MISC NEWS FROM OZ

There have been a few little things going on that are not worthy of a whole post so I thought I would post them all together.

#1. We tried pavlova for the first time last week. Some friends came over for dinner and they brought us this authentic Aussie dish to try. It is a dessert and we all thought is was yummy!!! Even Cooper liked it - you know it must be good if Cooper likes it.

#2. On Sunday last week Kev made Cooper and Madi "houses" out of all the blankets in the house. They were up for a few days before I "demolished" them. I then had to make the "houses" again the next day and they were up for a few days again. I so remember doing this as a kid. It is so much fun. It actually gave the kids something to do since it rained straight for six days or so. Sydney sure needs the rain so it is good that it kept coming - but it does get old really fast and the kids got a little bored at home all the time.

#3. Cooper got a sword and a head band from church last week and was so excited about it. The only problem was the the sword broke before we even left the church - he was fighting with it of course. Kev fixed it with some electrical tape which helped for a few more days before it ended up in the rubbish bin. He was such a handsome Stripling Warrior, I couldn't resist taking a photo.

#4. I love this photos of Rylee and Kev. I made a scrapbook page of it that says "anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy!" Rylee is doing really good. She has even slept all the way through the night a couple of times this week. There has been a cold spell with all of the rainy weather and she has woken up cold some nights -we are hoping that the sleeping through the night thing becomes a habit. She has been eating a few solid foods. She only really likes apples and bread - rice cereal and pears she screams at now. She rolls over on her stomach all of the time and then gets mad because she can't roll back over. She likes to sit up, but really she just folds herself in half. She has started putting her feet under her and soon will probably figure out that this will help her move around. We love to have her around and she brings such a feeling of peace with her.

#5. I found out this week that Cooper will be going to pre-school in January. They had a cancellation and since he was #1 on the waiting list he is in!! We are hoping that this will help with the shyness that has come back a bit and with the anxiety of making new friends here in Australia. It is going to cost us a lot, but we think it will be worth it. I thought pre-school was bad back home - the $55 I paid per month there is nothing compared to the $32 per day here.

#6. Last, but not least, a guy in the ward who is also from Utah told me of a web site I can go to where I can watch the BYU games. Usually they are on really early Sunday morning here - but since Thursday was a night game I got to watch it on Friday afternoon. Awesome!!! You can't believe how excited I was to watch a little football - BYU of course is the best. They won, which was even better!!!