Kitchen fun!

The girls have been wanting to help more and more around the house. Stuff like cleaning, sweeping, feeding the dogs, vacuuming, washing the windows, cooking etc.

Now you need to know that this is a good thing but it also has its drawbacks!

It's good because they're learning new things and learning about helping etc.

Bad because it takes so long for them to do some of these things and sometimes the outcome is messier than it was before.

It's a toss-up I suppose and it all depends upon time and our patience.

Now for their 2nd birthday Henry and Karen bought the girls a learning tower. This great piece of furniture allows the girls to get at counter height so that they can see what we're cooking as well as help in anyway that they can. It's a lot of fun for them and keeps them safe as they watch.

So, keeping their new found sense of eagerness and independence in mind we gave them plastic knives to "assist" in the veggie prep for dinner and other cooking stuff. Yes, they're helping cut the veggies, cheese, salad stuff, anything that is able to be cut with a plastic knife for dinner. 

The benefits of this has been two-fold. Firstly, it's the independence skill thing and secondly, they're eating the veggies as they cut them which has been fantastic (even raw zucchini!) and other stuff they help prepare

Here are some piccies.

First, making OJ with daddy. Yes, our orange tree kicked in massively and we have an excess of oranges (and as a result - OJ!)

Syd is helping first. Look at that determination! Kendall is learning patience and not too happy about it.

Making sure the job is done right...

Pressing it down hard to get the maximum juice out of an already juicy orange! (oh, sidenote: orange is pronounce "on-ag" by the girls - the "g" is like in giraffe not garage)

 Kendall is also as determined.

 Kendall is so focused but Syd found the bowl that they used previously to make the cupcakes with.

 

Hooking in with the wooden spoons. Mmmmm...cupcake batter! Yep, she's taking after her mummy.

 Here they are helping with the salad and veggies.

 Carrots, lettuce - all is fair in salad prep!

 Please note that Kendall has now got the concept of holding the knife the right way - sharp side down!

 Kendall is still a dribbler. She just concentrates so much and forgets to swallow. I'm not what the neoghbours think when they hear us say to her "Swallow Kendall and wipe your chin!"

 I'm looking forward to the new house where the layout of the kitchen will be better for the kids to help out with us both and keep on going with the food prep!

It's catch up time with our Aussie Day party!

I hate January. It always goes by so quickly and is so very, very hectic in the Kulhan household with the business taking front and centre with tax reporting stuff and deadline stuff etc. I am absolutely disappointed that my birthday falls in January because I feel that I don't have a lot of time to enjoy it and that it is so soon after Christmas and New Year.

Anyway, the reason that I am blogging now is that I finally am having a chance to do so as I am almost (and I mean almost) caught up with everything and breathe again.

It has been a horrible couple of months healthwise. Syd has been sick several times - seriously twice - and Kendall - seriously once - so it has been rough. The Dr thinks that Syd may develop asthma as she seems to tbe the one that gets sick first and hard too.

Anyway, back to being caught up. So now I have a huge amount of piccies and things to post about and I don't know exactly where to start so I will start with the Australia Day party that we hosted yesterday.

So here is the low-down...

Now you may be asking - Is this the first Australia Day party that we've held since we've been in the USA? That's correct and the reason is because in Vegas, our house was too small to hold a party just inside. And Vegas in January means being inside for any festivities as the weather is not exactly pleasant (or predictable!). Also we never had any room for a jumpy castle to amuse the kids (in summer we had the pool for the kiddoes to play in but winter? Nothing...)

So, in this house we have the room for a jumpy castle and of course, the weather is splendiferous in winter and it is so easy to have the doors and windows open with the kiddoes running around in and out.

So I spent three days (in between work and kids) baking Anzac bikkies, Chocolate crackles, lamingtons, butterfly cakes and sausage rolls for 30 people. I was a little stressed but in the end I was really pleased how it all turned out. Oh and everyone loved the food except for the samples of vegemite that I gave. One friend referred to it as "burnt dirt"! Oh well, to each their own.

So here are some pics...

Here is some quick piccies of the banner and stuff that I bought and hung up. UNfortunately I didn't take them during the day so they're a little dark - sorry!

My first batch of lamingtons. So time consuming but oh, so tasty!

 The finished look - with mini Aussie flags and all...

 Now I did try and get a full pic of the tablescape but the kids kept running in and out and grabbing at the food and for some reason I couldn't get a good pic (see the blonde hair at the bottom? She already had her plate half full and we had to beg her to put her selection back so we could take these pics!)

 The butterfly cakes and the Anzac bikkies to take home. I also bought some Aussie lollies for the kids to try (minties, redskins, milk bottles, pineapples, clinkers). Everything went except for the redskins - they couldn't quite understand how to eat them.

