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!

Tidbinbilla

After boxing day I took the in laws to Tidbinbilla to check out the natural environment and wildlife.

 These two that we found at Stromlo were pretty scary!

 The view from the lookout.

 Edwina the Emu played cricket with us during lunch.

 We were terrified that she thought the ball was one of her eggs but it turned out she just liked cricket. She was really friendly and made a point of going up to every new visitor to say hi. The reputation of other emus must have preceded her because most people were terribly frightened of her and all she wanted was to say hello. All be it at very close range!

 We had a walk around the koala park. Basically is is an area that they say you may catch a glimpse of a koala in this vicinity. They had just imported quite a few so we got lucky. I've been before and the only thing I got was a crink in the neck! This guy was 5 meters from the track at Nathan's head height. Those cute grey ears of his were flapping like mad listening to the rubbish those Rickard boys were spouting!

At the entrance there were several Mummy and baby koalas so my baby climbed on my back to show them we were friendly. The koalas really didn't care at all!

The time of our lives

 I was organising our Fiji photos ready for printing and enlarging last night when I was struck by the thought that the whole trip to Fiji was the best time of my life so far! Big call, I know! But it combined so may vitally important ingredients. Firstly, Nathan and I had been planning it for over 10 years. Secondly, I spent 10 days thoroughly enjoying my family. We had nothing but quality time together. I am fairly certain there was not one cross word spoken by anyone. Thirdly, it was like our wedding day except less stressful and no less meaningful. Finally, we were carefree, happy and healthy. I am only now just realising how truly special an experience it was.

Another bonus I discovered was this picture. This pic wasn't an initial favourite but after scouring through all of them this was the one I picked to get enlarged, not because it has the best composition or the most aesthetically appealing but because we all look so unbelievable happy!

Holidays

These holidays have been rather low key! We were minus Matthew one week so we took the opportunity to 'spoil' the other two because they were terribly upset at missing out on all the fun at Grumpy and Nana Bev's holiday house!

 

 Nathan took Ryan and Ben go karting.

 

 This must have been early on in the first week before they decided the disliked each other company without a Matthew buffer!

 Ben was old enough to drive his own go kart! When he got out he exclaimed he was so talented that he didn't need to use his brake at all! Not even to come to a full stop at the finish!

 Ryan has marginally more speed than the last time but he certainly is not a thrill seeker!

 We hung out ta the park with Harry on the new flying fox.

 We had our usual Wednesday date with the Forrest kids which coincided with Matt's birthday cake.

I didn't make the cake this year,  had 6 kids in my backyard all day there was no time for baking!

And now it is time to go back to school for the final term of school for 2012! Where had the year gone?

Three minus One

Matthew is having his first ever solo visit with his grandparents. My Mum decided a little while ago that Matthew was probably old enough to have an unaccompanied visit (and also that she could cope with an unaccompanied visit). So after I thought about it for a while, I decided he could go.

Nathan thinks the timing is rather fortuitous because Matthew has his first school camp coming up this term and had that been his first ever time away from home combined with the closer proximity to home, I may have been tempted to go out to the camp and "visit". (And the school have already declined my offer of assistance as parent helper with the excuse I already do more than enough around the school!) So Nathan feels that by the time the camps comes around I will be experienced at having had a child of mine leave me and won't be inclined to rush out to camp and embarrass him! I suppose Nath and I should be patting each other on our backs to congratulate us for raising such independent, happy kids but it hurts that he doesn't need me as much anymore! By all accounts he is having a ball without me!

When we started planning the trip my brother offered to fly Ryan up as well, as there are 4 adults living in my Mum's house and no other children. They were all concerned that Matthew, who is exceptionally close with his brothers, would miss them. However I knew that Matthew is one of those kids who secretly wish to be an only child so I knew he would rejoice in the solitude and adoration of all 4 adults! And he has! He doesn't want to come home and I am fairly certain my Mum doesn't want him to go home! The only bump in the road may be when he flies home on Monday. Matthew is rather nervous about flying by himself for the first time. I have prepared him by breaking down the journey for him. I have told him that his grandparents will walk him to the gate where the air hostess will take over and take him to his seat where he can play his DS until take off where he needs to turn if off but only until the seat belt sign goes off when he can turn it back on and play until landing time when the hostie will then help him off the plane and I will be waiting at the gate (probably in tears!) and he will be home. Easy!

So what has this little trip meant for the other two left at home? Well it is a very different dynamic, with very different game played. I have watched them play beautifully together until one has had enough and them they go off to their separate activities without a cross word. They play together very cooperatively, unlike when the bossy oldest one is there and they have to play his game with his rule and no negotiation! For the first four days they have been gorgeous together but I am guessing Ben is missing the rougher, rowdier play that he gets from Matthew because he has was rotten yesterday! He has tried to roughen Rye up which hasn't gone down too well with Rye!

The other interesting aspect of Matthew's trip has been Ryan's jealousy! Whilst Matthew wants to be a singleton, Ryan and Ben completely believe they are a part of a package deal! Poor Ryan really couldn't understand why Matthew could go and he couldn't. He tried sucking up to Nanna Bev in the hope that she would then let him go. He has even told her he would prefer to go to her house instead of going to Fiji next year! He has tried to bargain his own trip next holidays (but we are all going at Christmas time!) so we have told him when he is nearly nine it will be his turn too. But for poor Ryan who is eternally chasing down Matthew to no avail, nearly nine is such a long time away!

Fishing

Grumpy and Uncle Noddy have been planning this fishing trip since our last trip in Brisbane in April! So when it finally arrived the boys were super, super excited. Just quietly so where Noddy and Grumpy. Nathan was just praying he wouldn't get sea sick....in the Punicestone passage!

 In the beginning they started out with life vests (at Nanna Bev's request) and if you look really closely you can see Matt and Ben holding onto the table for dear life!

 But they soon relaxed!

 I had worded the boys up that fishing requires patience. It appears Matthew has patience in abundance! Meanwhile Ben was running around in circles, almost wetting himself exclaiming "Fishing takes patience! Fishing takes patience!" And Ryan was anxiously worrying about not catching a fish!

 Uncle Noddy caught the first fish...... Not sure how canned Atlantic Salmon made it to Bribie!

 But Benny caught the first real fish!

 Cousin Eli got one too!

 Ryan practise with barnacles first....

 Before snagging a fish!

 Matthew's patience lasted the longest time with him being the last to catch one. Now just between you and me each child caught 3 fish each and the total of fish brought home was 6. 3 X 4 = 6 is only a reality when Jenni has done the math! Turns out Uncle Noddy was re-hooking the fish and chucking them back in when the boys weren't looking!

 It certainly looks like he didn't enjoy himself at all does it?

 Grumpy certainly didn't enjoy quality time with his grandsons either! Is he giving my eldest son rabbit ears???

 Nathan had the biggest catch of the day.......it was a big stick!

 By far and away the hardest job was filleting the fish. Winter whiting has not minimum size and the boys were very insistent on eating their catch. So poor Grumpy had a go at making fish fingers! Thankfully he had been on a real fishing trip recently and had caught enough fish to feed us all!

 They LOVED them! Ryan was absolutely convinced the fresher the fish the more brain food it contained and insisted on being quizzed on multiplication at dinner. Funnily enough he thinks 4 X 3 =12!

Looks good doesn't it!