December Fly on the Wall - The Month of Firsts and Lasts

It's time once again for Fly on the Wall. In this month's instalment 8 bloggers are all joining up to show you what things would look like if you were a fly on the wall at their place. Below is a list of all participating bloggers, be sure to visit them all to see all of the fun.

Baking In A Tornado 

Menopausal Mother                   

Spatulas on Parade  

Never Ever Give Up Hope             

Bookworm in the Kitchen               

The Blogging 911                        

Go Mama O                               

So normally my Fly on the Wall posts are full of crazy quotes and silly fun, but this month if you'll indulge me just a teeny tiny bit I'd like to do something a little bit different. There are still one or two quotes, but the rest of the post is sort of a photo slideshow. You see normally life around here is pretty boring and uneventful but this month was different. This month we actually had things to do, places to be and for once I actually remembered to document some of it. 

So to start December off Miss K had her very first ballet concert. 

We had a mad rush of dress rehearsals, stage rehearsals, make up practises, costume fittings and last minute panic. There were three performances in total over 3 days in front of audiences of at least 200 people at a time. Things were crazy to say the least.

To say I was a nervous wreck was an understatement. I watched my mum do this with two girls for over 15 years and she always made it look so easy. I sent the above text to Natalie on the second day of performances. It was the first time Miss K's father and I were going to watch her dance on stage, and I expected to be a blubbering mess. So there we all were sitting in the audience, ready for her to come on and the music to start. I grabbed her dad's knee for support and took a deep breath. Miss K came on stage and I was proudly holding all ugly crying back with the power of determination and the knowledge that I look like a raccoon if I cry with make up on. It was starting to look like I was going to be leaving the tissues in my handbag until I turned to look at Miss K's father and see him crying like a baby. So the tissues got put to good use after all, and I only teased him for several hours after the concert. 

___________________________________________________________________

Me: This is why I don't wash my car. It's been pooped on twice already in the space of an hour and now it's covered in bug carcassesses. Carcasses, carcii? What is the plural of carcass? Oh whatever, in any case the little buggers are all over my car right now.

___________________________________________________________________

Two weeks after the ballet concerts were done and dusted Miss K had her first ever piano concert to perform at. This was a lot smaller thankfully because I don't think I could have handled another massive production so soon after the first one, but Miss K again coped with everything beautifully considering she's never played the piano for an audience, plus she was the first performer of the whole concert so she couldn't even look to any of the other students to see how it was done.

___________________________________________________________________

Miss K: Mum, high five. (pulls her hand away and dabs) DAB!

Me: Did you just dab on me? You are so out of the will right now young lady.

___________________________________________________________________

A week after the piano concert Miss K had her first school concert, her class were dancing to a Justin Timberlake song and we spent weeks practising the moves at home together, so I was pretty confident that given the barrage of stage appearances she'd made by then plus all the practising meant we had this one in the bag.

Miss K's costume for the school concert

___________________________________________________________________

Me: I felt so awful, the announcer came on the mic and said the first song was going to be a Vanilla Ice medley, and I accidentally said "Oh no" really loudly. 

Nat: Worst mum ever.

Me: I didn't mean it to come out. I even had to turn to Jason afterwards and ask if I'd said it out loud. It's not my fault though, they should have known that people there were going to hate Vanilla Ice. 

___________________________________________________________________

Finally we had the last day of school for the year, which means that my little girl is no longer a preppy. She is now moving up to first grade and we have officially survived her first year of school. 

Miss K on her first day of school and on her last day of school for the year.  

I've been feeling a little nostalgic this past week and am already missing the good old days. Not least because I was helping in class every Friday for the majority of the year and her moving up means I no longer get to help out any more. It was a huge relief to get to see Miss K in class and know that she was actually coping perfectly with starting school and I will always be grateful to her teacher for indulging my panicking and letting me stick around for so long. I'm also very grateful she would pretend that I was helping out for Miss K's sake and not my own.

___________________________________________________________________

Me: Miss K would you please hurry up and make your lunch. No, that's not making lunch that's recreating the opening scene from the Lion King with a plastic tub. 

___________________________________________________________________

So that's it from me for the month. We are now in the count down to Christmas here and looking forward to the 5 weeks of summer holidays to go. I'd like to take a second to thank all of you for coming and visiting with me every month this year for our special brand of crazy. Don't forget to visit the rest of the bloggers participating and I will see you all next time.  

How to survive the post-holiday slump

Image Source

Hello to all my wonderful readers, you may have noticed I fell off the radar again this month. Once I finally got over all of my various illnesses, (except for the conjunctivitis Miss K so kindly shared with me two weeks ago) I discovered the silly season was well and truly upon us, and I needed to get my ample bottom into gear to get ready for the celebrations. I'm sure you'll all appreciate how crazy things get around this time of year, so even if I did attempt to write anything, it would have come out as a crazed stream of consciousness, complete with rambles about tinsel and presents for a family of 15. But now with the endless stream of parties and gift giving ceremonies almost behind us for another year, I sit here eating what's left of the plum pudding in an empty room, wondering to myself now what?

