16 sleeps

Car got a new wheel bearing today. Dave went to the dentist. Bella, Hamish and I went to Sammy's year 6 presentation assembly. She didn't get anything, but we got to share a morning tea with her which was special. Josh didn't do dance class today. I didn't do tutoring today. We took the kids to their dad early today which meant that it was still daylight when we got there and a decent time when we got home. Usually we leave about 6:15pm and only drop them at 8:30 or 9:00pm. We usually get home just before 10:00pm. Not fun!! Christmas activity today was to eat dessert first. We didn't actually do this as Isabella was the only one that felt like eating something sweet first. Oh well. We'll have to make up for this on another day. Finished cutting all the threads off my skirt!! Yay!!

17 days until Christmas, a finished skirt and a Christmas menu

A sneak peak of my beautiful Christmas skirt.

Sleeping peacefully in his new sleep suit.

So today I finally finished that Christmas tree skirt that I've been making. Well finished the sewing part that is! I've still got to cut off all the little bits of thread all over the skirt and that's going to take quite a bit longer than 5 minutes. So at the moment the skirt is keeping our lovely rocking horse warm and I'll try and get around to it tomorrow. Hamish was a good little boy today and slept for nearly four hours. I was sorry that I didn't take the opportunity to have a sleep myself, but lately he's only been sleeping for an hour or an hour and a half at the longest. Not enough for me to have a sleep! So instead of a sleep, Isabella and I watched 'The Story of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' snuggled up together on the couch. It was lovely. We were so cosy together and I almost fell asleep. Isabella had spent the night at Granny and Pa's house last night and arrived home around lunchtime. She then played 'Barbie' so nicely while I sewed. I could hear her making Barbie and Ken have lots of conversations that sounded strangely familiar. Kind of like someone had been recording our conversations. We must be very careful of what we say infront of her! She's just at the age of taking everything in. Very funny too though! Do we really sound like that?! Once the Christmas skirt was finished we played Barbie for a bit. Then we played 'shops'. I wasn't such a fan of that game as most of the stuff that had made it into her shop were things that I didn't want to go missing like my car and house keys. We had to have a little conversation about what things she can sell in her shop!

Tonight was the task of making a menu for Christmas Eve brunch. The older two kids and Dave were at their last Scout evening of the year. They went to laser tag as an end of year celebration and so I was left to my own devices this evening. I decided to go to Pinterest and see if I could find some nice ideas for brunch and also for Isabella's fairy party that we're having on Sunday. Once I started looking around Pinterest I couldn't get off. There were so many different things to look at. I love Pinterest!! If you haven't had a look around then you need to check it out. What a great way of organising pictures of things you like the look of. Here's my boards.

Here is the menu so far:

Muesli

Greek yoghurt/Vanilla cream yoghurt

Mixed berries

Orange segments

Fresh fruit platter

Nutella dip

Ricotta dip

Pancakes

Crepes

Croissants

Ham off the bone

Shaved cheese

Mini omelettes

Zucchini, tomato and gorgonzola puff pastry tarts

Tomato and basil quiche

Bacon and Zucchini quiche

Oven dried tomatoes

Asparagus spears

Salad

Fresh baguettes

Orange Juice

Champagne

Mineral Water

Tea

Coffee

You can go here and see my pinterest brunch board.

18 sleeps and a movie night

Today Isabella was at preschool and she was going to be picked up by granny and pa and go toy shopping for her birthday. She was given the choice before her birthday of getting a present on her birthday or going shopping with granny. She chose the shopping trip! I think all the cousins have chosen this option. I think it's exciting to do the choosing with a budget. So cute!

Our movie 'The Rep' and lollies and popcorn.

My trusty Janome!

So today in between housework and playing with Hamish I did some sewing of both the Christmas tree skirt and Dave's Christmas stocking. I managed to finish the stocking today. Yay. Another step closer to Christmas. Dave's stocking has a little Christmas 'emblem' for each year we've been married. It's taken me 7 years to decide to do this for him. I have a stocking that my mum made me and Dave didn't have one at all. I kept saying that the stockings were just for the kids but he really needed one. So I finally caved and made him one. You know how much I love you honey!! Today our activity was a DVD and popcorn. Since Bella was at Granny and Pa's for a sleep over we decided to watch a favorite of Dave's and mine. It's called 'The Rep' and is very funny and filled with way too much swearing. We had a chat to the kids about the swearing before watching it and said that we expected never to hear them use the words they hear in the movie, but we know they've heard them before and if they ever use them they better never use them around us!! We made microwave popcorn (we usually just make air popped popcorn which is very healthy, but we needed the buttery salty stuff tonight) and got out a selection of left over lollies from Bella's afternoon tea yesterday. I don't think the kids enjoyed the movie at all! I think we'll just watch the regular sweet stuff with them next year. We always watch 'The Santa Claus' one, two and three and are looking for something sweet to add to our Christmas DVD collection. Any suggestions?

