Christmas Part II

Next instalment of Christmas! Happy New Year by the way!

Santa found us in Rosedale and spoiled Coen with a bag full of Thomas trains and tracks! Boring clothes from mum and dad but the Thomas hat was a hit.

After unwrapping all his own presents, Coen helped us unwrap ours!


Then the new trains got a work out!

And Nanna's new fish needed to be fed. Coen liked the fish very much and on a subsequent feeding managed to get hold of one by the head and lift it out of the water! The boy has lightening quick reflexes! (The fish survived too, although he probably had a bit of a head ache!)

Tracy and Dayle arrived, and Coen exchanged kisses for a present. That flash in the background is Darron moving at great speed!

The celebrations were soon underway. There were kids everywhere!

Then "Santa" turned up, frightening some of the smaller children into hysterics!

Coen was very brave, having conquered his fear of Santa with desensitisation from the million christmas parties this year and the reasoning that sitting on Santa's knee usually results in a reward of some kind! Not long after this Santa left, to the relief of the frightened, and Dayle and Chloe finished off the gift giving!

It was wonderful seeing all the kids playing together and getting excited over each other's presents! Alyshia and Bella are too cute!

Coen got so tuckered out by everything that he even had a big sleep in the afternoon! Which meant that the poor kid missed out on the fun of dipping GIANT strawberries in chocolate and getting covered in the results!

It was all a bit much for Lara!

Credit for all the above photos goes to Wendy's camera and whoever was behind it at the time!

Jen

Christmas Part I

This Christmas is going to have to be written up in instalments. Darron is on leave at the moment, two weeks, over Christmas and New Year! First time in 10 years! So we decided that rather than spend Christmas driving all over the country side we'd go to Rosedale this year and start alternating years. We had already celebrated with Dad and Trish and Paul, Melissa, Bella and Ave, Tenealle, Steve and Jack and Tim & Beck a couple of weeks ago, due to a couple of my siblings heading to QLD for Christmas.

Mum and Ed came over the day before Christmas Eve to give Coen his pressies! (I got some too! Darron had already received his golf bag a couple of days before to make packing easier!)

Coen got some fantastic Thomas toys and cooking equipment, but most important was the wheelbarrow!

Which he used to tidy up all the wrapping paper. Those Coen sized work gloves are too cute!

Then on Christmas Eve we packed up both cars, Coen and me in the Territory with all the luggage, Darron and Riley in the Barina! Coen discovered early in the trip that he could halt the convoy by simply requesting a potty stop. Within the first 15km we had stopped 4 times so he could use the potty at the side of the road. I think he enjoyed the power trip immensely! We stopped in at Dad's where Riley disrupted Shakes' bath by jumping in and out of the water, and eventually made it to Rosedale where Riley jumped in and out of the pond, possibly scaring the new fish to death!

Dayle and I had some fun with Mawson, and Wendy took some fabulous shots of him with her new camera! Then we settled in and waited for Santa to come!

Jen

Trip to Melbourne Aquarium

On Tuesday the 9th of December Coen, Myself, Pop, Nathan and Shailea went on an expedition to the Melbourne Aquarium for a Salvation Army Kids Christmas Party.

Here's Coen and Pop enjoying the train ride in. Coen made sure Pop packed his camera.

A new exhibit at the Aquarium is the Penguins. They have both King and Gentoo Penguins. We all loved watching the penguins waddling across the ice and swimming in their tank. After all Coen's swimming lessons he though he was capable of joining them for a dip, if only he could get over the glass!

Here's Coen on his Snowdo, still in the Antarctica Exhibit area. It wasn't easy getting him off this thing.

We found Nemo!

The kids got to play with some shark eggs

And a Star Fish

We got to see Iva the Diver feeding all the Fish, Stingrays and Sharks. Apparently the diver's are most afraid of the sea turtles as they are rather bitey.

The sharks aren't too fussed by the diver's but keep an eye on everything that's going on.

There were lots of interesting things to see.

And after being all fished out Coen got to meet this fella who gave him a HUGE Car as a present.

Darron

Showing off Hidden Valley

Mum and Ed had a lovely BBQ on Sunday to show off their new home. All the Lamb clan was there, it was really nice to catch up with everyone, especially as we'll be chrismassing in Rosedale this year, it was a bit of pre-christmas christmas!

The young folk headed over the back fence to have a hit of golf.

Beck played with her super new camera! Here she is taking photos of Coen and Maddie playing in the garden, which they did all afternoon! We're looking forward to seeing how they turn out. I'm sure both the photos and the kids will turn out beautifully!

And Coen and Emily had a lovely cuddle! He was so gentle and careful with her. They're both just too sweet! Thanks Tai and John for sending us the photos too!

Jen

A Little Victory

I admit I'm not the world's greatest housekeeper. I'm really good at some things, I can colour inside the lines, braid my own hair and make fantastic banana muffins, oh and pizza, I make good pizza too. But the thing that I'm best at is procrastinating, and procrastination and housework are not the best of friends. Add to the mix a sick child who wants to be held ALL DAY LONG; toilet training the same child, a task requiring everything to be dropped at an instant's notice; Darron being on night shift, not sure what the relevence of that is but I'm using it as an excuse; and warm weather, it's not even hot and I'm already not coping. The end result is this...

It's a disaster, let's take a closer look...

So I thought if I photographed the horror I might be able to shame myself into some basic housekeeping. And guess what... it worked! Coen was my shadow, and we did have to make several dashes to the potty, but I'm claiming a victory. A little victory over my procrastinating self!Now there are just my other messes to take care of.

Maybe some other time...

Jen

Another Big Weekend

We had another big exciting weekend! On Friday we celebrated Tenealle and Steve's wedding. It was a wonderful day, the rain held out for most of the day. It was a really fun wedding, lots of dancing! Unfortunately I have NO photos. I've relied on Tim and the new camera again! All the great pics he and Beck took are on Facebook.

Then we spent the weekend at Rye with Dad and Trish who were looking after Jack so his parents could have a honeymoon weekend, Paul, Melissa, Bella and Ave. It was great to catch up with everyone and Coen had a ball playing with the girls.

We made it to the beach a couple of times, it even got warm on Sunday morning!

Jen

A Big Weekend!

We're still recovering from a huge weekend!

On Saturday we went to our friend Belinda's beautiful wedding. It was wondeful to see her so happy! Congratulations Belinda & Shaun!

I love this picture of the two of them dancing, the joy in both their faces makes me grin!

And here's us with the lovely bride!

Then after a wonderful sleep in on Sunday (thanks Mum & Ed!), we picked up Coen and headed over to Lilydale Lake for Jack's 1st Birthday party.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Coen had a great time running around, chasing Bella and Ave! Credit for the great photos goes to Tim on Beck's new camera. I think the one above is just about the best photo ever!

And there's the photographer himself, roped into silly facebook style pictures by his sister!

We've got something on every week until christmas now, busy, busy, busy. Must remember to get some sleep in at some stage. Next is Tenealle and Steves wedding on Friday. It should be a great day and we're really looking forward to spending the weekend down at Rye!

Jen