Christmas 2012

A pile of pics of what's been happening the last couple of days.

Christmas Eve (around 11.40pm) Lyndon, his parents and I were chatting in the lounge and all of a sudden there was this almighty bang and a loud swish of water.  The front glass pane on Tom's tank had given way and exploded out onto the deck.  I saw Tom riding the flood of water before hitting the deck several metres from the tank, he quickly scurried over to the wall and stayed there while we cleaned up.

We put him in our portable tank and he was very shaken up.  He sat for about 20 minutes on the rock and hardly moved at all.

Then he went under the rock and tried to hide.  Poor little thing.  He seems much better now though and doesn't seem to have broken anything.

Christmas Eve the presents were wrapped, the stockings were filled and all under the tree.

The kids woke early on Christmas Day!  5.30am Maddison came in, and it wasn't long after that Aaron got up!  Here they are reading the note I left ...

"Do not touch.  Please go and ask Mummy first!"  hehehee  It worked!

Jingle had left a special breakfast for us, waffles, syrups, whipped cream and loads of fresh fruit.  Delicious!

6.30am ... having breakfast!

After the kids had finished breakfast, dressed and hair done they opened their stockings (note it's still dark outside!!)

 So exciting ... Lego from the Shell petrol station which he didn't have.

They all got a harmonica each!  (I might regret that hahaa)

Samuel opening his stocking.

Aaron with his present from Maddison and Samuel.  (Story behind why that lego set is in a plastic bag!  I bought it for Maddison to give to a friend whose party she was going to and Aaron saw it and decided he would open the box!  He did such a terrible job at opening it that I couldn't mend it to give away, so decided he could have it for Christmas!!)

Maddison very upset (tears and all) with her present from Aaron and Samuel!  It wasn't the lego set she asked Santa for!  haha

Samuel was thrilled with the Cars set he got from Aaron & Maddison.

Opening presents from Santa.

Ahhh all happy now we've opened the one we asked Santa for!

More Cars!  Nearly too much excitement :-)

You can tell I wasn't taking the pictures as Aaron was doing the  peace sign for every picture he had taken of himself and lego!  (I don't let him do that for photos!)

 Samuel just loves his Car sets :-)

 Building ...

 And all finished by that afternoon!

Santa gave Lyndon some reversible ties so when he dribbles food on them he can just turn it over  and carry on!  :-)

I gave him a gong :-)  The kids had great fun with it.  

Samuel was funny ... he would watch his hand go back and forward hitting the gong.  haha

Santa bought me this awesome word art.  Love it.  Has some very good words on it for me (and the kids!! e.g. 3rd line from the top!!)

Lyndon got me a power pack for my new Vagabond (long story, but to give you the quick version, I am now on Vagabond #3 as the first two just stopped working.  This one is direct from Sizzix in the States and is a lower power voltage.  Will be interesting to see how this one lasts.)

I bought myself Project Life to do for 2013.  :-)  Looking forward to that.

Grandad and Nana gave me a cool kitchen rules sign :-)  I was very spoilt.

Christmas lunch was an easy light meal with a couple of friends.  We had bacon and egg pie, vege quiche, banana and leek salad, lettuce salad, fresh bread and BBQ meat.  For dessert (which I didn't take a pic of) we had meringues, whipped cream, fresh fruit (strawberries, pineapple, cherries, mango, banana) and ice cream. Delicious!

Yesterday Lyndon went off and bought a new tank for Tom.  Unfortunately they didn't have the same size in stock, so this one is a little bit shorter.  But it's much better than his portable one.

Maddison did some painting on the desk holder she got in her stocking.

So that's been us.  Today has been quiet too.  The kids have been bike riding this morning and now Lyndon, Maddison and the grandparents are off to visit the Islamic Arts Museum.  Tonight we are going out for dinner with friends.

Thanks for visiting.

Jingles last days in 2012

When we got back home after a few days away we found Jingle had been having a big snooze under the tree.

On the 24th he left a note in the advent calendar saying it was his last night and he would be  eating lots of sugar throughout the day so he had enough energy to fly back to the North Pole!  :-)   The kids looked all over and couldn't find him though.

Maddison finally found him in the tree (he was round the back of the tree, she turned the tree around for the photo).

Christmas morning Jingle had gone, but he'd left a note with a bottle of maple syrup and strawberry flavored syrup!  :-)

The note said he'd be back next year and he'd left them a special treat for breakfast in the freezer!