We hosted Christmas at my house this year, and in a stroke of what I can only call pure insanity, mum decided the party needed to be beach themed this year. So I spent a crazed week crawling through Pinterest trying to find beach themed decor I could do on a budget of free hugs and my most charming smile, and managed to cobble together a beach themed party that even a mermaid couldn't fault. Then our annual Boxing Day party got moved from my big sister's house to our house at the last minute due to inclement weather, and the fact that we have a larger living space to accommodate all of the slightly larger bodies thanks to the feast we put out the day before, so we ended up having two parties in two days at our house. On top of that I spent three hours building a kitchen for Miss K at 9pm Christmas Eve, went shopping every single day for a week for more Christmas essentials, and also cleaned the house so that we weren't shamed by the fact that for 364 days of the year we live like someone from an episode of Hoarders, Buried Alive. So sitting here now, with nothing to do is kind of hard to do. Add to that the fact that Miss K has now gone to Melbourne for a week to have Christmas with her father and his family, and I am as lost as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest. So I have decided to share with you some of the techniques I have learned over the years to get over the post-holiday blues that always hit at this time of year, to help you guys achieve the balanced calm I so clearly show on a daily basis.

Me on a good day

Go shopping

Now that gift giving season is over, you really have no reason to go shopping, but that is exactly why you should get out now, more than ever. Beside getting to take advantage of the opportunity to return any practical gifts that well meaning long distance relatives bought you at the last minute so they didn't show up at your house empty handed, you can witness human beings at their absolute worst, thus making you appreciate your empty house and it's lack of festive feelings all the more. The long line of customers all coming to complain about the over priced child's toy that broke five minutes after being removed from it's packaging only makes you love your own family all the more, because they aren't that obnoxious man at the front of the line loudly proclaiming that this is the last time he shops at this particular store. 

Clean up your house

You've just spent the last month complaining that if you stepped on another bauble the whole tree was going into the bin, so now is the time to make good on your promise. Pull down the tinsel, drag every strand of angel hair out of your carpet, and throw all of it in the bin (or into storage if you can't stand the thought of having to replace it all again in ten months time). The sight of you going into a cleaning craze will send your children running outside just in case you get the bright idea to give them any jobs to do of their own, so now is the perfect time to "lose" any of the irritating noise makers or cheap plastic toys they were given by the same well meaning relatives who thought a life time supply of micro fibre cloths was the perfect gift for you at the same time. This is also a good time to search for any stashes of chocolates the kids have hiding in their rooms, and add them to your own stash of chocolate hidden in your bedroom. You need the sugar more than they do, as you're the one who spends your life chasing after them trying to get them to act like civilized human beings. 

Put on some tunes and dance alone in your living room

Just because the party season is over, doesn't mean you need to pack away your best moves for another year. The lack of audience apart from your children is irrelevant, as you can always embarrass them, no matter the time of year, so get your boogie on and keep the party going as long as you want it to. If you didn't get to do the Nutbush this year because you got vetoed at the last second by someone wanting to do the Whip Nae Nae (whatever the hell that is) then put that song on repeat and Nutbush until you can't move any more. You deserve it after all the hard work you've put into these holidays.

Eat all the party food in the house

If you were too busy to eat during Christmas because you were hosting the party, now is the time to get yourself a big plate of whatever is left over and eat it in front of every one. Diets are for the first day of January anyway. I personally like to buy two plum puddings, simply because I am a horrible pig who doesn't like to share my food, so I always have enough pudding to last me several weeks once all the parties are done with. I don't need to buy any breakfast or lunch foods for ages now because I spent an extra $4 a week ago. That's not only smart, it's economical. 

Start getting ready for the next big celebration now

If you've been bitten by the party bug but Valentines Day is too far away from you, get on Google now and find another holiday closer to today you can prepare for. For Australians, Australia Day is always a good one, as it falls on 26th January, meaning there is plenty of time still left to start preparing our barbeques and best Australian Flag decorated party supplies for the big day. For something even closer again, check out Earth Calendar which tells you exactly what you can celebrate every single day of the year. For example today is St Stephens day in Bulgaria. So if that is enough reason for you to party, get out your best duds and celebrate St Stephen as only you can. 

Sleep

If all else fails, get into your pyjamas and go back to bed. 

Well that should be enough to get you through the next few days, so if you'll excuse me, it is currently the Stanley Sports Day in the Falkland Islands so I'm off to hit a tennis ball against a wall to honor this special day. 

Before the new, a bit of the old

Happy 2014 my lovely people, I know I've been pretty absent the past month but things around here have been CRAZY busy these past weeks, and sadly when the chips are down this blog is the first place to get ignored. So thank you all for your never ending patience while you waited for me to get my head above water yet again, and to reward you all I have decided to grace the interwebs with yet another nugget of sparkling wisdom.

