Clarke Christmas

Bretts family came over including his grandma. Bec, Sarah and Nic were with their dad so missed out. Had a good day. Renee played with S & R. Bretts sister is on a tight budget (insert poor uni student) and did a fantastic job framing pictures for everyone. I cried when I opened ours. It had the girls plus her boys plus Bretts older girls. No sarah though as she couldnt find a decent photo of her. Plenty of food left over as usual. Never mind, we will just have to live on Ham for a while!

Robinson Christmas

Spent the day at my Brother M's house over on the other side of Sydney. Takes around an hour and I ALWAYS get lost one street away from his house. I always take a wrong turn that close. Anyway, we took both cars as we don't all fit in one. Had a good time. M and S are great company and the kids all get on great. This year his brother and sister were also there. There are 2 other brothers and 1 other sister, not my siblings, they are M's natural siblings. His sister had her 2 kids there so Bec wasn't the oldest anymore. We had a leisurely lunch, opened presents and ran in and out of the house while it did and didnt rain. We are getting very strange weather at the moment.

Schools out for Summer/Christmas party #3

All 4 girls are done for 2007. We have 2 more family events before Christmas next Tuesday. The older 3 will be with their dad for Christmas eve and then back here sometime on Christmas Day. I think they are back and forward a few times these hols, but ex only lives in next suburb so not a major problem. Plus we are off to Queensland on January 14th...wooooo!

Third Christmas party was my work one, for the staff. Daytime one and spouses/signifcant others not invited. We always do the Kris Kringle thing. This year I got a wedding picture with mine and Robbie Williams face superimposed on the bride and grooms faces. Very funny! Nice food, good Comany, plenty of laughs. Work is now closed until January 7th (1 week longer than usual) but S and I will be going back on Jan 2nd as we can catch up on fiddly things that get left behind with the usual day to day stuff. Plus we need the money!!

Christmas Party #2

This wasn't a Christmas Party as such, it was the clients Christmas Party for the firm I work for. Not compulsary for staff but it would be a good idea if you went (if you know what I mean!)
Wasn't a bad night, good food, chatted with a few clients, watched Santa grope a few people and left around 11pm.

Presentation Day (last one!)

Went to the High School again, this time for the regular presentation day. Sarah received an award for Mandatory Technology. No idea what she learnt, but obviously she did well!! hehe

Year 10 Graduation Ceremony

Year 10 is over and Rebecca successfully passed her School Certificate! Woohoo! Her marks were quite good, especially compared to the trial results she got a month ago. phew

The ceremony was good, they were all called up individually to receive their certificates. Typically I was having a blury photo day so I took a pic later in front of the tree! She is now on hols a week earlier than her sisters.

Year 10 Formal

Hair appointment, makeup appointment then photos all completed by 5.30pm on a school afternoon!!

Bec looked beautiful, even her dad said so. Took her to her friends house and 3 girls drove off to the formal in a Red Monaro (I should be impressed apparantly but a car is a car) Took the Nic and Renee to the High School to see all the kids arriving. Was great fun to see them looking all grown up.

When I picked her up, Bec said it was great fun but over too soon. Sure sign of a good party! One more day to go and she has finished Year 10 and also finished at this High School.

2 Down, 2 to go

Nic and Renee had their presentation days today. Both girls received an award which is kewl.

Photo was taken late this afternoon which is why Renee looks a bit scruffy.

Tomorrow night is Becs Year 10 Formal so it will be a hectic afternoon.

Recovery

I definately don't bounce back from concerts like I used to. Saturday I was exhausted, but still had to go shopping with Bec to get her nails done and also find her some shoes for the Formal. Formal is 3 sleeps away. Sarah brought a note home saying she is getting an award next week so has been a successful year for all 4 girls.

Packing ebay orders tonight, that is the downside of sales lol. Have some auctions on at the moment but will probably not do anymore until after we have been to Queensland in January. By the time the listings end and people get around to paying we will be off on hols.

Managed to find a Baby Alive doll for Renee for Xmas. Also spotted a Digital Photo frame for Bec, a spur of the moment thing. She is proving the most difficult to buy for this year. Nic is easy, anything Veronicas and anything High School Musical.

Dancing Concert

Went down to the Sutherland area to watch step daughters in their end of year concert. J & L did well as usual, they do all sorts including singing, drama and Irish dancing. Renee has now asked to do dancing next year. I think Little Athletics has run its course so we might swap over. Chatted with the girls for a while afterwards, was good to see them again. Brett has said that 2008 is the year to sort out his access, finances willing of course.

