HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Tonight I'm enjoying a quiet champagne with my family and probably won't see midnight as my children will be up at 5.30am. The weather is very hot and humid at present and we are madly praying for rain as the grass is very crunchy under foot.

I also wanted to post some more photos of our family Christmas.

The top two photos are of my niece, Alex and nephew, Lachlan holding green frogs which enjoyed the water around the pool at the apartments. The next photo is of Penny and Auntie Trudie (my SIL) and the bottom of great mates and cousins, Lachlan and Nicholas. I hope to post more photos soon.

WISHING YOU ALL A FANTASTIC, SUCCESSFUL AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

I'm still trying to work out my New Year's resolutions. Maybe it will take me the whole year to decide!

Have a great night.

Rach xx

A Great Beachy Christmas!

We had a great Christmas at the local beach. My parents and sister ventured up from Adelaide and my brother and his family came up from Brisbane. We stayed in some lovely new apartments situated about 100 metres from the beach. The kids had a great time in the pool but also equally enjoyed their time in the surf. Nick gained great confidence on his boogie board and was even riding the waves kneeling on his board. We enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch made special by the gorgeous name tags that the cousins, Alexandra and Lachlan had made as well as the Christmas crackers that the children and I made. We also enjoyed fish and chips at the beach one night with possums keeping a close eye on us and a scrummy goodbye BBQ dinner on Saturday night. We didn't want to come home after 5 days but it was great to get organised and for the kids to get all of their presents out properly at home.

On our arrival home, Penny was greeted with her new playhouse which was a little too big to take to the beach. She is loving playing games and trying to fit all of her dolls and their accessories in it. Nick spent much of yesterday building all of his new Lego City Coast Guard. He received two big sets for Christmas and built them all by himself.

Today we farewelled my sister, Auntie Robbie. The kids have loved playing with her and Penny started crying as soon as her plane took off - "I want to play with Auntie Robbie!". We are hoping to visit Adelaide in May and she hopes to come back during 2009. Also today, our poor Labrador, Zoe had a toe on her back foot amputated due to a fast growing tumour. She's home tonight and appears to be in good spirits with a waggly tail although a little sleepy.

Fun Play

We had a great morning playing at the new playground in our area. It also caters for disabled children with a wheelchair swing being one of the main attractions. It is a wonderful playground with great equipment for all ages including a bike/traffic roadway and a maze.

The rest of the day has been spent getting ready for that very important day which is 2 sleeps away. I don't think I'll get back here before Christmas Day so to all I wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for 2009.

Rach xx

Oh What A Night...

We had a great night at my work Christmas party - theme Hollywood style. As mentioned earlier, I went as Audrey Hepburn - can you see the likeness? Some people had the nerve to ask me if I was the Queen, until I brought out my cigarette holder and then they didn't know what to think! Craig went as The Joker (Jack Nicholson) with green hair (didn't show up well in the photo) and a beautifully painted face. We had a great night, with great food, plenty of champagne (although not over indulgent), great company and fantastic dancing. We were a little slow the next morning due to our late night but plenty needed to be done as my family arrived later that day to stay with us for Christmas.

In other news we had a lovely night at the park for Penny's daycare Christmas party. The kids were very well behaved and we all really enjoyed ourselves. Santa visited and the kids each received a good book. We also had fun singing Christmas carols.

We visited Santa on Tuesday and Penny was not quite game to sit on Santa's lap, so I had to be part of the photo too. It turned out well. It was nice to be in a photo for a change - 3 in this post in fact!

The Christmas Tree ...

is up and the Christmas carols are playing. We put the tree up on the 1st December but unfortunately I haven't had much time to blog lately. I don't really have time at present, but I love keeping people up to date and receiving comments. We've been busy with end of school fun, our poor old Labrador, Zoe who had to have a visit to the vet to shave and treat a very festy hot spot and I've also rediscovered sewing. I'm making an evening dress for my Christmas party. The theme is Hollywood and I'm going as Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) from "Breakfast At Tiffany's". I will post some photos after the event. I thought I'd better watch the movie as it is some time since I have seen it. It is such a lovely movie. Speaking of movies, I went to see "Australia" last week. It is spectacular, very funny and just beautiful. The scenery is stunning. I have seen a lot of the media releases on the movie but it has many more surprises than has been displayed in these. It's not just a 'chick flick', the guys would love it too. Well worth seeing on the big screen. Well best be off as we have visitors coming for dinner and I have to hem that dress.

'Til next time

Rach

Lesson 1...

in how to fall out of bed - load your bed with toys so that you have a slither left to sleep on! When I went to bed last night, here was Penny with her toys stacked beside her. Clearly, she doesn't go straight to sleep when we turn out her light. I just had to take a photo and straight after I did she rolled out of bed onto the pillows beside her bed. Luckily she didn't really wake so that once I'd cleared the toys out of the way she went straight back to sleep.I have been very busy creating Christmas cards this week (about 36 all up). I am really pleased with the way they turned out but unfortunately I ran out of envelopes so I hope to have them in the post by tomorrow afternoon. I also had to do up my annual Christmas letter and some photos of the children to slip in each.

Yesterday was a very hot and humid day so the children were content to stay in the air conditioning. To keep them amused we built a cubby house out of sheets hung off the clothes line in the garage. They had a great time playing. In the afternoon, Petrina, Angus and Thea came for a visit so the girls played babies and the boys played Lego and soccer amongst other things.

Today the children and I attended their friend, Zac's birthday party at a bowling and leisure centre. They had a great time bowling, playing on the adventure park and massive slide as well as in the games arcade. The lady from the centre who hosted the party was excellent and looked after the kids very well including taking Penny down the big slide.

This evening we enjoyed fish and chips down at the beach. It was beautiful down there, almost cool after the very hot day we have had. Well I'm hitting the sack as I have a busy week ahead trying to complete the Christmas shopping. I think I'll surprise the children tomorrow and we'll put the Christmas tree up after school, only I'll have to start early as the tree itself takes an hour to put up. Will post some photos of our efforts during the week.

180 Pages Completed!

I couldn't remember what I did last week when I wrote my post yesterday but after uploading some photos, I remembered. My week was filled with decorating 180 pages for 9 books for the children who attend the Southern Cross Kids' Camps (see earlier post). I decided use up papers that I don't seem to use anymore but in doing that I realised that they wouldn't be very appealing to kids either. So after lashings of paint and multiple stamps, the result was good. I delivered them to Petrina on Saturday morning. She is a real trooper and done over double my amount (total of 10). I hope the kids like them and find some happiness in slipping their photos and some words onto the pages.Here are the 2 LO's which I did at Petrina's class on Saturday. We used a sparkly spray product called Glimmermist and some clever little watercolours called Twinkling H2O's. It was lots of fun and quite messy too! I came away with some great ideas although these will have to go on hold whilst I get ready for Christmas with cards, crackers and decorations to be made.

Poor Penny is still unwell with the trots (day 7) but her pathology came back all clear. The Doc said it seems to take 7 days for the diarrhoea to go so here's hoping tomorrow is a better day. She is staying home with Grandma tomorrow whilst I go to work. Nick spent the morning at school today but came home before his class went to swimming as he couldn't swim with his sore eyes although they have greatly improved.