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"

SOLD SOLD SOLD SOLD!!!

Finally! After over 2.5 years of being on and off the market, we have SOLD 6 Cope Place, Kelmscott!

We changed agents (and dropped the price, again, significantly) and within 2 days the new agent had a buyer for us.

No more home opens, no more mad clean ups for unscheduled viewings. Our move to our 5 acre block is suddenly looking like a reality!

It's a bitter sweet event. This house was mine and David's first house bought together that we lived in (we had previously bought an investment property together but never lived in it), we got engaged here, married here, we bought our 2 girls into the world here, literally in Amelia's case since she was born in the driveway! We experienced the devastation of the fires. We had many, many fun parties and Christmas 2011 was held here for the whole family. We had many evenings in the pool, overlooking the views to the coast and city, wine in hand! 

We will not miss the driveway, neither will most of our visitors and family!! 

So many special memories were created here.

But. We look forward to the future and the wonderful life that we will be making for ourselves and our beautiful little family, on our 5 acre block in Parkerville.

So, the move begins and many changes are before us ...

Fishing at South Beach

 Yay! A fishy on the pink rod!

 A beautiful dusk. 

Laura got a new fishing rod for Christmas from nanny Linda and Poppa Brent. So we decided to test it our at the beach on a lovely hot evening. We had fish and chips for dinner on the beach and then caught us some ... *cough* "fish" for tomorrow nights dinner! ... OK all we got was blow fish, but it was a good effort!

Daddy and Laura looking for the best fishing spot.

Poor poorly Amelia.

 Unfortunately, although Amelia is still beast fed - she has had her fair share of illnesses in her first year of life. It seems she picks up childhood viruses quite easily, which would not be so bad if it were not for the fact that every time she gets sick, she gets a fever and has febrile seizures. Her fevers tend to hover around 38.5-39.5 degrees (normal is 36.5-37 degrees) and only Neurofen will keep them under control. They last for days and as soon as the Neurofen wears off, she starts seizuring again. She has had quite a few hospital visits to our big childrens hospital and stayed over night, lots of drugs, frequent visits to our lovely Peadiatrician, an EEG to rule out epilepsy (which it did thank goodness), IV fluids and whatever else it takes to keep her temperature down. Now although febrile seizures are usually harmless, it is very worrying for us and not particularly pleasant for Amelia. We are hoping that she grows out of them quick, but in the mean time, we will keep our fingers crossed that the viruses leave her alone!

 A stay in hospital, with her IV cannula in.

This was 3am, she was so tired (as was I!) but the cannula was bothering her and she kept waking, in the end she refused to sleep, so she raided our overnight bags and we went and chatted to the night shift nurses!

An invasion of small furry creatures ... and this time they aint' cute!

We have a giant Cape Lilac Tree bordering ours and the neighbors property. It had a huge canopy of lush green leaves and berries and it provided our car with a lot of shade on the lower part of the driveway. Then suddenly, one day ... and i kid you not - it happened overnight - the tree was BARE! Naked, from the trunk up! It appeared to have been munched on and devoured by something surely sinister ... but on closer inspection, we see millions, yes millions of hairy caterpillas (I am quite sure they have a proper name like Hairus Horribilus Caterpillus!) have voraciously annihilated (not to be too dramatic here) every single leaf on that tree!

No more shade and a rather denuded looking Cape Lilac!

Amelia's 1st Birthday Party

Amelia had her birthday party at home surrounded by her family. It was a hot January day and more fun was had in the pool. She got her first taste of rich chocolate cake and of course she loved it!

Pretty little fairy princess.

Mmmm yum, chocolate mud cake!

Loves her Nanny.

Oh look what Torna gave me! A pretty angel. Torna is my Midwife friend who caught Amelia on her birth day.

Ladybird cake, made by mummy and daddy.

Our two beautiful fairies.

Family fun in the pool

Happy 1st Birthday precious girl xxx