So to say that December was the worst month I've had in a long time seems like a slight understatement. There were pretty sad lows, a few health scares and lots of tears. My big sister lost her brother in law to suicide at the beginning of the month, and the whole family are still trying to come to terms with their grief and loss. I knew her brother in law, having gone to high school with him for a few years, and I even did my debutante ball with him back when I was 16. He very kindly stepped in to be my partner when all my other potentials fell through, even though by that stage he'd moved to a different school. As an added bonus, when his big brother finally married my big sister we were partnered together again for the wedding party and I already knew he was a good dancer. It was a life cut tragically short and his absence is strongly felt by everyone who knew him. My heart has broken time and time again for my big sister and my brother in law this month watching them feel such pain and I can only hope the day comes soon that this all becomes a little easier for them.

Also receiving a major hit was my sister in law who discovered in November that she would need to get her leg amputated. She had a bad infection in her foot and it hit the bone. It shouldn't have been so urgent except that she also discovered that she is pregnant again in November (Yay!!) and infections tend to be pretty bad for developing babies, so they had to chop the leg off. No one knew what was going to happen to the baby, whether or not it could cope with the anesthetic and the shock of major surgery, but luckily both mum and baby came out the other side OK and we now get to welcome a new baby into our family later this year. I have already advised I will not be joining her in getting knocked up this time (Miss K is 3 months younger than their daughter) but I will happily watch her swell up from the sidelines.

Then Miss K and I had an emergency visit to the Sunshine hospital on Christmas Eve after she fell and hit her head on the tiled floor at Nonna's house. I didn't see the actual fall as I was in the laundry doing some washing, but Miss K's Nonna insisted that the fall was only minor and took Miss K off for a drive to cheer her up. Unfortunately for us Miss K has a habit of falling asleep in the car, and sure enough she dozed off this time too. For anyone with basic knowledge of head injuries, you'd know that you never let anyone with a bump to the head go to sleep, as you can't properly observe a sleeping baby. Sure enough Miss K woke up with vomiting and dilated pupils and we rushed her to the emergency room to make sure everything was ok. The staff at Sunshine hospital were absolutely amazing, and knew exactly how to examine a sick two year old. There were stickers and bubbles and everything else a little girl could love, and she didn't even realise she was undergoing medical tests. Luckily for us she only had a mild concussion, there were no signs of bleeding to the brain or fractures to the skull so we were given permission to give her some pain killers and after watching her tear around the emergency room in a Cosy Coupe for an hour and a half they were happy enough to let us go home. For Ady and I the visit to the hospital was an awful trip down memory lane, as it was nearly three years ago we made our first visit to an emergency room when Miss K got meningitis. As horrible luck goes, Ady's car broke down that morning so he couldn't even drive us to the hospital. I had to throw Miss K into Nonna's car and get her to take us to the hospital and Ady caught up with us there. Watching him walk up to our bed on the ward was the most relieved I had felt since the whole disaster started and I burst into tears. By then we had been told that she was going to be ok, but I still couldn't relax until we were allowed to go home and I could see my mum. Of course for me, home was still more than two hours away, so it was a white knuckle trip home. Poor Ady tried to make conversation the whole drive but I was too busy waiting for Miss K to throw up again to really talk.

Despite having taken a knock to the head, Miss K did bounce back pretty quickly, and because I was waking her up every 4 hours to take more pain killers, her Christmas started at 2am when she saw her first present, her very own Cosy Coupe, which my little sister Kim had been putting together while we were driving home. It was just dumb luck that she had already spent the better part of her afternoon screaming around the hospital in one the day before so she knew how to drive it, but I'd had the car on lay by for a whole month before Christmas, because I am just an awesome mum.

Pictured: The daughter of the best mum ever!

Christmas went pretty smoothly despite everything I've mentioned above, we had lunch at our place with almost all the family, Ben and Tristan decided to spend Christmas with Tristan's family so we won't get to give them their gifts until they come down for mum's birthday next week, but Ady did get to come and spend the day with his daughter, and watching the two of them play together was a wonderful way to spend Christmas. She got more presents than I could possibly find homes for, including a kitten, which has been named Bertie Beetle (because why not?) and he is quickly becoming one of the family. 

He's pretty cute for a fur ball.

Given that I am very allergic to cats and usually go out of my way to avoid them at all costs, I will admit that he's pretty cute for a cat, and because I am the one who feeds him and cleans his litter tray, I get most of the cuddles off him, but Miss K is trying her hardest to get him to play with her, even if her methods are rough to say the least. Surprisingly enough Bertie puts up with most of her rough housing, only crying when she grabs him by the tail or the legs. I have had to rescue him from her death grip on more than one occasion but I'm sure they'll find their groove soon enough.

