My Santa Apron

A friend of mine made this Santa apron and gave it to me for Christmas- I just love it!

Hand Illustrated Wrapping Paper

This year Lachlan wrapped our presents in brown paper and then drew pictures on them, I thought they were pretty cool!

Christmas Day

You know things are changing when you have to wake the kids at 11:30am to open Christmas presents! It was after midday before we opened them! Amy got a present from Bill addressed to Wayne Palmer and some money hidden inside a crushed pepsi can that was tucked in the tree- you never quite know what Bill will come up with next. We sat down for a late lunch/early dinner about 4:30pm. It has been a quite and relaxing day, most enjoyable!

Christmas Traditions

Finally found some time this week to get ready for Christmas- first up was the Christmas Pudding with the sixpences and shillings and silver charms. The other thing that needed to be made was the apricot fruit balls- yummy!

What Did I Do To Deserve This!

My kangaroo paws didn't survive the winter this year, Bill allowed Benji to come home with this from his walk today and annouced that because my kangaroo paws did not survive Benji got me a new one! I am not sure who is worse- Bill or Benji!

The Good Life

Have been picking quite a bit of produce in the garden this week, I have eggs, raspberries, loganberries, zucchinis and button squash- quite exciting!

High Tea for Amy's 18th

For Amy's 18th we had High Tea to celebrate the occasion! We employed the services of a excellent cooked who helped plan the menu, cook all the fancy stuff and then helped set the whole thing up and it looked marvelous! We had a lovely afternoon, the guest were served punch and lemon lime and betters for drinks and then an assortment of sweet and savoury delicacies. It was a very successful afternoon.

Getting Into the Christmas Spirit

Finally feel like I am getting into the Christmas Spirit! Mia and Charlie helped me put up the Christmas Tree on Thursday night while Bindi was doing Amy's hair and makeup for her Formal. We also decorated Bill's birthday cake as it was his birthday that day- he got to have party pies and dinosaur chicken nuggets for his birthday dinner- wasn't he lucky- I did take him to the Premium Lounge at the Dendy to see a movie on Saturday to celebrate his birthday so he wasn't too hardly done by and given the choice he reckons he would just skip birthdays all together, but that is another story.

On Friday night Amy and I went to the Christmas Markets with Bindi, Charlie and Mia and then we went back to Bindi's place and the kids, including Amy, decorated little gingerbread houses, so it has been a Christmassy Week and it has been lovely!

Amy's Formal

It was Amy's Year 12 Formal on Thursday night at the National Museum. She insisted that she was driving herself in so we didn't go in to see the arrival of the students- can't say I didn't really mind. Bill was under instructions to be home by 6pm so he could see her all dressed up and ready to go (it still doesn't seem right to see her driving off in the car by herself). My sister in law Bindi came over and did Amy's hair and makeup and she looked just great. My job was to entertain Charlie and Mia so Bindi was free to create her magic! I would not have been very helpful in the hair and makeup department so was glad to take on that job! Amy had a lovely night and as you can see she scrubbed up pretty well and looked lovely!

Bath Time

We would sometimes come home and find water splashed everywhere, it took us a while to figure it out. When Jack gets hot he decides to give himself a bath and the most convenient place for that is the water bowl! So now when we go for a walk or he is playing outside when it is warm we make sure the back door is closed so he uses the outside drinking bowl and not the inside one. He certainly provides us with lots of laughs, a small dog is quite different to the big dogs we have always had!

I Think This Dog Feels at Home

We think Jack has finally settled in to his new home! He has very quickly made himself very comfortable and picked the comfy spots to settle! He jumps up on the bed given the chance and settles down with his head on the pillow- poor dog, it is such a tough life. He probably thinks he is in doggy heaven at the Frost home!

He has developed the taste for fruitcake! Bill gets his lunch out in the morning and leaves it on the bed, he can no longer do this as the fruit cake has disappeared twice this week- someone who will not name jumps up on the bed and extracts it from the bag and has some morning tea!

We have also had to move one of the older chooks around the front to separate it from the other chooks who have been picking on it, it still lays the occasional egg and Jack has learnt to sneak in the chooks cage when it is open, find the egg and have a little protein snack!

Karate Kid!

The Young Women's group at church have organised a Self Defence Course for the girls and their mothers out at Hume which Amy and I have been doing for the last 6 weeks. It has been really good and Amy has really enjoyed it, I get scared though as I have been partnering against Amy and she beats me up- she is very strong! Anyhow it was the last week, and one week someone got to smash a peice of wood so Amy wanted to have a try and with the correct technique did it in one quick blow- very impressive. I don't think it would pay to attack Amy!

The Final Countdown

There is only one exam and one assignment to go before the battle to get Amy through school will finally end! No doubt there will be other challenges but it will certainly be good to close the book on this one! I have been slack with my blogging the last few weeks, I just have not had the energy. However time has not been completely wasted I have become quite well informed in history and English. I have been listening to the practice runs on Amy's 3 oral presentations that were done last week, I could now inform you about the role that religion played in day to day Roman life, I could tell you how the prison system changed during Victorian Britain times, and I could tell you all about the little life lessons that the author of the Little Prince conveyed in his book!

Off to the Ballet

Amy and I took Mia to see the ballet last week, it was Cinderella by the West Australian Ballet Company. It was a lovely ballet, lots of kids there to see it. Mia really enjoyed it, there were a few bits where the dancing did seem a bit long winded so I did understand when afterwards she commented " There was a bit too much dancing!" Amy just cracked up!

First Raspberries

Most of the raspberries look like they are way off picking but there is a little patch that has some ripe raspberries so picked my first little bowl this morning, they taste delicious! Can't wait till the rest start to ripen, the loganberries are not too far off either!

Waterhouse National Art History Prize

Bill and I went in Saturday afternoon to the National Archives to have a look at some of the winners of the Waterhouse Natural Art History Prize, they had some great stuff there. Friends had told us about it and meant to go last year, finally got around to going this year- it is the last weekend, but must make it a must see each year. It is run in South Australia but they bring over the winners for a display in Canberra each year. They have painting and sculptures. The winner this year was made of silver and quite detailed- inspired by sea urchins from Kangaroo Island.

Dog Hair Everywhere

Just like the veggie garden is growing it seems dog hair is growing! Benji is malting and we are able to comb out oodles of hair every day- he just laps up the brushing and combing! Jack seems to get hot so decided it was time to take off the hair, we went halves in some dog clippers with a friend (who does not even own a dog!) so Amy and I had a practice on him yesterday!