 Had to get the green and gold in!

 Some of the sausage rolls. I'm kinda glad that there weren't any Aussies here as I'm still perfecting my recipe. I think I'm going to have to grind the pork as the sausage mince is very salty and that puts the mix off right from the get-go. But they were still tasty - just not the same tastiness that the local bakeries manage to attain back home everyday. We did think about doing meat pies but again, so labor intensive with the facilities (think a two-pie maker) that we have.

  We served sausage sangas but again the sausages weren't the right ones but the onions were cooked just right! See the vegemite tubes I handed out to the guests? I cannot believe that only two littlies and two adults appreciate the black gold that Aussie kids grow up on!

 A pasta salad and some stewed beef on rolls rounded out the savoury portion of the meal. See the Aussie BBQ sauce next to the crockpot? Well the sauce got rave reviews and was all gone by the end of the night. Lucky I bought 3 bottles!

 The backyard with the jumpy castle after the meal.

 That's Storm in the blue shirt/white shorts following Amber (out new editor) into the house. Amy (red hair on the couch) is leaving to move to Austin the same month that we are leaving here so we're thinking about having a combined good-bye party - jumpy castle and all!

 The girls wearing their Aussie shirts. (Syd did not want to pose)

 Yes, that's me on the jumpy castle. I had to do it. It was so much fun! (Mind you I am soooo suffering right now. My back, knees and neck are hurting not to mention the head bash that Kendall and I shared - that didn't seem to bother her at all!).

Both girls had a blast playing on this. They couldn't stop giggling and enjoyed falling over and playing and jumping and generally enjoying being jostled around by the big kids. Kendall cried when we took her off it.

 A couple of mummy's - Lydia (holding the beer) would have been our neighbour had we built on the block of land. However, we may not have been friends considering that she extended onto her house so that she would have a much better view of the bay and if we had have built what we wanted to build, our house would have blocked her view completely. She says we would have thrown down over it. Oh well, at least we don't have to worry about that now.

 Rudy had a blast. Both Rudy and Oscar got a fair deal of attention from everyone which was so nice. There was one child who had a very bad experience when she was one (she's now two) and was terribly frightened of the dogs though. Our dogs didn't even pay attention to her but all they had to do was walk by her and she was practically hysterical with fear! I have often said that I'm glad that we brought the girls up around large dogs as teaching them to be aware that not all dogs are friendly will be easier than trying to teach them to overcome a fear of dogs.

 Here's Syd jumping on the castle all by herself. Having a blast.....

Storm playing with some of the kiddoes.

 Kendall before telling me that she doesn't want to get out.

I'm so happy that we had the party. It was such a beautiful day and we all had a such a great time. I wish that we could have had everyone here with us to share in the day but obviously that's just not possible. I look forward to next year's as in the new house we're going to have enough indoor space to hold a killer party!

Quick update

So, so, very sorry about my lack of updates on here. I still have so many photos to post but am so missing the time to do it.

Anyway, a major reason that I don't have time right now is that the girls have contracted RSV - Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

They came down with a cold (which is basically what RSV is) just before Christmas. Christmas Eve was a shocker with Sydney being unable to breathe well and waking up at 2.30am with a temp of 103 (which quickly came down to 100 with meds and the removal of clothing). She spent the night with us and wasn't exactly tripping the light fantastic the next morning but she seemed happy but tired. She fell asleep in my arms that day (several times) and went to bed early that night.

Christmas night brought Kendall into our bed with an elevated temp and general demeanor that wasn't her. She tossed and turned so much that night that I stayed awake trying to keep her from doing her (and us) harm on the bedhead and also on us. She didn't sleep well and also fell asleep in my arms the next day on a couple of differnt occassions.

Boxing day was spent inside with the girls seemingly happier. We bought a new humidifier but both girls were still coughing and having periodic wheezes.  One of the biggest issue is the snotty noses as they are driving everyone insane right now and basically Kendall is refusing to let anyone near her nose except for a blow every now and again.

Last night both girls woke up but I managed to get them both back to sleep again. Sotmr and I managed to get some sleep too which was nice. They also slept 2 1/2 hours today which they haven't done in a week or so.

I just thank our lucky stars that we were able to get the girls into the Dr today. Both were seen and tested positive for RSV. We have nebulizers and after a rather tedious time at the pharmacy (not the most efficient place to get your prescriptions filled and then I was going to be charged $235 per child for only one out of the three medicines that they needed). Fingers crossed we should be on the path to recovery soon.

