NEW YEAR...NEW BLOG FODDER!!

From my house to yours have a fantastic New Year!

Hope 2010 brings you all you hope and wish for....and plenty of followers to your blog!

I am having family time at the moment but will be back with a vengence in 2010!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

LET IT SNOW or WHERE'S THE SUNSCREEN SANTA?

You wake up in a pool of sweat with the covers on the floor and realise that maybe you didn't need your PJ's on last night and you should have put the air conditioning on.

You go into the kids and they too are in a pool of sweat but you refuse to do washing on today of all days. Hubby just shrugs it off and knows not to say the dreaded words of "...Hot? This isn't hot...where I work it gets to a zillion degrees blah blah blah..."

You switch the air con on and turn the news on the TV. Great! Cyclone season. You just know that you are going to get the tail end of it and by the end of today there could be thunder and rain as well as the stinky humidity. If only you had forsaken a decent kitchen for a pool....

Never mind, it's a special day. Breathe, Breathe.

The kids are crazy all morning and you look forward to going out with the family to lunch at the posh resort. So soon enough after breakfast and craziness you put the baby down for his morning sleep and set the 4 year old up with his toy/book/Wii game of choice and head for a nice relaxing shower.

Well it would be relaxing if the 4 year didn't keep coming in ever 5 seconds!

You pull out the outfit you want to wear and realise that you will melt the minute you leave the house in it and you should have realised the weather fairy was on holidays too and wasn't going to make any last minute changes!

You also have to blow dry your hair. Because what you need on a stinking hot humid day is to blow more hot air at yourself! So you do it standing in your underwear and keep turning it off to go stand under the air con vent to cool off. Your face is so red that you look like you have already been out in the sun! You get dressed just in the nick of time and immediately sweat.

You turn the air con up.

The make up is melting off your face. Oh joy!

The 4 year old wants to wear his new outfit which is actually too big because you wanted him to get more wear out of it and the baby has thrown up on his. Oh joy!

So off you go to lunch at the resort where you paid $45 for the 4 year old to have a bread roll and an orange juice! The baby throws up again...this time on you.

It is still hot!!

And it's then that you think to yourself, how lucky am I that I am here with my family, we are having lovely food and it's Christmas day but oh! How I could do with a dob of snow right now!!!

Yes my bloggy friends, Christmas here in Perth will be a balmy 36 degrees C!! Not a snowman or icicle in sight. And for the first time in the 24 years I have lived in this beautiful and wonderful country I am longing for the white Christmas of my childhood.

Maybe it's because I now have kids and Grotbag & Bugalugs will never experience Christmas how it is portrayed in books. All snow and sleighs and snowmen. That is unless we take them back to the UK for Christmas one year. And I know the reality of snow and ice (car's stuck, falling over, slush etc) but in my fantasy it's all lovely and white and fluffy.

And despite my little EXAGGERATED story above (my Christmas day will not be like that at all...hopefully). I do love Christmas here and do like the fact that I can wear a nice little dress without having to be rugged up. That it is very unlikely I will have a cold at Christmas and that we get to go to the beach over the holidays.

But just this year...I am jealous of the snow! I think after 24 years I am allowed this one year!

So all my readers out there who are experiencing snow, tell me what it is you LOVE about the snow and the cold at Christmas and feed my fantasy!!

I LOOK FORWARD TO THIS EVERY YEAR...

...Filling in a new calendar! Sad I know!

I make a night of it and grab a glass of wine, some decent pens and last years Calendar and set about noting all the new plans for the new year ahead.

I never buy a new Calendar before Christmas as they are ALWAYS discounted in the New Year. However, this year I received one as a gift! And yes I have already opened it because it was a Kris Kringle that was given to me by a friend at our Annual Girls Lunch that a group of friends of mine have every year! Not only is it a new calendar but it is a calendar from my favourite stationary shop Kikki.K.

She also got me these great stickers that fit on it! Isn't it great? It is a great big family calendar so I can fit every possible appointment, birthday & social event in!

There is nothing like a blank Calendar to make you think about all what's new and possible in the new year. And also reflect on the year just gone. Some might think it a chore but I look forward to it every year!

THE DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES OR HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE 6 WEEKS SCHOOL HOLIDAYS!!