So that's pretty much summed up the past month. Ady is still in town, so Miss K has been spending time with him every day this week, much to her delight, and I'm loving it because it makes a wonderful bargaining chip for me whenever she refuses to go to bed. Any time she gets up one too many times I tell her she can't see dad tomorrow if she misbehaves and it pulls her head right in. I've also gotten some much needed quiet time while they go off together so I'm feeling almost relaxed at the moment. Except that we're also trying potty training right now so there's always something to worry about.

Well I'll be back again tomorrow with more gems for you guys, so stay tuned for that. Also I'm taking part in three blog series put together by Karen from Baking in a Tornado this month, the first one coming up very soon, so keep your eyes peeled guys. But until then, as always, stay awesome and happy new year.

An Advent Calendar for Karen

Hello audience, a lot of you have been sent here by the lovely Tamara from Confessions from a part-time working mom, and others have probably stumbled here by accident while trying to find whatever high brow stuff normal people look at while browsing the internet. (I personally prefer sites that feature toilet humor, but that definitely doesn't happen around here.)

Image source

There is nothing funny to be seen here at all.

But for those of you who know exactly why you're here (and even for the ones who don't) I was contacted by Tamara in mid November when she invited me and a heap of other bloggers to help her create an advent calendar for the lovely and ever so talented Karen from Baking in a Tornado. You see Karen never had the pleasure of owning an advent calendar as a child. Can you imagine not knowing the excitement that is that cardboard box with little windows full of tiny chocolates? When I was a kid that was the only way I knew how close we were to the big day. But being one of six kids we never actually got to eat much chocolate, it was one of the only times I wished my mum had stopped at two kids. (OK that's a lie, I always wished my mum had stopped at two.)

Image source

One pile each, that might have been almost enough to make me happy...

So today is my turn to make the chocolate to go behind the little window (and as with everything else I do, it must come with a long winded speech). I have wracked my brains for a whole ten minutes now, trying to come up with something that is special enough to give to one of the loveliest bloggers I know. I've decided since Karen is such a food lover, I'd give her a recipe straight out of a real Aussie Christmas. Now I don't use this recipe, as we are lazy chefs at my house and buy our meringue base pre-baked from Woolworths, but I have gotten it from the oldest recipe book in our house, The Australian Women's Weekly Cookbook, published in 1977, so you know this recipe is the real deal. For a real Australian taste at your next Christmas dinner, whip up this little beauty and impress your family and friends.

Pavlova

Ingredients

3 egg whites at room temperature (little tip, make sure the eggs are a few days old for really stiff peaks)

a pinch of salt

3/4 cup of castor sugar

1/4 cup of white sugar

1 tablespoon of cornflour

1 teaspoon lemon juice

500ml thickened cream (17 fluid ounces I think)

Fresh fruit to top (or if you're my family, peppermint chocolate and Cadbury Flake)

Pre-heat the oven to 90 degrees celsius if it is a gas oven or 160 degrees celsius if it is an electric oven (200 and 325 degrees farenheit)

Beat the egg whites and salt until they form stiff peaks

Add the caster sugar gradually, beating well between each addition

Combine the white sugar and cornflour and lightly fold into the meringue with the lemon juice

Spoon the mixture into a round cake dish and bake in the oven for 1 hour if it is a gas oven or 30 - 40 minutes if it is an electric oven

When the pavlova base is dry to the touch turn the oven off and leave the pavlova inside the oven to cool

When the pavlova is cool whip the cream and spread over the entire pavlova base

Decorate the top of the pavlova with soft fruit such as berries, kiwi fruit, bananas and/or chocolate.

Image via Cooking on the Bay

Well now that I have revealed one of the things we have on our table every single Christmas, I hope you can all enjoy it too.  A big thank you to Tamara for setting this all up, and Merry Christmas Karen, two days down, twenty two days to go. Enjoy the rest of your calendar.

It's all over red rover

Well here we are at the other end of Christmas, and my feet are certainly thankful for this. My lounge room looks like we were hit by a sand storm, Miss K is finally tucked up in bed and mum has gone off to my little sister's house to celebrate the end of another Christmas with a few drinks. (And then maybe a few more.)

Today was everything I could have hoped for and more. Miss K's reaction this morning when she got her first glimpse of the lounge room covered in toys and presents was absolutely priceless. And had it not been 6:45 in the morning, I'm sure I would have been even more ecstatic watching her joy. She spent the morning tearing paper off presents and trying to squeeze in as much play with all of her new toys as possible.

Digging in the new and still full sand pit

Meeting her new Elmo toy. He got carted around with us all day

Mum helping Miss K open another present. (Yes that's really what I look like at 7am)

Miss K "riding" her new bike

Brunch with Miss K's dad was more excitement, as he came with presents from him and Nonna as well as some friends of his back home. I got excited too because he bought McDonalds bagels with him, which are a rare treat for me.

