Preparing for Christmas

This year I wanted to make sure that we were prepared and organised for Christmas.  More than that I wanted to ensure that my children had their hearts and minds turned to the real meaning of Christmas, to the wonder of God becoming man.  And so, I decided we would use an advent calendar, with little pockets into which I would put little pieces of paper with daily activities and bible stories to read.

It was a lot of fun, but, I won't lie, hard work coming up with a different activity each day and then actually following through with it.  A few days I wished I hadn't started it!  Holly in particular loved the idea of it, and made sure that we pulled out a piece of paper every day (even if Zac might have let me forget some days!).  I'm glad we pushed through though, I do think it helped the kids focus on the real meaning of Christmas, and also helped me to be organised with Christmas-y things that needed to get done.  Here are some photos of the highlights.

Acting out the nativity scene for our Christmas card

Nativity cookies (we gave sets to preschool teachers)

Making wrapping paper

Making mini Christmas puddings (recipe from Colin Christmas DVD)

The nativity scene we coloured in

Bike crazy

A few months ago, Holly learnt to ride her bike without training wheels.  She was doing so well, she was happy, we were proud... and then she crashed into a pole.  She refused to ride again, just would not give it a go, no matter what we said or did.  And over the months it turned into a big fear.  In the meantime, Zac learnt to ride his two wheeler bike without training wheels.  I thought that have been a bit of an incentive for her to learn, but it seemed to go the other way, and add to the fear.

 

Just over a week ago, I took her on her own down to the netball courts, talked through with her a bit what she was afraid about, and suggested - "Let's give it one go, and if you want to go home after that we will."  Finally she agreed to try it... and she was perfect!  Straight off she was riding as if she'd done it her whole life (thankfully no poles got in the way this time).  It was one of those beautiful parenting moments to witness this massive accomplishment, watch her overcoming her fear and see just how proud she was of herself.

 

And since then, all she's wanted to do is ride her bike!  Our house has gone bike crazy.  Every spare moment we're out there, riding to the shops, to preschool, around the park, down the driveway... I've been getting quite a workout, cause I tell you what, those kids are FAST!  I think I need to get a bike to keep up with them!

 

Here are some photos from our lovely ride at the park yesterday.

 

 We did stop briefly for a bite to eat, a little play, and then a milkshake at the café at the end :)

Helping daddy

These are not brilliant photos, but you get the idea.

Claudia and the dishwasher

She just loves it.  Any time it's open, she makes a beeline for it.

Which is usually quite annoying, cause you don't really want your baby crawling around in the drips of old food that fall on the door as you load it up.  Yesterday after we unloaded it, and it was clean and empty, we let her have a little play.  She proceeded to take out the bottom tray, and get right inside.  Stefan was very proud, thinking it demonstrated some sort of indicator of engineering ability.  I tend to think it's just baby curiosity.  :)

more party photos

Some more photos from Holly's party.

Opening presents 

Heading outside for the coin hunt 

Finding coins 

Kara did some face painting for the kids 

Entertaining Claudia 

Ready for cake 

She was so happy, and (a little surprisingly) so well behaved! 

After the party

Conversation with Holly

This is a conversation I had with Holly on the way home from a friend's house (Lisa, who has 4 daughters) yesterday.

Holly: When can it happen?
Me: When can what happen?
Holly: When can I be in Lisa's family?
Me: Um never.  You can't change families.  You have to stay in the family you're born into.
Holly: I wish I was born out of Lisa's tummy.
Me: (Hmmmm...) Sorry, that's impossible, you can't change that.
Holly: But God can, God can do anything.

I was then at a loss as to what to say!

It has begun.  The "everyone else's family is so much cooler" stage. :(

Before and after

Before

...and after

On the move!

I started to write the below post on 18th July (nearly 2 months ago! - oops!).

Claudia has finally started moving.  Not quite up on her hands and knees crawling around, but a good commando-style dragging herself around.  She had been doing it a bit for a while (maybe moving about 30cm for the last month or so) but in the last few days she's become adventurous and has started getting around the house.  I know I have to be more careful now.  Last night I was flying solo.  I put her down in the dining room next to all her toys while I dressed the kids after their shower* and came back to find her in the lounge room next to some vomit.  Hmm... later when I was cleaning up the vomit, I discovered a small piece of sticky tape in the middle of it, which she must have put in her mouth and gagged on.