Grotbag had his last day of Kindy yesterday. Because we are now in Summer here in Australia the School year is a Calendar year so Summer school holidays also started yesterday!


This was Grotbag on his first day of Kindy. I can't believe he has completed the year and has amased a great group of friends as have I with the Kindy mums.


He looks so young in this picture and I have to remember that he was only 3 when he started Kindy! He was just a baby!!!


Of course big changes happened in the first week of his Kindy in that I gave birth to his little brother so our household had alot of adjusting to do - and so I am really proud of him!


Below is Grotbag now - a precotious 4 year old who often sounds like he is 14 - God help me when the teenage years come!



So, we got a letter home saying that the last day of school there would be an incursion where a Magician would come in, they could dress up (Ben 10 is Grotbags hero of choice) and to bring a plate of "healthy" party food!


Now I am all for the healthy stuff, but come on it's the last day of their first ever year at school! So I have rebelled on behalf of and made Mini White Christmas Chocolate Crackles.

Recipe is from my Happy Baby Womans Weekly Cookbook and are really easy:

35gm Rice Bubble/Crispies or whatever you call them in the country your from

35gm Coco Pops (pretty sure these are universal)

70gm of Mini M&Ms

200gm of Melted White Chocolate

Mix all the ingrediants in a bowl and divide into 24 mini muffin cases then refrigerate for at least 10 minutes!

Now that is party food!!!!

THE MAKING OF A MAGICAL CHRISTMAS OR ANOTHER BOY IN THE HOUSE!

Meet Chris the Elf our little Santa's Helper that's come to stay at our house.


I asked Santa if he could send an Elf to us who had finished helping make all the toys and he sent Chris (who looks suspiciously like Grotbag?).

Chris is a little mischievous Elf who gets up to no good when we are all asleep. He also might leave little tasks for Grotbag to do or even hide so Grotbag has to search for him. He is also reporting back to Santa on Grotbag's behaviour.

Well this is what I have told Grotbag anyway.

This again is not one of my brilliant original ideas as all of those have already been light bulbs above somebody elses head. No I just stole it from Raising Z who wrote her post about Park The Elf arriving at her house a couple of weeks ago.

It seemed like a great tradition to start but the Elf Magic Website didn't post the Elves to Australia and I thought it was a bit late to start so thought I would do it next year! But then...I would like to say...magically...I saw Chris the Elf in a gift shop window in Melbourne literally 5 minutes before I had to leave for the airport and so dashed in and got him and brought him back to Perth.

Where, as luck would have it, they had a whole heap of Elves just like Chris in the Airport gift store...go figure?

So once Grotbag had gone to bed I pulled Chris out from my under my mountain of new clothes, bags and shoes I had purchased in Melbourne (yay) and started to tell Hubby the story when he pulled a funny face at me and made pointing motions to the door. After 5 years of marriage and 7 years of being his partner in Pictionary/Dramatic Charades I took this to mean that Grotbag and sneakily got out of bed and was listening at the door. So I told Hubby the story of Chris that I wanted Grotbag to know and then once Grotbag was asleep I put him at the end of Grotbag's bed for him to find in the morning.

Yeah, should have known my son a little better than that! He ran out in the morning asking where the Elf was and had completely missed him at the end of the bed! But once he found him it was like he was glued to Chris. He took the Elf EVERYWHERE with him all day.

I said he could take Chris to bed with him but he was a bit freaked out at the fact that Chris might come alive at night so left him with us.

So, below is how we left Chris last night for Grotbag to find this morning. Playing the Wii and eating Freddo Frogs (Grotbag's favourite chocolates!)

When Grotbag got up this morning we heard him gasp and start whispering to Chris and telling him off for eating the chocolate. Then Grotbag came storming into us to tell us what the naughty Elf had been up to. It was great fun I must admit! We also had to take Chris to school so he could tell his teacher about him so he has been a big hit with Grotbag. Tonight we are going to complete one of Grotbag's puzzles and make it look as if Chris has done it.

Any clean suggestions (all the dirty ones have been giggled over by me and Hubby!) as to what Chris can be getting up to at night will be appreciated in the comments!

Please also don't forget to vote for me...what am I on about...read yesterday's post HERE!

VOTE FOR ME - YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!!!

I have entered Grotbag into the Merry Effing Christmas competition over at Parenting BY Dummies. I have some stiff competition but please GO VOTE FOR ME!!! We are picture #3!

