* Happy 5th Birthday Princess! *

Isabella Rose turned 5 today!

She couldn't wait to turn 5 as she is the last one of her immediate friends to hit that magic milestone! LOL She woke up to lots of presents from us and some from family and friends who gave them to her prior to today.
Her favourite presents were her Barbie Pegasus Magic Wings that flap and flutter on their own. She also loved her Fairytopia Barbie Elina who turns into a fairy or a mermaid. She hasn't put her down!

Amongst other things she also got a crawling baby that works via remote control that she has been asking for all year. She didn't quite know what to play with first but with Alexandra's help they managed!

Like every year she is so overwhelmed with gifts at this time that is just gets too much. We still have her new bike in the shed that was supposed to be for christmas but we changed it to her b'day present. But it was still too crazy to give her even more things that we held off. We will give it to her before we go camping next month though as she has certainly outgrown her 30cm bike.

We snag happy birthday and I made her a simple donut cake from some leftover donuts we had in the freezer. She knew they were there and asked if I could make her a donut cake. Who could blame her really!?!


Anyway, apparently now Bella is allowed to do anything because she is 5! Every other sentance out of her mouth is 'I can do that coz I'm 5!'. Hmmmm!!!

She is having a party on the 7th of Jan and surprisingly (!) she asked for a princess party and asked for a castle cake. Shall be fun!

~* Happy Birthday Princess!! *~

Merry Christmas!

Wow... what a crazy week!! What a crazy month!
We had so many christmas parties this month - Playgroup, Kinder, my work, etc. It was great though.

2 Butterflies at the kinder xmas party

I won't be surprised if Alex comes home with pink hair and tattoos in 13 year's time!

My bestest work buddies enjoying our xmas gathering. Ruth, Glenda, Sandra, Sophie & Bianca enjoying a feast at Ruth's house
The kid's dinner table. Notice the girls in the background on the hammock with Sam?
Alex enjoying being a 'big girl'
We do xmas in style!

And this where Richard should be.... at my feet, feeding me wine & grapes!
It was the end of an era this week when Bella, Matilda and Erin said goodbye to Playgroup :( Bella & Erin have been bestest friends since 5 weeks old and Matilda joined in at 12 months old. They really are the bestest of friends and will miss playgroup every week.

3 Best friends farewelling Playgroup.The 'gang' (minus Isla, Joss, Liam, Jack)

We have had my sister and BIL and our new nephew stay with us for a week prior to christmas. It was so great to see them again and finally meet my nephew Xaviar!! He is just the most delightful little thing!


With the final week of swimming and kinder it was all very crazy trying to get ready for an early christmas gathering but it worked out well. Friday night (22nd) we celebrated christmas at Dad's house. It has become quite a tradition to take a photo of the kids in front of their massive tree and this year was no exception. This was a lovely and late night and of course, the kids were spoiled!

Isabella helping make the gingerbread train

Then on Saturday (23rd) we had our family lunch with Mum at my house. And yet another present sharing session. It was a fun day and I just love how we all over indulge in gifts! And of course, the kids were spoiled!


On Christmas Eve we said goodbye to my sister and co. who were heading up to Parkes NSW to spend some time with Tim's family. It was sad to see them go :( Then Mum and I went shopping for a while for some last minute gifts. The girls went outside between rain storms and sprinkled their magic reindeer food and then made Santa a plate of snacks. This year they went with milk and shortbreads and a carrot for the reindeer.

We spent the night watching the carols and Isabella stayed up later than usual so she could watch them too. Then "santa" got to work frantically wrapping the copius amounts of presents that just kept oozing out of the cupboards! Hmmm... I really should stop buying gifts all year and stashing them! It was just crazy! Anyway, "santa" had to assemble a Dora scooter and a Care Bears bike but had to draw the line at the massive dolls house for the night! It was crazy and definately a day job!!


Isabella was so cute in the morning... she came in our room and said to us "Mum! Dad! Santa has been! And I saw something with a blanket over it with my name on it and peeked! It has wheels! I think it is a pram!" (It was her scooter!). It was so precious! We had to wake Alex up as she was still snoozing and Bella couldn't wait any longer. Of course, the kids were spoiled!

I love Bella's reaction to their new doll house!

They spent the day playing with all their toys before we had to head off to Rick's family for yet another massive christmas dinner! Needless to say my diet ceased to exist these past few weeks.