19 sleeps to go, Sammy's new uniform and Bellas birthday

Cutting the cake. What a big knife you have!

Today is a day of photos. Too tired to type much. Isabella turned five!! Big day!!
Activity today was a hot chocolate with whipped cream(from a can!!)marshmallows and sprinkled with shaved chocolate (Cadbury flake). Yummo!!

My baby is five!

Bella, Sammy and the cousins.

The cake is in the shape of the number '5'.

Sammy's new high school uniform

The cousins in their viking hats.

She looks so old! I can't believe she'll be in high school next year.

Enjoying our hot chocolates.

Cream from a can. Yum!

Melting yumminess!

20 sleeps to go and in overdrive

The day started at 6:15am this morning when Hamish woke me for his morning feed. I grabbed him, unzipped him from his sleep sack and hurried back to the warmth of our bed. His little hands and feet were cold and I tried to warm them on me while I fed him. It made me cold, but also a little less guilty about him sleeping through and not being warm enough. That silly thing they call 'mother guilt'! Hamish feeds very quickly now and so I lay in bed listening to Dave breath and waiting for the alarm to go off before I ventured out of the warm bed. I was very reluctant to get up, but today was a special day for Sammy and so I asked Dave to look after Hamish while I had a shower, washed my hair and blow dried it. I'm pretty quick at my hair now, so I probably only took half an hour and then it was time to wake everyone up, have breakfast, get everyone else fed, dressed, hair done and out the door by 8am. We couldn't have done it without everyone's help and the house was upside down when we left!! I dropped Josh near school and then the four of us drove to Sammy's new high school, parked and unpacked what felt like the whole house to take Hamish and Bella into the high school and keep them quiet while we bought uniforms, book packs, checked bus timetables and paid school fees. The kids were all beautifully behaved and Sammy was so excited to get all her school uniform bits and pieces, find out what house group she is in and watch the high school students perform for us. My baby is growing up! She was very nervous about sitting the placement test and had asked Josh about it. In the end she did well and said that the test was very easy. I think it gives the school a chance to stream students from the word go instead of waiting for their results at the beginning of the school year. It was great to see her dad make the effort to come along to the high school orientation. It took him two hours to get to the school what with peak hour and school traffic. Sammy was pleased she got to spend some quality time with him without Josh or her dad's partner and baby around. I know I try and make the effort for Sammy to spend time with just me, but it is hard to find the time to do that. I hope they had a really nice time.
After orientation it was off to Top Ryde City to catch up with two lovely ladies, Sim and Kez and their four treasures. We gave them donuts and milkshakes and got a caffeine hit while the kids played imaginary games that involved moving chairs around, using the equipment on the activity wall (specifically a plastic phone) and even lying on the floor at one stage. It didn't really matter what they were doing as long as they weren't hurting each other or any passing strangers. It gave us a chance to catch up 'adult' like which is always so good at recharging the batteries!! I'm looking forward to our dinner out without the kids! That will be even better!! AND I'll be able to leave Hamish at home and have a glass of wine!! OMG!!
Dave had a meeting today and was dressed in a suit for a nice change. I asked him if he wanted to have lunch up with me at Top Ryde and he didn't need asking twice! Almost like a date!! We went to a place in the Piazza called 'Grill' something. The food was okay, nothing to write home about. It was the company that was delightful. Yes you honey! You looked great in your suit by the way! I love you!! XXOOXX
Dave left me after a quick lunch to get back home and do some more work before the end of year Scout party and dinner this evening. The weather went from bad to worse and I was sure that they would cancel, but they didn't. Dave suggested that I stay at home because it was so cold. I took him up on his offer straight away. No arguments from me. I'm sitting here with thick socks and slippers on and am still a little cold. What strange weather for December. It's supposed to be our summer!

Our 2011 Christmas decoration. A glass church.

Silver ornament ties to replace the red ones.

After Dave left Isabella and I went looking for a Christmas decoration to buy for this year. I've been looking all over and haven't seen anything I like until today. Today I saw a shiny, sparkly, cute, little church and so bought it straight away. It was from 'Bed, bath and Table'. Love that store. Also bought some new silver ties to replace the red ones on my white and silver Christmas tree.

Bad lighting. It was 8pm when I took the photo. These are at my front door.

