What do you do on Christmas Eve?

I seem to have spent nearly every Christmas Eve baking or cooking since I've been married and especially since I've had children.

This year has been no exception which is why our Christmas Eve dinner has always been a really simple affair.  

After about 10 hours on my feet with only about 2 or 3 REALLY short breaks to sit down, I find that cooking dinner for the family becomes one thing too much on Christmas Eve.  I decided many years ago that we were going to eat enough on Christmas Day so the night before we'll do something different.

It's always light nibblies.  This year it was marinated chicken wings, a mexican bean dip, anchovy stuffed olives, grilled haloumi, my special bocconcini, cherry tomato and olive skewers with pesto (easiest thing on earth to make), and prawns of course.  Unfortunately the prawns remained forgotten in the fridge until we were forced back inside because of the mosquito's that descended.  I'm still not quite sure how we could possibly have forgotten them! 

Dessert is always some fruit and a few chocolates (or maybe a candy cane if you detest chocolate as much as Little Miss R does).

What began out of necessity years ago has now become a lovely, special tradition for our own little nuclear family.  We love it!

(Oh and plastic plates are an absolute must as I refuse to wash up after the amount of times I seem to do it during the day.  No...we don't have a dishwasher.  That's my role.)

I hope Santa is good to every one of you.  

Merry Christmas!

xx Susan

Tree Day 2013

Tree day came a couple of weeks later than usual this year.

It's a tradition that my sister began when she first became an Aunty.  As she and her husband are sadly unable to have children, she wanted to still be a part of the lives of the other children she is around.  

I'll also add that she is a HUGE part of all of their lives and is an extremely much loved Aunty to them all.

How could she not be?  She is wonderful, quirky, funny, arty, strict but loveable and has a swimming pool!  Thank goodness they only have two dogs and not a million cats or that would be too much of a cliche.

Due to the circumstances that have dominated our lives for the past 6 months or more, Tree day was delayed a bit and didn't happen until the 17th of December this year.  The delay certainly didn't curb the excitement for the children.

There's the anticipation of receiving their first present of the year.....

.....which is always another special tree decoration that Aunty Sandy has chosen especially for them.

Their new decorations are then hung proudly on the tree and as the kids grow up, so does the spot on the tree the decoration gets placed.  Honestly, how can they be getting this tall already!

If you are still lacking in a little height then a ladder can always be climbed.

Past years special decorations are then unwrapped and exclaimed over as the kids are beginning to remember previous years more.

Dad's were present at the time (my brother sitting and husband laying), although I can't say they were as enthusiastic as the kids.

The dogs have been through this every year too and are finding the excitement a little too much this year.

In the end after an EXTREME amount of noise, the tree was finally decorated, the star put on top and the lights turned on.

The kids then ran around and decorated the rest of my sister's house with tinsel in nearly any place they can find.  I'm relieved to say that the toilet missed out this year and has remained tinsel free.

It's lovely looking at the tree and seeing decoration from Christmases past....

...as well as the new special ones which will be packed away in a few weeks but brought out in years to come.

Then it's time for lunch and a movie to try and calm the excited kids.  Try is the operative word here.

It's days like this that can make you realise just how quickly your children grow. Birthdays certainly bring you up to date with their growth but I find that something like Tree day can be really special and unique.  It doesn't matter how much the kids grow, this day has become a part of their lives and they get so excited about it.  More so as they grow older because they can remember earlier years and are beginning to realise just how special a tradition can be.  

It's lovely and thank you so much to Aunty Sandy for making this such a special memory for our kids.  

You are our favourite Aunty Mummy!

I can't believe that in all the years I've been blogging that I only first wrote about this last year.

Tree day 2012,  

Oh well, I have the photos from all the other years to look upon and one day try to arrange in some sort of order.

I wish you all a wonderful and safe Christmas.

xx Susan

Blogger issues

Of course when I start to get my blogging mojo back, I begin to have blogger issues.

 

 

I haven't been able to post anything for almost a week now and it's very frustrating, in fact I'm in a little shock that I've been able to get into it today.

 

Unfortunately it now won't let me upload any photos so I will continue to work on the problem and hopefully you'll see me again very soon.

 

 

:)

 

 

xx Susan

Keeping the kids occupied

My brother came over Sunday afternoon with his two boys.   He was pretty exhausted which is not surprising considering the stress he's under and the crap that's going on in his life right now.  (I won't go into it and believe me, that's the politest way I can say it.  I'm being VERY restrained.)

 

When his two boys and my two kidlettes get together it always means LOTS of noise and the odd argument or two.  The two big boys (hubby and brother) ended up in the lounge watching the football so I decided that I'd keep the kids occupied outside.

 

 

One of the best investments you can make is a box of 52 large pieces of chalk for $5 from Woollies.  It's an even better investment if you've got a large cemented area they can draw on.

 

We built roads, houses.....

 

...farms (complete with orchards and dams) and lots of other 'town' things we could think of.