We couldn't believe how cold and wet it was! Most local suburbs experienced a 'white christmas' with blankets of hail! Strange that 5 days earlier it was 33deg and yesterday was something like 15deg! crazy!!

We had a lovely christmas this year and hope all our family and friend's did too!

Goodbye Kindergarten... :(

Last week the kinder kids all had their Christmas Concert. They practised so hard and performed for all the family and friends. It was just beautiful and there weren't many dry eyes in the house!

I was soooo proud of Isabella. She was a 'star angel' and her biggest job was taking care of the 2 autistic kids in the class. The teacher later told me that she was the only person for the job as she has related well to them all year and was very patient with them.


She performed so well at the concert! The children learnt sign language to a few songs throughout the year and they all sang and signed to "Silent Night". I was so impressed and Isabella knew all the signs and actions to the songs and didn't look at the teachers for direction once. A few of the parents made comment after the show that she certainly enjoys performing!! um .. yes! she does!


I took some video footage of the concert. In this video the children are performing "Santa's Music Workshop". I just love how her friend Jackson turns around and looks at her when she sings so loudly!!

This is "Silent Night" and I love how the children learned to sign for this song. Isabella took this very seriously!

Here is "Santa Claus is coming". The kids loved this the best!

Isabella made all her kinder & playgroup friends a treat this year instead of christmas cards. She made little organza bags filled with "reindeer food" for the kids to sprinkle on their front garden on christmas eve! She had fun filling them with oats and glitter :)



Well it is the end of an era for Miss Isabella! Today we farewelled kindergarten (pre-school).It was quite an emotional day for most of the mums in particular. The past 2 years we have developed such good friendships and memories and all the kids are scattered around the area going off to different schools. Thankfully, Isabella's (and mine!) closest friends are all going to the same school. She will miss a lot of the other girls that she is close with though but hopefully will stay in touch. She wasn't too taken on any of the boys at kinder this year and doesn't really like playing with them like she did last year (we all remember her 'boyfriend' Lewis!).

At 'party day' today the kids all ate party food and wore the crowns that they made. Then all the parents arrived to join in the celebrations. My sister Debbie and her new baby Xaviar came along too.

The teacher gathered all the kids on the carpet and first of all, the whole group sang 'happy birthday' to her! It was so cute!

Then it was time for the children to give out gifts to their parents that they had made. We were given a calendar filled with art work, and a gorgeous star xmas tree decoration, and a gold jewel covered box filled with yummy treats the kids made at kinder! We were very spoiled.


Then the teacher's handed all the children goodbye gifts. They all got a story book each and some HB pencils & scrap books for school next year. They were also presented with a scrapbook style folder of photos and exciting things they had done throughout the year. Isabella loved looking through it seeing all the adventures she had gotten up to during her preschool year.


After we all ate too much and said our farewells a group of our immediate friends came back to our house to do a quick gift exchange for christmas. It was a lovely afternoon! All the photos for those who want to see can be seen here.

Gosh this has turned into a novel! Oops!

Santa Photo 2006

I was pleasantly surprised this year when Alexandra was more than willing to sit on Santa's lap. Although, I did manage to convince the girls that the Knox Santa was the real one! (Knox City is our local shopping centre).

They were so funny, and while I was talking to the photographer the girls chewed Santa's ear off with the list of presents they wanted!


Poor Alex didn't quite get it and was rather upset that Santa didn't give her the Bratz Doll she asked him for. Explaining to a 2 year old that Santa doesn't actually come for another 11 sleeps proved difficult! Especially when she just saw him! She was happy with the flashing star wand that he gave her for now!

OUR SCHOOL GIRL!!

Well Isabella might be ready for school .... but I'm not!

Bella has been having her transition program the past 3 weeks. She has attended 3 x 70 minute sessions and today she attended for 3.5 hours!!

They started at 9.30 and got to experience recess with the current preps and grade 1's, and did a lot of school type stuff (!) till 1 O'clock. When we picked them up all the kids were soooo exhausted! Didn't help that it was 33 degrees, but the rooms are nicely air conditioned.

Today, they also found out their class groups and teacher. She has Miss Mitchell who seems lovely! There are no more than 18 kids in each prep class so we were thrilled with that. The 6 kids from kinder who are all going have been split up - naturally. But it is a bit sad as they are all one big unit!! Well, actually I think the mums are sadder as we are all quite close.

