The Christmas Slacker

That's me. I hardly took any photos at Christmas. I wasn't well most of the time and basically was just not "in the zone" (more of a blowing my nose and feeling generally sorry for myself zone). The weather as we all know has not been great and the whole using flash to take some photos was a bit beyond me in my sad state!

The kids had a great time though despite the weather. Nothing, especially not a little rain, was going to stop them jumping on the trampoline and the rain has continued not to stop them since then! Cassidy jumps like a a jumping bean on Red Bull; lets just say there is no way we'd have her in one piece without the safety net. She rebounds off the net almost as many times as she does off the trampoline itself. Isaac as always is a little more cautious and prefers to try to instruct his sister on what death defying act she should try next, just, we think, so he can see if she lives.

So what do we do in implending cyclonic weather? We go up the coast for a beach holiday of course!

Today we're heading up to Caloundra for a week at the beach. Rain, hail, cyclone or sandstorm we're still going cause they have our $1000 we gave them to let us do it. Last year we got a unit at the last mintue right on the beach (read walk across to the beach, no sandy wet kids and beach gear in and out of cars) which was fantastic so we thought "hey, lets do it again this year!"

Wild, foolish thoughts!

We'll be back on the 5th of January unless engulfed by a Tsunami :-)

Whose children are these?

Certainly not mine.

At least that's what I was thinking the day I decided to take them down the beachfront to try to nab a couple of shots for our Christmas card. Any photographer-mum knows that this thought alone is a recipe for disaster. Most times they would rather eat a large plate of steamed vegies than have their picture taken.

As soon as we got there I realised why the feeling of dread had been welling up in me as soon as I had the thought of Christmas cards. They complained. They fought. They threw sand. I started to think that supporting Hallmark this year would not be such a bad idea.

Then, a beaten mummy, I was about to give up, when they stood there together for a moment. Not at all what I had planned for our Christmas card this year, but hey, my first mistake was having a plan. My second mistake was that said plan included having a photo of both my children together.

Next year it's either Hallmark or I'm borrowing someone else's children :-)

Visitors

Some of our favourite people :-) Rod, Jen, Will and Tom came to stay for a night. We only had time for a quick family snap in the studio but I hope to get lots more when we're all up the coast at the same time after Christmas :-)

Who won't let the dogs out...

This pic is a perfect example of one of Isaac's many worries. He asked me what the

sign was and I told him it was because you aren't allowed to take dogs on that beach.

He was totally appalled by this unjust statement and said, "but the dogs will be

sad if they can't play on the beach!"

My boy is a serial worrier. He worries about everything from his breakfast cereal to his sister (he says to me quite often "I just don't know what we're going to do with that girl!"). He worries about how we're going to get somewhere, what we'll do when we get there and how it would possibly work out that we'll get home again. He worries about things that are broken, about impending bad weather and about not writing his name as what he deems as "properly" (he is left handed and sometimes struggles to copy his right-handed parents writing letters :-))

Mum and I often refer to him as "Melancholy Mal". It just seems to suit him. To Isaac, a lot of life is taken extremely seriously whereas his sister is more of a fly by the seat of your pants kinda gal. Rules are made to be obeyed for Isaac and to him there is nothing more frustrating than a sister that lives to break them. I don't know how many times a week I say to Isaac, "I am the mummy, I will handle it!" when he tries to put the fear of God into his wayward sister when he obviously has seen my type of discipline to be severly lacking!

But Isaac is also a sweet, genuinely concerned little boy that truly loves people with his whole little heart. He cares for people and their well-being so deeply. If he catches wind of something being up (recently his Grandpa had his kness operated on) that's it, he won't rest until his endless questions about that person's well-being are answered.

I don't think I will ever have to worry about him not being sensible. The other night we went to a Christmas "do" at Em and Steve's church with a jumping castle. Cassidy spent the whole night on the castle doing flips that would rival Nadia Kominich at the Olympics and almost sending Nanna and mummy into heart failure whilst Isaac stood at the sidelines watching her saying "I can do that, I just don't feel like it right now" :-) :-)

Nothing more demonstrated the two differing personalities of my son and daughter than last night. Steve had not yet arrived home and I was doing the usual multi-task of cooking tea and running up and down the stairs controlling the amount of water that was coming out of the bath. At one point I did one of those unfortunate little twists that feels like you're paralysed and can't move your neck. I sank down helpless against the wall with the pain and both the kids said "what's wrong mummy" and hopped out of the bath. Cassidy came over and said "it's okay mummy, I will kiss it better", which she did with a flourish and went off on her merry and naked way.

Isaac, sat down in front of me almost in tears, rubbed my cheek and said," oh I don't like it when my mummy is hurt! Where does it hurt mummy? What can I do? Would you like me to finish cooking dinner for you?"

It almost brings me to tears just thinking about it. He's so much like his daddy and it's going to be one lucky girl that gets our boy one day.

I love you biggest boy xxoo

Thank heaven for little girls...

I often hear of other mums complaining about their daughters not wanting their hair done. I don't have this problem with Cassidy - she loves it. We usually sit on the bed to do it and whilst she will wriggle around a bit, she never tries to get away and gives me instructions on what to do. She selects the hairbands to match her outfit (colour-coding is of most importance) and passes them to me one at a time while she sits, often gazing blankly out the window whilst I fiddle away.

I love these peaceful few minutes we spend together every morning, especially on the days we don't have to be anywhere and I can brush and play to my hearts content. You see, mummies never really outgrow our dollies, we just have little girls to take their place :-)

I always ask her what she wants before I start and the answer is nearly always

"plaitthhs" (plaits!) so this was this mornings "plaitthhs" creation :-)

Myer trees are sooo last year....

