Meet Bridget!

Bridget joined our family on August 21st, which also happened to be her due date (she is one of the elite 5% of babies who are born on their due dates). Way to be punctual! She was 7 lbs 9 oz. Perfect!


The kids loved coming to visit mommy and their new baby sister in the hospital!


She is such a good baby! A big time sleeper, so we get excited when she decides to be awake for a bit.


We were soooo lucky to have Mike's older sister, Shera, come join us from Idaho for a week. I was spoiled rotten and the kids just loved her! We all hated to see her go, but I'm feeling great and it's time to get back to real life with our 4 children! 4! I love it! We're all so glad Bridget is here!

Neighborhood wildlife

Last week Evelyn and I got up close and personal to a bit of Aussie wildlife. She and I were walking home from dropping the big kids off at school when we saw a ring tailed possum in our neighbor's driveway. So we stopped and watched it happily amble around.




Another couple was walking down the street and said it was a baby. The lady decided she would wrap it up in her "jumper" (her jacket) and take it to the vet down the street. I offered to get her a throw-away towel, happy to run in the house to grab the camera too. So she gathered it up and we got to pet it!




I wish I'd gotten a picture of the neat prehensile tail. It was wound so tightly around my finger. Too cool! What a fun morning!
Today was a holiday! And since it's gotten so lovely and warm we decided to let the kids splash around the man made beach at South Bank. It is amazing how kids can be absolutely oblivious to temperature. That water was freezing and yet tons of kids were thrilled to be there. Mike and I were happy to just get our feet wet.








I love seeing our kids work together. They were trying to build a little pool with walls. It didn't work out so well, but they were having fun.




Here we are eating lunch while the kids dried off in the sun. One more week til this baby's due date!

Bowling balls, volley ball, and a basket ball

Here's a couple happenings of the last couple weeks. Evelyn is potty trained! Yippee! To celebrate her success we went bowling! Yup, Australian bowling alleys are just as classy as American bowling alleys. We had a great time!




The kids even got in on some black light excitement!




On Saturday morning we went down to the docks to see the American aircraft carrier, U.S.S. George Washington, that had stopped in Brisbane on its way back to the States. That is a big ship! We could see the jets parked on top.




We walked along the beach




And found lots of little shells...




And a dead puffer fish! Crazy! I know it's a terrible picture, but this thing was about the size of a volley ball!




And the latest baby bump picture. Almost 38 weeks!




We took a tour of the hospital with the kids and they loved it! They got to see some super tiny premie babies, as the nursery is only used for special cases. The hospital is nice, similar to any other hospital, except here mums stay for 4 days! We'll see how long I can stand it. I may be begging my doctor to let me go home. Or maybe I'll enjoy the stay and Mike will be begging me to come home! Ha!