The Bell Family

Hi Everyone

This weekend, whilst Katie and I were in the kitchen making some cupcakes, Laura decided she’d design and make some cupcakes of her own! But it didn’t just stop there… over the course of the weekend, she cooked up a storm! According to Laura, the wide assortment of treats on offer included tomato rolls, tomato pastries, chocolate cupcakes, sprinkle biscuits, cherry icies, star icies, heart spivies, jam flower biscuits, smoothies, bump biscuits, sausage rolls and butterfly biscuits.

What an imagination (and a commitment to task) – they took hours to make, all individually cut, decorated, glued and sticky-taped!!! Need I mention the cleaning up?!?!?! Anyway, we were treated to a lovely little party this morning where we were able to sample all the treats, it was great!

Have a great day,
Chrissy and Laura

Laura's Creative Cooking

Artist at Work

Wow! We can’t believe it…. our tiny little bubba is now a little lady and has started school!!!

No tears, no tantrums…. just sheer excitement and a ‘little bit of scariness’ as she puts it!!!

Despite the late night out at Australia Day celebrations (sorry, we couldn’t leave without seeing the fireworks!!!), Laura was up and dressed by 730, she’d had her breakfast and mandatory first day photos and was ready to go!!! Katie was a different matter of course, she would much prefer to stay home with Mummy or even go to school with Laura rather than go to daycare at the moment, but we got her settled back in at daycare so we could spend the morning with Laura.

Jason and I walked her to school and spent a little while getting her books, lunch, drink bottle and other supplies in place and then watched as she met new friends and settled into the home corner. In no time, she had set the table and prepared a feast fit for a king!!!

When it came time for us to go, Laura gave us both a quick cuddle and kiss on the cheek and then merrily kept playing with her new found friends!!!

At her first school assembly, she was lucky enough to be given a special merit award for her creative thinking and collage!!! She was quite chuffed!

It’s week 3 now and she’s still keen… she gets dressed, packs her own lunch box and is ready to go. Let’s hope it stays that way for the next 12 years!!!

Cheers from some very prud parents,
Jason and Chrissy

Here’s a little piccie from her first day….

Laura's First Day at School

Birthday time again…. little Katie’s now 3!!!

We had a great day on her birthday – she shared cupcakes with friends at daycare, then we went swimming and had a family dinner at home! Katie was spoilt with lots of new clothes, books, princess things, fairy dressups, craft/activity things and a new suitcase for our up and coming traveller!!!

She’s very proud to tell us all that she’s now ‘THREE!’, not two anymore and definitely gives her big sister a run for her money in the conversation stakes now!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE!!!

Present time - I love to rip the paper!!!

Party girl at daycare - with her special purple paper crown made by Laura

Katie, blowing out the candles at her party

Time flies when you’re having fun!!! We were all lucky enough to enjoy a couple of weeks off at Christmas this year, which gave us plenty of time for parties, bike riding, swimming, playing at the park, playing with Roxy, playing the Wii (especially bowling and tennis), as well as a bit of camping and just generally taking it easy! It was great! Here are some piccies for you to enjoy…

Hope you all had a good one too!

Cheers,
Chrissy, Jason, Laura and Katie

Early Christmas Morning

Laura painted up like a Princess at the daycare Christmas party

Katie the Butterfly at the daycare Christmas party

Katie on Christmas morning

Laura on Christmas morning

Sisters...

Family photo - from our New Year's Eve party

Explorers...

Chrissy and Katie at the beach

Girls at the rockpool

Laura on the ropes!

Ropes time for Katie!

Katie and Ma at camping

Laura and Chrissy going for a ride...

Great fishing... if you can catch anything!

Katie Koala

Laura loves hats!

Can anyone see the girls?

Laura on the swivel karts

Rocky 'Rocket'!

Doctor Laura

Some of the latest funnies…

Katie:
* Taking another sandwich from the box – “Mmmm… one for the road!”
* “Today’s Friday, then no daycare, no kindy, no work… just family days!!!”
* “Mmm, salad with olives and mushrooms!”

Laura:
* “Mama Mia… here we go again! My, my…”
* At kindy after a power outage… Mum – “Oh it’s all dark here. What happened?” Laura – “The powers out”.
* “Oh Mum, why are you picking me up early??? I like Daddy’s work… I get to watch movies and play with computers!”
* “Oh, just a little bit tired, I had a big day.”

