Christmas Celebrations

Well our celebrations began I suppose at the beginning of December with the purchase of a real tree from the Boy Scouts (although we were very lucky to get one - the floods had made them in short supply), decorating it and the house and of course the advent calendar ritual which came complete with bickering over whose lolly was bigger!

By Christmas eve, we were all rather tired given the whirl of social activities (mainly Ela's - end of year parties, music awards, dance concerts etc). So we tried to have a relaxing day that began with Beados and moved through baking cakes (called white Christmas - a recipe Ela brought home from school) to take to Nanies on Christmas day to a christmas show featuring Mrs Ela Claus and little Tom Rudolph, to a beautiful christmas eve dinner - Turkey with all the trimmings cooked my master chef Dad.

So Christmas morning arrived (at 6.30am, not too early!) and the kids raced downstairs to check santa had drank his beer and spotted the extra presents under the tree plus the large sacks by the fireplace. They then ran straight back up to drag us down so they could start unwrapping.

Ela's favourite present by far was the art set she got with pencils crayons paints and oil pastels. As for Tom, he disappeared numerous times inside the sack but I think Spiderman and the fireman's water gun was his favourite.

Dad was laden with sports items galore including goggles for ocean swimming and new bike gloves and me well i was spoiled rotten with a beautiful Paspaley Pearl pendant.

Farewell Pinkies

Well due to new rules at Gumnut Cottage we are no longer allowed to take photos at events there (Child Protection laws). Which is a shame because Tom and his best frind Clare were singing and dancing a storm. We do have plenty of pics in his portfolio as keepsakes, and here are two of his carer's, Leanne and Shantelle.
And true to tradition we won a prize in the raffle so the Tom got an extra present under the tree (Thomas Lego).

The Big Dance Concert

Ela and Celina in their Dance uniform waiting in the foyer of the dance concert rehearsals at the Theatre in UNSW. This year Ela has been attending singing and drama classes who were putting on four numbers from Mary Poppins. Ela was in 'a spoon full of sugar' dressed as a teddy bear and although the songs were pre-recorded (and she missed the recoding session as we were away on holidays!) she still had a ball on stage.

The second class she has been in all year performed a jazz dance titled 'The witch doctor'. I think though her favourite by far was the finale number (Shout) as Ela got to come back on stage and appear in the front row, jumping and dancing her little heart out.

The big question now of course after she saw all the other types of dance available is which class(es) will she choose for next year. At the moment her preference is for ballet and tap, but she's also keen on jazz,  hip hop,  acrobatics and of course singing and drama!

Kindy Graduation

Today we had the presentation assembly and to her delight, Ela won the Science prize for her class. What made matters even better was that her best friend Celina won the art prize and is pictured here next to her. Unfortunately i left my camera at home so the phone cam was the best I had, hence the blur. The assembly was lovely with a whole host of kids getting awards and prizes and lots of singing - especially a christmas song they had been rehearsing about Love being the best present of all.
Pictured above is Ela's buddy Sabrina. This was an emotional moment as Sabrina is off to High School next year and will be sorely missed, although Ela assures me that Sabrina's sister Nadia will still be around so that's ok.

Ocean Swimming

Mark has been biten by the swimming bug. Today was the great Bondi to Bronte challenge. Check out the video here.

We dropped him at Bondi beach with his goggles and  swimmers on, and drove round to Bronte. I couldn't believe the size of the swell. The tall ship (in the distance in the photo) was heaving from side to side and I looked out toward the cliff wondering what on earth must be going through his head as he swam round. The waves were pounding the shore and you can imagine my relief when I saw him run up the beach (centre of the pic in the long swimming shorts) towards the finish line.

He finished the race in a mere 35 minutes and placed 52nd out of 410 in his age group. In all there were 1930 people who gave it a go - it was a sight to be believed.

Move Over Lance Armstrong

Well the bike has finally arrived! The long awaited journey from USA to Concord is over and the boy wonder can now put on his lycra outfit and get a ridin'.
Tom calls his shoes - Robot Shoes - as in place of the sole there are these metal clips that lock his feet into position on the 'pedals' that are not pedals - or so I'm informed.
It took a few weeks on the turbo in the garage before he was brave enough to set wheel to tarmac - the third time he did so though he came a cropper when riding with Frank from Fitness2U. Tom was very impressed with the cuts and bruises.

Bye Bye Blankie

Today a beautiful Santa Bear arrived from England. Nana had won a name guessing competition and this was the reward, Sophie bear. After long discussions along the lines of 'Why don't we give this bear to cousin Sophie for Christmas? (me) or Why don't we give this bear to charity? (also me) or Why don't we give this bear to a kid who has no toys (yes me again). All received the same reply 'That's nice mummy (thinking)..... but no I would like to keep it.' (Ela). So after copious amounts of bribery and bargaining and stroking and touching Ela agreed that she would give up one of her toys in return for Sophie Santa bear. Ah but that's not good enough I said... how about you give up something more precious? 'Oh yes mummy I'd give anything for this bear' (Ela) Oh really? I replied, Anything? Oh yes ANYTHING she repeated. Ok then why not give up Blankie? (Silence...thinking) Well if i give up blankie and then i change my mind later on can i have blankie back? Oh no, blankie will be sent to Santa to keep his reindeer warm. Oh then I'll have to think about it some more. (Ela) Happily, not too many days later, Blankie was submitted for the swap and sent on its merry way. Needless to say, the bear lost favour after about a week and nothing more has been mentioned since. Phew thank goodness for bears!