Merry Christmas!!

Well Christmas this year was an absolute blast!! Jack was soooooo excited especially with everyone around. It was just great!

These are the Christmas cookies Jack and I baked for out friendly rubbish man but he wasn't on the last run so some stranger got our cookies. He was very happy about it though. This is the 2nd year in a row that our regular guy hasn't worked the last run before Christmas so I'll have to remember for next year to give them earlier. We also missed the recycling guys because they came while we were dropping Daddy to work so Daddy ate their biscuits.

Christmas Eve was the normal hectic scene. My friend Kim offered to babysit Jack for a few hours so he went over there and played with Jared and my Mum came over and helped me out a bit. Then in the afternoon when I was heading out to pick Owen up from work I got about 10 meters down our street and realised I had a dead flat tire. Luckily Mum was still over so I took her car to pick up Owen and he had late customers so by the time we got home it was 5.50pm and he had to change the tire and finish the mowing! That night we took Jack for a drive to have a look at all the Christmas lights which he loved and I loved the fact that he fell asleep in the car. We got home and I did some more cooking and cleaning while Owen got a start on putting Jack's swing set together. At about midnight Owen asked if I could come and help with the swings and so that's what we did until 3.15am!! OMG!! The first half of it was a breeze to put together but the slide and the last swing thing were killers. At least the neighbours on the corner were having a party so we had some music to listen to.

Here's Jack making the brownie to leave out for Santa.And Santa's snack stash. A bottle of nice cold milk with and espresso flavour straw and a nice warm fudge brownie.The reindeer food.Jack sprinkling the reindeer food on the lawn. Well, he dumped the 3/4 of it in a big pile and then Daddy helped him sprinkle the rest.

Christmas morning Owen and I got up at 7ish and did a couple of things before Jack woke just after 8am. He was so cute when he saw that Santa had eaten the brownie and drunk the milk not to mention filling his Santa sack to overflowing. Jack opened up his Santa presents which took forever and then people started arriving. I just LOVE the hustle and noise of

Christmas day, although I'm sure it didn't seem that way to everyone while I was frantically trying to fill the smoked salmon cups. You should have seen the amount of wrapping paper flying around our place. We manage to squeeze about 15 people into our theatre room. Christmas lunch was just delicious!! Tons of prawns, ham, pork, chicken and pasta & potato salads, italian salad and a delicious pumpkin and avocado salad and desert was plum pudding with custard and ice cream, pavlova and truffles. Yum yum yum. I'm going to be eating prawns for days!! The afternoon was spent sitting around talking while Grandad and a few others watched Indiana Jones.

I love the colour of these Christmas mint M&M's.

The Christmas table decorations...The food!!!Grandad and Grandma opening their gifts...My lovely Aunt Jenny and my Mummy...The Weaver girlies...Diane, Mum, Jenny, Grandma & Fay. I have about 5 different versions of this photo and in everyone someone's either laughing so much you can't see their eyes of pulling some sort of funny face. My gorgeous Aunt Diane and Uncle Paul under the bauble branch. They came up from Sydney for Christmas and my Aunt Fay came up from Melbourne.

On Boxing Day Owen and Jack put up Jack's new little trampoline while I got the house back to normality then Jack had a big play on his new tramp and swings. Such a big jump in fact that he woke up last night because his legs were aching. We had some friends over for dinner to help out with the left overs and some more friends to help with the left over truffles. We girls played Singstar while the boys sat around talking about boring electrical mumbo jumbo.

Jack helping Daddy put the trampoline together...note Daddy's cute little hat.

All our baby ghecko's hatched too and yes Brenda they are about pea sized eggs. We were sitting at the table last night and David spotted this baby ghecko on the gingerbread house.

I'm planning on heading out today to check out the post Christmas sales. I'm hoping to get some advent trees and some new Christmas decorations however I don't really need them so maybe I'll see the crowds and turn straight around home. I do however have to get some nice fresh chewy crust bread so I can have a prawn sandwich for lunch and possibly dinner as well. :P

This was a gift from my Aunt Diane. His name is Fred. I saw them on eBay a few weeks ago and nearly bought one. It's just so me!!

This is the nappy cake I made up for my friend Eleanor who had her baby last week.Okay, off to the sales.

Ciao.

Busy...busy...busy...

Well we've had a busy but enjoyable weekend.

On Saturday Jack & I went and made a very minor chip in our Christmas shopping. I don't have billions of gifts still to buy but my problem is that I know what I want to get but I just can't find it. Anyhoo, Saturday afternoon we picked up Owen's dad from the airport, he's been in Tassie visiting Owen's brother, and then we headed down to the beach to attend my Christmas party.

It was a really nice night. My boss and his wife have some spectacular art and things. Just beautiful. It was a lovely meal and great company. We even had the most delicious little pasty cups filled with a slice of smoked salmon and a cream cheese/dill combo and topped with big fat balls of caviar. They were sooooo tasty. I've eaten caviar before but not like this. This was the good stuff.