On the way to lunch at my little brother's house Miss K actually fell asleep in the car, which did not fill me with much hope for her being able to stay happy for very long, but apparently all she needed was a 2 minute nap because she was full of energy for the next 4 hours. And then when we got home she only had an hour long nap before she was ready to get up and play again. I have no idea where she gets this much energy from but I'm thinking of finding a way to bottle it up to keep me going on long days.

Lunch was the same chaotic fun it is every time my whole family gets together. There were almost as many Nerf guns there as people thanks to my nephew, and no one escaped from the afternoon without at least one shot to the head. Mine came from mum when she got tired of listening to me explain something and popped a bullet off in my general direction. None of us realised it would get me right between the eyes until it met its target. Luckily Nerf bullets are only foam otherwise it could have been painful, but I couldn't complain because I was laughing too hard.

And then this evening after we had all had our nap and were feeling refreshed, mum went off to keep the party going while Miss K and I had dessert for dinner. (Because hey, it's Christmas.) 

But now the house is completely quiet and I have a new video game with thanks to Miss K (and Grandma) that has finally installed on my computer and is calling for me to play it.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful day filled with as much fun and laughter as I did, and I'll be back again soon once the effect of too much food has worn off and I can get the energy up to write again.

Santa Claus is coming...

I had to squeeze one more post in before Christmas was finally here.

The presents are all wrapped or set up and waiting to be played with. (except for the one I just remembered was still sitting in the family room waiting to be wrapped. Damn.)

Miss K's brand new Elmo bistro table 

The sand pit is finally full of sand

Almost all of the rest of the presents. 

Now all I have to do is crawl to my bed and fall asleep. Tomorrow is going to be a big day. After we've opened all our presents, we're going for brunch with Miss K's dad, then we've got lunch at my brother's place with the whole family, then I can finally come home and have a well deserved nap.

Merry Christmas all my awesome readers, have a great day tomorrow (or the day after for anyone behind us) and I'll see you on the other side.

It's beginning to look like a last minute rush

So is anyone else in denial that we only have two more sleeps until Christmas? My to-do list is slowly shrinking, but I still haven't wrapped a single present, and mum and I only just finishing decorating the lounge room this afternoon.

It's not Christmas at our house without some tinsel bunting

Miss K's contribution to the decorating is not touching this table

So this is technically an unfinished wall because we'll be stringing up some tinsel to make the baubles look like they're hanging on the wall, but you get the idea.

And I finally got a picture of the finished Christmas tree, it has had some rearranging done over the past few weeks as Miss K can't resist touching everything, so most days I find several ornaments sitting on the floor that need rescuing. 

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Santa vomit.

If you look very closely, you'll see a large white rectangle close to the bottom of the tree, that is actually an ornament that Miss K made with Grandma several days ago. She was so proud of it, and we have to show it to everyone when they first enter the house. Luckily we don't get a lot of new visitors around here otherwise I would get very tired of talking about it. Needless to say this will be saved and kept as a reminder of a time that is passing all too quickly.

In our house, no Christmas is complete until the toys come out. For the past few years mum has been collecting all kinds of irritating singing Christmas themed toys and Nutcrackers. Every year they take their place next to the tree to stand guard against potential thieves, and Miss K loves to spend her days racing the toys, or turning them all on at once and making them perform riff-offs. It's a guaranteed headache creator every time, but it keeps her entertained for so long I have learned to tune it all out.

We're doing all we can to keep the battery industry alive in Australia

Now we were very saddened this year to discover that apparently Nutcrackers have become uncool again. For several years the stores have been well stocked with these gorgeous toys, and mum always managed to find at least one that she felt needed to be added to the collection. Now we have to wait for the next time someone remembers these relics and decides to make them cool again to add further friends to our collection.

Won't someone think of the Nutcrackers???

Now yesterday I harnessed my inner handyman and built myself a marquee. Not from scratch of course, I'm not that good. But given that a lot of Miss K's toys are intended for outdoor use, I wanted somewhere safe and shaded for her to be able to play, even in the hottest days of summer, and given that my only experience in building has been flat pack furniture, I am pretty pleased with my efforts. Of course I built the marquee where our old pergola used to be, and the structure that was the roof is still in place. And yesterday I was surprised to find that it is less than 2.5 metres tall, as the marquee couldn't be erected to even it's shortest extension underneath it. Oops. But even crouching on the ground as it was yesterday, it was tall enough to fit Miss K and an inflatable pool underneath it, so we spent our afternoon having a swim.

I of course have to kneel to fit underneath it, but since it's not for me, that didn't really matter.

Luckily for us Nat was over this morning, so she helped me to move it, raise it up and tether it down with the tent pegs and rope provided. I am now very ashamed of our abilities to tie ropes and secure flimsy buildings, but luckily for me, I have a dad who is an absolute pro at putting up tents and tying ropes, so I'll get him in after Christmas to secure that sucker properly so it doesn't pull a Wizard of Oz on us and fly away to the Emerald City.

