Christmas Over for another year

The kids got spoilt yet again. Our Christmas started on Christmas Eve with lunch at Rohan and Wanda's (my brother and sister in law). We did the usual, each family packed their own picnic lunch, and each supplied some nibblies. Of course there was way too much to eat but you just never know when to stop. The kids unwrapped their presents before lunch and that was over as quick as it started, but at least they had their new toys to play with. It was very relaxing sitting out under their pergola, chatting and laughing while the kids played. Lochy, as usual did an excellent job of entertaining Bailey. Bailey just idolises Lochy. They spent most of their time on the trampoline. Bailey would jump off it and Lochy would have to get off to help him back on.

This year we had Christmas morning at home. It was nice waking up in the comfort of my own bed rather than the caravan and opening the presents on the comfortable (warm) lounge room floor instead of the cold hard annexe. The kids were very excited unwrapping everything Santa brought them, even the stocking pressies were wrapped. Then Adrian's parents came for lunch. We handed out more presents then had a yummy roast dinner of beef cooked in red wine, ham and chicken, followed by the traditional plum pudding and brandy custard. It was very relaxing remaining indoors on such a cold Christmas day and not having to go anywhere else.

They got way too many presents to mention so I won't. Micayla's favourite was the Polly Pockets Quick Clix Limo and the Over the Hedge DVD and Bailey's is the Thomas the Tank tracks, puzzle and Cars DVD. Of course they got lots of lollies, which are nearly all gone.

The Hunter Valley Gardens

Here are the photos of the Gardens. The explanation of our visit is below in the Iscar Christmas in the Hunter Valley Post.
The Oriental Gardens
Then from the Story Book Gardens
Hansel and Gretal Mad Hatters Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. Of course Darren is MAD too!
Jack and Jill Humpty Dumpty Waterfall The Rose Garden/Expressions of Love

More photos of the Murder Mystery

Check the post 'Iscar Christmas in the Hunter Valley for more photos

Photos of Iscar Olympics

These photos didn't work in the other post. Read below for more information about these photos.

Iscar Christmas in the Hunter Valley

After dropping the kids off to Adrian's parents on the Thursday night, we left home at 5.00am Friday morning to catch a plane to Newcastle and then a bus to the Hunter Valley. We stayed at the Tallawantha Lodge at the Hunter Valley Gardens.

The boys went into Iscartech (conference) all day Friday while the wives and partners went out to lunch, wine tasting, a bit of shopping and some of them went off for the "fluffy" (as they called it) afternoon having massages.

Friday evening was a BBQ smorgasbord on the Shiraz Terrace. It wasn't a late night for me. I was shattered from some late nights previously and an early morning. At about 9.30pm I went back to my room for a luxurious bath with a hot chocolate. The bathroom was very inviting. The bath was a large oval, sunken, under a glass roof with a rock tiled wall. Just gorgeous.

Saturday morning was the Iscar Olympics out on the oval. The teams rotated around playing Volleyball, Bocce (spelling???), Croquet, and racing on skies and building towers. I didn't play because I was still recovering from surgery but I umpired.

After lunch we went for a walk through the Hunter Valley Gardens with Darren and Mel. Darren's arm was twisted to be there. I was really impressed with the gardens, there was a lot to see and they were very well kept.

After the walk in the gardens, Mel and I went on a winery tour with the rest of the Iscar employees and partners, but Adrian, Darren and Phil chose to stay behind and drink beer in the spa. When we returned we could hear them laughing from our rooms. Then I wished I had've stayed behind with them, they sound like they were having a great time. But I did have a great time on the winery tour and bought myself a nice bottle of red from Ivanhoe Vineyard. We also visited Lindermans. The guys running the tour were very entertaining. I think they were still drunk from their Christmas party the night before.

Then it was Saturday evening and we got ourselves all dressed up in 1920's costume for a Murder Mystery evening. We had to answer trivia questions and do silly things to gain more clues. One of the tasks was a girl from each table had to get on the dance floor and perform a dance. Mel ordered me to get up there and she put a chair out on the floor for me. There was no getting out of it so I got up and did a bit of a lap dance on the chair. There was lots of cheering and Adrian missed it. At least I gained us some extra clues; one of them sealed it for us. We ended up solving the murder correctly along with 2 other tables. After the murder mystery was over they put on the karaoke. I was disappointed by this, I just wanted to dance and not to a couple of people singing badly into the mic. So I figured if we had to listen to karaoke then we all might as well get involved. So I suggested to Jason (the boss) to make everyone join in by having a play off against states. Instead it was a playoff between tables, with us being the first. I guess seeing that I suggested it I had to get up and do it. It ended up being a great success with lots of groups getting up and of course Victoria had to get up and perform 'We are the Champions'. A couple of other songs I can remember doing were The Proclaimers, 500 miles and Rednex, Cotton Eye Joe. This one got everyone up dancing. We had a ball and the last 5 minutes of the night was just dancing. Adrian and I got up and did the 'Jive'. Well so called anyway, Adrian knew what he was doing but I had no idea. He was giving me a crash course on the Jive right there on the dance floor. It didn't matter if I made a fool of myself because I was having fun, and had a few too many red wines anyway.
Is that a gun in your pocket, or .....................?