Friends and family that know me well also know that I am a bit of a stickler with how I decorate my Christmas tree. I like the catalogue look, chock full of decorations evenly spaced and with a consistent theme enhanced by colour-co-ordinated wrapped presents underneath. You know, nothing fancy :-)

That, my friends, was my old life. My LBK. (Life Before Kids).

On the 7th of November 2002 when Isaac was born, little did I know it was soon to be my last Christmas in my happy bubble of Christmas tree control. The following Christmas, Isaac bought home his first paper doily and popsicle stick ornament from Kim's house. It's really just gone all downhill from there....

This year we have a collection of Isaac and Cassidy's hand-made "treasures". I swear the teachers at kindy are giving them more than the other kids to make cause they somehow know about my little issue. There has barely been a day these last couple of weeks that one of the kids have not come home with something "to hang on the tree Mum!" to which I say a strained "it's beautiful darling! Maybe we should just put it round this side, you know, near the back...there's not many decorations back here..." :-) :-)

But really, it doesn't make much of a difference this year. Cassidy did most of the tree decorating..I was busy fixing one of the decorations and turned around and Cassidy had run 10 metres of gold beads over a quarter of a square meter of the tree. It looks like some kind of tarantula with beads for webs has come and made a nest. Then there's the bauble "clusters" as daddy called them....the weight of every single bauble and decoration on one side of the tree is giving it a rather jaunty tilt.

And to make matters worse, my husband keeps telling me its beautiful, we will look back on photos of the tree like that and laugh and what's worse - I'm not allowed to change it. He also stuck one of the doily angels right on the top, I think, just to further add to my palpitations.

I think I need to go wander round the Myer trees and take some deep breaths....

Christmas Lights

We have friends named Jodie and Darren. Jodie's folks are amazing - they go all out every year with decorating their house in Christmas lights and have the annual "turning on of the lights" with Santa and all the kids from their grandkid's local kindy come. Okay, so not only are they amazing - they're brave too!!

We took the kids over last night and they had a great time (if you count Cassidy avoiding Santa at all costs a great time). Santa arrived in a police car this year :-) so all the kids thought that was pretty "kewl" as Isaac says. The kids all got to sit in the police car for a look (even funnier was that Cassidy was happy to go sit in the cop car but refused to sit on Santa's knee....hmmm).

We then went on for a drive around to Wickfield street at Bracken Ridge (if you live over this way, Wickfield street is the place to go if you want to do an easy tour of the lights with the kids). The kids were just fascinated by it all and didn't stop talking the entire way :-) :-)

I think taking kids to look at light would be one of my most favourite-est parts of Christmas :-)

Partied Out

the party girl

doing some groovin'..I had so many shots of her mid-air, she was jumping like a maniac :-)

this was the only shot of her taking her present from Santa. It needed severe convincing to get her up there, then she made absolute minimum contact with Santa before running away as fast as her chubby little legs would carry her...not sure if I'm going to get the obligatory photo with Santa this year....

with one of her cutie-pie friends, Zoe

waiting for lunch to be served

sharing sausage rolls with Archie

singing the mums and dads some Christmas songs

everyone else is running round like maniacs and what do my children do? Sit down and wait for the food...

a typical Isaac photo face

well we know it was a good party cause there was fairy bread :-)

the teachers did a great job with the kids gorgeous scrapbooks

Isaac with his friend Jacob..and one annoying little sister ring-in...

..but sometimes sisters are okay...especially when they just topped up your plate with more lollies :-)

..and the party season has barely begun!

We kicked off ours with the kids' kindy Christmas parties. They had a ball...don't kids just get so excited about anything that invloves their parents coming and staying somewhere they wouldn't usually stay? :-)

The staff did an amazing job - they had photo place settings, tablecloths the kids had made themselves and their wonderful scrapbooks from the year full of artwork and photos. They menu of cheerios, chicken nuggets, sausage rolls and lollies was accepted rather well :-) and they had a great time doing mini-concerts with some of their Christmas songs.

well, it's really the photos that tell the story so here we go....prepare yourself for the onslaught! (I had to take heaps cause daddy couldn't take time off work).

When it all goes horribly wrong.....

So my loving sister send me an email yesterday thats basically says, "you haven't posted on your blog for a week - what's up with that?!"

Busy doesn't even begin to describe the past couple of weeks that we've had. Mad is more like it!

You can see what I've been up to on my other blog http://www.inhousestudios.blogspot.com/

I was discussing blogs with a family member the other day and she said,"oh, I don't realise you have two!"

Yes, I do. I just decided since I am a slacker and blogging has become my new scrapbooking, I would keep seperate blogs for work and personal...but everyone is most welcome to read both if you are just overly interested in what I'm doing :-) :-)

Today things are looking up. Mum got on to a friend of hers, the lovely Sharon, who is going to help me out with cleaning and general mum-ish house duties. In fact, she's here vaccuming like a fiend right now as I type. Mum has been at me for ages to start releasing some of my jobs, but there has never seemed to be the right time or the right person.

Well, not only do we know Sharon and she's just lovely :-) and she doesn't worry about the bomb my house has become or the fact that I messaged her late last night saying I was going to lose it and when could she start? :-) :-)

Isaac has gone for the day with Ebony to Australia Zoo for her birthday, Cassidy's gone to kindy with bribes because she didn't get to go to Australia Zoo :-) and I have plans for a very productive day right here.

Now all I need is the kindy to ring... (see previous post!!)

We can't have a post without some pics :-) so here's a couple of the miss down at Sutton's Beach.