Im Awesome

Well, for a couple of hours tonight I was! I took Nicola to see The Veronicas at the Hordern Pavilion. I'm not a huge fan but Nic is and its part of her Christmas gifts so I made the ultimate sacrifice hehe Just her and me which was kewl, Renee wanted to come but she was just way to young. Anyway, we had great seats, it was very loud and I must admit they are pretty good. Took some photos afterwards of Nic in front of the stage, then we queued forever to get her a tshirt and she used some of her own money (still left over from her b'day in September) to buy a poster. The concert finished at 10pm and we left the Hordern at 10.40! We had to go past the back bit of the Hordern and just happened to see one of The Veronicas walking back inside. There was crowd by the fence and we waited with them for a while. Dean Geyer who is apparently from Aussie Idol a few years ago was one of the support acts (we missed him) and he came over to the fence and Nic got his autograph and hopefully a pic (I'm too tired to check the camera now). Then one of The Veronicas came out and Nic got the autograph, and then finally the other Veronica! So Nic saw them in concert, then up close plus got autographs. By the time The Veronicas came out and over to us the crowd had dwindled to about 10-15 so it was easy to get the autographs. They are so tiny lol Back to the car by 11.14pm and home just over an hour later (grr road works) Anyway, at this moment in time in the eyes of Nicola - I am awesome!

Christmas Party #1

Ive actually got 3 'parties' to go to this year. Thats 3 more than any other year!! I went out and bought a new top and pants and after party #3, these items will become work clothes!

A trip on the harbour was the destination for Bretts work party. This is the Harbour Ballroom. Guess who forgot they get seasick!? I went downstairs to the loo when we first boarded and it was soooo hot and stuffy down there, I raced back up to the top deck as quick as I could cause I knew if I stayed downstairs Id never last the night. I went back inside for the meal and just kept going in and out. Gorgeous views, Bretts workmates are pretty kewl and hilariously funny at times. No wonder he likes his job!

We definately have the best harbour in the world!!

Trimming the Tree 07

(Pics from the weekend)

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!





This decoration was made by my
motherinlaw, many years ago.





Finishing Touch!

Woohoo, 2 days in a row

Busy at work. Everyone is winding down their business for the year so of course don't want audits lol


Maz popped in with Sandy for dinner. We'll catch up with Sandy again on Christmas
Eve.


Tomorrow Bec if off into Sydney for lunch with her Food Tech class and Nicola is
going to Windsor for an Art day so needless to say, I can't go to work.

Been a while

I can't seem to stick to the Blog thing. I love reading other peoples and stuff does happen during the day that I would like to remember as my memory is S*&T!

Whats happened since February?

Im now 40 lol. We've had 3 Birthday parties including mine. Bec is already planning her 16th for next February.

The girls are doing great at school. Both N & R are receiving awards at the end of School presentations so that should be kewl. Bec will graduate Year 10 in 2 weeks and then school is done for her. The others have 3 weeks left.

I am taking N to see The Veronicas this Friday as part of her Xmas present. I bought tickets for Bec and S for Kelly Clarkson for Christmas although the concert isnt until March next year.

Chez is pregnant with #3. She is also 40. No way could I do the baby thing again. I have every intention of getting slightly clucky with her bub though.

Three quarters of the Christmas shopping is done, we are seeing Matt and family on December 22nd and then Bretts family will be here on the 24th.

Oh and we are still broke

Swimming

Went to Riverstone pool today for the Swim Carnival. N did very well yet again and will probably go to District for Freestyle and the relay. I managed to convince her to swim Backstroke as she didnt want to, it only cost me $3 lol. She seems to enjoy the swimming. This year she swam 100m freestyle and came first in the Junior girls section. The District Carnival is around March 14th I think.

Finished the school shopping yesterday afternoon at Westpoint. Both N & S got new school bags and S finally got some school shoes. Must remember to get D to pay half of a lot of the school stuff like I did last year.

R is now bored with School. She is apparantly tired of the teacher reading stories and also says they only have green paint in their class. N asked her what she did today at lunch time while she was at the swim carnival and she said she went to the library with friends and played checkers!!!

