The Dower Family

What other kind of party would our sweet little pea want than a princess party of course!  Well, she asked for a Frozen party first but that was never going to pass muster with me.  I successfully negotiated to extend the theme to Princesses, Knights and Dragons to keep the boys happy and then got to work on another low key, laid back birthday party (ha ha ha!). This party was the first one we have had with a nice big yard so I crossed my fingers and hoped for good weather.  I wasn't disappointed, with one of those glorious winter days that aren't really that cold and with not a cloud in the sky. I took full advantage of the yard by setting up a bunch of carnival games to keep the guests entertained - feed the dragon (throwing beanbags through the mouth of a cut out dragon), crown toss (quoits with crowns instead of hoops) and knock em down cans.  I threw in a bit of craft with making crowns and tiaras out of gold pipe cleaners, colouring in, twirling ri...

Our baby is four.  How can this be? On the plus side though, she is no longer a threenager.  This past twelve months have been more than a little challenging.  I had fooled myself that epic battles of wills over hairstyles, skirt choices and high heels would not trouble me for a good decade.  How wrong I was. But amongst the crazy fashion feuds of the past year there have been oh so many wonderful times with this sweet, funny little girl.  Here are just some of the things we have enjoyed/endured with her as a three year old. - she is scared of storms, bees and the bell that the home ice cream man rings (no seriously, she is terrified of the home ice cream man. Absolutely petrified!) - when she holds my hand she lovingly strokes her thumb inside my palm. It's just the loveliest. - she shrugs her little shoulders, tilts her head to one side and squishes her sweet little face into a closed eye smile that melts my heart. - she has wacky ways of pron...

Our little terror of a threenager is going to be four in less than two weeks.  So it is party planning central around here. We are having a Princesses, Knights and Dragons party so Eve and I had a little photoshoot (and then a bit of a photoshop session) to make it look like she was having a playdate with a dragon pal. I think she just looks super gorgeous.  What do you think?

We are lucky enough to live on the bay.   I totally didn't appreciate what a magic part of the city this is before we moved here. Now we are here we just want to embrace having all this wonder right on our doorstep. Thankfully we have a great group of friends who just happen to have boats.  And beach houses! So the other week, in the middle of a Brisbane winter, we headed off to the gorgeous Moreton Island for the weekend.   The trip over was probably at the rough end of the scale and I may possibly have had a look of sheer terror on my face until we had passed through the bar.  After that I loosened my white knuckled grip on the children just the tiniest bit and enjoyed the rest of the ride.   With that behind us there was nothing else to do but let the littlies potter around, eat, drink and generally be merry. The next day our motley crew swelled in numbers as more friends from this neck of the woods boated over.  The kids sw...

We've had a pretty special visitor up here recently - Ol & Eve's great grandmother - Nick's Nanna. Nanna came up to spend a few weeks in the warm weather while Pa was visiting us (without Nanna Kaye though who was working hard in New York). Our littles thought it was just fantastic having their great nanna around and they really enjoyed spending time with her and giving her cuddles and kisses.   One of the best bits was that Ol had to present a history talk at school on a series of questions about an older person he knows.  Not wanting to give too many of Nanna's secrets away, but I'm pretty sure Ol's answers were from the oldest person in the entire class.  Her answers were pretty amazing and it was such a great chance to find out some more about what has been a really interesting life.  We took the chance to get some photos with Nanna and her great grand children - not only my little terrors but their cousins Alexander and Max, alon...

Another trip to Bali I hear you say?  Yep.  We love it that much.  This is Ollie's third trip.  What a lucky little six year old. I'm still wading through the photos but I've whipped up a little video of the fun we had.  Enjoy!

We have a new house!! We've been looking for a new place to call home for a good six months now.  Buy, rent, buy, rent.  We even put an offer in on a place that we could see a lot of potential in.  Unfortunately it didn't work out.  Cue sobbing, wailing, thrashing about in general.  Just kidding, Nick handled it really well!! But after lots of flipping and flopping we finally have moved into our new home.  Amazingly it is the place that we put an offer in on but it is only ours as a rental.  Such a great chance to find out if it really is a good home for a family like ours. The move itself was WAY harder than any house move we've ever had before.  Long gone are the days when Nick and I would chuck our couch and dining table into a trailer and throw a few blue and red striped bags filled with clothing into the back of our ancient mazda hatchback.  This was serious moving - two adults, two kids, two businesses, oh and a cat...