A Gift for Carrie

This is what I made for Micayla to give to her Prep Grade teacher for Christmas.

Thank you to Simmi (Ribbon Palace) for the supply of the beautiful ribbons. Thanks also forthe loan of your paint.

Dancing Diva

Micayla performed in her dancing concert for Dancing Diva on Sunday 10th December. It was an early start. Had to be up early to do her hair and make up and have her in Noble Park in time for 9.30am dress rehersal. We were in the audience for the 11.30am concert where she showed us what she'd been practicing all year with her 'funk' and 'tap'. She did her 'funk' to Kylie Minogue's 'Better the Devil You Know' and her tap to 'YMCA'. We were all so very proud of her and she looked so cute up on stage in her little costumes.

Thanks to Oma, Opa, Erwin, Kerri, Jordan, David, Laura, Kaytie, Tania, Nathan, Mitchell and Jaeda for coming along to support her, even though we were stifling in the heat. The temperature that day rose to 45 degrees and there was no air conditioning where we were. Her Nanny and Poppy were supposed to come but mum injured her back so sadly they couldn't come all the way down from Ballarat. They have a special little gift to give her though.

Micayla then had to perform in a second concert at 1.00pm, which we didn't have tickets for. The others all went home to the cooling while I sat and waited for her to finish. During this time I went out to buy Micayla a long stem red rose. She was so thrilled she kept saying "thank you" for days.

Here are some pictures to share. Unfortunately the pink outfit shots are a bit dark.

Another Prize!

I won the monthly challenge at my lss. It was a layout (which was open to interpretation) for "Song Titles". I entered my candle holder, which was actually my entry into the Scrapbooking Memories Masters. The website for the lss is www.artypants.com.au. Check out next months challenge for "Doodling" and have a go yourself. I can't wait to spend my $20 voucher.

Thanks to all involved in choosing my entry as the winner and thanks to Artypants for offering the prize.

Here is what won. The photos are of my wedding and are printed on vellum, so that the flame can be seen through the photo (if you were to light the candle, which I wouldn't). The candle has the title "You light up my life".

Found a Baby Bird

The kids were ranting and raving that there's a bird on the path. I didn't really care, I didn't want to look at another dead bird. But they insisted and when I looked at it, it was still alive. So I brought it inside and called the wildlife help centre for advice. It was just one of those pesky little sparrow thingys but I just couldn't leave it there to die, I didn't have the heart. I was told to try and get it back in the nest or make a fake nest with sticks and leaves out of something with holes like a seive, so that's what I did. I placed it just under the original nest. The original nest was tucked so far into a hole I'd never get my hand in let alone the bird. The idea is that the parents will come to the fake nest to care for the bird.
The kids were very excited about having a baby bird and Micayla was upset when I put it back outside, she wanted to keep it inside and look after it. She was crying, saying that she loved the bird and wanted to name it and if I put it outside she would never see it again. She came to terms with this but kept 'checking' on the bird. Unfortunately the little bird didn't survive. Poor little thing. Micayla was very accepting of this though. I thought it was a great lesson for her and something that both of them had never seen before. Bailey had also found a tiny birds egg at the bottom of the tree near their swing set and he brought this into me. It was still hot, but it broke in my hand. They are so delicate those eggs, I can't believe it just shattered in my hand with next to no pressure.

We Won At The Dandenong Show

The Dandenong show was held over the weekend of 11th and 12th November. Micayla and I put in some exhibits.

Micayla had 3 exhibits in the 'Items Not Listed Prep, Grade 1 and 2' section and she got a prize on all 3. She received a commended for the heart painting, highly commended for her trinket box and 2nd prize for her set of coasters. I am very proud of her and she was so excited, she took a photo of her exhibits while they were on show with her new toy digi camera she got for her birthday.



I also received 1st and 3rd prize in the Scrapbooking section for 2 of my lo's and my canvas got 2nd prize. They ended up putting the canvas in an open section for 'other items not listed', because they didn't consider it to be scrapbooking because it didn't fit into an album. I suggested to them that next year they have a sub section for OTP items, which I think they will do. Anyway it was up against 36 exhibits, so to receive 2nd place out of 36; I'm pretty happy with that.

Cup Weekend 06

Keep on reading down, there are quite a few photos to share with you.

We left for the Murray River in Moama on Friday 3rd Nov. There were so many idiots on the road, we nearly T boned a 4 wheel drive towing a trailer because he crossed over the intersection right in front of us. It was a major road, we were traveling at about 80k's towing a boat so it makes it very difficult to stop in time, luckily he got out of our way with inches to spare. I was shaking for quite a while afterwards.

Once we got there we set up pretty quickly (probably due to me bobing along to music in Micayla's new castle CD player, I work better with music). So pretty soon we were relaxing with an alcoholic drink and shortly afterwards everyone else turned up.

