Nothing says Christmas like a cat dressed as Santa!

Merry Christmas to all our readers. May you have a wonderful one full of love and tasty goodness. Bax and Izzie and G and me too

Santa's sack

We had Master A to play today, and he stayed for dinner. While I was preparing it the three toddlers played happily together on the lawn outside the kitchen door (the upper lawn we on the estate like to call it!) There was a full and tied rubbish bag in the kitchen and momentarily the three of them thought it would be a fun plaything and they dragged it into the lounge. I growled my scary mummy growl (sometimes when I use it Bax says "Mummy go back to work, Daddy come home now") and they returned the rubbish bag to the kitchen and went outside again.

Sometime later when the first shift had been put to bed I noticed the binbag was gone. I looked around for it. Couldn't find it. Not in cupboards, under furniture, behind curtains. Shortly G got home and he looked all over the garden.

Much much later when H and O and Ms Lili arrived I told them the funny story and we all had a bit of a look (10pm at night by this stage!)

I figure this is what happened: For weeks now we've all been saying Santa's coming, be good and get on the list, oooo is that reindeer I hear?, he'll be here soon everyone etc etc. And these three little kids saw the sack siotting there in the kitchen and they put two and two together and got a big bag full of pressies! So they figured "We'll stitch the old coot up and steal his presents, we've been waiting long enough and now he's finally here" So they pulled off a commando style raid and stole Santa's loot.

Except it wasn't loot it was rubbish.

And then they got bored with that and played another game by the swing, and then went for a bike ride (down to where we on the estate call the tennis lawn) and then they came in for their tea, and at 10.30pm there was I still looking for my ruddy bin bag!

Found it though, hidden under the pup tent.

Sleepy babies' midnight stories

The sleeping programme is going really well. We put Izzie to bed earlier and she goes off to sleep then Bax, half an hour later, has a story down stairs then wails and whines a bit then off he trots to bed, sneaks in quietly not the wake Izzie and under the covers and straight to sleep. Just like that. But...

Last night when G took Bax up, Izzie was not asleep. She was standing in her cot looking at them. Bax got into bed and G left them to it.

Well we could hear some chatting and giggling for a while, but we were hungry, so we made a meal and ate it and didn't go up to check on the damage until about 10pm. We snuck into the room and this is what we saw.

No Bax. He must have got out of bed because the little light was on. But we couldn't see him at all. As we moved further into the room, we spotted him. He was fast asleep on the floor, curled up in a tight ball right next to Izzie's portacot, almost tucked under it, and she was lying in the same position inside the cot but squished up against the wall so she was as close to Bax as possible. I almost cried it was so lurv-ely.

And for weeks he has been asking me to read him the bicycle story and I haven't been able to find it, and there he was all curled up in a ball lying ontop of MulgaBill's Bicycle!

My first dodgy plastic Xmas Parteee

Little Miss Peachie

The Unstoppable twosome

Lolly munchers

I brought home a little bag of lollies for Bax and had them in my bag. I gave him two or three then he discovered the bag for himself and kept helping himself although he'd give me a couple very now and agin. After not very long at all the bag was empty. I said to him, "Where did they all go?" "In my tummy" he said, then pretty quickly "And in yours Mummy!"

This Christmas Buzz

G takes the kids to a music playgroup on a Monday. Yesterday they did the oblig Christmas sess with carols etc. And all the grups did a little nativity play. There were three wise men, and mary with the bub, and joseph and some shepherds, and a sheep, on rockers, like a wooley rocking horse kinda thing in the middle of the stage.

Then just as Mary lowers her precious BoJ into the manger, a kid wearing a bee dressing gown and bright bee boots walks onto the stage, climbs onto the sheep and begins rocking back and forth blithely. He's got his hood up and its got antennae and big bee eyes, but it's Bax under there, you guessed right.

It took G awhile to do the parent thing because he was laughing so hard, but a couple of minutes into the victory ride G beckoned Bee Boy back to his seat.

The Sisterhood is alive and well

It is so cold tonight. Sposed to be spring. I thought I'd get a fire going. G was at the supermarket so out I went with the axe and the wheelbarrow to chop enough wood for a good blaze. With me came two kids, dog, chickens etc. And I set about chpping the wood. A slow sore process. Bax seeing my blight cried "That's Daddy's work!" i said phooey I'd rather being doing this than crawling through the supermarket.

I chopped and shopped slowly but surely filling the wheelbarrow. Bax gave up on me, I was hissing and sweating, and went to play in the rain. I was all alone, the novelty of independence had fast worn off, I wasn't even cold anymore, I was bored and miserable. Then I felt a little pair of arms wrap themselves around me from behind, and a little head rest itself on my back. It was Izzie. Even at 2 years old (nearly) she understands the universal sisterhood.

Friday no more

We have found a new home for our rabbit Friday aka Audrey. Her hutch was so little for such a hefty lady and when we let her out she traversed the streets and neighbours gardens and scared the locals alittle - a huge black rabbit looming on the horizon at twilight is a freaky site, even for me who knew it was Friday!

On Saturday we had the Kindy Christmas party at the local petting zoo and so the night before I rang and asked if they would like Friday. They were very happy to accommodate her so when we went to the party we took her along, squeezed into a cat box. Bax thought it was great taking our own rabbit to the petting zoo.

The staff there were so admiring of her condition and size. They put her in with all the other lady-rabbits (well only two of them (a nana rabbit and a mummy)) and a whole tribe of babies. At first Friday looked nervous and they all chased each other in a big furry circle of chaos. We checked in on her often during the party and told everyone she was our rabbit. By the time we left she was asleep in the ahde with a whole pile of baby bunnies asleep on top of her.

We will miss her but she was a bit of a grump and a little stuck up.

Bax asked about four times during the weekend "Can we go and get Friday from her holiday now?" I said to him yesterday afternoon "What do you think about letting Friday live with the rabbit family instead of with us?" he thought that would be alright.

At home we cleaned up her hutch and picked it up to let the grass begin to grow back.

We loved having Friday and one day when we can construct the world's largest hutch we will have another rabbit - another Flemish Giant, maybe one of her babies or grandbabies.