And of course what Christmas would be complete without a gingerbread house? My big sister bought a kit for her and my niece and nephew to put together and decorate, and she was kind enough to invite Miss K and myself to participate. Sadly I didn't get any good pictures of Miss K decorating the building, but the finished product is pretty impressive.

If you look closely enough, you can even see the "snowman" in the front that I got to decorate. Yay!

And I finally got a picture better than Miss K sitting on Santa's knee, and that's Miss K dressed as Santa. Now I have to add that this was actually her idea, but it wasn't her idea to pose for photos, which is why she has been stood on a table, in order to slow her down long enough to get a decent photo.

HO HO HO!!!

But of course chasing her around with a singing reindeer always gets good results too...

Well I've shared all of my new photos with you, and managed to put off getting anything productive done for yet another evening, so my work here is done. Tomorrow is now going to be a mad dash to get absolutely everything done before the clock strikes Christmas, but I shall try my hardest to check in with you guys before all of the celebrations have started (or finished).

So until next time, stay awesome my wonderful readers and I hope none of you are as poorly prepared for the next few days as I am. Of course if you are, you could always share this with me, the comments box is always open, and I'd love some confirmation I'm not alone in my lack of organisation skills. 

I just can't help myself

OK so I know it's still seven days until Christmas (eep) but I couldn't wait that long to start opening Miss K's presents up and having a look at them. I mean I need to know exactly how many batteries I have to buy (answer: a lot) or exactly how much sand that thing needs. What thing? I hear you ask, well just her brand new sand pit!

Ta Daaa!!!!

This is one of the best things about being a mum, the permission to play with kids toys again. Now todays "play" was really for research purposes, because nowhere in the packaging for this toy does it tell you exactly how much sand you need to fill it up. So I absolutely had to unpack it and put it together so I could know how much room is left after you add all of the moulded plastic shapes.

That's more moulded plastic than a room full of naked Ken dolls!

Plus there were no instructions to speak of so it is always a good idea to do a dry run of these things before the big day to save a lot of tears. Well that's my excuse any way and I'm sticking to it. 

Well my inner child has been satisfied for one night, so it's time to pack up all my toys like a good girl and go to sleep.

Stay awesome my lovely readers and be on your best behavior  because there's only seven more sleeps till Santa comes!!!

Turning a negative into a positive

Hello again my lovely readers, I am back again with a tale of frustration with a happy ending.

So in the spirit of all things Christmassy, I wanted to get Miss K's photo taken with Santa this year. We had her photo taken last year at the shopping centre in the next town over, and the woman who took the photos was so wonderful and the pictures came out so beautiful, that I wanted to do it again this year. I should have known that Miss K wouldn't want to play. Already she goes out of her way to hide whenever a camera appears, add a strange fat man with a large beard into the mix and she loses her head.

I actually started preparing Miss K for these photos two weeks ago by going to the same shopping centre and getting her to meet Santa briefly to try and take the fear out of the situation. The company running the photo stall let you talk to Santa for free if you want, and use it as a gauge for whether or not they can get the children to co-operate long enough for a photo. Well Miss K was wary of the jolly man in red last time, but warmed up enough to actually give him a high five, and chatted to him. We then spent the next two weeks pointing out every picture of Santa or stuffed toy with a red hat on in an effort to get her used to seeing Santa everywhere, and hopefully make him a familiar figure. She even says Ho Ho Ho anytime she sees anything remotely Santa-like, which I foolishly took as a positive sign. Well the big day rolled around yesterday, and I spent the whole morning preparing her for the eventuality that she would have to sit on Santa's lap and get her photo taken. We practiced our camera faces and watched other kids get their picture taken for the ten minutes it took to reach the front of the line. But when the big moment came Miss K refused to co-operate, and even tried to throw herself out of my arms and get my big sister to come rescue her. She wouldn't even let me stand next to him while holding her.

In the end I admitted defeat and decided that no photo is worth the grief Miss K was going through and have given up on getting her photo taken with Santa this year. However thanks to the joys of Photoshop, I can still get my photo with a bit of manipulation and a few clicks of the mouse. So the picture that will grace my Facebook page this year, while not as professional as everyone else's is so much quicker and quieter to accomplish.

See? So much easier

Now it doesn't matter that Miss K looks like a giant sitting on that gentleman's lap, the important thing is that I have my Santa photo. But once I finished this picture, I realised the gold mine I was sitting on right here and decided to use my obviously awesome photo manipulation skills to add Miss K into further pictures. 

Everyone always tells me how good a dancer Miss K is, so I decided to put her up against some professionals and see how she fared.

Those are some serious jazz hands right there

I have decided to send her to auditions for real shows as soon as I can. She is clearly the most superior dancer in this photo. But in case the judges don't appreciate her talent as much as I do, I have decided to see how she would look in a proper nine to five job as well. Just so that she has a back up career waiting for her. And what better career than one in construction?

Now who wouldn't hire that??

