i've got Christmas totally wrapped up

Greetings all,

Phew, marathon wrapping session yesterday, all the nieces & nephews, our parents & those pesky people who also have birthdays in December & January too, now i can post them off to 3 main family focal points later this week. 

Armed with some brown paper, twine, tags, tape & feature wrap, i got busy.  The children were out on their bikes so i managed to wrap most of their gifts too!!

 Don't the gifts look sweet??

 While my eldest daughter was out with her boy-who-is-a-friend, the other children decorated the Christmas tree & i continued to wrap on the kitchen counter.  It took a few goes, they didn't follow the golden rules of: check the lights work, then add evenly to tree; add tinsel, green is great on a cheap & nasty plastic tree, bulks it up; then decorations & finally add the special angel 

 It's just not Christmas when handsome soldier is away, so we didn't do a real tree, sigh.

 However, the same quantity of decorations we'd apply to an 8' real tree, we slathered onto our 3' plastic wonder.  I kind of like it.

 I helped fill in some gaps the children left.

 The love birds made me miss my husband even more.

 I love my fabric, glittery & fluffy birds too!!

 It looked so lovely last night, one child fell asleep on the lounge so i tucked her in & left the lights on.  It was so dreamy.  I stayed up waiting for my first born to be returned, at almost midnight, must have been a good date??!!  They are great mates & i adore the whole family, it's so lovely that my girl has such a nice 'introduction' to boys, which isn't always smooth, especially when you're at an all girls school & mostly all girls family.  The mummy (she has 4 boys also welcomes our families mixing) said they talked non stop for 12 hours, swimming, at a BBQ, a Christmas party & just hanging out!!

Thanks to forward planning & minimal events in December, i can glide into Christmas with ease now, all pressure lifted.  A big hello to my handsome soldier too, i know he's missing all this & as much as it upsets him, here are the photos . . . he was home last Christmas, it was fantastic, crazy but in the past 2 years he's been home with us for only a few weeks, ditto for the next 2 years THEN he's all ours, we'll have our home & yikes, 3 girls in high school.  Love Posie

it's beginning to look a lot like i should be doing more Christmas shopping

Greetings all,

A little bit thrilled with this wooden tree from TYPO, but really, it just reminds me that i really should knock over the Christmas shopping for others, not myself.  I'm not spending Christmas Day with any family this year (is it wrong that i feel empowered??) but i have to get gifts to them.  I plan to do up a hamper for each family (5-6 people, 10 families + individual gifts for the children).  Honestly, until i get a date for hand surgery, it's just not at the forefront of my mind.

 I dream, in the future, this hook-laden-tree, will hold the keys to our cars, tractor & quad/ trail bikes.  Isn't that cool & scary at the same time, my children on the road, eeek.  I loathe looking for keys, especially if like on "The Castle" we need to move 4 children's cars out of the way to get to mine!! 

 With Christmas gift hampers in mind, i headed to the Farmer's Market on Saturday to scout for ideas.  Brandy Butter, Puddings, Organic Chocolates . . . mmmm.  With only 3 children doing Little Athletics, i took my solo 3rd girl with me, unfortunately she's the hungriest child on earth & eats her way through the samples like Homer Simpson.  I oblige by buying what she recommends . . . 5kg fruit, juice, lunch & dinner (rolled roast beef) for the entire weekend.  So easy to feed my athletes lunch of Turkish Bread & avocado dip.  I'd never offered my children honeycomb??  Yumbo.  

 Bottom of the barrel $5 lillies, thank you!!

 This little runner & jumper won her hurdles, high & long jump on Saturday.  When we had twin babies, we decided to raise them independent of each other & not compare.  But this year in the same class - who gets to be class captain??  They took it in turns, unspoken agreement to nominate for different semesters (still voted by class mates, they're not dictators!!)  It didn't occur to me until year 2 that actual races . . . with places, would mean direct competition & comparison.  As it turns out, they  take it in turns (on ability, trust me, they zoom past each other without a side glance on the track) winning the 200m, 800m, long jump & cross country each year.  Oh look, you can see her latest missing tooth. 

How is your Monday??  I have to return to school at midday with a swim suit for this clown above who has swimming lessons.  Argh!!  Her sister & brother sensibly wore their suits, ready for the pool & of course, when i dropped them this morning she blankly looked at me & said "no one told me to put my towel & swimming costume in my bag".  Oh those are the Monday mornings you just want to scream, but i didn't, i had two choices: buy a new costume & towel in the city, or go home, collect & deliver.  I went home & blogged.  We live out of town, i'm not making 3 trips, so i'll get back to Christmas shopping list. 

Are you knocking over the Christmas shopping??  Are you actually not religious but everyone expects a gift anyway??  Do you think nieces & nephews over 18 should still get gifts from you??  I have 19 nieces & nephews, time to cull a few, non??  It's hard not to be the token bahhumbug, we have large families & i wonder if they even care, when they get a gift in the mail, among so many others??  I ponder, love Posie