yes, it's been a while.
The reason is that we're all worn out down here. Texas has been suffering this year with a terrible heatwave that has given us shockingly above normal temps. Friends of ours that live north of Dallas have had shocking loss of stock and between the brushfires and lakes drying up well, we're all ready for some respite.
So, when it came to the official first fay of autumn/fall on Thursday we were all hoping for cooler temps and so far have been bitterly disappointed.
This has been a very, very long summer for us and we're buggared. The humidity was as knackering as all who said it would be and even though we have coped with air conditioning we have not been happy.
So that is why I am completely unenthused about posting much. We've been taking the kids out (mostly to the aquarium) and running a whole bucket of errands each week that seems to be sucking our time. A new friend that I met down here has taken up a bit of my time too. Her husband took his life last month leaving her on her own with a 7 and a 5 year old and no means. It has been a really HUGE wake-up call for me as I could really relate to her. She was originally from Vegas (moved down here 3 years ago), an older mother and had no family here. She really welcomed me when we first met and I felt for her when this happened (well anyone would of course!). She found him and I cannot imagine what she see when she closes her eyes every night. She's moving back to Kansas this week (where her family lives) and I will miss her friendship.
One exciting thing about the next few months is that our little part of the world is starting to really come alive with festivals and fetes. We're planning a few trips around the area which will really rock. Fingers crossed that the weather cools and becomes more bearable so that we're not sweating buckets when we are outside for more than 5 minutes. I'm sure that those we knew in Vegas are quietly chuckling to themselves about our struggles with the humidity after our boastfulness about weather schemther! Who knew that we'd have such an issue?
Pray for rain and cooler weather please. Even my fig tree hasn't started bearing it's second harvest of fruit yet. (I think it needs the cooler temps to trigger the harvest).
Cannot wait.
