38

It's always a big week in our house this week...not just because of Christmas and school holidays, but because Aaron has his birthday - two days before Christmas! I guess I should be grateful that it's not on Boxing Day like some other people we know. I hate that Aaron's birthday is so close to Christmas, but he absolutely loves it - especially now that he is a teacher and always gets to be on school holidays for his birthday.

Poor Kobe was very confused this morning when Aaron got to open up some presents but no one else did! He was crying and crying as he thought it was finally Christmas and was upset that we kept saying he still had to wait to open up the presents under the tree.

Harri said this morning that Aaron was 'the boss today' because it was his birthday! I'm glad he realised that I am the boss every other day!! ;) Because he was the boss he decided that he wanted to play Crazy Golf which Kobe was very excited about - especially as he wanted to go there last week. Di came and did In Home Support so that we could go. Kobe loved the mirror maze after an intial freak out.

His putting style was not very conventional, but at least he had fun!

We couldn't resist a photo next to the 'Kings' on the wall.

Aaron was determined that he was going to win on his birthday and was trash talking us all last night. He has been bragging all afternoon that he won, but I reminded him there's not much to brag about when you beat an 11, 6 and 2 year old and the only adult he played against had a handicap because of the two year old helping me out!

As we were heading back to the van to come home we walked past the Fairies shop. Every time we drive past it Kobe gets soooooo excited and yells 'me, me, me!!' as he wants to go in there. He watches the DVDs at the childcare at the gym.

As we were walking past he got so excited, so we decided to pop in quickly to let him have a look. Jay and Harri were totally disgusted and stood there -not so- patiently waiting for him to have a look so they could quickly get out of there before being spotted!

The lady was lovely and kept joking with the boys about the highlight of their school holidays would be going to the Fairies shop. They weren't so sure! She said we could go and look at the party/dance room if we wanted so Aaron couldn't resist a photo under the rainbow for his 38th birthday.

There was absolutely NO way that Jay was going to pose for a photo under the rainbow with him (getting to that age where he's too cool for school!).

For tea Aaron requested Thai chicken curry and bought cheesecake for his cake which suited me just fine.

38 is a lot of claps!

Santa Photo(s)

We couldn't let December pass by without doing the annual photo with Santa. This year we decided to head back to Meadow Mews because the Santa there is so lovely. He remembers Noah every single year, and always asks how his year has been and asks if he has been well.

We lined up for ages a couple of days ago and when we got to the front of the line Santa straight away said 'hi boys, and of course Noah! I was wondering when he was going to come and visit me!'. He then stood up out of his chair and spent lots of time talking to him and rubbing his arms.

The lady then went to take a photo and was determined to get a photo with Noah actually looking at the camera. She got her assistant to ring some bells and I said very nicely 'he won't actually look which is fine, it's just nice that he's awake for the photo', but she was like 'oh no - I got him looking a couple of years ago and I will again now!' (it was pure fluke, as Noah won't turn his head for anything!).

She then kept jingling the bells, calling out to him and decided that she needed something behind his neck to push his head around. That didn't work very well, so she then decided to just move around to the side he was looking at to get him looking. It was really nice that she made such an effort, but in the meantime she didn't really care at all what the other three boys were doing, so we have a photo with Noah and Jay looking, and Harri and Kobe looking in a totally different direction! It makes me laugh, but it's a nice photo to have to know that people cared so much about having Noah look good in the photo.

After seeing Becky's gorgeous Christmas photos of Ben from years past, I had to pull our old ones out to see how much the boys had changed.

2008

2006

(check out how chubby Jay was here! I think it was the only time in his life he had a bit of fat on him!)

Oh how nice it would be to still be able to lift Noah like this!

Noah's 1st Christmas.

1999 - Jalen all by his lonesome!

Searching for the Reindeer

It's the time of the year again where we head into town to search for the nine pictures of reindeer in shop windows, hoping we will find them all and be in the running to win a plasma TV.

Because we decide to make a fun day out of it and catch the free tiger bus into town to look for the reindeers, we decided to wait until school holidays so that Aaron and Kobe could also come, while Di was home caring for Noah. I wasn't keen on attempting to take Noah on the bus, even though it said it has access for a wheelchair. The boys were just as excited about catching the bus for five minutes into town, than what they were to look for the reindeer.

They thought it was very cool that the bus driver was dressed up as an elf.

Kobe was excited to catch a bus for the first time.

He knew we were going to look for the reindeer, but I think he thought we were looking for the real reindeer!



We found all of the reindeers really easily with the clues that we had printed out, and with the help of another lady on the bus who overheard that we were looking for them as well. We swapped a few locations (as I had seen a couple in town during the week), and also ran into her while we were searching, and swapped a couple more locations to cut down the time running around.

Poor Kobe was so excited when we found Dasher, as he was on the Crazy Golf window. He thought we were going to go and play Crazy Golf, and when we told him we weren't he burst into tears!

Harri got tired of it after about an hour and asked 'Mum, do you really want to win a TV!?'. I asked him why he wanted to know that, and he said 'because I'm feeling really tired now and don't want to look for the reindeer anymore!'.