My grandparents have a beach house so we stayed down there on Saturday night and after breakfast we headed down to the beach for a romp in the surf. The water was just the most perfect temperature. Jack had an absolute ball jumping waves, chasing seagulls, digging holes, kicking the water. We even saw a quite large dead fish that had been washed up on the beach that had had it's tail bitten off!! Exciting stuff hey. After the swim we went to the shop and grabbed and ice cream and headed off to the park for a play on the swings.

This cool insect kind of looked like a lobster. It was cute so I took it's photo! :P

When we got home in the afternoon we went and saw Enchanted which is coming out soon. Jack watched most of it and only got bored during the last 20 mins or so which was all the soppy romantic part. He was so cute clapping after the big song scene. After the movie we went and picked up Grandma Joy and then went and checked out our friends Erica & Pete's new house which is being built at the moment and then we went over to the new park in town. It's just great. The little kids area is a bit so so but the main playground is just rockin'. Owen had a great time and Jack had fun too. They have this gigantic big rope web with a jumping bit in the middle, a flying fox, all sorts of cool climbing things as well as the normal playground stuff. We're probably going to go on Wednesday so I'll take some photos then. After we'd had a good play we went for a walk along the river and checked out the new jetty's and then we headed off home. Jack fell asleep in the car so he had an early night for once!! so Owen and I got to watch a movie!! Woohoo, we watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry which was absolutely freakin' hilarious. I loved it.

Owen was off today as well although he did have to go in to work for awhile this morning but when he got home I headed out to do some more Christmas shopping and then went and got my hair done. My hairs pretty light now. I took a photo but it looks lighter irl.

I also have a couple of birth announcements...

We've hatched 2 more ghecko's. We havn't been lucky enough to see one hatch yet but we still have 2 more eggs to go. Oh and the eggs got a nice new house in the birds nest Mum found the other day on our walk.

And more importantly, meet Rhya...

Isn't she just beautiful! I got to nurse her for ages this afternoon...cluck cluck cluck. She is the daughter of my friends from work, Eleanor and her husband Corey. Welcome to the world little one!

And for Donna, nope, no news here I'm afraid and the reindeer food is just rolled oats and glitter but apparently you can use jelly crystals instead of the glitter for a more child friendly version and the poem reads, "Sprinkle on the lawn at night The moon will make it sparkle bright As Santa's reindeer fly and roam This will guide them to your home. "

Ok, night everyone.

The Gingerbread house fiasco...

Before the story of the gingerbread house I'll do a bit of a catch up.
On Friday night we had Jack's daycare Christmas party which was great fun. They had coloured hairspraying and facepainting. Jack refused the face painting and then at the end of the night decided he wanted it but they'd closed the booth. They had two jumping castles which were great. Jack played on it all night long. Mind you each turn took awhile. It was a slide jumping castle and he'd climb to the top and then hide around the corner of a pillar trying to wait until there were no other kids up there and then slide down. A couple of times one little boy tried to push him down, I think he thought he was stuck.
There was a visit from Santa which Jack was sooooo excited about. The kids had to sing songs to get Santa to come visit which was adorable. When they said Santa was coming Jack looked up in the sky so he obviously understands the concept of the flying sleigh & reindeers, he kept asking for the reindeer, "Where are the reindeers?" "Can we go see them?" The look on Jack's face when he saw Santa coming was just priceless, it even brought a tear to my eye. He was very excited. Here he is patiently waiting on Daddy's lap for Santa to call his name.And then when his name got called he went up, grabbed his gift and took off.Here he is unwrapping his special book from Santa.It was a great night for the kids.
Here's what else has been happening in our household...
I've finally done my Christmas cards and they're all ready to post out. I'm making it a tradition that every year I get personalised stamps done at Christmas time. I think they're a great keepsake idea. I scrapbook one and put one inside the drawer on the advent tree. I got these red and green envelopes at Crazy Clarks ($2 shop) for a bargain but they were just a little too small for my card so I had to trim all my cards. It took ages. And then I rolled a little stamp on the bottom of the envelope to pretty it up. How cute is this...? This was from Jack's daycare. Reminds me though that I'll have to make hand and foot print reindeers with Jack.
Jack and I kept little Charlotte occupied the other day while her Mummy took her brother to swimming so she got to help Jack make up the reindeer food. Don't they look cute. Jack really needs a sister.And here it is all packed up. I've decorated eclipse mint tins as well to send to my cousin's littlies.And now the gingerbread house...
I decided that I wanted to make a gingerbread house on Sunday so I googled some recipes and plans and things, went and bought some extra flour and then had to cut down my recipe because I only had half a cup of glucose so I couldn't use my blueprint anyway. So I made the gingerbread, thought I was pretty clever and cut out windows and things and used lollipops to make stained glass windows and then when I went to assemble it I broke it (insert frustrated crying smiley here). I tried to repair it and put in back together a couple of times over the next couple of hours but when I woke up in the morning I decided it was a lost cause and out of frustration just binned the whole bloody thing!! GRRR!!
Anyhoo, I'm don't like to give up on things I really want to do so I decided to have another go with a simpler recipe and a simpler plan and it worked!!!! YAAY!!! Although I will say that when I finished it last night at about 12.30 I was a bit dissappointed but when Jack walked out this morning and saw it he was very excited. He's decided that teddies live in there (I think he thinks it's the banana in pj's teddies house) and he's checked it out from all angle and even knocked on the door.

