Christmas 2009

Christmas was so lovely this year, it was a year where Mitchell celebrated his first Christmas, and where Harrison's innocence and excitement made the whole experience so rewarding.

As adults we tend to forget what all the excitement of Christmas is about, sure we go out and buy presents for everyone, we get together with friends and drink and be merry, but having young children makes it such a special time of year that I can honestly say I will cherish these few weeks for the rest of my life. Seeing my son walking around and pretending to be Santa, seeing the excitement in eyes as he talks about the elves making his presents, and pleading with me to tell Santa that he has been good and that he should not be excluded off of Santa's list - How can anyone truly get into the Christmas spirit until you share these types of precious moments with a little person?

All religious aspects aside, what I experienced this year with my children, is honestly the only way that I can describe the true meaning of Christmas.

Here are the boys photos with Santa for 2009:


Christmas for 2009 went quite well, of course we had all the usual lead up with Christmas parties and work gatherings - it actually made for a very busy December for us. I don't think we actually had a free weekend for about the 6 weeks leading up to Christmas.

In brief here is my month in review with a few pictures from some of the events:

3 December - Harrison's Kindy concert, the kids sat as a group and sang to the very proud mums and dads, 'Hokey Pokey', 'Home among the gum trees', '6 white boomers' and 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas'. In all honestly, Harrison spent weeks coming home and practicing the songs, but when it came to the night, he spent most of the time laughing and mucking around with his friend Cooper - he really did have a great time though, it was really cute to watch them both playing and having a ball :-)

4 December - Well what is christmas without a concert put on by the Wiggles, I have taken Harrison every year since he was born to see them, and kind of figured that this was possibly his last year before it is Mitchells turn. This year though, I worked the first two shows then was met by my lovely friend Rachel, who bought my boys along so that I could finish work and join them for the final show at 4:30pm. I was exhausted after a long day, but never tire of spending time like this with my children.

5 December - I got to catch up with some of my lovely work friends in the park with all the kids for our social club family day. Considering I have been on maternity leave for 12 months it was great to catch up with everyone. For my boys this was the first party of the year where they got presents, so both were pretty impressed with getting new things!

6 December - The Holden's social club picnic, well this will actually be our last Holden Christmas picnic as Graham decided it was time to move on from his place of employment of 15 years to try and have some new career adventures. Needless to say it was rather strange to be there and run into Grahams old work friends, but it was still a great day for the kids to enjoy some rides, balloons, fairy floss and of course presents from Santa. As you can see from the photo that Mitchell was so not impressed to be placed on this strangers lap!

9 December - Entertainment Centre staff party. Normally the Entertainment Centre puts on a staff family picnic, but this year because there were so many events booked in December, they decided to put on a staff only formal dinner. It was so nice we had the works, with full dinner, drinks and entertainment. It was great to see what things are like on the other side of the fence!


12 December (am) - My mums group Christmas get together was held at Carisbrook park, it was really good to catch up with all the girls because we haven't really had a chance to catch up lately, with every ones different working hours we just seem to find it really hard to get us all together at one time - this day we were very successful!!! The kids are all growing up so quickly, all of them start school in 2010, so that will be new challenges for us all to talk about!


12 December (pm) - My work dinner at the Adelaide Convention Centre, well I got the opportunity to get dressed up and go out and enjoy some drinks and dancing with my lovely girls from work! To get out and be an adult every once and awhile is definately what is needed to recharge the old batteries, and to catch up with my lovely girls that I haven't had a chance to chat with in over 12 months was also really good - kind of made me realise though that is not really that long before I am back at work!

13 December - Breakfast with Santa at Elizabeth Shopping Centre, well not really what you want after feeling a little seedy after a big night before, but alas its a mums duty to soldier on! The boys got to go to the shopping centre before it opened and sit down and have breakfast with Santa - well actually it was more like a free breaky from Macca's and Santa walked around and chatted to the kids, there was face painting and fairies and elves, but Harrison was really interested in was the sword that the balloon man made him. In this photo Harrison and his friend Dylan are having a sword fight.

25 December (am) - Well the wait was over, Santa had arrived and there were many many presents to open (I think we went a little over board). All Harrison wanted for Christmas this year was Thunderbird 3 and for Emily Train, and well Santa delivered that and more! He received Emily and instead of just receiving Thunderbird 3, he received the whole Tracey Island with all the Thunderbird rockets. He got a huge Transformers Bumblebee, Where the Wild Things are Toys, DVDs, cars, rockets, lollies, Ben 10 toys, coloring books, clothes - honestly he got so much stuff that I cant even name it all!

Mitchell was the same he got play tables, clothes, bath toys, teddy bears and heaps more - he however was a little more interested in the Christmas Tree lights and the paper that the presents were in!


25 December (pm) - Christmas day lunch was held this year at my house. We were joined by Grahams family (photo below), my family and our surrogate family/friends the lovely 'Young' family.

We had a lovely day of 28 degrees so I decided we would have a cold lunch which consisted of cold meats, various salads and lots and lots of very yummy yet very naughty desserts. Of course we all ate too much and told bad jokes from the Christmas bon bons, but I am pretty sure a good time was had by all - I think the fact that it took about 2 days to clean my house up is always evidence of a good day.

I am a little slack this year and didn't actually take very many pictures of lunch because I was running around being a little crazy getting lunch organised (and seriously do you think Graham would even consider to pick up the camera!!), so if I get a chance I'll add a few more photos when I get them from Grahams mum and Sister who I think were both snapping away with their cameras so as for Christmas Day, ill have to add a 'To Be continued' at this stage!

Photos of Christmas which have been added to this blog on 9th January 2010 from Ricks camera:

Adelaide Christmas Pageant

Yes I am a little slow in putting this blog up especially since the Christmas Pageant was 2 weeks ago now, but spare time with 2 young children is difficult to find sometimes!!!

