Weights and measures

Callum is 145cm, and Declan is 140.5cm, meaning that the gap between them has reduced substantially this measurement period. They both seem to have grown a lot lately, (and they've both needed new shoes!)

Callum is 42 kg, and Declan is 37.1 kg

Declan's mammoth birthday party

Declan is ready for nerf warfare

Declan had a birthday party at home this year, inviting 13 friends over to enjoy it with him. Five of them stayed the night for a sleepover.

Nerf warfare in St Leonards Park

Calliope unlocking padlocks in the amazing race

First they had a nerf war in St Leonard's Park, then an Amazing race around the house, then balloon tennis, pizza and a movie, and further nerf warfare until bedtime.

Ready for bed

Budding Pool sharks

Declan has been planning for weeks, and I think he had a great time. He invited several of his friends who are still at Cammeray, and it was great to see them all playing together again, picking up where they left off.

They're a great bunch of kids, and had a wonderful time together.  So we've recovered reasonably quickly from the noise, and the sleepover guests were very good this morning, finishing off a pool game, and having a little nerf war, just to keep their hands in.

Festival of Declan

Declan's birthday was on Thursday, so we've been having a festival of Declan this week. On Wednesday night, the boys and I made Darth Vader cookies, for Declan to take into school on Thursday.

On Thursday morning, he got to open his presents from us (small, since he already had his main present, a sword), and he chose dinner with no vegetables for Thursday night. And on Friday night, the grandparents came over for more festival with lots more presents (including yet another sword, and a personalised parody of the Charge of the Light Brigade).

And on Saturday, a mammoth sleepover party with lots of friends.

Burglar Alarm

Evan is teaching robotics at Mosman High on Thursday afternoon, so Declan has the choice of going home (with no-one home for an hour or so) or catching the bus to Mosman and joining them. Unfortunately last week, Declan forgot, and went home, promptly setting off the burglar alarm.

After his first attempt to turn it off failed, he rang Evan in hysterics, leading to much panic at both ends of the call, as Evan tried and failed to figure out why Declan was yelling, "help, help! with sirens in the background". Fortunately they eventually figured it out together, but not before Evan acquired several new grey hairs.

The positive to come out of the experience is that Declan has realised he's actually fine at home on his own, and will do that on Thursdays from now on.

Callum's Parent teacher session

At the beginning of second term, Year 7 at Mosman high had a parent teacher evening. We got 5 minutes with each teacher (if available and we wanted them). We were highly impressed that all the teachers knew who Callum was (even his Chinese teacher, who thought Callum didn't like Chinese because he missed so many classes!).

His Year 9 maths teacher definitely thought he was in the right place, his science teacher told us tales of experiments, and his sewing teacher told us how much Callum had improved over the term.

The main thing we noticed is that Callum has no idea that when you are told you have a test, you should study for it! A great start to high school, by all accounts.