If I make one again I'll make more co-ordinated lolly selections.Righteo, I'm off to hopefully (fingers crossed) finish my Christmas shopping!!

Ciao

Our very own Christmas miracle...well sort of a miracle

We store our Christmas decorations up in the roof and when we unpacked them this year Jack found 5 little intact eggs and I found one cracked one as well. He was really excited and thought they were just so cool so we put them in an old bottle and popped them up on top of the microwave to show Grandma Joy cause she just loves things like that. I was pretty sure they were ghecko eggs because I'd googled it and the size sounded about right. So anyhoo, this afternoon Jack asked for some popcorn so we were watching the microwave and I looked up at the bottle and saw half an egg shell so I got it down and lo and behold...there was and little baby ghecko. I hope it hasn't got cancer from sitting up on top of the microwave :P I can't beleive it hatched. The eggs have been shaken, carried by a two year old and been left sitting on top of a microwave so those ghecko's must be tough little buggers.

Of course the poor little thing couldn't get out of the bottle so I let it out in the kitchen and made a special little nest for the other eggs. We already had a couple of little gheckos running around so we're hopefully soon to have some more. I hope we get to see one hatch. Note the little styrofoam ball in the right edge of the nest, Jack found it the other day and said it was and egg and that it had to go in with the other eggs.This is our cat, Kitti-Mae who in general is pretty much a bit of a bitchy cat but seems to have mellowed dramatically since Miss Ophelia's departure. She has been very tolerant of Jack which has really surprised me. Here he is making Buzz Lightyear ride her.Speaking of Buzz Lightyear, did I mention how we came to have him? I'm addicted to those claw games that they have in the shopping centre and have won a variety of cool toys but the other day I pulled out a Buzz Lightyear!!! I was sooooooo excited. It was just like in the movie. I even SMS'd Owen at work to let him know.

Ok, I have some more Christmasy things to show from around my house...

The wreath on our front door...

Our little potted olive tree all glammed up with some baubles and tinsel...My cool reindeer that I bought at the local swap meet (like a giant garage sale). I just love them!! I think I may have to force my husband to make a few extras before next Christmas.Owen, to my surprise, came home today with this cool Santa key. He saw it in the window of a shop that one of his poker buddies owns. I'm really surprised that he bought something Christmasy. It's such a neat idea. I've seen them in a few stores lately.I decorated a Kaiser Christmas tree. The pearls look really wonky in the photo but arn't that noticeable in real life. These papers are some of my all time favourite Christmas papers.A Kaiser Christmas star...Jack's daycare Christmas party is tomorrow night so he and I iced and sprinkled some arrowroot biscuits this afternoon. I did the icing and he did the sprinkles. You should have seen the amount of sprinkles on my floor afterwards. What a mess!!And of course Jack had to taste test them.And Dee just to make you feel better with all the poo-tastophe's you've been having...Jack pooed in the shower tonight!! Thankfully I wasn't showering with him which I normally do. GROSS!!!

Ok, ciao

Oh, and you have to try this...it's just soooooo freakin' funny. I nearly peed in my pants.

Edited to add: A couple of people asked about the over the table decoration. It's just a couple of large branches and a couple of small branches, wired together, painted with a tinge of silver, then I sprayed on some varnish, sprinkled on some glitter and then more varnish. It's just suspended with fishing line. It's quite light.

It really is looking like Christmas at our place now...

My table centrepiece. So much more sparkly and pretty irl. I love love love these flowers but I do however need to find something to sit it on at the moment it's on a scrap of faux fur. There's some bauble and glittery things in there that you can't really see. This is hanging on Jack's bedroom door.
Another photo of my over table display, have I said already that i LOVE it.
My Christmas apron and the beads are just hanging around the door frame.

Even Kitti-Mae's getting into the spirit of Christmas by sleeping under the tree whilst wearing her new sparkly Christmas collar.
Our Christmas tree...
One of my favourite ornaments this year.
I have this huge vase, about 70cm high, that I've filled with baubles and my gorgeous reindeer which I ordered through work to go on my Christmas table.
If I can work out how to take night shots, I'll take some of my Christmas lights too.

Cheers