No car day

DH took the car in to work with him so as to give to new owner after work. We don't pick up new car (used car) until tomorrow night so this means 2 days of walking to and from schoo. Grrrr and TYPICALLY it was at least 35'C this afternoon. Getting to school took about 35 minutes as R only has little legs. I remembered to wear a hat back to school in the afternoon when picking up the girls and for the trip home made N put hers on. We stopped a number of times coming home and poor R was sweating like crazy. Even with a hat and a bottle water I still managed to get a killer of a headache so doped up on a couple of Nurofen Plus and had a lie down. If tomorrow is going to be as hot I think we may have a day of School.

Bloody Homeside still haven't deposited the extra money we borrowed. They have of course set up the new Mortgage account etc.....gee there's a surprise. This will be the last time we bother with Homeside. This is not the first time they have mucked us around but it will be the last.

Having no car today meant I postponed my midlife crisis hair cut till Wednesday. Thursday is Swimming Carnival and Friday is the infant assembly and then lunch with J & C. Looking forward to that. The L's are coming to stay this weekend to help us finish painting the downstairs of the house. Should be fun.

Need to get a quote from a gardening place to come and clean up the yard and do a bit of weeding before my 40th B'day party. Also need to get one of those skip things as we have a huge indoor clean up to do as well. If we end up moving it will be a big help to clean out sooner rather than later.

Invites to my party should go out in the next few days. Ive given DH all the email addresses. Funny how times change. Everyone I want to invite is on the other end of an email. Although DH said if someone doesn't have internet they aren't welcome in his house rofl. Well its my house too!!!

Im a Soccer mum

Bought a new car Saturday morning. Just under $7K. The lease payment on the Honda was just killing us so its bye bye Honda, hello 1995 Toyota. Not very exciting but it will (hopefully) get us from A to B for the next year or so.

Finally signed up N for soccer. She will play on Sundays with a girls team but sometimes may be asked to fill in on the mixed team. She is very excited. We may also sign R up in a couple of weeks. They have a muster type thing for the little ones where she can play a little and see if she likes it. It won't clash with Little A's so she should be ok. I realise I will have to get out of bed on the weekends before Midday but I guess this is a sacrifice Im prepared to make.

R went to her first School friend Birthday party. Not bad for only 3 days at school but this was a Preschool and now School friend. She had a good time. The mum plus the grandma said she was great fun and they couldnt believe how chatty and confident she is. I guess R being tiny is quite deceiving.

Went up to MIL for dinner. Her sister/husband were there and one of their daughters. Also my FIL. Had a good evening. R was a bit of a pain after she saw a moth. She is still very tired from starting school so we forgave her a little bit. She did insist on being carried throughout the house which was annoying.

Didnt do much today except washing and tv watching. The buyer of the Honda is getting the car tomorrow and we aren't getting the Toyota until Tuesday evening so it means 2 days of walking for me and the kids. S is very angry as this means she has to walk home from Basketball training on Tuesday afternoon plus we can't go School bag and shoe shopping tomorrow afternoon. I did offer on Friday evening to give her the money to purchase both these items over the weekend while she was with her dad but she chose not to. B on the other hand did accept the money and bought herself quite a nice bag! Grrrrr @ Teenagers

Im annoyed about the car too cause I had a hair appointment tomorrow but I can get my Mid life crisis hair cut on Wednesday instead.

Holidays??

Gee, Im less busy at work. Did the vege co-op shop today. Another lady and I spent $389.50 on Fruit and Veg and then went back to her garage to divide it between 13 families. It was exhausting!!!! By the time I had driven back to her place, me stopping on the way to answer phone (see yesterdays post grrrr!) she had unloaded most of the boxes which is bad as she is about 4 months pregnant! I had the watermelon on my car lol. It took us about an hour and 1 coffee to sort everything out. We had Carrots, Zucchini, Bok Choy, Apples, Rockmelon, Salad leaves and much more. We ended up with 2 boxes of stuff per family....maybe I will be able to follow my dream of being a Vegetarian by the end of the year.

S had her first Basketball game of the year last night. They won 14-12 (woohoo) and Smanaged to fall in the first few minutes and graze both her knees. She also ended up with a headache which did wonders for her general mood (NOT!) Her dad goes next week and then we alternate. I must remember not to take R as its hard to watch the game and keep an eye on her at the same time. The daughter of the coach seemed happy to play with her last night, she had a electronic toy called something like 'DS' or similar. R just calls it a thingamijig and is demanding one for her birthday which isnt until July so maybe she will forget about it by then.

Made the trip out to get Dh's bike back from the repairers. Now he is a happy camper although he is now going to sell this bike and get something better and low maintenance. Even the repairer told him it would be a good idea.