It won't be smooth sailing though as we have a small issue with the nebulizer. It scares the living daylights out of the girls (especially Syd) and it killed me to have to force them to have the mask on their face. Syd had such a look of betrayal in her eyes when she looked at me once Storm let her go. I am trying to lessen the scaredy-ness of the mask though by explaining that the medicine is called elephant medicine (you know the mask is the trunk) and that we'll watch Elmo while we dispense the special medicine.

I hope this all works and these girls feel better soon. We're off on a plane next week and they need to be able to enjoy it. I want my girls back.

Will keep you posted. (Could probably do some posting as I'm up anyway - never sleep much or deeply when the girls are unwell).

In by the hair of my chinny chin chin...

Yes, we're off tomorrow on our next mini-vacay. We're all excited as it's finally cooler and we're going to see Christmas-sey stuff and events. Yes, 6.30pm tomorrow night is the Christmas parade with the Big Guy pulling up the rear before the 30 foot tree lighting ceremony afterwards. There's the marketplatz (yes, the town was founded by a large German community) to be discovered and other assorted experiences of fun, sights and sounds.

We're actually not staying in Fredericksburg as it was crazy expensive for what you got but instead will be staying in another town about 20 miles away (Kerrville). The drive will be around 3 hours from here and we plan to pick the girls up from school after lunch but before naptime. Sleeping in the car may not be the most comfortable for them but it's the best way to kill time on the trip. I'd prefer not to put the DVD player on. You know what I mean?

Anyway....

What I wanted to do was get the last mini-vacay piccies up before we left. I promised (well kinda sorta) so I want to follow up on that. What I didn't realize is that we have not pulled off any of the photos off the new camera since buying it and that was quite a while ago. It took it's time in downloading and boy do I have a bucketload of piccies! I'll post some random piccies soon as some of the pics involve events that I have already blogged about so it'll be a collective.

Sorry. I digress again...

So...New Braunfels.

Firstly, the reason for going? Storm misses sausages and sauerkraut so when we found out about Wurstfest it was on like donkey kong!
Secondly, it was a chance to get out and about and since (supposedly) the weather was going to be cooler and it was in the hill country we thought that it would be just downright lovely to get outta town!

Anyway, it turned out that the sausages and sauerkraut were ok (not necessarily fantastic) and it was a lot hotter than I had packed for.

But it was nice to get away and see something different. Anyway, to the photos (I know you're dying to see them...)

We got there late in the afternoon, light was fading and we just walked along the Guadalupe River in a park they have there. Saw lots of deer and played on the swings/slide trying to burn off energy before dinner. Dinner was at "Oma's Haus" where the decor and fare was fairly average.

The next morning we found out that Wurstfest was starting later in the morning and since we were meant to catch up with friends later that evening at Wurstfest we thought that we would hit the Christmas Shoppe at the Schlitterbahn water park and then go on the train in Lando Park.

You can imagine what is was like with 2.4 year old twins in a Christmas shoppe. It was all hands on deck! We only managed to get piccies once we got to their courtyard.

 This swing caused a multitude of issues as both girls wanted to sit by themselves and swing themselves and then of course, they didn't want to leave. Tears, drama, meltdowns. What fun!

 What a cute smile (again, before the tears!)

 We parked and thought that this was the way to the train (through Wurstfest) but oh, no. Luckily it was a lovely day and actually worked out well going through the day versus the night. We got a text from the friends that we were supposed to meet that night who told us it was crazy busy and since the girls weren't feeling that well (remember we were all affected by colds at that time) we wouldn't have ended up going that evening anyway.

So, we got a piccie taken by a guy in lederhausen!

 The hall where the food and drink was.

 The main hall where the drinking festivities were going to be held.

 The girls were tall enough to go on the carousel. Sydney was nervous at first but ended up loving it. Kendall was just thrilled by the whole thing!

 Eating the "Five sausage stick" in the entertainment tent. There was a huge oopma band (sorry don't know the right name) to the right of the picture playing at we ate.

 Kendall fascinated by the band.

 Syd just wanted to dance...

 The next morning we found the train around Lando Park.

 Ok, change of pace quickly. Here shows the view that we had from the train on one turn - yes, those are not crows - vultures! Huge.....

 Beautiful area with duckies.

 Later that day we caught up with friends in San Antonio. One of them brought a puppy. Syd went bananas over this cutie...

 She loved walking her. She was the right size.

 Very relaxing lunch in the park.

 Kendall loved walking the maltipoo that another friend brought with them. The girls so loved it as neither dog pulled them over (like Rudy and Oscar sometimes do)

So after this we got home to a very happy pair of puppies who could smell "those other dogs" on us. We had fun but I just wish we hadn't have been sniffling and coughing the entire time.

November was a really rough month for us (me and the girls) healthwise. Just plain ol' rotten. We're on the other side now though. Yay!

Fingers crossed that our trip away tomorrow will not take as long to blog about.