Before Christmas comes....

The mischief Elfelfa got up to before he left! He painted every ones face to look like Rudolf! 

 Including Poppy's!!!!!!!!

 Then he wrote all over the bathroom mirror. He also wrote "So long Suckers" on the sliding door on his way out! We are still fighting over who should clean it off!

We took all of the family to see the World Record Christmas lights in Forrest. There were over half a million lights on the house and surrounding gardens!

But the boys were far more impressed to have their photo taken with the actual World Record certificate!

 

 The next day the boys were busy cooking and decorating cookies for Santa.

Aunty Kata had a ball too!

 Then Christmas Eve was the full on traditional dinner of Roast Turkey, Lamb, Pork and all the trimmings.

 Ben is a BIG fan of turkey! He gets it from his Uncle Brenton!

Wow! What a huge lead up to Christmas! But we are not done yet because here it comes...... 

Mummy's Christmas Recount

Everybody else has done their Christmas recount so I thought I had better hurry up and do mine!

 Christmas began with a very large delivery from Santa's sleigh! I'm pretty sure he would have needed to go back to the North Pole to restock after unloading this lot!

 Then at the prearranged time of 5.15 am three little men rose. Or maybe they re-rose as Daddy had put Matthew back to be at 1am, to discover that Santa had been. They hot footed it over to Cleon and Michelle's to collect Uncle Brenty and Aunty Kata.

 Then they had to wait and wait and wait until all of the adults got out of bed and got a coffee and then finally sat down ready to watch to proceedings.

 When the starting gun went of there was flying wrapping paper everywhere!

 Bolt wasn't forgotten and he loved his new bird and he promptly tore off an eye and a leg and is currently in surgery trying to remove the birdies squeaker heart!

But what Bolty really wanted for Christmas was the boys new Sherrin from Brenty and Kata! Look at the look on his face while he is looking at that ball!

 Daddy was thrilled to share Christmas with his little brother!

 Ben was thrilled that Mummy and Daddy gave him a tablet so now when he goes for Sunday morning donuts and baby chinos he has his own tablet to play. 

 This photo shows just how thankful and full of love he was for his Mummy! Trust me he put a lot of love in that squeezing hug!

 Ryan was super, super thrilled with his Chromebook. If you look closely it is written all over his face!

 Matthew was thinking his new go pro was going to help him make awesome lego movies!

 Kata and Brenton were just thinking if it was time to go back to bed yet! ;-)

 Nana was having fun but the coffee hadn't hit Poppy yet!

 Up there with Ben's favourite present was his Max D t-shirt that Santa got him from the monster truck show. He was super impressed that Santa was able to source it from the show and so far has been sticking to the conditions Santa placed upon his ownership of the shirt. Santa included a return address so if Ben doesn't comply with the conditions Mummy has to send it back!

 As you can see they were all very, very, impressed with their Christmas haul.

 But by far the favourite present for all three boys has been their flat caps. The first night I had to tell all three to take them off for bed and since that moment they only take them off for bed!

 Oh! Look the coffee has hit! Poppy is awake!

 Daddy love,love, loved the Mark Webber Red Bull F1 remote control car that Mummy got him. He took it out of the box for a very quick spin and then promptly installed it in the bookcase above his desk in his mancave study!

Lunch was a very lavish affair with table decorations, personalised name cards, candles and best of all buckets and buckets of food. Ben ate his body weight in prawns including 'prawn gravy' otherwise known as the brains!

After lunch the 4X4 remote control car and jump that Nana Bev and Grumpy brought the boys got a spin and plenty of air!

 Then this is what the afternoon looked like....

 Or this for those who had worked their guts out in the kitchen for two days!

I hope your Christmas was as Merry as ours!

Floriade with family and friends

We have been to Floriade three times already this year! And i still need to visit once more on the last day to buy Mum her discounted t-towel!

 The weather has been glorious in Canberra so far these holidays so we have been making the most of it! First of all we took Uncle Brenty who had never been despite living in Canberra for a while!

 I've taken five kids, by myself and didn't lose one of them!

 I've taken my Grandmother who has been wanting to see it for years!

 Grumpy and Nanna Bev loved it, although she kept exclaiming how there never used to be this many people visiting it when she lived here!

 

 

 Grumpy wondered how they knew he would be visiting today because the sign on the organ says "Why not take a photo with the man with a big organ!" So he insisted on having his photo taken!

 There were hundreds of perspex cranes hung in the trees when we went on the Sunday but when we went back the following Wednesday they had all disappeared!

 Three garden gnomes in a flower bed!

Picture perfect.....for five monsters!

 

 However the frame is not one size fits all!

 We had to have our photo taken with the boat of flowers that Ben's friend Alyssa help plant on a school excursion with the green team.

 The view from the Ferris wheel which I took all five kids on and I was guessing it was because there were so many of us in the carriage was why it swung so much and most of us were petrified the whole time!

 Hardly any people there on the Wednesday unlike the previous Sunday when I had taken nan and Mum and there were millions and you could hardly move!

The highlight of Floriade so far was Ben being called up to help by a street performer. When the guy asked for helpers he asked all of the ugly, naughty people who wanted to help and Ben was the most enthusiastic of all the ugly, naughty kids so he got picked! He was quite entertaining, when the guys asked him where he lived he told the whole crowd our exact street address including phone number! So whilst i have the know your own address thing down pat with him we may have to work on privacy issues!

All in all we have all loved Floriade this year. Mainly because we have got to share it with some lovely people!

40 years is a very long time!

 My Mum and Dad have been married for 40 years! I am sure they could tell you more than I could how trying it has been at times but yet here they are celebrating 40 years of being happily married.

To celebrate Nathan and I shouted them lunch at the Stamford Plaza's seafood buffet.

 It was a very posh restaurant. It even has tiara's for sale in the foyer!

 And a massive staircase and wooden banister. The boys would have loved to have slide down it but they were on their very best behaviour!

 How good are seafood buffets? We stuffed ourselves silly! All that lovely food matched the beautiful view of the Brisbane River.

 This is what good manners looked like. They were so well behaved and their table manners beautiful. I am so glad they know how to behave in public because they don't usually look this good at home!

 Nanna Bev with her favourite course. A plate FULL of dessert!

 Ben's favourite course was the prawn course. Of which there were several! He ate more than 20 of which he peeled all by himself! He then moved onto the meat course,then the salad course, then the veggie course before moving onto dessert.

 This is what full Matthew looks like!

 Ryan with his favourite....... chocolate. A child after my own heart! By the way how good looking are my kids!!!!

 Nanna Bev believes Ben's fruit course was a waste! Who goes to nice restaurants for fruit but those who know my kids know they always make a bee line for the fruit, even in nice restaurants too apparently!

 A beautiful, beautiful day. Can't you just see the good behaviour emanating from the boys in this photo!

 Tweedle dee, Tweedle dumb and Tweedle dumber with their toothpicks after lunch!

 After lunch we went to my little sister place to celebrate with cake! We had strawberry cheesecake cupcakes.

 Red velvet cupcakes

And the kids had rainbow brite cupcakes. Funnily enough I couldn't get a photo quick enough! And they were the colours on the paper. Sooooo much food colouring. Thank goodness 40th wedding anniversaries don't come around ever day!