While we were in the city...

We rode the Santa train.

We helped Bear ride the train too.

Woohoo!!

India also had a chat and a photo with Santa. This was the first time in her life she was interested in venturing within 100 metres of Santa. She asked for a Barbie house, even though what she really wants is a DS Lite. Apparently she even knows what a DS Lite is...lol.

Esta went happily into Santa's room but freaked a little at the immediate close proximity to a rather large Rudolph. It was rather pokey in there. So I had to take her outside again.

Dec 21: We went to the city...

...to see this.



..and this.


...with some good friends



...we had a great time!

December 19th.

Thoughts of the day:
* christmas pressie shopping is done-diddly-done! wooohoo!
* i'm developing an intense overwhelming dislike of shopping centres
* that sneezing panda is still hysterically funny
* frig, it's hot!
* if I make the white rocky road tonight, will I eat it all before the break of christmas dawn?
* if I make it tonight, then nobody need know, so if there is none left for christmas, well....it wasn't me?!
* i have a sand monster for a daughter.
* and the other one, well, did someone put her on a stretch rack at vacation care today? I mean, I know she needs punishing at times...but really....it's a bit extreme isn't it? She's practically up to my chin!
* oh, the family return from their frolic downstairs. Better get off the bed and feed them.

ok. I was meandering through You Tube on my iTouch last night whilst waiting for sleep to find me. As you do, when there is no book handy. And I came across this which just had me in fits of laughter. So this is my post for the day...a good laugh.

Wednesday...7 sleeps till christmas.

Who starts a new business while raising small children?
1. Those with boundless energy and children who sleep
2 Those with boundless energy and a great support network
3. Those who are insane, masochistic and severly sleep deprived all at the same time.

Guess which one I am?

She's done it again.

Check out Rachel's blog.
Just scroll down until you see our girls.
Gorgeous!

http://www.rachelrichter.com.au/

Typos.

Ok, so I'm very tired. So you'll please excuse the heap of typos in the posts below.
It's my typing, not my spelling :)

Ok so I missed a day.

It's quite hard to do this daily blogging. The drought of free time and energy persists.
So I'll miss a day.

December 12.....Another busy day. As all are in December right? Also Mum's and little Ashleigh's birthdays. Also Christmas celebrations day at Esta's daycare. Also Auntie Bec came to visit for a sleepover.

December 13.
Today I went to an scrapbook expo - Create '08. A day of classes with Heidi Swapp, one of the big names in the scrapbooking industry. It was great. Alot of her products have always been very appealing but I've not been sure what to do with them. So it was great to spend a day being shown ways to use them, make some gorgeous things, catch up with people, and come home with a huge goodie back of products. I was hugely impressed with her masks...and it seems she has fixed the ...err...rubon problems. And despite their constant warnings about how 'full on' the day would be, I managed to stay ontop of things. So Thumbs Up to Chanel, Heidi and Team for putting on a great day and also giving us gorgeous silver bags, and Thumbs Down to Kedron Wavel RSL for being apparently quite difficutl to deal with.

December 14.
Day two for a crazy busy weekend. First up was a photo session with Rachel Richter. Something I've been wanting to do for ages. We haven't had professional photos done since Esta was a few weeks old. So I'm keen to see the photos of the girls. We had them taken at City Botanic Gardens, and in the streets around there. Thankfully there was some wind today, despite the messy hair factor, as it was stinking hot in Brisbane today. Little Esta played up a bit and decided to be miserable and limpet-like in my arms, but other than that I think it all went well.
After that we had a christmas gathering with some friends. That was a lovely time. Nothing like a good bbq with a heap of great people, a swarm of kids, a pool, a pav, some prawns and a little bit of alcohol on a summer's Sunday. We had a great time. Thanks Megan and Steve for letting us trash your house :)
And now we are home. Listening to the sounds of fun and laughter from our next door neighbours annual christmas street party. We are unfortunatley too knackered to make it this year, so we sit hear and listen instead. Sadly I've missed most of their annual christmas parties due to illness. This year, it's just too much with a little toddler in tow. But looking forward to future years when Esta is old enough to deal with the late night ontop of everything else at this time of year.

December continues.

December 10.
My friend Kath's birthday today. Hope it was a lovely one Kath.
The girls and I ventured out to the cringeful shops to finalise some christmas shopping. We ended up staying there longer than we planned (when does that NOT happen?) as Esta fell asleep. But we struggled home by lunchtime and spent the afternoon mucking about. The girls had another afternoon dip in the clam shell with the freezing tank water.