Hehehehehe…

G’day All

Around late 2008, we hatched a plan for a “Boy’s Trip” to Townville to watch the Super V8’s inaugural series race (thanks for the suggestion Brad) – see the Townsville 400 website http://www.v8supercarevents.com.au/Townsville/.

We started looking for accommodation in November, but most places had already sold out! Undaunted, we bought our tickets and continued planning.

Fast forward to July 2009 and three of us (Paul, Mick and myself) drove to Townsville. We were lucky enough to travel free of charge in Paul’s company car and not only that, but we were able to crash at Mick’s Antie’s and Uncle’s place for free! They were extremely hospitable and gave us a fantastic place to stay and even stocked beer in the fridge!

On Friday night, we headed to the Casino and I was lucky enough to win $100 and double my money on Black Jack! I won quite quickly, so cashed out and headed round to a quiet bar, where I even got to see Mark Skaife!

On Saturday, we went out to the race track and managed to watch the first of the two – 200km races.

Above is a photo of the “Boy’s” at the track.

Anyway, over the 2 days (Saturday and Sunday) we were able to do lots, including:

• See Eskimo Joe Live in concert, plus during warm ups (see photo below);
• We had pit passes so we were able to Tour the pits and see the different teams;
• See all the different Teams sport girls and get photo’s with them!
• Watch not only the Super V8’s, but also watch the V8 Ute series, mini challenge and Fujitsu V8 Supercars (basically the reserve grade of V8 supercar).
• Other entertainments items such as the burnout V8 utes, ARMYGEDDON (http://www.defence.gov.au/defencemagazine/editions/200609/groups/army.htm) and some motorbike stunts were unreal!

Anyway, here are some photo’s from the trip!



Eskimo Joe Warming up!





Toll HRT Team (Will Davidson and Garth Tander)



Entrance into the Pit’s with all teams trucks lined up!

Obviously no race would be complete without the models, so here are some photo’s with the various models!


Photo of the Jupiter’s Miss Townsville 400 Grid Girls


A photo of me with a number of them!


The Super V8′s Girls!


The Supercheap girls and in my opinion, the pick of the lot!


One of the best inventions, which were awesome, were the Jim Beam and Coke and Rum and Coke slushies!




Some people might already know this, but I am a huge Russel Ingall (The Enforcer) fan. I was lucky enough to get a picture with him!


Even got a photo with Greg Murphy and Jason Bargwana!





The wosrt part about the trip was that I was travelling with 2 ford fans and even worst, ford won both races… So obviously we had to get photo’s of the ford drivers, including Jamie Wincup (Current points leader) and Craig Lowndes.

We even scored some seats on the ferry to Magnetic Island along with a seafood smorgasbord… very cool!


Photo of the ferry that I travelled on.

Photo of ferry terminal at Magnetic Island.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the piccies and the update,
Jas.

G’day All

For those who didn’t know, I am involved in the running of the Regional Robotics Competition. Initially, I started out providing IT support (website, etc) as well as being the Chief Referee. For the last 3-4 years, I have had the honour of being the organising chair for the competition.

Anyway, for those who might be interested, the Junior robotics website can be found at http://cqjrc.cqu.edu.au/

Interestingly, a short video was made of the recent competition has been posted on YouTube that has me on it, pretty sad hey. Click on the play button to view the movie.

There is also a local newspaper article which can be found at http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2009/06/13/robot-creations-shake-their-tails/

It should be noted that in my opinion, this year was the best year to date and it seems to be getting bigger and better each year!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the video.

Cheers,
Jason.

Some of the girls memorable quotes from the last few weeks…

Laura:
* “Looking…. is like sniffing with your eyes!”
* “Can I use the dumb-puter” (aka computer)?
* “You look pretty Mum”, generally followed by “can I have something”?
* “Holy heck… Katie can reach the door! Just a minute you little polka dot!”

Katie:
* Anytime we mention the beach, Katie says “Oh, oh, oh!!! Swimming and sandcastles! Mmmm, chippies and gravy”!
* Donning her cute pink sunnies, Katie loves to say “cool dude Katie”!
* Anytime Jason says, “you’re kidding…”, Katie responds “no… you’re kidding ME!!!”

Then finally…
“Mum… Dad look….. we made Roxy into a fairy, just like us!!!”

Say no more… Cute as…

C.

Just a few quick piccies from the weekend…

Mmm… chocolate! Cheeky monkeys cooking up a storm

See how our garden grows!!!

