day TWENTY TWO | year SEVEN | 2016
He’s been home for just over 24 hours and they are already setting him up to join their Minecraft network!
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day TWENTY ONE | year SEVEN | 2016
And just like that… one hundred and ninety eight days after he left… my ranga is home <3
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day TWENTY | year SEVEN | 2016
After six and a half months deployed to the middle east, their dad is finally coming home tomorrow!
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day NINETEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Twenty year old Darci, in her natural environment… shhh, try not to startle her…
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day THREE HUNDRED and TWENTY FOUR | Year SEVEN | 2016
Happy Christening Day to my new little godson, Noah <3
photo by Xanthia
day EIGHTEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
My baby girl… Willow | 13 years <3
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day SEVENTEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Yep – I’m ‘that’ mum… the one who takes her camera into her daughters workplace… in my defence, I did wait until just before closing time, and I did wait until all the customers had left… of course, her coworkers and boss thought I was hilarious – Xan, not so much!
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day SIXTEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Xanthia is making rumballs… it’s something she and her dad normally do together, but he has been deployed for over six months now, and she is not waiting any longer!
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day FIFTEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Darci hasn’t been home since before New Year, she’s been spending time with her boyfriend in Queensland… but tonight she came home, and there was a lot of catching up to do!
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day THIRTEEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Now, this is my boy… my beautiful, fluffy, loyal, squishy, St Bernard x, Emmett <3 … totally happy to see me – even when he’s not hungry!
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day ELEVEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Zoe in her natural environment…
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day TEN | year SEVEN | 2016
“Xan, can I just take a quick photo?”
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day NINE | year SEVEN | 2016
Xanthia is loving her summer holidays!
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day EIGHT | year SEVEN | 2016
I know I’m not biased… my baby girl look like a Botticelli masterpiece, right?
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day SEVEN | year SEVEN | 2016
Yes… just seven days in and I’ve missed one already! Damn!
day SIX | year SEVEN | 2016
When it comes to the ‘Nurture vs Nature’ debate, I’ve always leaned towards the ‘nurture’ side of the argument… but this girls total devotion and love of horses, gives me pause… city born and breed (for the sake of this argument, we are going to call her birthplace of Darwin a ‘city’), she certainly wasn’t raised with any sort of horsey indoctrination… it is just in her blood <3
Santa gave her a four day riding camp for Christmas in the hope of getting it out of her system… ‘he’ failed and now, after day three of her course, she is already booked in for weekly lessons for the whole of term one… what have I done!!?
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day FIVE | year SEVEN | 2016
It all seems so complicated to be a teen these days… there doesn’t seem to be any down time… right now, Xan is Skyping on her phone to one friend, while chatting online to another!
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day FOUR | year SEVEN | 2016
Jaimi… the one I will always get to keep <3
She is 23 years old, autistic and intellectually disabled… she loves dinosaurs; crocodiles; cheetahs; and the Sydney Swans. She likes to watch documentary DVDs, alone on her laptop… she will watch the same ones over and over and over… and get just as excited every single time.
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day THREE | year SEVEN | 2016
Zoe | 21 years… she has graduated uni in Queensland and now moved back home to Canberra… looking so grown up! … I’m not ready for her to be so grown up!
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day TWO | year SEVEN | 2016
I think this is my favourite photo of Xanthia EVER! It is just so #Xan <3
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day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY FIVE | year SIX | 2015
Dexter doesn’t seem nearly as excited by his Christmas outfit as Emmett was…
day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY FOUR | year SIX | 2015
What could be cuter than a giant dog in a Yoda Santa hat??
day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY THREE | year SIX | 2015
Xan and Willow are spreading their Christmas cheer through the neighbourhood!
day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY TWO | year SIX | 2015
… and here she is… Zoe Bingley, university graduate! #soproud #batchelorofdigitalmedia
day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY ONE | year SIX | 2015
We are all on our way to the Gold Coast, to see my gorgeous Zoe graduate from Griffith University!!
day THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY | year SIX | 2015
I asked the girls if they could get another house key cut for me, while they were out shopping… this is what they came home with!! #winning
day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY EIGHT | year SIX | 2015
Emmett and Willow (and Raffie), just chillin’ on the couch <3
day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY SIX | year SIX | 2015
Christmas card photo shoot!! Fun, fun, fun… and frustration of course, but that goes without saying!
day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY FOUR | year SIX | 2015
So this year, my grandmother passed the Christmas Cake baton to me… she gave me the recipe, the cake tin and the storage container she has been using for over 30 years to make the most perfect Christmas Cakes ever… no pressure, right?
Willow: No offense but... no matter how good your cake is, it won’t be as good as Pat‘s (my grandmother)
Me: How won’t I take offense at that?
Willow: Sorry, mum… but it’s PAT!
Me: :/
Willow: You know, when YOU are 85 and you pass this job down to one of us, our kids will say we can’t make it as well as you… but then I will tell them that my great-grandmother made the best Christmas Cakes ever!
… you are a hard act to follow Pat McConnachie!
day THREE HUNDRED and FORTY | year SIX | 2015
My ranga bought me these awesome Peter Alexander PJ’s for Christmas… he doesn’t know it yet – but he did some great shopping!
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY NINE | year SIX | 2015
#selfie #lastbastionofaforgottenphotooftheday
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY EIGHT | year SIX | 2015
Xanthia was bored with painting on the paper… so she branched out 😉
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY SEVEN | year SIX | 2015
I’m sure the girls have picked up on my lack of enthusiasm for Christmas this year, so they are going all out to make up for the absence of their dad. Her they are putting up Christmas lights on the house… God help me!
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY SIX | year SIX | 2015
Look how our bunnies have grown!
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY FIVE | year SIX | 2015
I’m home again and life carries on as normal… today it’s tree time! I’m trying to get into the spirit, but i’m falling a bit flat so far… but my gorgeous girls are making up for it with their abundance of enthusiasm and Christmas joy!
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY FOUR | year SIX | 2015
This is me at the Qantas lounge in Sydney… feeling all sad and sorry for myself.
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY THREE | year SIX | 2015
I lost this day in transit between Rome, and Dubai, and Sydney… it was emotional and heartbreaking to have to say goodbye to my ranga again – it’s probably best I don’t have any photos of that.
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY TWO | year SIX | 2015
… and just like that, it was over… on the train, back to the airport 🙁
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY ONE | year SIX | 2015
Our last full day in Italy… I don’t want to say goodbye 🙁
We spent the day wandering around Rome and finding our way to the Jewish Ghetto, where all our tour guides recommend we would find the best food – lunch did not disappoint!
day THREE HUNDRED and THIRTY | year SIX | 2015
Today we took in another movie – Spectre (James Bond); ate at our favourite pizza bakery; and marveled, once again, at the phenomenal parking prowess of the Romans!
day THREE HUNDRED and TWENTY NINE | year SIX | 2015
So, I made the mistake of letting Russ choose our last tour of the holiday… he choose to do the Catacombs tour… it was creepy and weird, with rooms decorated with human bones… and kilometers of underground burial chambers accessed by tiny dirt-lined corridors. I am both sad and relieved that we were not allowed to take photographs of all the icky things!
