Christmas 2019
Hello from Melbourne Airport.
Here we sit, tired after two flights, but we've still got one more to go. We had a slight panic there a few minutes ago when we realised Sarah had left her blue bag with her iPhone and all that sort of stuff back at security. Thankfully it was easy to go back, prove who she want and get it back. Phew! It's just hard because it's so hard for the kids, they're bored, they ask one bajaillion questions. It's so frustrating when you're stressed out having lost something and they pipe up with "Daddy, what have you lost?"
Arrrrgh. ANYWAY. We've made it this far, let's wind back a few days for all the things that've happened that I haven't been bothered to write about.
Last Tuesday night was Beth's cushion concert at Pettigrew Green Arena. All the kids sat up the front, all the adults watching. Theo did a good job but lost it about 2/3 of the way into it, it was mostly a lot of talking with a PA system that was next to useless, it was impossible to hear.
BUT we did hear one Jospeh Mooney win the school's award for being the kindest and most caring in the school! Go JoJo, how excellent is that? He looked so confused and bemused when they called his name, it was great! Well done Joseph Mooney.
Thursday afternoon was the school's breakup, and we were told there was an aassembly all parents were invited too. Sarah wasn't able to attend because she had a hair appointment, so I went to collect Beth and sit through the assembly. I'm glad I did, because both Beth and her friend Emma won awards from their teacher for showing the 3 C's of AMS school, Beth especially for being curious. It was so cute, we asked her to pack her own back to travel to Australia and one of the things she wanted to pack in there was her certificate she was awarded. We kept it at home and photocopied it for her instead to bring over to show everyone.
Christmas Day!
Christmas Day was Christmas Day. Theo and Beth woke up super early, well, Beth did at 6am and by 6:45am when I allowed her to get up she'd asked me enough qustions and made enough noise to make it pretty easy to wake Theo up. He was a bit slow to start for the first couple of seconds but once I reminded him it was Christmas Day and that Santa had been, well, I've never seem him get out of bed so quickly. Zoom!
Theo was very excited to get his bike, Beth was happy with her Custard the Dragon though she seemed to imply (very kindly) that it wasn't exactly what she'd been hoping for. Hard to know what exactly she was expecting, but she seems to love him a fair degress, though Sealy still seems to be the number one toy of the hour at the moment. They unwrapped heaps of other things, I'll try and write them all down here:
Beth got:
- Custard the Dragon
- A Lumi which is this little toy that can "scan" colours and lights itself up the same colour, pretty nifty actually.
- An Osmo Play board. It connects to the iPad and it lets the iPad see what you draw (in colour) on the board in front of it, then it "sucks" those images into the app and characters (mostly a large friendly looking bear) interact with the drawings.
Theo got:
- His first proper bike, Orange, wiht training wheels
- A Helicopter
- A Powerranger
Sarah got:
- Some uber fancy new hair drier/roller/thing
- Elton John the movie book
- Hat
I got:
- Chats T-Shirt
- Brian FM T-Shirt
- A portable espresso maker
- Solar Panel for the Ring Doorbell
- C&H Card game
- Flip up sunglasses
Presents over, the kids went with Grandma to Church while Sarah and I (mostly Sarah) rushed around to get the house ready for everyone coming. We had a Food Bag this year, so at least that level of stress was reduced. And we'd done our Supermarket shop the day before by doing the New World "Click and Collect" thing, so when I arrived at the supermarket even though the place was bonkers, I just went up to the lockers, collected our pre-ordered pre-purchased groceries, loaded them into the car and then off I went. Of couse that level of planning only works because Sarah is so organised, I'd be the person flapping around the isles at 9pm going "What do you NEED for a Christmas lunch??" if it was left up to me. Which is of course why it isn't.
Christmas Lunch was a roaring success anyway, the lamb cooked perfectly on the BBQ, the Ham was amazing with its tasty glaze and all the lovely side dishes were very tasty. We sat out in the front garden and dined, it wasn't a perfect Summer's day but it didn't rain on us so that was alright. After lunch it was time for more presents inside, with the kids getting more nice stuff from Grandma and Grandad. Then everyone headed off and Theo by this stage had pretty much lost it, he was so tired from all the excitement and having ridden his bike around for about half the morning.
He was actually really really good on his bike, he had a few small accidents and fell off and grazed his knee, but he always got back on and it didn't take him very long at all to figure out how to go forwards, how the handbrake worked etc etc.
I'm sure there's more to add, that's all I can think of for the moment though!