Grandma and Grandpa

Will's parents came over for lunch on Boxing Day.

Justice always loves seeing them -

especially at Christmas when Grandma makes him jelly (jell-o).

Its especially lovely to see family at the holidays.

We're enjoying the Christmas on a weekend -

with the public holidays Mon/Tues we'll get a decent break!

Christmas Day

When I tell everyone what an easy kid Justice is, I think they take it with a grain of salt.

But seriously, he’s such a great kid.

This year, we opened our Christmas presents around 6 Christmas night.

This was because Justice didn’t ask to open anything until then.

He kept very busy all day, and I read a book, took a nap, watched a video with Will...

However, Justice was THRILLED with his goodies!

Thank you Aunt Suzi for the hex bugs,

Uncle Jim for the bad guys Lego castle (the bad guys are dragons, so preferred),

Aunt Tara for the Indiana Jones game,

Aunt Iris for the Lego racers,

Aunt Sharona for mancala

and everyone for their warm wishes!

~~~~MERRY CHRISTMAS~~~

CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

Each year, Justice and I put our tree up on December 1st

and then Will puts the star on the top

Each year, Justice and I blast the air conditioning and drive around a few nights looking at awesome Christmas lights while listening to Christmas CD's
(this year it was Glee's Christmas and Sarah MacLachlan)

For a few years now, one of these nights we bring along the gorgeous Chantal.

Chantal and Justice 2010

For the past five years, I have taken Justice into the city to the Myer Centre and he has ridden the Christmas Santaland train.

Year 2006 2007

For the last three years, Sharona and her family have made this trek with us

(they visit Santa there as well)

2008 (Sharona's family 1st came!)

2009

2010 (yeah, he's getting big!)

This year, Justice and I went "elfing" on Christmas Eve -

we dropped off a few little gifts for some families we love.

This has been a wonderful Christmas season - I have really been in the spirit.

Maybe its not being cut open hip to hip like I was last year,

but I suspect its the COOL rainy weather -

I know flooding is to come, but I have enjoyed the rain all the same!

~MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE~

CHRISTMAS TIME VIEWING...

What do you like to watch at Christmas time?

We start the month off with The Polar Express. I LOVE Scrooged and Gremlins, they are seasonal must sees for me. With Justice I usually watch Home Alone because he LOVES it. (How old am I? I first saw it at the movies with a boy in high school!) We watch Die Hard some years, and once in a while Bad Santa hits the small screen. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on the Dudley Moore Santa Claus: The Movie. I almost always watch The Santa Clause, but only the first one if I can help it. And Justice and I usually rent a few new release kids Christmas movies - this year we saw The Search for Santa Paws. I love watching the old Christmas claymations especially, and keep my eyes open for the Charlie Brown specials. They are all pretty hard to find these days though. What movies are on your screen this season?

Christmas Party

This year I decided to host a Christmas get together for some of my girlfriends. Nibblies and smoothies and a Christmas show no one would have seen (except Sharona who watched it last year with me).

So I invited the ladies to watch Forgotten Carols at my place.

I did a simple but thematic menu (red and green all the way - even the smoothies and pizzas) and had a great time. (But next year we're having egg salad sandwiches as Australians don't know what they are and they're a running joke through the show...)


We did a gift exchange of a wrapped Christmas DVD - I wrapped up Gremlins because I LOVE that movie and watch it every Christmas season! (Tara, I also wrapped up Its A Wonderful Life in case anyone forgot their movie). I think that a girl's Christmas night will be a new tradition.

First of December 2010

As usual, I put togther the tree last night...

while Merlin supervised...

so tonight we could decorate it...

didn't Justice do a great job?!

start: 7PM

finish: 10:30PM

(we take tree decorating VERY seriously here!)

Orangutan Showcase

Justice's new school is marvelous. Ever since he started there they have been learning about endangered animals, primarily focusing on orangutans. The class has done informative presentations about destruction of habitat and palm oil farms, including educating their schoolmates about what foods contain palm oil. The art classes have involved paper mache (a giant orangutan) and painting (images of orangutans). English involved writing a persuasive essay about a bid by a company looking to clear out a forest. They learned about gibbons and heaps of other endangered animals, traveled to an endangered animals park and had to present an oral persuasive argument to the class... It is a wonderful, comprehensive learning project exposing the kids to real issues and incorporating their new knowledge across the range of subjects. I have been very impressed, and even more so today when we were invited to a showcase of the work the kids have done. The class did fundraising and managed enough for the school to fund fifteen orangutans. Isn't that amazing? I am so thrilled with our school change!

HALLOWEEN ON TAMBORINE

My friend Heather invited us to a Halloween party last night. She really laid out the welcome mat,
And imported delicious American naughties for the occasion...

And also put together great party bags...
There was so much to do!

First, let me just say that I LOVE jack-o-lanterns and I was so excited when the invitation said that the party would begin with pumpkin carving! Its only the past few years that we've been able to find these pumpkins in the shops at Halloween as Australians tend to just sell and buy pumpkins that are tasty to eat and the value of a carved masterpiece has not really caught on...

Watching someone manage to carve the top off in such a way that it fell INTO the pumpkin was HILARIOUS...

He asked, "What do you do if it falls in?" and we had no idea... of course, we were laughing too hard to be understood, but has anyone seen that happen? Too funny! Anyway, at Justice's request I did a castle, and as you can see he was quite proud of our masterpiece...

It DID turn out pretty well, I think...

and so did the ghost one that I did...and even the third one I carved, a more traditional face...The problem was that my hostess was a carving genius, complete with a knife sheathed to her side and an entire assortment of files...Her sister was pretty amazing too...We ended up putting out a really impressive display on the steps... But those ladies are in a league of their own! WOW!

Our hosts...

The gorgeous invitation said that a costume attempt was required, and there was a caution on the bottom that if you did not attempt, a costume might be supplied for you.

(I thought that that was a brilliant invitation to dress up!)

Dinner was lamb Asado, a lamb roasted over a spit.

Even this seemed pretty thematic when you walked in the back and confronted the view...

Heather arranged a little scary corner haunted house

in the dark stone corner around her water tank -

complete with a giant Death and a fog machine for effect! People were invited to camp over in the back yard, so she decked that out too!

(Its rare that you're happy with the red eye effect)

WHAT A GREAT HALLOWEEN PARTY!

Thanks so much Heather, we had a blast!

Halloween party continued...

Some of the costumes...

And then - he was SEVEN!

JUSTICE'S BIRTHDAY IS HERE!!!

I don't know how it happened, but Justice has just turned seven... SEVEN...

We celebrated primarily last wekend with a sleepover birthday- two friends spent the night on Saturday and we went to dinner and then I took the three soccer-crazy boys to the Brisbane Lions home game. Where we sat sixth row centre field between the two teams. I do not know how I scored such great seats, but the kids thought we were rock stars!

VERY EXCITING!

We celebrated today with pressies -

thank you Grandpa America, Aunt Suzi & family, Aunt Sharona & family and Grandma & G'Pa!

We also had dinner out with Sharona and Keala. (Thank you!)

It was a wonderful day to celebrate such a great kid.

Our little man is getting so big so quickly!

Too Busy to Blog...

I know I always say I am time poor, and I have good intentions about returning to letter writing, but truly, we are crazy busy at work... and after that, its family, school, baking groups... life is madness... things settle down at the end of November and I am going to blog more faithfully, write letters (even if its the only one you get all year) and scrapbook... Really, I am... after a week of napping!

(scroll down though - because I back dated a bunch of August/September posts)