We have started picking our first coriander and lettuce leaves… Carrot tops, along with celery and spring onions are all shooting madly and the corn is going strong. All of the tomato plants are in flower and our first little tomatoes are just beginning to form… the girls are so excited and can’t wait to sample them!

Laura couldn’t resist another photo opportunity… she’s such a little performer! Katie was too busy jumping on the trampoline to stop for a photo!

Have a good one,
Chrissy

Hi Everyone

Hope this message finds you all well… time seems to be scooting by so quickly lately, but we thought it would be good to post a quick blog about our Easter holidays to ‘the dam’.

We took a group holiday with some good friends and had a lovely time! We spend lots of time socialising and playing with the kids. The camping was great and we all coped surprisingly well given that between us there were 7 kids under the age of 5!!!

Anyway, here are some piccies to tell the rest of the story…

Laura and Jason going for a leisurely paddle

Row row row your boat!

Cricket at the park

Cool Cat Katie just hanging out…

Laura ready to hit the beach

Group game of ‘freeze fishy’ at the beach

Kids adventures… looking for treasure I guess!

Jason’s big catch of the day

Anyway, camping was definitely a big hit and all the kids had fun (big and small), so we’ll definitely be giving it another go sometime soon!

Cheers,
Chrissy and Jas

Well, one of the latest renovations that we have been working on (dubbed the “Great Wall of China”) is a retaining wall, that now houses our veggie garden!

The retaining wall was a long time in the making.

It started with some “digger work”. In which I flattened out the back yard, to make it more level, then added some soil to the back wall to make a raised section.

This raised section then became the veggie garden! But as you can see, there was a lot of work to be done to make this possible!

The retaining wall took a long time, as there were around 8 separate concrete sections, which act as stable footings for the retaining wall. As you can see from the image, we tried to ensure it was as level as possible.

Here are some images of the retaining wall finally completed!

It is amazing how fast the grass grows back, so after we pulled out all of the grass again, we placed a number of trailer loads of mulch on top, to stop the grass from growing.

We let the mulch settle down for a few months, then we turned over the garden and used some “garden mix” to create some rows that we would use to plant our veggies in!

As of early May, this is what the garden looks like!
We currently have growing:

• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Celery
• Coriander
• Carrots
• Lettuce (2 different varieties)
• Spring onions (though they are yet to sprout)
• A tall variety of broccoli

Anyway, I will try to post regular updates on how the garden is looking and how things are growing.

Cheers,
Jason.

G’day all

I thought I would post a photo of my current office.

As you can see, there are a few computers there and a number of “nice” LCD screens!

The current setup is as follows (for all those geeks out there):

• 4 x 23” Dell LCD Screens (1920 x 1080);
  • Dual Screen Windows XP setup; and
  • Dual Screen Fedora 10 Linux.
• 1 x 24” Apple iMac
• 1 x 13” Laptop running Windows XP and Fedora 10 Linux;

Using synergy (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) allows me to use a single mouse and keyboard to be able to control all 3 computers, as well as being able to copy and paste from each other! I couldn’t do the work I am doing without it, handy program!

Anyway, thought I would show you my work area!

Cheers,
Jason.

Hi Everyone!

Katie’s just turned 2!!! We can’t believe it! Here’s a few piccies of her party…

Time for presents!

Pass the parcel… ooh, goodie, it’s my turn!!!

Birthday girl!

The jumping castle was a real hit!

Katie has been hard to separate from her new bike and helmet!!!

All worn out, time for bed!!!

Have a great day,
Chrissy

Hi Everyone!

Merry Christmas to you all!!! Here’s a few piccies for you…

Roxy at 6 Weeks

Are you looking at me???

Laura doting on Roxy

Ahhh, this looks like a good place for a nap….

Three on the swing

Laura takes Roxy on Safari

Katie doesn’t want to miss out either!

Laura puts on a Christmas Concert for Katie and rehearses ‘Six White Boomers’

It’s so hot… I can’t decide where I want to sleep!

Christmas Princess

Christmas cuddles!

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!

Best wishes,
Jason, Chrissy, Laura, Katelyn and little Roxy

G’day All

I would like to introduce to you the newest addition to the bell-family gang. After many years of asking for one, Chrissy finally said okay to getting a puppy dog.

How did this all come about? Well Mum (Suzie) saw an ad in the paper for King Charles Cavalier’s puppies. She has been looking to get a dog for a while and wanted to get another “Cindy” dog. So obviously as soon as she saw them, she had to get one (The White and Brown one is hers [female])… She told me that she was getting one and of course I wanted to get one as well. So we went around and there was still some left (Litter of seven). So all of us decided on a particular one (The Brown / Ruby puppy [female]) and we even have decided to call it Roxy!

