Last traces of Christmas

I have been trying to pack away Christmas decorations for about three days! I thought I'd show you some of my favourites.

I love that I have a real Nutcracker soldier (just like the ballet!) Jack made the wooden Christmas tree in Pre-Primary, and I sooo appreciate how much time that would have taken (thanks Ms Craigie!) The other decorations were presents from students, from over the years. Check out the St Nicholas made of Fimo. What an artist that parent was!

These ornaments were made by my Mum. They are stunning, and look amazing on the tree!

This one was a present from a student. It is exquisite! I hung it off the back of a chair so you could see it better. Hmm, not a bad idea...

Jack made a candle holder at school for Christmas. Cute!



(By the way, I'm loving the red table runner I got on special from Freedom!)

This candle holder was a present from Kristie and Dave. Love it!!

And here are some other gorgeous Christmas presents!

Mum gave me a new, shorter chain for my Pandora bracelet, and 5 new, shiny beads.

Dad and Jane gave me a stunning necklace in one of my favourite colours, aqua, with sparkly gold bits.

Goodbye to Christmas for another year!

New Year's Day

We have been playing Monopoly Tropical Tycoon for two days!! It is awesome! Jack got the game for his birthday from my sister, Leonie, and her family. It's basically like Monopoly, but you use a DVD during the game. Also, instead of houses and hotels you can build beach houses, piers, restaurants, parks, casinos and resorts, that all have conditons when you land on them. We had a lot of fun playing it!


We made chocolate cookies today, which were yummo, and Jack practised on his Blade Board. He can go a really long way on it now!

New Year's Eve

We went to our friend Emma's place for dinner tonight. She made a heavenly quiche, and we brought salad, Christmas pudding and custard (who says Christmas is over?!) The boys played in the street on their blade boards and electric scooter, while Em sat to water the lawn which has been scorched by our recent 40 degree days. (Em has a prolapsed disc, so all movement is pretty painful lately).

After dinner, Em's family introduced us to RockBand, and, while we're almost always happy to grab the mic for a sing, this playing drums and guitar thing had us a bit bedazzled. Em has really taken to the drums, while Paul, Brendan and Rhys are champs on the guitar and bass. Jonathon and Jack got the idea of the bass guitar pretty quickly. We're going to need some more practice to get as good as these guys, though!

Always reading, reading, reading

I have read a couple of books this week that have been great! Totally different styles, one a rambling epic set in 19th century America and Scotland, and a book of contemporary short stories set in Australia, that I got for Christmas. I'll pass them onto Mum when I see her next.

Actually, our friend Richard gave both these books to me. He's a reader too.

Richard and his Mum, Betty, came for a BBQ lunch on Boxing Day, but I forgot to take photos. Betty gave me a hand towel and face washer that she had crocheted around the edge. Love that! And she made a tiramisu with cocoa (instead of coffee) that was amazing!

I've got a pile of books to pass onto Kristie too. I read them during the year.


There's stacks of others that I've read too, but they're doing the rounds at the moment - The Lollipop Shoes, The Shack, The Forgotten Garden, World Without End, The Twilight series. I'll tell you others as I think of them. All highly recommended!

By the way, have a Happy New Year!!

Trip to Tasmania, October 08

Now that I'm getting the hang of this, I want to post some photos of our last trip to Tassie in the Spring holidays. The beach at Bridport was stunning!























The Tulip Festival in Hobart was spectacular!




























And the Japanese Gardens were beautiful too.




























There were even some lovely English-style gardens.





















So many beautiful places!

Christmas Recovery

Jack has been having a great time on his Blade Board and on my wii fit. He's also been running around shooting everyone and everything with his Tommy 20 and Nerf guns.

Jonathon and I are still recovering from the whole Christmas, Boxing Day, rich food, late nights, long sleep-ins debacle that goes with the Christmas season.

We've pretty much sat in a diabetic coma on the couch watching DVDs, including Semi-Pro, Mamma Mia and Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Christmas 2008

We had a brilliant Christmas!

On Christmas Eve we got the new TV cabinet

and sofa table we'd been waiting on for about

three months. I love them! (Both from BedShed,

by the way.)

We woke up at 7am on Christmas day to open presents.

All the family came around for lunch. (Jack HAD to pull a face!)

Mum did most of the food preparation.

I just had to have her trifle and pavlova!

My sister, Kristie, and her fiance, Dave were there (although Dave was outside when I took this photo, and my camera died when I tried to get a photo of him later!)

Dad and Jane were there.

And my bestie, Emma, her fiance Paul,

and their kids were there too.

It was a perfect day from start to finish!