Jordan's 18th Birthday

On 28th Sep we celebrated Jordan's 18th birthday. I can't believe it has been 18 years since he was born into our family. I was reminiscing with him that his first word was 'ball'...anything round was a ball when he was little, so it is fitting that he is still obsessed with sport and balls.

We asked Jordan what we could do to celebrate his birthday for him and he said he just wanted to go to dinner with the family. He joked that none of his friends would be interested in the travel out to our house! Anyway, we had a nice night and now have to practice letting go...so hard to do after hanging onto them tightly for 18 years. We love you Jordy and are excited for what lies ahead for you!
At the restaurant...

Back home to open presents...

Josh is 15!

Josh turned 15 on 27 Jan. and he got to have Grandma Otterson help celebrate with him. Josh is such a lovely son and we are so lucky to have him in our family. He is always so grateful and cheerful and always caring about others.

To celebrate, we all went to see "Invictus" that evening, which is a great movie...about rugby of course!!

Catch up

1. Jordan turned 16. Thanks to all of you for cards/gifts. He had a nice day. Tara, Greg, Emma, Josh and Maya came over for lunch and then he had a celebration with the youth after the Bishop's Youth Discussion that night. Jordan also went for his learner's permit which he passed and is now driving me around...on actual roads! I am counting down the days until he can drive places without me. I just hope he is as excited to drive his brothers around as I am for him to.

2. We have just finished 2 weeks of school holidays. We had a house full of friends and various rooms not intended for sleeping in, became sleep areas. Bailey and Isabelle opted for the 'cubby house with playstation access' bedroom. They were quite irritated if anyone disturbed them.

Mitchell spent as much time as he could riding trail bikes with his friend Ryan.

Joshua, was at the river with friends for a lot of the time, hence no picture.

Jordan, Emma and Eloise (cousins) hung out in the hot tub (a little embarrassed when I brought the camera out).

I enjoyed my birthday with family and the boys promised to be nice to each other for the whole day! Best birthday gift ever.

Andrew was away for part of the holidays in Queensland and then in Singapore. Since arriving back he has had business visitors from Canada, so he has been pretty busy. After a week of spending late nights in the city, he invited Brad, his guest to come and stay with us. We hosted an office BBQ in his honour last Sunday night and then Brad stayed with us until Thursday morning. Tara and Greg and Greg's parent's visiting from the US are coming to stay with us this coming Sunday for 3 nights.

Never an empty house!

Our other news is that we finally sold our house in Emu Plains. We put it to auction and after the brilliant work of a smooth talking auctioneer, we came away with nearly the price we had wanted. Very lucky to get what we did though considering the economy at the moment. There is no cooling off period for an auction so we can look forward to settlement on 24th Nov without the fear of it falling through again. I'm so glad that is over. Now we can furnish our new house and start on the gardens.

On the weight loss front.. I have lost 3kg or about 7lbs. since my last blog. Still a few to go, but I have been running and walking more, eating less. Nothing like Summer approaching to get you motivated. Still a way off from feeling good in swimmers (does that ever occur ??), but feeling more positive. Jordan gave me a Nike +ipod attachment as a gift so I can check how far I have run and how many calories burned and it is a real motivator too. http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/

Finally, reluctant to mention football AGAIN but the boys had their end of year presentation and Mitchell was awarded a trophy for'Best back' and Josh was awarded one for 'Best Forward'. Both of them were awarded Club jackets and a certificate for playing 100 club games (awarded after 7yrs) this year. Bailey will be awarded this next year. Both older boys also got a second trophy for being grand finalists. They were happy. I am happy to be enjoying the off-season.

Bailey now plays touch football on Monday afternoons at Hawkesbury Uni, Joshua is running with me 3 mornings a week during seminary time and I take Mitchell and a friend to Penrith on Wednesday nights to do a boxing/cardio class.

Jordan runs on his own. We can't keep up with him.

Another Teenager!

As most of you know, Joshua turned 13 on Jan 27th. He had a really nice birthday (so he tells me), and was able to have the company of Thomas, his cousin from Melbourne and their family with us for a few days. Josh flew down to Melbourne on Jan 16th and stayed a week with Thomas, before travelling back to Sydney with their family on the 24th Jan.

He had a great week and I was glad he had the opportunity to challenge his independence.

He is now officially a teenager, although he is so tall, he seems older than he is. Josh has grown so much in the past year and now is the same height as me... or maybe even taller!

Mitchell was uninpressed with Josh's demonstration of how much he has grown compared to him. Mitchell still has 14 months to get there!