December 11.
We have most energy in the morning so we went to get some groceries. It was surprisingly painless, well as painless as a grocery shop can be soothed nicely with a tall hot chai latte. Home again by lunch which is always nice as Esta will sleep when we get home. So we can all have some down time then. India might watch a movie, while I get some work done.
We washed Jasi today, the dog. She's not a fan of her baths. She loves the way she feels afterward but she really doesn't like the process. So we have to be very careful when planning her bath. We have to wander around nonchalantly, looking very innocent 'da da dum'-ing and commenting on the weather until I can pounce on her and grab her in a cuddle. Otherwise, these days, she runs. And she is fast and sneaky. No one has ever been able to catch Jasi when she doesn't want to be caught. We must never mention the word 'bath'. If we do, her tail goes down, her muscles poise for the split-second bolt and her big brown eyes look at me with that puppy sadness. India did well not to spill the beans today, but Esta starting calling out 'dog...bass....dog...bass'. Lucky Jasi doesn't speak Esta language yet, and lucky Esta hasn't quite worked out the 'th' pronunciation, despite all her efforts to get it right. Anyway, the end result is we have a clean puppy again.....except for all the cobbler's pegs she went and picked up from the garden about 5 minutes out of the tub.
I hung the clothes out on the line this afternoon.
It's raining again tonight.
Strange.
That's only supposed to happen when I hang the towels out.
Murphy's gone and changed his laws again.

Time confused me today. It took me ages to get the girls to their respective care centres this morning despite leaving slightly earlier than usual. I didn't get home until almost 10am. About 40 minutes more than it usually takes me. Not sure where I lost that time. Perhaps I snoozed at a red light a little longer than I should have? Though with two kids in the car and Pink blaring on the stereo I'm not sure how that would have happened.

Maybe I was moving in slow motion. That's how I felt this morning.

Perhaps that's really what I was doing. But I didn't notice any strange concerned stares from anyone and I'm sure India would have cacked herself laughing if it was so. No, maybe for once I was just going at a normal casual pace, but it just felt like slow motion as I'm usually rushing rushing rushing to fit everything into the day.

So the day passed, and I seem to be able to move up a notch from slo-mo as I managed to achieve a few things today. Like cooking the family a decent meal. Well, rather than a decent meal, lets call it a nutritious meal. And to add to the strangeness of the day, we are currently in witching hour and the girls are playing happily together....what the? They've been at it for about 15 minutes now! It's gorgeous to watch. Not sure what brought that on at this time of day, we are all usually too tired and tetchy to play. Last night was less troublesome sleepwise, although they were still disturbed, they were settled between 1-5am so perhaps that little extra sleep has helped? Anyway it is still witching hour, so I better sign off and start getting sorted on the witching hour chores.

December 8th

Today was a busy day. Esta went to daycare, where she loves to play in the sandpit. India, rather nervously, went to Vacation care at school. MM went to work, and so did I. I was running around all day for the new business. Before I knew it we'd reached 'witching hour'...4-6pm dinner, bath and bedtime for tired children. A crazy time of the day that often stretches past 6pm lately. The dog barks, the children yell, the mother yells, the dog barks, somewhere in there a bit of food is thrown around, either much laughing and splashing in bath or else it's screaming, the dog barks, someone always phones, mess created, mother yells, children holler. Let me just say it's not a good time to visit, or knock on the door for any reason, particularly if you are selling something.
Though, it's nice to go through all that with the christmas lights on.

December 7th

Too few days left until christmas.

This morning we put up the christmas decorations. India ran around like crazy cleaning up and clearing room for it. Esta was a little wary, especially once we pulled out our singing Christmas bear. But after a few rounds of 'It's beginning to look a lot like christmas..' it was all hugs and giggles between bear and baby. I suspect by tomorrow she will have lost all awe for the tree and be rummaging in amongst it's branches wrestling precious ornaments off.

Here is a before and after photo:

By later afternoon it was stifling hot and muggy. The lawn in the backyard was actually green with more grass than weeds for a change, so we wandered outside for some good aussie summer fun. We dragged out the good 'ol clam shell, hosed off all the redbacks and filled it with tank water. The girls leaped about screaming with joy for ages. Then MM was coerced into taking the girls for a ride on a mini blow up boogy board..deflated. Esta gleefully demonstrated her daredevil side by deliberately throwing herself off for a slide roll on the grass at top speed, while India just laughed herself silly at the running style of MM while dragging this thing behind him.

The girls are now safely tucked up in bed The christmas lights are on which add to the peace and tranquility. We sang a few christmas carols with India by the light of christmas before she went off to bed. It's not even 8.30 but MM and I are ready for bed. We might just go this early while we can. MM will fall straight to sleep no doubt, while I will have my nose in a book joining forces with a vampire until the wee hours of the morning. So I'm off to do that.

Another Day Flies By.

December 6.

The girls continue to awake at some bob-awful time in the morning. For some despterately strange reason we headed into the shopping centre this morning. On a saturday...in December...what was I thinking??? The interesting thing of that trip was that India asked to go and sit with Santa. She's never ever wanted to do that before. Unfortunately we didn't have time, but we do have plans to go into the city to see Santa and all the christmas window displays a little later in the month.

Mark and I went to see Cirque de Soleil in the evening. Thanks Paul for babysitting at the last minute for us. We love the Cirque. We try to go everytime it comes by and it coincides with my birthday so there is always a good excuse. This years was Dralion. A smaller more intimate production than usual, and more 'circus' like than any other I'd seen. But still fantastic..of course...fabulous...or course and astounding as usual. I did have to have a Nana na[p a couple of times throughout it though, blasphamy I know, but I couldn't help it. If you have never experienced the Cirque de Soleil then make sure you do at least once in your lifetime.