The first night there I shared my bed with a huntsman spider. Well actually, it was in my hair. I was stirring from my sleep when I flicked it off my head not even realising what was on me. I turned on the light but couldn't see anything so rolled over to go back to sleep. However I was not satisfied with this so I turned on the light again and found it sitting on the wall of the fridge. I freaked and woke Adrian up to kill it. When i finally got back to sleep I kept dreaming that I had 6 more spiders on me. Apparantly it's good to have a huntsman around because they keep away the redbacks. We don't always see huntsmans in our van but we do get redbacks in our annexe, maybe that's why there was no redbacks when we got there this time. eeeeekkk!!!!

The Saturday was Bailey's 3rd Birthday so we gave him his presents first thing in the morning. He loved getting his presents. We gave him a 'Shake 'n' Go' speedway racetrack and a 'Leap Pad'. Adrian's parents gave him a bike. We gave him a little party with all the kids that come and stay at the river and Micayla and Bailey's cousin Taylah, and friends Kealy and Deegan came for the day too. We played Pass the Parcel, but Bailey just thought it was another gift for him and started to unwrap it. He got the idea pretty quickly but once he unwrapped a layer and got his lolly, he didn't want to play anymore and left. His cake was an ice cream cake, which was Thomas the Tank (I did not make this one, we ordered it from the ice creamery in the Port of Echuca). It was chocolate and banana. He loved it and was excited to have everyone sing to him, patting his tummy saying "My Birfday". He also jumped up and down shouting "lolly bag" when I handed them out.

Once the party was over we went out in the boat and the kids went nuts having biscuit rides and kneeboards and this carried on the trend for the whole weekend with the adults squeezing in a ski or board here and there. They are all getting very confident now and are keen to learn to ski. I just relaxed for the afternoon after a very busy past 3 weeks and held my ski over till the next day.

Tania and I also took our bikes away so we had been out riding. My brother Rohan came up with his son Lachlan, and Bailey was so excited to see Lachlan he hugged him. Very cute! Lachy had a ball having biscuits and he had his first ride on a kneeboard. He did very well. I had my first ski for the season on the Sunday and it was very hard. The next couple of skis the next day were a lot better though. It was great to have Rohan and Lachy up there. Our favourite time is when the kids are all in bed and we are sitting around the camp fire having a few drinks and some great laughs. This is when Rohan got out his guitar and played and sung for us. It was so great, something different for us to enjoy. Adrian had no idea of Rohan's talent. Then Scott got out the didgeridoo and showed us what he could do. This ended up being a very late night with quite a few beers and wines tucked away. Very slow going the next morning I must say, Tania and I didn't even go for our ride. We packed up to leave on Cup Day just when the weather was starting to get colder by the wind that had picked up. We had beautiful weather every day that we were up there and drove home to just 16/17 degrees. Aaarrggghhh!

Thanks for taking the time to read this novel!!!!

Micayla's Real Birthday

On the 2nd of November is Micayla's actual birthdate. Before school we gave her her presents, which she was just wrapped with. She doesn't stop playing her CD player, which is the castle that lights up different colours. And she can't stop taking photos. Later that day I went into her classroom with cupcakes. It was also Hayden's birthday so I made enough cakes to spell "Happy Birthday Micayla & Hayden". Emma, Hayden's mum was also there with chocolates and lollypops for all the kids. Adrian stayed home from work that day and came too.
Later that night, her friend from school, Paige came over for dinner because she couldn't make it to the party. Paige and her mum made Micayla a cake, which is why she has 2 cakes. Micayla got to choose her favourite meal for dinner, which is fish and chips.

Micayla's 6th Birthday Party

On Saturday 28th October, Micayla celebrated her 6th birthday with a disco party. We decorated the garage with disco lights, ball and had a smoke machine. There was a total of 26 kids but thankfully I didn't have to feed them lunch. The party was from 2.30 to 4.30pm and they nibbled away on party food till it was all gone and drank coloured lemonade. They couldn't believe how I could make plain lemonade turn orange, blue, yellow, red, purple, pink or green just by pouring it into a cup. We played, musical statues, limbo, pass the parcel and smashed away at a pinata as hard as they could, but still it wouldn't break. They had so much fun dancing to all the latest Top 40 songs (and so did Mel and I) and also did the Macarena, the birdy dance and the hokey pokey (and so did Mel and I). We ran out of time to to do the conga line. They were also given glow sticks at the beginning of the party, which they made into bracelets, necklaces and earings. They were glowing everywhere. Micayla's birthday cake was ice cream and decorated in sugar crystals and stars, which I made all myself. Micayla said her party was cool and she loved celebrating it with all her friends. She was also very lucky to have Kealy stay over for a sleepover and they both slept on the air mattress together on the floor in her bedroom. The first thing they did in the morning was play with Micayla's dress ups. Her room look liked a bomb had gone off.

Even though the pictures don't show it, it was dark in the garage and the disco lights and glow jewellery lit up the room. One side of the room was decorated with black sheets and a purple sheer cloth with glitter spots all over it draped in front and the lights glittered off the glitter.