a christmas round up.........

i love christmas, it's my favourite time of year. the one day out of 365 days where everyone is nice and no one fights, lol, well that's my christmas wish every year and it comes true.

christmas morning was a rather early one this year with shanice being so excited that she was up at 4am and ran in to us, "He's been mummy, he's been daddy. Can we open our presents now?". my reaction - ummmm NO!!!! so she went back off to bed and put on a dvd and every 15 minutes kept coming back in asking if she could get up now. at 5.30am we caved in and let her go wake up connor.

the present opening was over in about 20 minutes, which was pretty good going, then came the opening of toy boxes and i swear you need a university degree to open some of them.

anthony's mum and dad and his siter shell and husband mark came over at 7.45am on their way up to emu heights to ant's other sister's place for breakfast. if i thought my lounge room was trashed before i was wrong, big time.

it's now 6 days after christmas and my lounge room still looks messy and i've cleaned, lol.

at about 11am we headed up to my parents for christmas lunch, which i just love. the kids got totally spoilt rotten again! and so did i saying i had my christmas present in october (early i know, my parents paid for me to go to the hunter for the weekend with my old school friends).

we had seafood for starters - prawns, oysters and balmain bugs my favourite! and then a huge hot chrissy lunch.

they kids played out the back with new roller blades and in the paddling pool just to get wet. then they ended up next door at dawns in the pool with the boys.

it was a wonderful day and everyone had so much fun. connor wanted to stay at mum and dads the night cause the end day we were going on our first canyon.

so early boxing day morning anthony, shanice and myself drove to the zig zag railway to meet up with my parents and connor.we all went in dads ute as the road in was really rough, and he wasn't kidding either, i think i wobbled off about 5 kilos of fat, lol.

the walk in to the glow worm tunnel was lovely, really easy walk which was great cause i'm still not feeling 100% and after doing a few things i'm buggered. at the end of the tunnel which is pitch black is the canyon which leads back to the main walking track.

shanice was so brave in the tunnel, so is petrified of the dark. we turned off out flash light to see the glow worms which were amazing.

the walk only took about 1.5 hours which was a good time for the kids. the walk thru the canyon was a bit tricky for connor but he loved it. he was so tired i ended up having to carry him out. which i expected, but i was exhausted from it.

we had some lunch before driving back to the car. i came home and flacked for 2 hours, lol.

we saw some wildlife which was great, and amazing for the kids to see animals not behind a cage. we saw grey kangaroo which were huge i thought they were logs at first (well we were in a pine platation), glow worms, a brown snake and a goanna. no piccies though, they move to too quick.

we headed down the farm for a few days on the 28th. it's good to have a relax. i packed some scrapping stuff just in case but it never came out of the bag, lol.

so now we're home. shanice has a fluctuating temperature and is not too well, so it looks like I'll be staying home tonight and anthony will be taking connor to friends house for new years. suits me though, i'm not a huge fan of new years at all.

so....... thanks to everyone for popping by this year. haope you all have a safe and happy new years.

cheers

kylie

almost forgot - TAGGED!!!

almost forgot...... Sheree tagged me last week while i was sick

Tag Your It

A - Available or single: neither
B - Best Friend: tricky! my sister Mandy
C - Cake or Pie: pie
D - Drink of choice: Coke
E - Essential Item you use everyday: chap stick
F - Favorite color: pink
G - Gummy Bears or worms: gummy bears
H - Hometown: Cowan
I - Indulgence: quiet time alone
J - January or February: January
K - Kids & Names: 2 - a pigeon pair, Shanice & Connor
L - Life is Incomplete Without? my family
M - Marriage Date: 22 January 2000
N - Number of Siblings: 1 younger sister Mandy
O - Oranges or Apples: apples
P - Phobias or Fears: falling and/or heights
Q - Fave Quote: "We're not lost. We're locationally challenged!" - John M. Ford
R - Reason to Smile: 2 happy and healthy and busy kids
S - Season: winter
T- Tag 3 or 4 people: you're joking - how about anyone who reads this PLEASE! lol
U - Unknown Fact about Me: i arrange my dvd's in alphabetical order (we have over 500 and i work in a video shop so - habit!)
V- Vegetable You Don't Like: eggplant
W - Worst Habit: nail biting
X - Xrays: zero
Y - Your Fave Food: anything i haven't had to cook
Z - Zodiac Sign: virgo