I then raced home and put Hamish straight to bed. I needed the break more than him I think! While he was asleep I changed the ribbons on the ornaments on the silver and white tree (the red ribbons were very obvious and although I know many of you are probably rolling your eyes right about now I needed to fix it for me), put up our new church decoration after writing on the bottom of it in permanent marker "Top Ryde 2011". I then finally planted the succulents that I'd been given by my girlfriend Jo from a couple of weeks ago. They look amazing! Thank you.

I have two of these inside now.

 Finally the 'activity' or 'task' for today was to make a treat. Well Isabella is turning 5 tomorrow and for breakfast she would like to have pancakes. Well I cheated slightly and made them tonight already. It meant that the task for tonight was completed even though the older two were out and Isabella was too busy playing school to help. It also means that in the morning when I get up feeling exhausted I can appear to be organised with breakfast when all I'm actually doing is heating up the pancakes. We're going to have them with either banana, blueberries or chocolate chips or chocolate Hershey kisses and maple syrup. I don't eat pancakes so I will be having a cup of coffee and WATCHING everyone else eat the pancakes. No I'm NOT on a diet, but I forgot to buy gluten free pancake mix and I can't be bothered trying to make some just for me. It seems such a waste!!
What a day!! I'm sitting here with Hamish and Isabella in bed, Dave at Scouts and the older two out with their dad. It's 8:54pm and I'm exhausted. I had every intention of doing some more of my Christmas tree skirt, but I think I will finish Dave's stocking while watching tele and then go to bed. But of course not before wrapping Isabella's presents that are hiding in my cupboard.

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!!

Twenty-two days, a sneak peak and a house

My rolling hem foot did all the hard work.

All the cut strips.

The strips with a rolled hem on one side.

Last night I decided to do something with my calico. And just like a good book once I started sewing I couldn't stop!! I measured, I cut, I even rolled hems!! Not much to see yet but it will be beautiful when it's finished.
This morning was an early start!! I had to take Bella to dance class. The usually good thing is that I get almost one hour of child free time!! I get to drink a coffee while it's hot all the way from start to finish and nurture my inner paparazzi by reading Who or Woman's Weekly and catch up on uninterrupted gossip. Just like bubble-gum for the brain. Delicious!! Only this morning I got to get my coffee take-away and watch her dance class. It happens once a year and today was the day. There was an audible sigh from all the parents who suddenly realised that their little bit of respite from their dancing queen was gone for the week. We all looked at each other and one of the mums said,"oh I guess you'll only need us in half an hour won't you." and before Miss Ellie had a chance to say anything we all chimed in with, "Yes. In half an hour we'll be back" before she could clarify that we could stay for the whole class. We all needed caffeine and that was the end of that!!

Bella wearing her jazz shoes and a little tutu.

Showing me how she can touch her toes.

Here are some adorable "dance class" photos.
Straight after that was a visit to Macquarie Centre where Sammy had an ice-skating party to attend. That left us three hours to search for outdoor furniture. We had lunch and afternoon tea and bought bits and pieces we probably don't need and then picked up Sammy. Off to Parramatta Rd for a look at more outdoor furniture and then a quick Costco shop before heading home.

The box and the goodies shared out into bowls.

Josh's lolly and icing mess.

Sammy's smile matches her gingerbread man.

A bowl of baked beans awaits finishing.

The house ready to decorate.

The finished house. The kids had to wait a day to eat this!

The usual feed, bath and dress Hamish before putting him to bed and then Dave made dinner for us and after we did advent activity number three. Make a gingerbread house. When I say 'make' I really mean 'construct' a gingerbread house because all our stuff came in a cardboard box. Here they are enjoying themselves.
They did a great job!! I added some little swirls to use up the last of the icing. They have to wait until tomorrow to eat it. The only reason I get away with this is that they get to eat the little biscuit they decorate after they finish with the house. Good all around!

Twenty three days to go...

Today I had a lovely catch up with a wonderful woman. We decided to do fun activities and so cleaned her house together. Of course my tongue is planted firmly in cheek. She made a delicious lunch and the kids played so well that I almost forgot I had Bella with me. Her little golden locked boy entertained my Bella so well. He had her in stitches. So cute! I hope she doesn't mind me posting a photo of him.

Bella with her lunch and a silly smile.

Another cute smile!

Cutting the just printed activities.

The bits all ready to put together.

The finished product.

Slipped in to make sure it fits.

All the activities in their special place.

Josh's dance trophy.