If you want to read the back story to the picture it's HERE.

You may have wondered where I have been...or maybe not...but I am going to tell you anyway!!

I flitted off to Melbourne last week for a little shopping holiday with some of my bestest girlfriends and ate loads, spent loads of money in the pre-Christmas sales and had a jolly good old time! Yes that's right..sans kids and Hubby!

Came back to reality yesterday afternoon! With a thud! Still at least I have come back to reality with some nice new clothes, bags and shoes!! I did miss my boys though and Hubby did an excellent job of keeping them fed and watered and didn't gasp in horror and all the shopping I did! He even managed to take them into the city and get their photo taken with Santa!

How much shopping you ask...well my case weighed 15kg on the way there and I had no hand luggage just my handbag.

My case on the way back weighed 19.6kg and I had another full sized cabin bag as hand luggage which I had to buy while I was there to fit all my new stuff in!!!

I am a happy happy camper I can tell you!!

Anyway, as a side note I do not know how I am going to keep blogging and reading blogs over this silly season so the posts might be a bit thin but I think we are all a bit like that aren't we?

Only 11 more days till the fat man comes woo hoo!!! Better do some more Christmas shopping.....

WHY YOU SHOULDN'T TRY AND TAKE CHRISTMAS PHOTOS OF CHILDREN IN THE AFTERNOON WHEN THEY HAVE HAD NO SLEEP!

My cousin Bling called me the other day and we were trying to arrange a time to go into the city so that her son Pickle (8.5 months), Grotbag and Bugalugs could have their photo taken with Santa. We are such social butterflies we couldn't sync our schedules so I suggested a little photo shoot at my house which we did this afternoon.

Now granted doing the shoot in the afternoon wasn't one of my most brilliant ideas. Especially since Grotbag had been to a play centre in the morning with his buddies from Kindy then went straight to a swimming lesson and so was kind of exhausted. Bugalugs hadn't slept all morning so woke up just before the shoot and poor little pickle hadn't slept all day either after a morning of swimming and mum's group. Yeah I know, set our selves up really didn't we!!

Anyhoo I wasn't very organised (ha funny that!!) I originally thought about doing the shoot outside on the grass (I thought the light would be better) but that would involve me actually picking up the dog poop when Hubby would be home tomorrow! So we decided to do it inside but I have brown leather couches and no Christmas Decorations up yet (Hubby home tomorrow and is the first job on his list, after the dog poop!!) so thought I would improvise with a bit of background colour. Naturally I thought red so I fished around in the linen cupboard and found Grotbag's single red fitted sheet to drape across my dull unfestive brown leather couch. I fitted it on but I had put it on the 3 seater instead of the 2 seater and realised that the boys wouldn't be able to sit on it without it pinging off. Grotbag, who loves a photo shoot, had been on at me all afternoon about taking the photos and instead of waiting (like he had been told 10 million times!!!!) he just jumped on the sheet.

Well it all happened quite quickly really and before I knew it all 4 corners had pinged off and completely surrounded Grotbag! It made him jump as he wasn't quite sure what was going on and then proceeded to burst into hysterical tears and try (unsuccessfully) to wriggle out of it.

So I did what any caring mother would do....I laughed hysterically and took photo evidence!

After he finally got out of the sheet he took off his Santa hat threw it on the floor and stormed out of the photo shoot! The male version of Naomi Campbell in the making!

But through the whole thing all I kept thinking was.....WOW! This is going to make a great entry in Parenting BY Dummies Merry Effing Christmas Competition. If you haven't checked out Parenting By Dummies you must having been living under a Blog Rock! It is one of my favourite blogs, so get out from under the rock and go check it out!! So have submitted the above for the competition and I am still laughing thinking about it!!!

The afternoon wasn't a complete disaster. After cajoling Grotbag to come back to the shoot we got underway. I now know why they say never work with animals and children (is there a difference?).

Here are a few choice picks of the good ones...not brilliant...but OK!

Bugalugs & Grotbag

Bugalugs

My gorgeous little cousin Pickle

Da Boys!

Think we might co-ordinate the photo shoot a bit earlier next year!!

So what are you waiting for - off you go to Parenting BY Dummies and vote for Grotbags picture - I might win a prize!!