catching up

were do i start. i said in my last post i was going to catch up on the kids last week of school stuff and that was 2 weeks ago! well, i do have a very good reason for not getting to it i must say.
On the first week of my kids school holidays, i woke up on the tuesday and felt like utter crap, so i managed to crawl to the lounge room and stayed there for the entire day and watched Spongebob with the kids. I called work cause i just didn't think i'd be up to going the next day and Anthony organized for his mum to have the kids cause appartently i sounded awful.
good thing he did cause on wednesday i hit the wall, i couldn't get out of bed, couldn't keep anything down. Anthony came home early without the kids to get me to the doctors cause i couldn't walk let alone drive. The doc took one look at me and down my throat and i have a servre case of tonsilitis.
didn't it knock me for six. i've never in my life been so sick, so sick i couldn't eat for 4 days or get out of bed. tv didnt even encourage me, i just wasn't interested.
by the sunday i thought i was feeling a little better, well sick of doing nothing with the house went all pear shaped around me and i couldn't do anything about it. i thought i was up for some grocery shopping - NUP i was wrong that wiped me for the rest of the day.
so each day i started getting a little better. fevers, cold sweats and body aching even with the water from the shower hitting my skin was killing me. so i dragged myself to the docs again on monday. i was convinced that i couldn't have tonsilitis, it can't last this long and make me so sick. but yes it can if you have it bad enough - lucky me!
today is now friday and i'm still not 100%. still got my glands up and feeling like i have a flu that just wont break. but at least the worst is behind me. at least i managed not to share with anyone, i so wouldn't have forgiven myself if i did and they were sick over christmas.
so that's been me over the past 12 days.

before all this we had a really full on last week of term (4-7 dec). all of out activities finished in the same week which was great timing just made for a busy, busy week.
the highlight was definatley the kids presentation night. i'm so proud of both of my gorgeous kids. we have had a very trying year with both of them - connor and his anger issues and poor shanice being diagnosed with dyslexia. but we have made light at the end of both the tunnels for our kids, these issues will still be with us and we will always be getting thru them but they are more managable you could say now.
connor got a speacial award for dilegence - yep that got both me and anthony and we had to come home and look it up in the dictionary, lol. for those like us it means caring and persevering in carrying out duties.
connor was also asked to be part of the K-6 special dance group. i was rolling on the floor when the note came home for this one, my son with no rhythm, lol. well the teacher in charge said it was for the "cuteness factor". but he did me proud. connor does have rhythm more then most of the other kids and he had this personality on stage that just stood out and that's not just me saying that as his very biased mum. i had parents stopping me as i walked back to my seat saying how great he was and even his teacher was woo hooing him, lol.
he has just come so far this year and made such a HUGE turn around that it so hard to belive what a totally different kid he is today from 9 months ago. YEP - I'm a proud, proud mum!

beginning to look like CHRISTMAS

The chrissy tree finally made it's appearance at our house on friday - YAY!!!!!

So the house is now decked out in all our little christmas trinkets. The kids had a wonderful time on friday decorating the tree with mum while i taught a class. They did a fantastic job too, it is so well balanced that i haven't moved a single ornament. And even if it was i still wouldn't move it cause it's special.

i did take a few piccies today cause i thought i'd better pull my finger out and start to do a few christmas pressies. So i decided that i do 3 of the projects from Kim Archer's christmas extravaganza.

here are a few of the piccies

we had a massive week last week, so tomorrow is the day for catch up so i will post more then.

off to start the chrissy pressies..........

that pool!!!!

YES!!!!!!! the infamous pool is up.

It finally went up on Monday night. It was quite cool outside but kids being kids instisted to go in while it was filling.

Thank goodness it was in time before Tuesday cause it was a stinker, so much so that I contemplated sitting in it, lol.

well it's now friday, hot again and that's it i'm going to try and find those bloody swimmers and i'm going to go and sit in the water.

new lo's

Sue has just uploaded my latest layouts for Scraploot, so i thought i'd share.

There was a 4th, but i forgot to scan it beofre giving it to Sue, so instead here is the lo i did for the class i taught on friday night for my beginners, which is a knock off of my "best of friends" lo above.

HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!

happy dance, happy dance.

I was up late last night watching csi and an ad came on the tele saying that season 3 of my favourite, favourite show is coming back on - YAY!!!!!

I wasn't shown over last christmas break so we just presumed it wasn;t going to come back, so for my birthday this year Anthony bought it from America of DVD for me. I watched all of the episodes within 4 days and I loved every minute of it and can't wait for next August when season 4 is released.

