2012 in photos - January 2012

Holidaying in Newcastle

This past year has just flown by! I've been a really bad blogger and am going to try and keep on top of it by blogging a little more regularly. The kids love looking back at the posts and photos of the goings on of our life and with me being so slack this last year there's not much to look at. So here is a look back at 2012 in photos, month by month.

2012
January
Isabella started Kindergarten with Miss Dhu and was very excited and a little nervous about leaving pre-school and her friends behind. She had to be fit for school shoes for the very first time. Sammy started high-school. Wow! Two new schools this year! Josh began year 9 and is well and truly settled into high-school now.`

All dressed up for school.

We finished the school holidays off with a Lego exhibition and lovely holiday in Newcastle. Not far from home, but affordable and fun!

Checking school shoes for a good fit.

Hamish sleeping while buying back to school supplies.

Sammy in her high-school uniform.

Josh at the Lego Exhibition

Newcastle Holiday 2012

As you can see from the heading I'm finally going to post about our recent January holiday. We actually hadn't planned on going away during the school Christmas holidays because of the expense, work commitements, too many of us, etc etc and I'm really so glad that we did!

Newcastle is only an hour and a half from us and is almost too close to be a holiday destination. That didn't deter us though. We figured that if we were to go away somewhere warmer it would be at least a four hour drive, which you could easily multiply by four now that we have Hamish with us as well. So we decided that somewhere close would be much better. I don't really know Newcastle well and Dave would really like us to explore more of Australia, so we really killed two birds with one stone. Plus to top it off, we had a great time and came back well rested and recuperated.

Here is a few slide shows of our time.
Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

We took a 1000 piece puzzle with us and managed to complete it over the week. We left it at the holiday apartment for someone else to enjoy. It was a great quiet activity for the older people in the family.

It was a great holiday and of course I can't wait for our next adventure.

The Art of the Brick

Waiting for the ferry.

Today we went to the city to see 'The Art of the Brick' at the townhall exhibition centre. It was a Lego exhibition.

We were running a little late leaving the house to drive to the ferry wharf and luckily found parking right at the wharf. Great stuff. We ended up being right on time and only had to wait for a few minutes before the ferry arrived. Every Sunday you can get family tickets for $2.50 for each person to travel on public transport in Sydney as many times as you like. That means our travel only cost $12.50 (Hamish was free) return today. Yay for cheap travel. Because there are so many of us everything seems to always add up and become quite expensive.

Hamish in his hat.

Cheeky boy.

Two trays to feed us all.

Of course I had booked for us to go to the Lego at 1:00pm and the ferry left the wharf at 12pm which meant that we didn't have any lunch before we went. A quick visit to the Golden Arches (McDonalds) was called for on our walk from Circular Quay to Townhall. We all woofed down the food and made it to the Townhall not long after 1:00pm. Good timing again. We had to do a pit-stop at another Maccas on the way to visit the bathrooms because Isabella gives us about 2 minutes to find a toilet when she has to go.
Isabella, "I''m busting."
Me, "You mean you have to go right now."
Isabella, "I'm busting."
Me, "Can you wait?"
Isabella, "I have to go now Momma."
Me, "Do you think you're going to have an accident?"
Isabella nods.

Josh with Lego man.

Mum with Lego man.

Dave and I posing with Lego couple.

Sammy as Lego swimmer.

Bella as Lego man.

I then proceed to yell at Dave that I've got to take Isabella to the bathroom and can he meet me outside the Maccas (which is a block away). While I'm running and dragging Isabella along the road I'm also dealing with Josh and Sammy who also now need to go to the toilet. It was very funny.

We arrived relatively calmy to the Townhall exhibition and took a ton of photos with the kids and us posing with the Lego sculptures. A lot of fun and giggling was had by all. We then had a half hour wait to do the 'playing with Lego' part of our day. I brought textas and a book full of masks for the kids to colour in, Dave played on his Iphone and I fed Hamish.

Playing with the Lego.

Two of my boys.

The playing part of the day was a lot of fun. They had challenges for the kids to do. The first challenge was to build the tallest tower. Parents were allowed to help. I'm sorry to say we didn't even get a placing. My fault really. It's been some time since I played with Lego. They then had to build a car to race. Dave helped the kids, except for Isabella who wanted to do it all by herself. I love 5 year olds. So fiercely independent. Josh and Sammy's cars went okay and then Isabella had her turn along with a little boy who also had made his himself. They were the only two kids who hadn't listened to the instructions of building their cars at least 20cm long. A bit hard to tell children that don't even know what 1cm is to build something bigger. Both of their cars fell apart on the way down and there were quite a few tears from Isabella. After we told her that she'd done a great job for someone who'd never built a car before she was a lot better. It probably helped that we had a Japanese hip-hop come skipping group to watch just outside the Queen Victoria Building. They were amazing to watch. We also took the kids out for afternoon tea.

Afternoon tea of scones and iced chocolate.