 

Most of the time they played well together.  There was a short while when they didn't want each other visiting their houses so they made NO TRESPASSING signs.  These signs were ignored often and so the fights and arguments began.

 

Time for Mum to step in and divert them.

 

 

Every inch of available cement was used today and I've been asked to move the car out next time so they have more space and can draw all up the driveway. 

 

That's no problem with me as it will give them at least 3 times as much space as you can see in the next photo.  That's lots of happy time for kids and when they're having a ball and occupied for that long then Mummy (or Aunty) is always happy.

 

 

I have so many fond memories of doing this when I was a kid with my brother and sister so it's lovely to see the next generation enjoying it too.

 

I still have all my matchbox cars that I used to drive around the roads I made and I even have a matchbox bus I got for one birthday.  I can still remember getting it because I always used to draw bus stops but never had a bus so you can imagine my excitement when I opened my present to find a bus that particular year!

 

That then leads to the question of whether I drew any roads, or my own house, and drove a matchbox car around the 'town'?....

.................

.................

....Of course I did!!!

 

xx Susan 

Recycling the play equipment

As your kids grow you find that they outgrow some of their toys as well.  Not only the small, inside toys that they play with but the bigger equipment outside as well.

 

 

 

Our swing set has evolved over the years.  It began as it's supposed to...as a swing set with a slide.  There were many calls for "mummy push"  as they grew and many hours have been spent swinging, sliding and climbing over the whole thing.

 

Then the swings started to fall apart and eventually had to come off.  The set was then used more like a monkey bar as the kids tested their strength climbing along it.

 

Ropes have been tied up and flying foxes have been made until lately the swing set has gone into the next stage of its evolution.

 

 

My kids and my nephews are all enjoying the tyre swings right now and as the weather has been gorgeous lately, it's helping keep them out of my hair for awhile.

 

It's also a compromise as next door have one hanging from a tall tree which is much better than ours of course.  When the kidlettes are confined to our yard though, they're happy enough with their very own tyres.

 

xx Susan

 

 



The boat

We are now the proud owners of a boat. Well it's a tinnie which is all we need for going fishing down Coochin Creek or the Bribie Passage near home or for when we go camping at the dams as we seem to like doing.

 

We've had the boat for awhile but it's been down at my brother's place. The time had come for it to be moved though and as we don't have a boat trailer for it, we borrowed a car trailer and the operation began.

 

 

 

This morning the last stage of moving it began.  It's pretty heavy so once the boys got it off the trailer, they hooked it up to the quad bike to get it around the side of the house.

 

I was curious as to how they were going to get it around the garden.

 

 

I should've known that hubby takes the straightest path to where he's going. 

Garden's don't matter!

 

 

It does need fixing up a bit which hubby has informed me that he'll be working on whenever he's home.  I really hope so as I certainly don't want another hunk of junk sitting in our yard for the long term.

 



 

On the up side.  We now have a new play ground for the kidlettes.  Master M is especially excited because he's going through a pirate stage and EVERYTHING he does involves pirates somehow.

 

Now he has his very own pirate ship in the back yard.  At least I know where the kids will be most afternoons after school and on weekends now.

 

He even had a anchor made within 5 minutes of the boat being put in place.

 

Hubby's back to work in an hour or so which means I'm hoping that the pirate love will continue for the rest of the day and the kids stay happy.

 

xx Susan

An afternoon walk

My sister called Sunday afternoon to see if we would like to go for a walk with her, her husband and the two dogs. It was such a beautiful winter's day that there was no way we were staying at home.

 

We headed up to Ewan Maddock Dam which is about 10 minutes from our house and to a part of the dam I had never been to before. 

 

I've been to other parts of the dam but not this spot and was amazed that I've lived in this area all my life and am still finding these pockets of loveliness around the place.

 

 

The first part of the walk is along a causeway with the dam on one side and a weed choked part of the dam on the other.  There were plenty of rocks of course so Master M got to indulge in his favourite pastime of throwing rocks in the water.

 

Once over the causeway you head up into the bush and can take a few different trails.  One of them is a riding trail and the kids got to use their tracking skills to find the horse prints.

 

One of the tracks takes you by the edge of the dam and to a special spot.

 

There was a beautiful little area where the dogs could swim (and the kids in summer). 

 

There was a shady, open area near it where I've decided we could bring an afternoon picnic once school is finished some days.

 

Master M spent most of his time at this spot throwing a chunk of wood in the water for the dogs to fetch.

Dogs and child loved this game.

 



 

Meanwhile Little Miss R had my small camera and wandered around taking photos.

 

We continued on down some other tracks, past more pretty spots and little beaches.

Then it was back along the causeway to the car with everyone really relaxed after having a wonderful walk.

 

The plan is to bring Patch up here now but I'll wait until hubby comes home before I do it the first time.  Once he gets used to it then the kids, dog and I can definitely come up after school some days for a nice walk.

 

xx Susan