In Adelaide we are lucky enough to have a wonderful Christmas Pageant every year, which every South Australian child looks forward to whether that be watching it on television, or by lining the streets of our wonderful city and watching the beautiful floats in the anticipation for Santa arriving to his Magic Cave.

A month ago I promised Harrison that I would take him to the pageant and have a wonderful day with just me and him, a month ago, I could not have anticipated the hottest November on Record ever.

40 degrees was the forecast, and if it wasn't for that promise I made, there normally would have been no way we would have left the comfort of our lovely home!!!!! I am so glad that I left Mitchell home with Graham, because I could have never taken him out in such horrendous heat!

We got up early and caught the train into the city with Rachel and the kids, and one of Harry's kindy friends, we were lucky to have secured some VIP seats in erected scaffolding stands - its a shame though that there was no shelter from the blistering sun.

Here are just a few of Harrison's favourite floats:

And then of course along came Santa:

Some of us trying to avoid the sweltering heat from our spot in the stand:

And then our attempts to get cool after it all finished, was to jump in the fountain in Victoria Square - the only way all the kids (and adults) were able to cool off! It was so hot that I got in as well and how wonderful that cool water was :-)

A new little hobby.....

I have found a new little hobby to do with my boys that involves us getting out and about to places you wouldn't normally go to. It is called Geo-caching and the only way I can describe it, is that it is a suburban treasure hunt.

Basically you go to the website (http://www.geocaching.com/) look for where the items are hidden in your neighbourhood and you go and search for it. Most people use handheld GPS units to find the treasures, because you are given coordinates to point you to exactly where the items are located, but me being a little poor these days, I am using 'Google Earth' and printing off maps for each location. Some are easily found and some are not.

The photos below are from Harry and I finding a cache called 'Civil Cults', with this one you had to work out a long division maths sum, which gave you the actual coordinates of where to find the item.

I say treasure hunt, but really most of these contain little junky toys, Harry found a packet of Domino's in this one, but you can be lucky and find special coins that are worth a few dollars or 'travel bugs' which are items that are meant to travel around the world - so when you find one, you take it and put it into another cache in the hope that everyone keeps it travelling. There are websites that follow their movements.

Most of my friends think I am a little crazy for doing this, but hey maybe this takes me back to my Girl Guide days, but I love it - think ill have to hint a little harder to get a GPS for Christmas.

Harry's day out with Thomas - 20 Oct 2009 - AEC

Well since there is a familiar trend in my previous posts on how much Harrison loves every thing about Thomas the Tank Engine and all of the other engines on the Island of Sodor, I thought it was only fitting that I blog about the day Harrison got to see Thomas live on stage.

I thought it would be good to have an outing out with just me and Harrison, so I arranged for Mitchell to spend some time with his Nana, and then it was time to go. Harry was excited, but I don't really think he knew what he was in for. He knew it was something to do with trains but had no idea that he was going to be within a few metres of the 'real' Thomas :-)

We arrived at the Entertainment Centre, had a look at the over priced merchandise which I of course gave into the pressure and bought Harrison a flicking Thomas light that cost $20 - honestly how absurd - it is obviously suckers like me who keep those companies in business.

In Harrison's age of innocence, it is really hard to describe just how great Harry made me feel when the curtains opened and Thomas gave a 'toot toot' and came out on stage. His eyes lit with excitement, he looked at me and mouthed the word 'THOMAS!!!!' then pretty much sat there star struck for the rest of the show. It really was a priceless moment that ill cherish.

We had great seats, we were in row H, which was only 8 rows from the front. There was no flash photography allowed during the show, but I did manage to take a few great shots with my flash turned off. Here are a couple of photos from the show - how great does this look!

When the show ended, Harry asked if we could stay for the next show and watch it again - to be honest I think he could watch it 20 times and not get sick of it! The below photo was taken at the end of the show - check out the look of satisfaction on his face, he was pretty impressed with himself.

Pink Concert - 10 August 2009 - AEC

I thought it was about time to be a paying patron at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for a change and check out the 'Pink' concert.

It is funny even though I work there, and this is I think the 5th concert that Pink has done here in Adelaide, I have always worked front of house and have not got to see even a small snippet of the show, so hearing how good it was, I thought it should be my turn to be 'tickled pink'!

I went with Tash, Courtney and Rachel for a bit of a girly night out. I had a great time mostly because firstly it was the first time in ages that Tash and I have had a chance to catch up, it was one of many that Rachel and I have planned to do, and it was special for Courtney as this was her first ever concert - man they grow up way too quick, doesn't seem like that long ago I was giving her big baby cuddles and now here I am going with a gorgeous 12 year old to a concert!

'Evermore' was the support act and were really great, they played for just over half an hour and did a mix of the their old and new stuff. I have seen them live now quite a few times and enjoy them every time.

Then after interval Pink (Aka Alesha Moore) came on and ohhh what a show - I say show because this was so much more than just a concert! There were dancers, theatrics, artistic stage set ups, gymnastics and more costume changes than Carrie in the Sex in the City Movie!

this is a photo of her grand entrance

We were in the general admission standing area, and were at the end of the runway, so when she was on the main stage there was a little bit of distance, but when she was on the end of the runway we were only about 2-3 metres away from her.

Photo taken at either the right or wrong moment - you be the judge :-)

Pink sang a great cover of 'Queens' hit Bohemian Rhapsody, it was brilliant, the stage and blow up clowns were also amazing!

I don't know how she can physically do so many shows, the gymnastics and acrobats she uses throughout the show must be so exhausting - it is amazing to watch, but that woman must be so tired!