Kinda sad to see him go actually.  I didn't get to do half the ideas I'd thought about or found on Pinterest!  heheee

Thanks for visiting.

More Jingle Adventures ....

Day 17 - Jingle went hot air ballooning in Aaron's undies :-)

Day 18 - he had a game of Tumblin' Monkeys with Barbie under the tree.  (When Aaron saw them, he said "Daddy ... I think they will fall in love"!!)  hahaa

Maddison decided she didn't want her Barbie to play with Jingle and snatched her away, so Aaron had a game with Jingle (note it's Jingles turn to throw the dice hehee) :-)

Day 19 - Barbie escaped from Maddison's clutches, jumped in her car and came zooming past to  pick up Jingle for a ride!!

He liked it so much he even had his arm around her!!  :-)

Day 20 - Christmas stockings were hung, so Jingle decided to hang out in one of them :-)

Jingle is going to have a rest for a few days (probably in the stocking) while we are away for a couple of days.  Wonder what we find him doing when we get back!!

Thanks for visiting.

9 Days till Christmas!

Whoa!  Is this month flying past or what!?!  Here's what we've been up to the last week and a bit.

On Saturday the 8th Maddison and I had some girl time.  We went to a mall and met a friend for brunch and did a little bit of shopping.  Maddison wanted her photo taken in this "garden"!

Paddington House of Pancakes was where we ate!  Delicious :-)

Maddison thought so too :-)

Wednesday 12th I was mystery reader in Maddison's class :-)  Nana, Samuel and I went down to school after the kids got on the bus.  Maddison didn't know we were coming :-)

I read them the Dr Seuss book "The Grinch who stole Christmas".

And I made them a scrumptious snack!  :-)

hehehee ... Grinch boogers - hand picked just for you!  :-)

Popcorn covered (and I mean covered!) in sugar, sugar, sugar and green food colouring.

Samuel played with the blocks and animals while I read.

When we got home he had a wee chat to Tom and told him about his cars!

I took a pic of myself at 12.12pm that day as it was the 12th of the 12th of 2012.  Making cookies in a messy kitchen and the bench covered in dishes.  Pretty normal really!!

Samuel played a game or 3 of connect four.

That evening I iced the cookies, with help from Nana.  I made them for Maddison's end of year party the next day.

Thursday 13th - made a batch or 4 of gingerbread men.

I had EVERY intention of icing them like reindeer, but the first one the icing was too thick and it didn't look right, and then the icing bag split.  So thinned the icing and changed bags and managed to do two which were okay, then the bag split again and then I had trouble getting the icing to flow again.  So I gave up!

Turned the gingerbread men all around the right way again and put on a thicker nozzle on a new icing bag and iced them like this.  Was a lot quicker!  :-)  These were for Aaron to give to his class mates as a Christmas treat.  (Aaron and Maddison had a reindeer each in their lunch box that day!)

Then we went down to Maddison's party.  One of the Mum's had made these really cool snowmen.  :-)

14th December was Aaron and Maddison's last day of school for the year.  It was also the Grade 1 and 2 Christmas Concert that morning.  So Lyndon, Samuel, Nana and Grandad and myself went along to that.  The 4 Grade 2 classes sung songs in Malay, Chinese and Indian. Aaron's class sung a couple of Indian songs and they all wore Indian costumes.  Aaron didn't want to wear Indian pants though, so wore his jeans with his shirt!

He sung a little solo as well.

and I grinned to myself when he turned around to go back to his place and his hands were like that behind his back :-)

Afterwards Samuel had some special hugs for his big brother!

Then they all got up on stage for some photos.

Saturday 15th.  Aaron completed his Reward Chart.  Not sure if I have spoken about it on my blog, but I bought a hotwheels track that he really wanted some time ago.  I took a photo of it and printed one out in colour and one in black and white.  The black and white copy got taped to his bedroom door.  The coloured copy I cut up into 28 puzzle pieces.  Every time he did awesome at something he got a puzzle piece to stick on his chart.  Sometimes a piece got removed if he was especially nasty.  Yesterday he earned the last 3 pieces by doing helpful things!  Great excitement.  Hopefully now it will encourage Maddison to work a bit harder to earn puzzle pieces for her reward (which is a Barbie doll with a baby).

16th December - Samuel enjoying watermelon after dinner!  Hope the stains come out of his shirt!

Thanks for visiting.