First visitors of the year

Agnes' sister and her family arrived in Perth 3 weeks ago... and more than half of what was their luggage were things for us! Oh, we were so blessed and our lives have not been the same since...

Jacynth and her cousin, Kate, quickly bonded.

We went down south to experience a farm stay and on the way, we stopped by Fremantle, Spudshed (to get our barbeque supplies), Sugarloaf Rock and Canal Rocks...

And then the farm stay experience began. 

the must-have barbeque...

... while Jacynth tried out her new walker

pony ride...

feeding the animals...

making sure Jacynth didn't put the chick into her mouth...

picking fresh eggs from the pen...

(and cooking them... while the kids enjoyed the Tinker Bell DVD we loaned)

tractor ride around the 300 acres farm...

just enjoying the fresh air...

and the experience would not have been complete without these friends around - field mice (a horror, really...)!

While down south, we also ate at the self proclaimed "Last Eating House before the Antarctic",

just lazing around...

and took the tram ride on the 2km Busselton Jetty to the Underwater Observatory.

It's a wonder how we survived the trip with our little horrendous non-sleeper! :)

Lunch with Eu Chung...

We finally met Eu Chung for lunch (after many months of planning!) end of last month. We went to Mama Kopitiam again but this time we were a little disappointed by a staff that was pretty rude. Nonetheless, we had a good time of catching up...

Dark eyes from no morning nap...

wrestling with daddy... 

On the way home, she actually fell asleep in the car! Now, that hasn't happened since she was a wee thing - she used to just scream and yell in crankiness when she's tired. 

The next day, she did it again on the way home from church.

We call it a breakthrough! ;)

Out at the patio

The hail-damaged roofing on our patio is finally fixed, just in time before the arrival of the rains in the winter. Meanwhile, we were able to enjoy our hot cross buns (and a few other meals since) out in the cooler autumn day over the long Easter weekend.

Since giving Jacynth solids was a messy business, it was wonderful to be able to do it outside... 

We also recently found out from Sheela that the fruits from one of the trees out in the garden are edible.. and are quite tasty too. It's like our jambu air (water guava). We have no idea what the name of the fruit is though.

Name of fruit updated:

Sheela: sygyzium (lilly pilly) - my students call them Chinese apples

Spider-baby!

Jacynth and Charis

Last week, Karen, Brendan and Charis visited Agnes and Jacynth and they spent some time at the park near our house.

While Agnes lamented to Karen about Jacynth's sleep problems and tried to get a few tips from the mother of two, the two babies were busy chomping on their teethers.

Meanwhile, 3 year old Brendan was enjoying himself at the playground...

Charis is about a month younger than Jacynth and the mothers are really excited for them to be good friends! :)

However, Jacynth tried to make it clear to us that she was starting to be wary of unfamiliar faces...

Well, we pray she will grow to be friendly and be willing to share her toys (hmmm, perhaps those that she hasn't mouthed...)!

Jacynth and the Easter Bunny

This year's Palm Sunday Service was mainly prepared by and led by the youth, and as in recent Sundays, we have tried to get Jacynth to sleep for as late as possible so that we didn't have to try to get her to sleep in church (which usually fails anyway).

 She did have a little catnap though...

 Agnes and her former colleagues from the child care centre...

Jacynth and the Easter Bunny...

We headed home and put Jacynth down on the cot to sleep... she of course, had other ideas...