On the way back to the ferry wharves over at Circular Quay we had to stop at the Apple store. Everyone had fun playing with the Iphones, the Ipads and the notebooks. It is a very cool looking store.

Next to the Christmas tree.

A very tired Hamish holding on to his toy.

Back home by 6:00pm exhausted but happy.

Carols and Christmas lights

The only photo that worked out unfortunately.

Picnic, carols, too much sugar, fireworks, Christmas lights and ice-creams. Exhausted! A great night spent with great friends!

11 sleeps - craft and cards

Two home made cones.

Ruffled, pink, feathered and silver ribbon cone.

Lime milkshake and donuts.

Sammy dressed as Miss Walke.

Hamish and his two tooth smile.

Bella had to share today.

Sammy with her card list.

I made an over the top pink feathered tree for Sammy today which she loves!! I got the idea from here at Miss Flibbertigibett. She did an amazing tutorial on a shabby pink one, which I loved. Mine is more pink vomit. I also did a little more of my snowflake ornament. I hung the present ornament on the tree. I made two cones out of cardboard. I also did some pressie wrapping and then quickly packed up so I could go and pick the kids up. I took them to Top Ryde City to get new shoes and out for arvo tea. Today's Christmas activity was writing Christmas cards. Sammy was the only one keen. She had a list and checked them off as she went. So sweet!

How are there so few days left?

All my craft stuff out on the dining room table. OMG!! What a mess.

A red-eyed special of the kids in the cinema.

Present ornament.

Snowflake ornament half done.

Ribbon container finally started.

Monday was such a busy day of Mothers Group and Christmas tree decorating at Granny and Pa's house (with the biggest real tree in history) followed by no sleep and then a day of craft on Tuesday with my mum followed by picking up kids from school and then fitting in a Christmas countdown activity. Well it's left me feeling like a walking zombie. And here I am at 10:48pm still on the computer (well my iPhone) and all you'll get tonight is a few fuzzy late night photos. Oh, and you must see Arthur Christmas if you're over 5!! It put tears in Dave and my eyes and the older kids loved it!! Hamish loved it too. No crying from him. Isabella loved parts of it but it was quite scary for a little person. She'll love it next year though!! And what is left on my dining room table so I can finish my crafty stuff tomorrow. The kids will have to eat breakfast in the lounge room!!

21 sleeps to go and a bit of something sweet.

Overcast and ready to head to Granny and Pa's house for lunch after our gelato.

Today is Sunday and we were going to get up early to go and watch the cousins doing 'Nippers' at Mona Vale Beach. Unfortunately dear Uncle Howard cut his little finger on a wine glass and managed to sever an artery. Who even knew that you had an artery in your little finger, let alone two! So they weren't going to take the kiddies to Nippers since poor Uncle Howard needed to catch up on his sleep after staying at the hospital overnight waiting to get five stitches. Since we were up so early on a Sunday morning which for us is very unusual we decided to go and visit Palm beach instead. We found it all a bit too lah de dah and not very family friendly at all and so decided to find a nicer beach to take the kids out to for morning tea. In the meantime some massive clouds had gathered and the wind had picked up and so we ended up stopping at Newport beach for a gelato and coffee and some sanctuary from the weather.
After Newport we headed to Terry Hills to grab some baguettes, a hot chicken and a head of lettuce to take along to my parents for lunch. We had a lovely time catching up with them and then decided to head home so that we could get ourselves set up for school and for Sammy's High School orientation day which are both tomorrow being Monday. The kids were also very excited about eating our Ginger Bread house that we had decorated yesterday.
So on activity day four we absolutely demolished the Ginger Bread house! Yum!! I forgot to take photos of it so you'll just have to believe me when I said we made an enormouse mess and they absolutely enjoyed the lollies and icing and didn't mind the ginger biscuit. What did I eat while they were doing this you ask? Well I had a cup of tea and waited for the kids to go to bed and then I opened the enormous bag of 'Hershey Kisses' that we bought the other day from Costco. I couldn't help myself. It's not really my sort of chocolate, but when there's no other chocolate in the house, it will do. No offence to any Hershey lovers out there, but I am a Cadbury chocolate lover through and through and if not Cadbury then Nutella on a spoon will also quiet the late night chocolate cravings!
Not sure what our 'task'(as Sammy calls them)for Christmas is tomorrow yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out. Yes I know that I was the one that wrote out the activities and put them in our advent calendar, but I'm still excited about reading it in the morning. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!

Boronia Fete

I've been a bit slack with my blog posts since I went over our downloads by $200!! So a little upload shy, but trying to get over that. So since it's late at night and I should be sleeping here goes with a whole lot of short posts and some photos. Here's Bella with her trophy for dancer of the week! So cute. And a photo with her big sister. All of us at Boronia fete to watch Sammy dance. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of that as I was to busy watching her.
Here's a close up of Bella's painted face. We then raced home to get Sammy dressed for her Halloween party. She dressed as a witch and I did her make-up. What a cute witch she made! Our weekends are not usually quite so busy or manic.