Last night I ended staying up late to finish the advent activity calendar. (Staying up late seems to be a recurring theme with me lately unfortunately!!) I had to make sure the little pieces of cardboard would fit in our advent calendar. I can't take credit for the hanging Santa though. I bought it quite a few years ago but it really needed an update. So after lots of fiddling with paper, cutting, hole punching and ribbon cutting I ended up with something I'm very happy with. Our activity last night was to finish decorating the house and tree. Tonight was to go out for a treat. We had to take the kids to the golden arches tonight (McDonalds) because Josh had his dance class end of year presentations and it only finished at 6. So a rush back home to pick up the kids after the presentation finished meant a trip to a place that would feed us quickly. Anyway to make this long story shorter our activity for tonight was to visit the video store (is that showing my age?) and get the kids an ice-cream. Here are some pics to see what the calendar looks like and also Josh's trophy.

Christmas count down - 24 sleeps to go

A gorgeous silver bird from a student last year.

A bell wreath I made.

A wreath I bought a couple of years ago.

Today I exchanged the lights and finished our 2nd and 3rd tree (don't judge me it truly is a sickness I have) and persuaded the eldest and strongest child to put the empty boxes under the house. The only problem I see is that our house doesn't have enough decorations around now that we've moved into more spacious digs. This is the only downside mind you and easily rectified by getting or making more Christmas decorations. So today I also visited my local Hobbysew and bought material for a new tree skirt and some felt for some new tree ornaments. When I showed the ladies at Hobbysew what I wanted to make with the calico they were very excited and said they might make one too. So perhaps you'll see a new Christmas skirt there and you'll know it came from me. Here are some sneak peaks of the decorating so far.

Christmas is coming!!!

Christmas is coming and as I do every year I race around trying to get all the decorations and trees up before the 1st of December. Well as happens every year I won't quite make it! We've managed to get the lounge room tree up and most of the decorations up around the house. We still have our 2nd tree to do, but unfortunately when I went to put up the lights I found that they were broken. So I did a special trip to the shops today and bought what I thought was a small lot of lights. I got home to put them on the tree and just before I unwrapped the lights I noticed that it said 'extension' set on the side of the box. I turned the lights over and in quite big writing on the back it said that these lights won't work without a transformer. So tomorrow I need to take the lights back and then we can finish decorating the tree. I just can't bring myself to decorate the tree before I put the lights on. I don't know if anyone else has this problem. It really is quite a silly problem, but I just can't do it. It's just not right!! ; )

I'm going to try and write a post everyday of December. It'll be like a blog advent calendar. This year I seem to have a few different things going on to count down to Christmas or just special Christmas traditions. Here goes...

1. The kids each have a chocolate advent calendar that has a little chocolate for them to eat each day of December.
2. We have an advent calendar where you move a felt star for each day of December.
3. Each year when I pack up Christmas I use any unused Christmas paper to cover 24 Christmas books. They sit under the tree and each day of December the kids get to choose a book, unwrap it and we read it before bed.
4. Each year I sew a little Christmas design onto their stocking and date it.
5. I make the kids make something new for the tree each year. When they're little they tend to make something at school which I date and put on the tree. The older kids make something special at home.
6. We have to make special biscuits or treats during December.
7. We always go and visit our local 'Christmas lights' where they always have an ice-cream van (it's Summer here in Australia), and sometimes even a choir or small band. We always park the car, get an ice-cream and then walk around the streets looking at all the Christmas lights. There is a wonderful sense of community as you wander around along with many many other families.
8. Christmas Carols. We usually try and go to a Christmas Carol evening where we pack a picnic (think wine, cheeses, chicken, salads, dessert) sing some carols and watch the fireworks at the end of the evening. I love these evenings!
9. Build and demolish a gingerbread house. This usually involves more eating than decorating funnily enough! It's amazing that the house gets built at all with all the eating that goes along with this activity.

Anyway as you can see we have adopted quite a number of traditions for Christmas that make it special for us. Each year I try and add a little something new. Well this year I've decided to add an activity advent calendar. Here are a couple that I've found that I like.

So I better go to bed because tomorrow I need to go and buy lights, material for my new tree skirt from here, (although I'm going to sew mine as I'm much quicker at sewing than I am at hot gluing AND I think my fingers will thank me!) and also print out my activity advent calendar AND tidy all the boxes of stuff away so that the house looks merry and Christmassy and NOT like an explosion of stuff.

Here are some photos of what we've been up to lately.

Here's Hamish in church at a Christening.

Here's Sammy and Josh sitting in the pews.

At my brother's wedding with a sleeping Hamish.

Sammy and Josh at the wedding.

Hamish's new party trick!

My brother and his beautiful bride.

Isabella watching Mr Snuggles getting a haircut.

Mr Snuggles visiting our house from daycare.

Sammy and Josh go-carting with Scouts.

Hamish can roll over, and over and over now.

'Date night' with my usually moustache less hubby.