Unfortunately it is only 4 weeks old and we have to wait another 2 weeks before we can get it. The entire family is quite excited and when Laura came home after seeing the puppy, she had to draw a puppy and a few bones! Even Katie see the photo and says “puppy dog – cuddle it”.

Hope you like the photos.

Until next time, take it easy,
Jason!

Oops, sorry everyone… how time flies! Sorry it’s been a while since our last post… life has been pretty hectic and ‘blogging’ kind of slipped our minds for a while there.

Jason has had a few visits to hospital since we last wrote and he finally managed to get his tonsils out – hooray… it’s made a huge difference. Katie too has had a visit, but for asthma/pneumonia related issues. Both are doing really well now though.

Jason’s had a few work trips, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne predominantly and I’ve also had a few trips to the Bay with work. In between all that, we even managed to go somewhere together and attended a beautiful wedding in Brisbane for our friends Drew and Lucy… thanks guys, it was great!

Jobs around the house are going slowly – we’ve started on the backyard again (gardens, lawn and retaining wall), however I think summer is going to beat us to the finish line. The weather’s soooo hot already, plus it’s way more fun to head down to the beach with the kids on a fine weekend like this one (hehehehehe)!

Laura has just turned four – got lots of fabulous presents and had an awesome time! She even has her ears pierced now (after about 6 months trying to convince Mummy she was ready for it and I must admit, she was very brave and loves them now, so no regrets)!!!

Katie will be two in the New Year and is quite the little talker now – loves joining in with the conversation, copying her big sister and just being a crazy little larrikin!

Anyway, onto the good stuff… here are a couple of the latest pics.

Hope you are all doing well and we’ll try and catch up again soon!

Cheers,
Chrissy, Jason, Laura and Katelyn

The girls and I decided to do a little project together on the weekend…. we made a new flower garden and strawberry patch! It was good fun and the girls were just too cute decked out in their gardening gear. They are especially happy that the ‘fairies’ have now come to live in the garden! I’ll try anything to get them to take some responsibility for looking after it, and it seems to be working (so far, hehehehehe)!!!

This is just the start of the gardening…. the courtyard was the easy bit, still yet to tackle the big backyard!!!

… Laura in the new flower garden

… Katie helping out

… Laura planting strawberry plants

Hope you like the piccies,
Chrissy

More theme corner stuff…. this time, Laura played Doctor whilst Katie was her Nurse Assistant. Mummy of course became the unwitting patient on her return from Singapore and didn’t have enough energy to escape before this photo was able to be taken!!! Nurse Katie clearly had more energy, she got out of view, just in time!!!

… Doctor Laura works on Patient Mummy

Cheers,
Chrissy

I’ve just returned from my third visit to Singapore… another work trip of course, however I did manage to get in some sight seeing this time!!! The conference went well and I even managed a visit to one of the air bases and had a ride in a very high tech flight simulator… very cool.

Well, here’s a few piccies from the trip…

…My Hotel

… Chinatown Food Street

… Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo (fabulous)

…Cable Car to Sentosa Island

…Sentosa Island – Contrast between natural areas, port and city high rise

… Chrissy and in the background, the Merlion (mythical creature, half lion, half fish)

… Giant Snail!!!

… Sentosa Island Mosaic Tiled Fountains

…Sentosa Fountains

... Fort Silosa Surrender Table (Singapore was under British rule until 1942 when they surrendered to the Japanese. After a number of harsh years and POW camps, the Japanese surrendered to the British in 1945, however Singapore's national spirit had already been sparked and it became its own nation in 1967)

… The Merlion

… Snake Charmer

… Sentosa – Mass Development Site for the Future Casino

… Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (train station)

… Singapore’s other national emblem, the Orchid

Hope you liked the piccies.

Cheers,
Christine

The girls have their own special corner in the lounge-room… each week, they decide on a new theme to decorate their play area. This week, Laura suggested we pack up the fairies and pirates from ‘Treasure Island’ and setup a new ‘Space’ corner!!! Laura said we needed stars, planets and a spaceship, whilst Katie piped in about the ‘mooon’! So we set to work…

… Laura and Katie in their space ship!!!

The girls had a great time collecting dress-ups, wearing their ‘space-ears’, making planets and stars, building their space ship and then piloting it to visit the planets, stars and the moon!

Cheers,
Chrissy and Jason