He also thought that once we found all nine it meant we had won a TV, so he was disappointed when we went to put our entry forms in the barrel in the mall, and he saw the hundreds of other entries. Fingers crossed we may be the lucky ones and have our entry form pulled out, but if not it was another fun day searching for the reindeer.

Off They Go!

This afternoon we headed out to the airport to say goodbye to the Woodwards, as they head off to live in the USA for 12 months. Simone and I are going to miss our very fun gym buddy very much.

The boys will miss their gym buddies as well. Whenever we are in class together when school isn't on, the kids are always in the childcare together. On Saturday night the Woodwards came for tea and Harri was sitting there and all of a sudden says 'Gary...I like you!'. Then he went around the whole Woodward family and said 'Phebe I like you, Eliza I like you' etc. Tonight he said 'I'm going to miss the Woodwards'.

Kobe knew Eden was going on a plane and was pretty excited about it (he actually wanted to go on it too!).

But I think Lisa was more excited!

Seeing Lisa's Dad say goodbye to Eliza, made me tear up. I was strong up until then.

I'm so excited for them to go as it will be an amazing year for them, but it's also so hard to say goodbye to such lovely friends.


On Saturday we were telling Phebe how we used to babysit her and how we used to change her nappy. She had quite a laugh about it with us and said now she is paying us back by helping us with our kids (as she was entertaining Harri and Kobe all night).

The lucky ducks will be spending a week in California before they head to Utah to live, and will be spending up to 7 days at Disneyland, including Christmas Day there!

Eden was excited to see the plane. Tonight they were just heading to Melbourne, and then in the morning they make the 14 hours plane trip to LA. I hope Eden sleeps for some of it, as it's going to be a long trip with a two year old!

One last cuddle with Kobe.

Gary, the rockstar couldn't get on the plane fast enough! :)

Noah wasn't very impressed about them leaving.

Eden blew Kobe one last kiss, before they headed off to the plane - sooooo cute!

We were laughing at Lisa who was a little bit excited as she boarded the plane - waving things in the air, and carrying on.

It had been pouring with rain on the way out to the airport, but just before the plane took off a rainbow appeared! Such a beautiful send off to a lovely family. Have a fantastic 12 months Woodwards! Talk to you very soon.

School Holidays!!

The boys are now officially on 7 weeks of summer holidays! They had their last day of school today. All three boys have had a great year, with some awesome teachers. Harri came up to me after school this afternoon and wrapped his arms around my leg, and buried his head in . I looked down and asked him what was wrong, and he started crying and said 'I'm a bit sad'. I asked him why and he was sad and he said he was going to miss his teacher 'Mrs Stack'.
She has now had all three of my boys, and I'm sure Harri was the most challenging one out of the three, but she loved him and said he was 'very enthusiastic'. In otherwords - he was hyper most of the time but loved being at school :)

Noah had a good year being enrolled at both schools again. He was very lucky to have the most sought after teacher at the school this year - Miss Wells. Every kid at school wants Miss Wells because she is lots of fun and especially because she teaches them cool dances. It's amazing to see little boys loving being at school as they get involved in dance. She has now had Jay and Noah, so hopefully Harri will also get to be in her class in a couple of years.

Jay has had a very fun year with Mrs Kenny. He loved that he got to do 'Speakers Box' where he got to use his talents in drama on a regular basis. It's so hard to believe that he is going to be in grade 6 next year!

He is very, very excited about next year as he applied to be a Student Leader and found out last week that he was successful. He gets to take daily PE every morning and has been training this week with the students leaders from this year.

One more day and Aaron will also be on school holidays! I'm sure within two to three weeks I'll have had enough and will be ready for them to go back to school, but I'm looking forward to being totally out of routine, and hopefully being able to enjoy a fun summer together.

End of Year Dinner

The girls and I often get together for tea on a regular basis, so we couldn't pass up another opportunity to go out before Christmas. We figure all work places have their annual Christmas dinner, so we should too.

We thought we'd venture away from our favourite Thai restaurant, and go back to Mexican again. Whenever we go there without fail Pip and Bec have nachos as they love them so much, but then complain about how sick they feel afterwards.

This time they actually loved them and didn't complain a bit!


I couldn't pass up my usual prawn and avocado salad - soooo yummy!

and we even lashed out on dessert ...

It's hard to believe that we went to Kinder together, and here we are 30 years later still talking all the time, going out for tea and chatting about kids, husbands, jobs and peak hour traffic in Launceston! :)

One Week...

until summer holidays! I'm so glad that Aaron decided to go to uni as a mature age student, and that he decided to become a teacher as it's the biggest blessing to have a husband who is a school teacher, as it means we have all the school holidays together. I really don't think I would come out with my sanity at the end of school holidays, if Aaron wasn't home with us.

This week is always an emotional one as the boys say goodbye to their teachers for this year, and as Aaron says goodbye to the grade ten students. This year he was the Prefect Co-ordinator again, but will be having a break from it next year. He has enjoyed doing it for the past few years, but feels like he's ready to hand it over to someone else, and just concentrate on being Grade Leader.

Last week was the school's leavers dinner. I love when he gets home from it with photos, so I can check out what everyone was wearing, and what he got up to. I'm sure if it wasn't for all the grey hair, he would look just like one of the students!





ONE MORE WEEK!!!!!