Bad Harry!

I had to laugh. I was looking back through some old posts and found Bad Harry only a few weeks old after he recovered from his near death experience! Look at him now!

Fast forward ...

Well a lot has happened since my last post! Over a year has gone by, the girls have grown
T A L L! David and I have also learnt the art of patience! Anyone who knows me well, knows that its not one of my strong points and we have gone from excitement, to despair, to excitement to just being confused. Yes, I am talking about our home situation, the block, our building plans and the emotional roller coaster that surrounded that.
BUT, before we go there, lets have a quick look at the past year in photos ...

 

Christmas 2012 came and went.

 

The girls continued with their art work!

 

Our baby Amelia, turned two!

Jackson, the girls first bunny rabbit arrived.

He was 3 weeks old and needed hand rearing.

 

Amelia transitioned from a cot to her big bed.

 

Mummy and the girls discovered weird photography on the new iMac! Amelia was NOT impressed!

Australia Day came and went.

Doc, the next bunny arrived as a friend for Jackson!

                                       Laura started Pre-Primary. Her little sister stood in awe!

Archie got BIG!

Amelia discovered body art ...

                                    Nanny and Poppa Merv bought 5 acres in Gidgegannup.

                                         
                                             We went on a family holiday to Denmark.
                                              Daddy discovered the joy of quad biking!                                        

Archie turned vicious! ... Just kidding!

Mummy and Daddy went on a holiday together, ALONE, to Melbourne to see great friends ..

                                               and Cath's dad Jim and his wife Margaret!

Cath learnt to knit at a Midwifery conference on the Gold Coast! ... The scarf should be ready to wear by winter 2020! 

Laura had her tonsils and adenoids removed. She was incredibly brave and had a good recovery. She was most disapointed that she couldn't keep her removed body parts in a jar on her bedside table!

We all went on a family holiday to the SNOW in Melbourne!

Site works and clearing finally started on the Parkerville block, we put up a water tank, put down a sand pad, dug a power trench .... then SOLD the Parkerville block ... !!

And bought a beautiful 6 acres with a 5 bedroom house in MOUNT BARKER!!!!!!! 

Stay tuned ...

The pitter patter of MORE furry feet!

MORE animals?! I hear you say! Oh look, I grew up with at least 2 dogs in the house, usually 3 actually, multiple cats, birds, rats and mice, rabbits, guinea pigs, chooks, fish, ducks .... and i am sure there was more! That was all in a suburban style back yard! David is a vet ... its inevitable that we are always going to have lots of animals and that's just the way i like it and how i would like the girls to grow up - surrounded by pets, wildlife and the bush.

David on the other hand would probably be content with just the wildlife and the bush ... but he knows its a lost battle now! Soooooo, enter "Archie", our new *cough* dog! Well, he is more like a pet bandicoot crossed with a rat, but he barks, eats dog food and smells like a dog so we think he must be a dog! He is a 700gram Silky Terrier cross. Very little and very cute and the girls (and mummy) adore him. He was dumped with his litter mates at our local stock feed store (who sell hay not pets), we went in to buy a bag of cat food .... and walked out with an "Archie"!

Even David loves him and it is so nice to have a dog in the house again (even if i do keep stepping in little cold piles when i get up to go to the toilet at 3am!!). He will soon be joined by "Lyric", our new Whippet puppy who is currently 2 weeks old and will be joining the family in 6 weeks time. She is one of Scarlett's babies and we can't wait to meet her too. I am hoping "Lyric" doesn't think "Archie" is her new squeaky toy!

So welcome to the new Kirke family dogs! Finally we have dogs again, after having none for 15months.

Archie 6 weeks

Cuteness overload!

Laura taking Archie to Kindy for news!

He loves Amelia cuddles.

Lyric - our new Whippet baby only 1 week old.

Mummy's beautiful girls.

Mothers Day 2012

We had a lovely Mothers Day weekend, on Saturday we went to lunch at The Esplanade Hotel Fremantle with Cath's mum, Daniel, Scott and his two daughters Olivia and Isabella. After lunch we went over the road to the Esplanade park for a picnic and all the girls had a play. We also met up with Cath's sister in law Josie and her two girls Ruby and Kodie. Although Amelia was sick and had a fever again, she managed to last the day with lots of cuddles.

Sunday consisted of a lovely buffet lunch at the UWA members club, with David's parents Errol and Leonie and his brother Phil and the three kidlets - Charlotte, Nathan and Steven. Another nice day and the cousins got to play with each other again, which they always love.

After lunch we sat on the oval and got some photos to mark the day. Mummy and her girls.

 Looking much better on Sunday.

Poor sick Amelia (on Saturday)

Laura starts Kindergarten!

2012 has bought many happy changes for the Kirke family and one of those has been Laura starting "big" kindy! She was so excited! So was mummy and daddy. The school she is starting - Helena College, was our ultimate choice of schools, after looking at all the schools in the Perth Hills. She has been enrolled since she was 2 years old but we were still never guaranteed a place, because most children are enrolled from birth, such is the popularity of such a good school. Well we got lucky and the letter came to say that Laura had been accepted! Suffice to say, Amelia was enrolled from the week she was born!

So our first born baby starts school and she is loving it! It is a long week for her, 4 days, 8.30am-2.45pm. Although i have given her the option of staying home an extra day, she is keen to go all 4 days.

Her teachers are lovely and we have met all the lovely parents, who we have met socially on various occasions. The school has a very strong sense of community and we have made some very good friends already. As has Laura!

Proud as punch in her uniform!

A flower for her teacher!

Our new home. A cottage in the hills.

 So the big move came, just 5 weeks after selling Cope Place. We found ourselves a lovely little cottage in Parkerville, only 5 minutes away from our block. Its in a nice leafy, dead end, quiet street, with nice neighbors and some children for Laura to play with. It is small, 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom but it is all we need for now. We will stay here till we move to the block. We are so happy to finally be up here in the hills!

 An early morning walk on the bush track across the road.

A typical cool misty morning in the Perth Hills.

Our front verandah.

Autumn in our front garden.

No doggies still.

Ever since the fires in February last year we haven't had our dogs. Of course we took them with us when we evacuated and took them to David's parents. But we couldn't keep the there for too long (we ended up having to stay at Errol and Leonie's for over 2 weeks) so, Claire, a good friend of mine from The Paw House Kennels, came to pick them up for surposedly a short time till we got to move back home. Well that short time has so far turned into over a year and i had no idea that when Claire came to pick them up that we wouldn't see them again for a very long time. I kissed them both goodbye in the back of her van, expecting to see them again in about a week. I have since shed many, many tears. It turns out that once we moved back home we discovered all our fencing gone and the block was too unsafe and unstable to have the dogs there. So another friend over east in QLD offered to take Georgie and Scarlett for as long as we needed. She would campaign them both there in the show ring and look after them for s long as we needed.

The fencing was going to cost a lot of money to fix and we couldn't repair one side of the block till the neighbors rebuilt, because all the retaining walls had burnt too. The block, being steep, was also very unstable after all the trees had burnt. So Georgie and Scarlett stayed in QLD with Julie.

Georgie did fly back after 8 months and has since gone to live with a friend, who also owns Logan, one of Scarlett's puppies from 3 years ago. Scarlett is still there and will be having her last litter whilst there. we will have one of her babies and once the show season has finished at the end of 2012, Scarlett will finally fly home to us!

A house is not a home without a Whippet!

 Scarlett winning BEST IN SHOW!!

 Georgie girl.

My pretty lady. Australian Champion Stonegrace One StarryNite "Scarlett"