It was my 37th birthday the other day.  I'm not one of those people who mopes and moans about getting older.  Quite frankly I think it is an absolute privilege to age another year.  So in keeping with this, we always make sure we celebrate these milestones really well. My lovely two little ones and Nick made, well bought, an ice-cream cake which we all happily devoured for dessert on the day.  This photo makes me smile - can you say blue eyes?? Not that ice-cream cake and a night at home isn't enough for me, but I was also lucky enough to be taken to see the amazing Bernard Fanning play a small gig at the Triffid. Nick and I even managed to have some of our favourite calamari fritte and duck ragu beforehand at Beccofino, our old favourite restaurant from our Teneriffe days. It was really a super night - especially since earlier in the evening I had found out that I would now be working alongside Nick for my day job.  This is a super great thing...

With the fun we had on Christmas day already becoming a fading memory, it is a great time to share with you our little video of our day.  I hope you enjoy it...

By now you all know that I go a tad bonkers for the kid's birthday parties.  I've given up apologising for this, I can't help it, it makes me happy and my kids happy so we've made our peace with it! Ol decided he wanted to have a science themed birthday party for his sixth birthday after they had a science morning at school.  Our little guy loves experiments so I was mad keen but I just couldn't justify the pricey packages offered by local science party entertainers.  Never one to shy away from a DIY party I was pretty sure I could just buy a jumbo bottle of hydrogen peroxide and keep the kiddos amazed by myself.  The cake was a science experiment in itself.  With gravity defying beakers of green and blue slime oozing down onto the cake, a Katherine Sabbath inspired chocolate bark explosion in the background and lots of bubbling goodness, I think I kept it pretty simple... I applied a liberal dose of green across the party as it is Ol's favo...

Six whole years have passed now since the doctor handed me that teeny tiny perfect little human.  I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with you.  I had no real experience in looking after babies or children and barely even any that counted in pet ownership (hello, Gus anyone???). But we found our way.  We figured it out and the years have flown by.  So let me tell you a few of the things I love about this past year. - you had your first year of school.  You not only survived prep but you rocked it!  You made so many  lovely new friends, both boys and girls, and your teacher thought you were really well behaved and a good listener.  Well played! - you can read.  Like really read. You can pick up normal books from your shelves and read them.  You read signs we drive past and things that are written on the television.  I can no longer spell things out to your father in the hope of sneaking them past you! - you...

Christmas was only a week and a bit ago but it already seems like ages have passed.   Our crew and Nanna Freddie & Poppy convoyed up to Perigean Beach - one of our favourite little places.  We had a lovely house for 10 nights with our own pool and directly across the road from the beach.  Needless to say, a lovely time was had by all - especially the little ratbags who had the time of their lives. Before we headed up though we still had to have a tree at our place.  This year I let the kids decorate it all by themselves, so it goes without saying that it looked like a schmozzle.  But a beautiful one that they were extremely proud of.  Pretty, perfect Christmas trees have got nothing on ones decorated with love (and limited height range!). The day after the tree went up the little ones awoke to the arrival of our faithful fairies who have set their door up under our Christmas tree for three years now.  They always delight us with th...

School's out for summer! Our big boy has finished his first year of school and done a fantastic job. It seems that he saves all of his best behaviour for his teachers who think he is the sweetest of peas. Which he is. Most of the time. We spent the first day of the school holidays lining up to see Santa. Well an hour anyway. Our two trotted out the cutest of smiles right on cue and were promptly rewarded with sushi for lunch.  The next day of the holidays was spent at the pool with our bestest of friends followed by fish and chips at the beach. These kids have the loveliest little existence and on great days like this one I think they actually know it. Since I've got another week of work before I kick off my holidays, Ollie has headed down to the Gold Coast with Nanna Carmel & Grandpa Rob for a few days. Nick and I are always a bit sad to see him go and Eve is definitely a sooky pants when her big brother isn't there at bedtime. But it seems that Ol is hardly missing us...