When I picked R up from Day 3 she started to cry and rub her tummy, my first thought was oh no she can't be sick, but she looked at me accusingly and told me she was starving because I didnt give her enough food today. I must admit she had less than the last 2 days as we are pretty much living with Old Mother hubbards cupboard till the weekend but she had exactly the same amount of food she always took to pre-school. Guess she must be using it all up quicker this year!! I promised her she could come shopping with me this weekend to fill up the snack box.

Took R to little athletics tonight. She is so tired and grumpy from school so maybe it wasnt a good idea but she did enjoy it. We missed the last 2 weeks and I really want her to get a medal at the end of the season for all her efforts so don't want to be told we didnt attend enough times. All the kids get a participation medal which is really kewl.

R has a Birthday party tomorrow plus we are car shopping plus we have a dinner BBQ at Maz's house tomorrow night so a busy day it will be!

....and the phone rings again!!

I had absolutely no idea how many times the phone rang at home during business hours. I remember DH mentioning his surprise once before but today was ridiculous. Telemarketers, wrong numbers, friends ringing on the off chance, even sms messages on my mobile from Teen 1 for timetable info. Its much less stressful at work!! Chatted to a friend from my previous job and we have arranged to meet next Friday for lunch at another friends house. I haven't seen Friend 2 for over 12 months....how shocking...Im really looking forward to it. Also organised with Friend 1 to get information about Soccer registration. N decided she wants to play Soccer this coming season (whenever that is!) so we will sign her up on Saturday. The $110 reg covers shorts, socks, Insurance etc...although Im not sure what 'etc' actually is but Im sure Ill soon find out as I enter the world of Soccer. Having 4 daughters, I never thought it would be world I would visit...how sexist of me!!
R survived Day 2 of School. There are now 12 kids in her class with another day of Kindy intake tomorrow.
I booked in at the hairdresser to have my Mid-life crisis hair cut on Monday @ 10.30.

Day 1

I woke R up at around 7.30am and the first words out of her mouth were 'am I going to School today' I said yes and she started waving her arms about 'yeh yeh yeh' Took the annual first day of school photo of the girls outside and with slight co-operation from B it went well. MIL arrived after other girls went to school and we headed off to School for our 9.50am start. Met the deputy head who is new this year and then we went to R's classroom. Met her teacher who is N's teacher from Year 2. Nice but firm. Perfect for R. She settled down to do some colouring so we left. I wasnt upset until saying goodbye. She was sitting with her back to the door and didnt turn around as we left which is what she used to do in preschool as a coping mechanism as she looked very overwhelmed. She was very tired after school and didnt have much to say but is keen to go again tomorrow. One of the girls from Preschool will be in her class when she starts tomorrow so that will be good. She was nearly asleep at 5pm but we gave her a bath and she played on the computer a bit before dinner. I think she was asleep in 5 minutes when her head hit the pillow.

1 more sleep

My baby starts big School in the morning. I was actually crying on the drive home as Im now on holidays from work for a week and a half which is only because she is starting school. She is so excited. Very annoyed that she couldnt go today with N. N said that she will know her Year 4 teacher by Thursday. Also they have finally got a couple of more male teachers. Bring the total to a massive....3! Also the swimming carnival is next Thursday, during my time off..woohoo! I think this year I will also volunteer to help with time keeping. N has said she will try 100m Freestyle, plus 50 Free and 50 Breast. Doesnt want to do the other two. Last year she was fine with Backstroke and we talked her into Butterfly so maybe she can be talked into 1 more this year!

At 9.50am Iwill be a mass of tears!

Ants in the Kahlua

Decided to have a drink with dinner, highly unusual, made it myself (also unusual lol). Has one of those measure things on the top, poured into a glass, poured the milk in, quick stir and WTF!!????

Little black things floating in MY Kahlua!!

We are having an ant invasion here, tiny tiny little ants apparantly brought out by the heat. Managed the long trek to the booze cupboard and into my Kahlua! Those pouring things (Im sure they have a technical name) have little ball things in them and ants couldnt really get past them so Im told the ants are probably not actually in the bottle.

Im not convinced.

2007 is here!

School holidays continue. School goes back January 31st. All four girls!! Renee starts 'big' School at 9.50am. She is very excited. I on the other hand have schedule a week and half of holiday from work so I can mop my tears up in Private.

Business is slow. Still umming and ahhing about giving up! Depends on my mood. Ive put the whole store on sale and have 2 sales in the last 24 hours.

Ill update again later.