So I have seen the future, and I'm pretty impressed. I think next thing to do is start planning Miss K's future holidays. I'm thinking Paris, or maybe Fiji. Or even Egypt. What one year old doesn't want to see the great pyramids??

And that is how you make lemonade when your daughter decides to start throwing lemons at all of your plans. 

Well that's all from me for now, I'm off to figure out how to get my daughter into the White House...

Miss K's first Christmas

Hello again my lovely readers, I'm back again for more bloggy goodness. I have decided that given that most of you weren't around to view Miss K's first Christmas (given that this blog was still 2 months away last December) that I would share the fun with you guys today. Now I am ashamed to say that if it wasn't for the dozens upon dozens of photos I took in December of last year, I would remember very little of Miss K's very first Christmas. In my defence I was still wearing my mum training wheels at the time, so a lot of those months are just a blur. Luckily for me (and all of you) I was a lot better at taking photos last year as there were so many amazing things I saw that just had to be captured as Miss K rolled over for the first time, sat on her own finally, smiled for the first time and all the other wonderful memories that babies create.

So of course the lead up to Christmas saw a lot of first; Miss K seeing a Christmas tree for the first time

I think she's applauding it, but I can't be certain.

And of course decorated the Christmas tree for the first time. I do remember her being a lot more co-operative last year.

And of course on the big day she got to discover the joy that is ripping wrapping paper to shreds

And thanks to her many aunts and uncles (and Grandma of course) she was spoilt absolutely rotten too.

This is just the presents she got first thing in the morning before all the aunts and uncles descended on the house. The little walker down the bottom right most of you should recognise as the awesome toy that helped her to gain the confidence to finally walk earlier this year. The Elmo plane was Grandma's present, and both the babies of the family got one, and that white dress on the couch was a hand made gift from my wonderful aunty. Amazingly enough Miss K still fits in the dress 12 months later, but not for much longer I think.

Everyone loves a good button to push.

And of course what Christmas is complete without a heap of animated toys that sing Christmas carols to play with?

This little fellow is so well loved by all the kids in our family.

I don't know if she's wrestling with him or hugging him...

The one memory from Christmas that is still as clear as day is the fact that I ended up rushing Miss K to the emergency room 2 days before Christmas with a 39 degree fever, and ended up spending 4 hours waiting to see a doctor who put her on steroids and antiemetics, both of which are incredibly dangerous for babies to be taking. Of course her illness meant that her nose dripped more than our kitchen tap over the whole of Christmas, meaning I have had to Photoshop out a lot of unsightly boogers from our Christmas photos. 

While the little things may be a blur now, I know that our Christmas last year was a lot of fun, and full of laughter and love, and my whole family being there to help celebrate. And I know I've probably said this before, but the real reason for me to celebrate this season is my family, and they are the ones that make this time of year a party, and something worth being around for. 

Well that's it for me, I'd love to hear from you guys, so here's a question, hopefully to put you people in the mood to chat finally. What makes Christmas special for you guys?? Do you have any traditions that you have to follow every year, and how do you celebrate this season?? 

Well until next time, stay awesome my wonderful guests, and remember that little box down the bottom of this page is always open so please drop me a line and share your Christmas with me.

Guess what we're doing tonight

Can you guess what's on my list for tonight??

That's right, we're decorating our Christmas tree tonight. (Or as we call it with Miss K our Santa tree because every time she looks at it she yells out "HO HO HO!!!")

So I've got our Michael Buble Christmas CD pumping and Miss K and I have been given the job of spreading out all the branches while mum runs down the street to buy some coloured Christmas lights because we only have white ones and we want different ones this  year.

I shall be back later on with photos of the finished product. 

And to explain why Miss K is doing her decorating wearing only a nappy, the barometer has spiked at 38 degrees here today, and barely dropped at all, despite the fact that the sun is as we speak on it's way out. So in the name of comfort Miss K has been stripped down to the bare minimum. Oh to be one again.

A Scrooge's Christmas planner

Hello again my lovely friends, I hope that you are all well and healthy. Don't I just sound like a sappy motivational speaker right now?? Just wait a second and I'm sure I can find more platitudes to throw at you while confusing you with my vocabulary of large words...

Or I could get right down to the heart of what I've come here to share with you wonderful people today. Now as I promised right before the batteries in my camera died, I am going to share with you all my version of a Christmas planner. But as always because money is more of a rumor than anything around here, it will all be done on a budget, using things that I already had lying around the house.

Just some of the things that go into making a Christmas planner

Now if you are like me, you obsessively stalk follow a lot of blogs. And if you're lucky like me, you'll have found some incredibly talented and disgustingly smart people out there who can make magic happen every time they put their hand to something. The lovely ladies at the blog Eighteen25 are three such ladies. So naturally when I saw that they had put together a gorgeous book for organizing all things Christmas, I had to rush over to their website and check it out. (You can do the same here.) They have even been so kind as to offer free printables for anyone who wants to make a Christmas binder in the same style as them. Now sadly as I am currently without a printer, I had to make do with admiring their binders from afar and then use whatever I had on hand to make my own instead. (Sigh) But as you will see, I have managed to create something that is entirely my own, with small touches of homage to the lovely ladies at Eighteen25 simply because some of their ideas were so great, I couldn't not include them.

