September Happenings...

Warning...long post ahead!

Here's a run down of what we've been up to in the last few weeks

4th of September
We took the train to Perth with Annette to check out a wedding dress she liked. Mum and Ingrid and kids were going to come along, but they ended up catching a train back to Armadale because Ingrid wasn't feeling well. The dress was beautiful, but she's found a different one since and it's even more stunning! We had a great day out - as you can see, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. By the way, she's asked me to be her maid of honour with Tineke and Renee as bridesmaids - should be fun!

My little boy all rosy cheeked after his sleep

Every time I tried getting a photo of Devon
smiling, he'd turn his head away and pull some silly face

Yay! Finally a normal one :-)

8th of September
We helped Isaac celebrate his 3rd birthday at his party in the park. Eric had to come up for a work conference and it happened to be in the same week as Isaac's birthday, so Sonja decided to come up as well and have his party with family and friends in Perth. 5 cheeky 3 year olds Kiera Huizinga, birthday boy Isaac Dobbe,
Toby Kleyn, Olivia and Ashlyn Dobbe

Devon and Megan (from Jeremy and Emily) are in
awe of Amaya (from Eric and Sonja) - "wow, she can sit!"

Our two little water rats.
This was the first time he went in the big bath with Olivia; I usually bath him in the laundry trough, and he just goes psycho, arms and legs go everywhere and most of the water ends up on the floor and over me - entertainment every time :-)

Rod surprised me with these one day after work
sweet hey :-)

23rd of September

exploring outside on a lovely spring day

watch him go!

25th - 28th of September

The last weekend in September was a long one so we decided to head down to Albany and see how Rod's parents were doing - his Dad recently had a hip replacement. It was good to catch up with the rest of the family and other friends too. Rod got to go fishing (and caught two queenies!) and play golf so he was a happy man :-) The kids were good little travellers, Devon just wasn't such a good sleeper while we were in Albany...but hey, Pop and Nanna loved seeing them both again, so it was all worth it! Good morning my gorgeous little poppets :-)

Rod with gorgous Sienna from Darry and Kara

Sister-in-laws Kara, Leonie and Viv and Mum sorting stuff out
for Mike and Kaffa's wedding book for the night party

Fritz taking self portraits of him, Viv and Samuel

At the Dome for brekky on Monday morning...can you
believe that we were there at 7:30, thanks to our little alarm clock
Devon. He thought 5:30 was a good time to get up all weekend!

watch out for the tea spray!

Fields of gold - all the canola is in bloom and it
just so beautiful!

Love is in the air

Still a big congratulations to these two lovebirds who got engaged on Friday the 21st of August!!!
(Who knows what their wedding photos are going to look like...if you know Justin, you'll know what I mean)


oh, Charlene needed some attention too ;-) so she got herself her nice young man by the name of Willem Hofsink, who is here from South Africa for a year (well, he goes back in November...) What a multicultural family we have!

Look who's had a hair cut! Yep, I thought it was time to get Devon's hair a bit tidied up so off to the hairdresser we went! He was a very good boy, just sat there and sucked on the cape as you can see. Before..

During...

After...yep, it still stands up at the back :-)

Look what Devon has learnt to do...

Hasn't he got the cutest little giggle! I love the way Devon responds to Olivia - he's always got a smile for her and his eyes light up as soon as he hears or sees her.

Just a few pics...

Devon with cousin Anya - she's catching up to
him length wise! They're both 4 months here


Olivia, Courtney and Devon

And here's Olivia with a very creative hairdo. She came marching into the kitchen the other day stating that that's how she was going to have it for Aunty Kaffa's wedding :-)

Leonie and kids came up to Perth for a few days this past week and before they came, she organised to catch up with some of us. So today we had morning coffee at McDonald's in Armadale - they have a McCafe there, so yummy hot chocolate for me and there's also toys for the kids to play on.

Olivia, Leonie with Zachary, Sarah, Evette with Corey,
Kaffa and Lauren (from Leonie)

Olivia with her cousins Hannah and Lauren
By the way, Olivia is going to be flower girl with Hannah for
Mike and Kaffa's wedding in December - pretty exciting!

Zachary (from Leonie)

Tegan (from Evette)

Ok, so you're probably wondering what have we been up to the last couple of months?! Well, here's a picture post to give you some idea :-)

We've been to Albany for Mike and Kathryn's engagement party... (May 9)

Rod catching up with his cousins Ashley and Jeremy

Heidi, Rose with (Sienna) and Kaffa (not sure why she's pulling that face!)

We also witnessed the baptism of "Sienna Lee", daughter of Darryl and Kara (Rod's oldest brother); they also have two sons - Ethan and Noah

This is the view I had on Monday morning from our bed! Nothing beats CWA cottages for accomodation

Olivia helping Nanna butter sandwiches for lunch

Annette coloured my hair...not that it turned out that special, but hey, we had fun :-)Doing something constructive while waiting for it to set

before we put the streaks in...should've just left it like this I reckon - I want
to go darker...

We've planted a new veggie garden...

We've been to the zoo! First time for Olivia and she loved every minute.

We took the train and the ferry there which was fun and lots of walking!

Saw Trisha the elephant go for her daily walk

YAY! Orangutans! Olivia couldn't wait to see them! She had been talking about orangutans for a while even before we thought about going to the zoo (not sure where she saw them), and well, I think they lived up to her expectations because she thought they were hilarious. They were doing roley poleys in a hesian bag and all sorts of cool tricks which was pretty funny to see. Well, Olivia couldn't stop talking about them when we got home - she would tell anyone who listened long enough all about the orangutans.

"Hilarious" - her latest saying


We've celebrated Elisa's 1st birthday
my cute little niece Anya

Courtney and Olivia enjoying the party

And of course I've been taking lots of photos of Devon and Olivia

Here's a little video clip of Devon 'talking' to Olivia - so cute :-)

Tribute to the ute

Mmm, my efforts to keep this blog up to date have been a bit poor...It's not that I've been extra busy really. When I am on the computer, I spend all my time checking out other people's blogs and facebook thingies that I don't get around to my own :-)

Anyway, we've been in mourning here for the last week.

Reason? We sold the ute last Friday night :-(

I mean we are talking about the ute here. It had a lot of sentimental value to us. We spent a lot of time together in that ute, driving, parking, talking, kissing, cuddling etc. I remember the first time I went for a drive in it with Rod. It was in Albany and we weren't going out yet. A whole heap of us had come back late from a day out 4WD at the beach, and my car wasn't at the place where we all had met, so Rod offered to bring me to my car. Anyway, he ended up just taking me for a bit of a drive first with 'Kryptonite' playing at a million decibels. It was the start of many more drives and many more great memories.

So, after owning it for 10 years (pretty much to the date) it was time to let it go. We don't all fit in it anymore so it's really no good to us for when we go down to Albany or on holidays. We could've kept it and then have the patrol wagon as 'my' car, but it really isn't much fun driving a car like that around town for shopping and the like. So, as hard as it was, it was time to sell it.

Mud bashing, camping and 4WD with the ute

And this is our new rig and Rod's new toy, a Patrol wagon!