* they normally would have a bath of course.  Unfortunately Claudia pooed in the bath before they got in, necessitating the shower.  Why does poo in the bath and vomit happen on the night Stefan is out???

Post Script - I was intending to put a crawling video on, but as I still haven't worked out how to do this properly, I think I'll just post it without the video.
And now she's nearly up on her hands and knees crawling, and getting so fast!

Standing

Claudia's new trick

Oh how I love this sweet little standing up baby.

Five

We recently had a significant birthday in our house (every birthday is significant when you're a kid, right?!).  Our Holly turned 5!!

It was so much fun celebrating with her.  We decorated the house the night before, and gave her some presents in the morning.

We took some cupcakes to Junior Jivers (the music/dance program we go to on a Friday).

After Junior Jivers a friend looked after Claudia so Holly and I could go to a cafe for lunch together.

That night I let her choose what she wanted for dinner.  She chose lasagne (a girl after Stefan's own heart!).  I also let her choose a drink (pink fizzy).  She had such a lovely day and felt so special.  And there was only a very tiny bit of "it's my birthday so I'll cry if I want to" behaviour. :)

We had her party the next day, and I'll post the photos from that in another post, but here's a few of us getting ready for the party.

Making teacup biscuits

Stefan doing his usual wonderful job of making the cake

When I was a child...

I remember having those moments, as a child, when a parent or someone older would say "When I was a child..."  Sometimes it was fascinating, sometimes not so much.  I think it did help to build up a surreal, vague sort of picture (from a child's perspective) about what life used to be like in the "olden days".

Well I had one of those moments yesterday.  But this time from the other side.  Zac had his preschool photos taken yesterday.  The photographer spent some time taking photos of the kids playing and doing what they do, and then took a couple of whole class shots.  In the afternoon we were telling a friend (an adult) about it, and she asked Zac "can I see the photos when you get them?".  No reply, so she asked again.  Still a very blank look.  And then it dawned on me.  Kids, nowadays, don't really have that same concept of - you take photos and then get them printed and get to look through them.  It's very rare that I actually get photos printed.  Occasionally Zac will see the photos on the computer, but usually so long after the event, that I'm not sure (from a 3 year old perspective) that he'd connect it with the specific occasion of me taking a photo.

It made me want to explain to him "When I was a child..."  But I didn't.  Not yet.  I think from his current 3 year old perspective, it might not be so interesting.  I'll give him a year or two. :)

Pizza!

On Sunday after church, we went with some friends to Noreuil Park where there is a community pizza oven.  We brought some dough and a whole lot of pizza toppings, and made our pizzas together.  The kids made their own, choosing their own toppings, which they loved.  They then took their pizzas on trays over to the pizza man running the oven.  He popped them in the 400 degree oven for us, and brought them out 4 minutes later, cooked perfectly.  The kids loved it (and so did us adults!).  Here's some photos

Mondays

I love Mondays.  They're the only day in the week that we have nothing on, and the kids and I can just hang out together.  Often we go to the library.  One Monday a few weeks ago we had a picnic lunch in the botanical gardens.  It was the first Monday of winter, and so there were still some autumn leaves on the trees.  It was very pretty, and the kids had a ball.

Mansfield zoo

We discovered, while we were staying in Jamieson, that it's actually a very touristy area.  Unfortunately, most things are closed for winter.  I guess this is because a) it's too cold and b) most people in the area at winter time are there for the snow at Mt Buller.  So, we found ourselves with two free days and not much to do.  We heard about a zoo in Mansfield, so I dropped Stefan and the two older kids off there while Claudia and I headed off to do some grocery shopping.  The kids were excited, although a little perplexed when they arrived - Mummy, where's the cable car?  This zoo, while nothing like Taronga, was good in its own right.  Its biggest positive was that the kids could get up quite close to the animals, and were even able to feed most of the animals (just not the lions!).  Here's a few photos