I have to stop and brag for a second now, because I am pretty chuffed with the finished product here. And the cost of the whole project was pretty impressive too, as the only money I ended up spending was $2.50 on a notebook to decorate. Everything else that you see here comes from what I had in my stash of crafty supplies, making this not only a pretty way to get organised for Christmas, but also a thrifty project. It has the added bonus of making my compulsive hoarding of papers and ribbons now look like an economical plan instead of the crazy actions of someone who just loves shiny things.

The papers I have used come from various places, the red background paper was a freebie with a scrap booking magazine I bought a few Christmases ago, the green paper and the red and white striped papers are offcuts from old projects. The shape of the green paper was made by tracing around a piece of die cut chipboard and then cutting out the finished product. If you are creative enough to be able to draw things free hand (which I am not) then this should be easy enough for you to do without the chipboard, otherwise there are always things lying around the house that you can use to create shapes for your projects.

This metal plate is something I got in a goody bag a few years ago when I went to a scrap booking retreat with my sisters. I have been searching for years for a good use for it, and I am so happy that it finally has a new home. But if you are not lucky enough to have something like this, paper or cardstock is a good replacement. The flower and pearl brad again were items I picked up in bulk packs ages ago and have had sitting around just waiting for the right project. I made the title with my trusty old Dymo labeller and some green Dymo tape that is actually very hard to find these days. Now that Dymo has gone digital my old hand held labeller is looking very old fashioned, but I love the look it gives. 

This ribbon is a recent purchase that I made, it came in a pack of 20 reels of ribbon for $20, but I think I may have been a bit too mean in my cutting because there is apparently such a thing as not enough ribbon to make a bow with. So if you are going to put ribbon on your book to keep it closed, don't forget to be generous with your measurements. Or make sure you have really skinny fingers because already I can tell that bow is going to be a pain in my rear end. Ribbon is one of those wonderful things that can be found absolutely everywhere. I have lots of pieces of ribbon in my stash that were used in packaging, on clothing and even from bunches of flowers I have received over the years. My family know that they are not allowed to throw any pieces of ribbon away as I can always find a use for them.

I only did four sections in my book; to do, gifts, menu and calendar. There are any number of other sections that you can include in your own Christmas planner, like cards, traditions, travel, or anything else you can think of, but really everything you see here is all I need to worry about so I didn't think it was necessary to add anything more. Maybe one day I will have a need for extra categories in my Christmas planners, but for now I think less is more. Again the tabs were made out of card stock that I had in my stash. I made sure to use a folded piece of card stock, and stick one side of the piece on each side of the page, just to make it a little stronger and more durable. If you don't have card stock, cereal box cardboard would be a good replacement, covered with wrapping paper or anything else to make it look pretty. The shape of the card stock came from tracing around die cut chip board again, but I'm not really happy with it, so next year I may have to think of something new. The pages are blank at the moment, but I will be decorating the front page of each section with something cute. For the gifts section, it will probably be a banner with the words "making a list and checking it twice" or something equally Christmassy, and I'll think of something else for the rest of the sections soon, I just couldn't wait until It was completely done to share it with you guys.

And of course no Christmas project is complete without an elf running around and getting into everything so here is one I prepared earlier.

Geddit???

If only she got as excited about the cleaning up as she does about making the mess.

So before I go, a few tips for you guys who are looking to make some Christmas themed projects on a budget.

• Get creative with the supplies that you use. Christmas themed wrapping paper is super duper cheap and in abundance at the moment, and it can be just the thing to brighten something up
• Don't feel that you have to go out and buy exactly everything that some one else used to make something, sometimes using the things you have at hand can make a result that is just as beautiful and even more personal to you
• Always make sure you use a good quality glue though because you don't want everything falling apart before you have a chance to use it. (I recommend Tombo latex glue, because it dries pretty quickly, but not too quickly that you don't have a chance to re-position something if you didn't do it right the first time. Plus you only need to use the tiniest amount because it spreads pretty far)
• Don't forget that Christmas is not about spending money, it's about spending time with your loved ones, so don't stress too much if everything has to be done on the cheap. Just remember that it is so popular that these days it's not called being a cheap-ass, it's called thrifting. 

Well that's all from me for today, my little sister Natty has been very patiently sitting in my lounge room for two hours now waiting for me to stop being anti-social and entertain her so I'd better go look like I'm interested. I'll be back again soon with something else super thrilling I'm sure, so stay awesome till then.

*Editors note: This blog post has been linked to the following link parties;

One Project at a Time  

The Creative Spark 

Blissful and Domestic