At the end of the day they got a certificate saying they were excellent Boronia Primary School students! It was all very exciting and I was very teary! Not as teary as I was last night at the kinder Xmas concert though!!

Here are some photos... the little girl with glasses was an old friend from another kinder - but she is the only one from her kinder so we didn't want her to feel left out. The school is www.boroniaps.vic.edu.au

We have everything we need now... just need to pick up her books etc prior to Xmas and then get her some socks and school shoes in January. All the preps were given a free brown (eeek!) slouch hat this year too. Don't need to buy anything else as the booklist all come with pencil cases etc. Makes life easy!

November Update

Wow... November has always been a crazy month for us, and this one was no exception! It was so busy that I had to have 2 weeks annual leave and a sickie from work! !LOL So prepare for a big blog!!

It started off with my birthday and our 6th wedding anniversary. We went out for dinner with my work friends and then on Melbourne Cup Day we had our annual BBQ complete with cup race sweeps. That was a great day which ended up going into the early evening!

OK, it looks like I am tackling Alex out of the way to get to the cake.....but I'm not!!! LOL She wasn't well that night and I didn't want her breathing all over the choc orange cake!

I also spent my actual birthday doing Kinder duty! That was great fun! I always love doing kinder duty and now with the days counting down to the end of the year it is going to be sad to say goodbye. The girls were lovely and they both made me a play-do cake complete with decorations and candles. Then they both sang 'happy birthday' to me :)


This month Isabella started her transition program at school. She settled in just fine - just like I knew she would. She was so excited and next week has a 3.5 hour session and she really wants to wear her uniform. On our first day of transition we went to the uniform shop and bought most of her uniform. It is all school specific and I must say even though I detest the brown colour jumper, I do love the tailored school dress! Bella was thrilled to see it came with a matching scrunchie (or 'scrunch' as she calls it).

Isabella and her friend Brihney on their first day of school transition

I must say I am getting rather excited heading into the whole school thing. I really want to get involved and help out where I can with the parent's group and in the classroom with reading etc. It will be a whole new world, but I don't want to over commit as I have just been elected President of our Playgroup centre! Eeek... although it won't be as much 'work' as the enrolment officer role I have had for the past 2 years.

Just playing on Daddy's bike.....

We saw Rick's niece get married this month. She looked so beautiful and the wedding was a hoot! Throw in some champagne and I was out there on the dance floor bopping away with all the young ones... well I actually still like to say I am part of that 'group'! LOL

Oh big news..... Alexandra is now officially out of day nappies! She toilet trained rather easily I must say and only had a couple of accidents. She is so proud of herself ! She is now at the point where she just goes on her own accord and it so cute finding little wees in her potty when I walk in the bathroom. Funny the things we are proud of as parents hey! I suppose I should be grateful she is no longer carrying a full potty around the house with knickers around her ankles to show me the results of her sitting time!!! Hahaha

Concentration face

Just making sure!However, we are having the same poo issues as Isabella had at the same age. She won't go in the potty or toilet, but will go and get a nappy from her room and ask me to put it on her when she is absolutely busting. We decided to go with the flow (so to speak!) and not push it. It was very stressful with Isabella for all of us with this issue so we have learnt that it really doesn't matter for now.

Daddy's little helper

We took the kids to the Lilydale Show this year. We decided against the Melbourne Show as we went in last year. Well we all had a good day... it was exhausting but we managed to get home just in time to go to Bella's dress rehearsal. The kids chose a show bag each and they had their face painted.

We watched some wood chopping, equestrian events and did all the usual things you do at a rural show.


So apart from all that AND a 5th birthday party (Happy Birthday Matilda!), a first birthday party (Happy Birthday Joss!), our playgroup Christmas Party, a school fete and the dance concert, November was otherwise normal! LOL

You can see how much fun Isabella had at her playgroup christmas party HERE. Can that girl dance or what!?!

Oh one more thing.... Rick came home from the Vic Market with 2 new additions to our family. God only knows what we are going to do with them with 2 rottweilers in the back yard!! But they are cute...! Isabella named hers "Katie" and Alexandra named hers "Hop Up" (she was hoping to hold it!!). She has since named hers "Tigger"!

Excuse the face... Bella had her makeup trial for her dance concert right before this photo was taken