Well, it is sunday morning now and we are about to put up our Christmas decorations. India is jumping off the walls in excitement and Esta is currently blissfully ignorant. It should be fun :)

December 5.

The very last day of being a Preppie mum. India was quite sad to leave her teachers.
Amazing that it's over so quick. But India's grown so much in the last couple of months, she looks like a tall grade Oner now.
Evening was spent with some lovely friends out for dinner for our christmas girlie do. Sadly we missed two of our group, who were unwell. And even though I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open (sorry girls) it was lovely to catch up and chat, something we've not managed to do very much of this year.

December 4.

My birthday. I totally forgot. I did briefly wonder what Mark was doing hustling the girls off somewhere away from my bed and their usual jumping on mummies head at 5 am in the morning. But at 5am all thoughts are brief and opportunity for sleep takes over. They were back in 5 minutes though, pressies in tow and a big loud signing card. Happily I now have some new music and a good book. Two things I've been craving for a while now.
Today India wagged school, fancy that on the second last day. But she looked so very exhausted, dark rings under her eyes, sore throat and....wait for it....she was actually saying herself that she was tired!!! "Mum I want to do it (swimming carnival) but I'm just *sigh* too tired". Astounding. India NEVER admits to being tired. So I kept her home and it really made for a much more pleasant day. Mark and I then ventured deep into the christmas shopping centre hell that evening. Children safely tucked up in bed at home with Grandma.

Remember December.

I had plans to blog each day of the month this month. Yep, each day. Just because twiddling my thumbs all day gets a little tedious and I figured I needed more to do....lol, yeah right. I was thinking that it's worth recording more of the itsy bitsy every day stuff occaisonally, a little peek in the window to life that we can look back upon. And what a better time to do than at time when there is heaps going on so there will be heaps to write about hopefully. But I blinked, and already we are three days in.

Dec 1st.
Summer. Always a day worth waking up and breathing in deep and bellowing 'Yay, it's summer!' Which we did. We also managed to Pinch and Punch Big Daddy MM...all of us, even Esta, before he was even slightly on to us. I have no trouble beating him to the P&P each month but getting the girls in on the act before he realises is more of a feat. So the three of us girls figure there is good tidings for us this month getting one up on the Big Daddy together. India has been waiting eagerly for the start of summer for ages....it means to start of summer holidays which means the christmas season and that also means not far until her birthday.
The day was spent running around sorting my new business venture plus sorting out youngest child and her weird hivey possibly serious rash and chronic infections. Poor little love had to have blood taken. But she was a brave little trooper and didn't even flinch, though she did have a little cry. Her Red Cross knitted Bear treat soon took her mind of that, plus the little bandage they put around her arm which she thought was pretty spesh. (note: always insist on an experienced peadiatric collector, makes a hell of a difference).

Dec 2nd.
Wow. Reality hit today that it is almost the end of 2008. Yeeehaaa to that! Will be glad to see the back of this chaotic stressful year. In saying that though....freeeeeeeaakkkk!....christmas is just around the corner. Spent the day panic shopping trying to find things on MM's wish list that apparently don't exist. Nice time waster. I did find a nice christmas tablecloth though, a nice addition to our plans for a 'real' (MM's expression) christmas this year.

Dec 3rd.
Even though the girls are up before the birds, which, now that it is summer, are up so much earlier these days, we still struggle to get to school at a reasonable time. And today it's hot. No storm eventuated last night, unlike every other night for the last few weeks. So it's hot and muggy. So we did the drop and run through the school drive through (pity they don't offer a breakfast muffin and a chai latte at this drive through, that would have made my day) and rushed off to Little Esta's music class. She loves music class. All the kids there seem to, though they seem to enjoy the packing up parts the best. It remained hot. Bugger to that...hot days and toddlers that don't sleep. Scurried off to the paediatrician with hungry tired kids in tow at hungry tired toddler's dinner time, only to wait for an hour in the office. Fun stuff. Fun Fun Fun stuff.
But progress made when the doc finally showed. Esta's potentially serious hivey reactions have passed the potentially serious phase and have moved into the unknown cause phase. Yes, we've all been there right? Unless of course we restart her Losec and she has a nasty reaction to it, then we'll move out of that phase again. Did manage to leave with a blessing to visit a paed gastroenterologist if she does need the Losec again though. BUT the coup of the day was with leaving also in hand, a blessing to see a specialist paediatric respiratory physician for India. The poor love is suffering with her constant coughing and snorting and throat clearing that really must be driving her insane. It's affecting her sleep drastically (well that goes for all of us), her self esteem, her friendships, her mood. So it's good to walk away with a little ray of hope on the horizon for a solution to her problem.
And that ends my report for now. It's almost 11pm and my eyes wanted to be in bed about 4 hours ago. India seems to have settled from her 10pm restless sleep walking session for now, so I'm off to bed while I can, before she starts up again. See you tomorrow :)