So what am i waffling on about..........

i know corny it is, but i just love it. and funniest thing is Anthony hates that sort of show and i persisited in watching them over and over on dvd he finally got hooked too and loves it, lol.

cranky pants

This would be the best way my children have described me this week. It seems that every minute both Shanice and Connor have been awake all week from 6am Monday morning they have argued, fought and been nasty to each other. I even caught them in the playground on Tuesday afternoon hitting each other.

So consequently all I've seemed to have done is yell. It has given me such a bad headache all week and I'm just exhausted from it all.

Why do the little terrors do this?

So last night after our second huge argument I sent them straight to bed about 1 hour early cause I'd had enough. There was no reading and definitely no tv's on in their rooms. After about 30minutes I'd calmed down and went in there to talk to each of them.

I hated being this horrible yelling/screaming nasty woman. i hate it!!!!!!

I was hoping this morning we'd rise to a better day. it lasted maybe 20 minutes, so that's a plus. I had to ask them 7 times to put on their shoes and socks for school. grrrr!!!! Let's hope this afternoon is easier.

I got the email from my parents with Connor's proper birthday cake.

Every year my sister, Mandy, has the job of making the kids their birthday cakes. Mandy is so patient to do them even though she works really long hours, I don't know how she finds the time. They are always really elaborate cakes too that the kids pick. This year was no different!

Connor found in one of the books a Volcano cake! Complete with spewing lava, sparklers and all sorts. When I emailed Mandy the list on ingredients I think she had heart failure:

4 litres Neapolitan ice cream
340gr packet of chocolate cake mix
¾ cup (165g) caster sugar
¼ cup water
1 cup (90g) desiccated coconut
Green colouring
40cm round prepared board
600ml thickened cream
¼ cup (25g) cocoa powder
2 tablespoons icing sugar mixture
4 X 375g packets of rocky road
4 X 50g violet crumble bars
½ cup thick strawberry topping
5 sparklers

OMG!!! would be the best way to describe it! She sent Ben out to buy it all and then she phoned me "Kylie we had to buy $30 of Rocky Road!" OMG AGAIN!!!!

Anyway the cake was a success and we all loved it. I reckon it was the best cake yet!

weather?

someone please tell me what the deal is with CRAZY weather???
It is so hazy outside today due to the fires in the Blue Mountains. But the washing had to be done! So me thinks what a great day to sit inside with the air conn cranked and do a little scrappin. Stuff the housework it will still be there tomorrow.

OOOO... forgot to mention how my class went on Friday night. There was only 2 ladies there plus my mum. they really enjoyed it and asked me to come back this friday and they will organize more ladies to come along. YAY!!!

CONNOR'S 6

OMG!!!!!! how did that sneak up on us?

What makes it more unbelievable is that he was born on a Sunday too.

My special little bloke is growing up far too fast. So I told him tonight after his shower that now he's six he'll have to dress himself after drying himself. NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Connor didn't want a big birthday party this year, he asked if we could take him to Taronga Zoo. Of course we invited all the family, godparents and close family friends. We took a picninc lunch with us and for birthday cake (which reminds me, MUM send me pics of the cake from yesterday-whole other story) made of donuts - yum and don;t forget the lolly bags.

It was a glorious day, as per normal I caked the kids in sun cream and forgot myself only to come home burnt on my neck - again!

The kids all had an absolute ball watching all the different animals. The repitle enclosure is my favourite followed by the gorillas and i love taking photos of he giraffes.

Speaking of which, I threw the camera in Shanice's bratz backpack to carry around this morning and somehow the camera switched on and by the time we got to the batteries were flat - grrrrr!!!! so off we go to grit our teeth and pay zoo prices for batteries. trust me i wont do that again.

here's some pics from today.

On our trip home, stuck on hideous traffic coming thru Mossman, I asked both the kids what there favourite part of the day was, which is our normal comig home from school question, and:

SHANICE - "the seal show"

CONNOR - " riding in the elevator with Grandad"

I laughed so hard. How priceless was that answer.

The new elephant enclosure has a glass elevator that you can see into the bottom section of the elephants enclosure. I struggled to get him in it the first time, you can either take the stair or the escelators, but i thought the elevator would be fun. He loved it and everytime I went to turn my back he was conning my dad into taking him back for a ride, lol. Money well spent I say!

We were exhausted, all of us, the kids finally went to sleep at about 8.30pm after an hour of us constantly putting them back in there rooms. I think they were a little over tired.

Then I had to make a start on the cupcakes ready for school tomorrow. All 27 of them plus extras for the 2 kindy staff and 2 kindy teachers aids, plus an extra one again for the piggy kindy teacher (sorry Tan, lol). That certainly kept me busy while watching and laughing at that new dancing show.