End Of A Big Year

It wasn't quite the usual weather for our end of year ritual watching of the sunset.

 But despite the grey, we stuck to our plans and my lovelies rewarded me with a cheerful posey photo op to warm a mother's heart.

Happy New Year!

Hair Saga Update

Maybe I'll try to do a six monthly update on the hair saga? I can't find the first one, but back in June I wrote all about the horrors of growing out many years worth of chemical straightening, and it looked a bit like this after squashing with a hat.

It went through some really bad frizz in the months after that, and I wore hats until it was too warm and then some more, but I think it's on the turn. I've not really stuck to any one thing I read, but I do use hardly any shampoo, have been good and seen a proper hairdresser regularly to lighten up the overdyed colour that was getting darker each time, and use about 20 times more product than anyone else on the planet seems to require. The very best thing I did was buy curlformers, which mean that I can do it curly even though it's still half straight on the ends. It takes most of a day looking like I have pink and orange dreadlocks, but it does create curl, rather than frizz, which is something I've never been able to accomplish in previous decades. 

This morning Geeky Husband took a pic of the curl progress for me - this is after a night sleeping on it, and since I can't brush it at all, this is kind of what it looks like after waking up, desperately clawing it off the roof where it ends up in the morning, and finger brushing with more product. I think it's finally showing some signs of getting healthier.

A Christmas Song

A little bit late admittedly, but can't do Christmas without my favourite Antipodean Chrissie song, which we all had stuck in our heads this morning.

Garden

P8 - watering herself, rather than the garden we were working on.

Home made

L11 made us this useful prezzie for Christmas. He knows his ma. 

Krpo!

An early prezzie.

How you look when you get a prezzie that you really wanted, but thought you weren't going to get:

No sooner had we emptied the tree, than it magically refilled itself again.

Mutti whipping the cream and trying to keep her top away from the splashes. Someone hand this woman an apron!

Trying to get a toast pic that they would both approve of.  .  .

 Nope. 

 Nope. 

 Yes!

-

 And nope. 

Merry Christmas!

(I'm a bit slack didn't take any pics when we had the whole fam here - I think I was too busy enjoying the wine and chat.)

Evening games:

And visiting the grandies in the campervan the next morning. Cosy.

Christmas Eve

Decorating bikkies.

Decorating an outside tree.

The inside tree.

My cute angels made by each with their fave teacher ever back when they were new entrants.

And P8's annual letter to santa with food - bikkie and beer for the man, and carrot for the reindeer.

All ready now.

One Useful Thing About Christmas

It inspires me to do the uber-tidy. L11 waited most of the day for me to help him fix his room so it was as organized as P8's. 

Now they are all cleared up, we can fill them full of Christmas stuff again. Wah!

Being Unusually Sensible

Spent today doing all kinds of useful pottering that there usually isn't time for. P8 and I gave her room an enormous spring clean and reorganize. In fact, it's so de-cluttered it looks positively austere from this angle. She is great to tidy with and simplified her desk fabulously (although I'm still working on persuading her to let me make new curtains.)

My computer was running hot so I was sensible and got geeky husband to back everything up on an external drive.

Then I freaked him out by taking it to pieces. Dust! Ew. Dust is the problem. So much better now. Imagine losing all your pictures because of pesky old dust?

In more picturesque outside news, the chicks are 12 weeks old tomorrow. They are getting so big and delicious. I'm certain I have two boys and while someone local was after some roosters recently, I hesitated because we just wanted to keep them a while longer. I want to hear their first crows, but after today. . .

 I realize they are going to have to be separated soon. They have started to properly rumble, so I need to make arrangements before they actually hurt each other.

 Such a shame because they are so beautiful and it seems awful to split them up, but that's the way it has to be. Silly boys.

The girls are so different. My favourite has to be Peeper McDumpling, who was so huge in the beginning, but is turning into quite the petite and inquisitive young lady.

 Not to mention totally gorgeous to boot.

 She's definitely the smartest too, with a determinedly naughty streak. . .

just like all the best girls ;)

Kidspeak

P8 to me this morning: No offence, but, you might want to do your hair because it's a bit. . . . BOOM.

Housebound

Being carless we had to make home fun for the first day of the holidays. This involved taking pictures of L11 with his feet on the wrong legs

 and curling his hair with my hair straighteners.

Hee.

Whoop whoop!

Prizegiving tonight. P8 got a badge for her class councillor role and also scooped the class excellence award. So proud. 

 Crazy girl, you are such a smartie. Mostly ;-)

And More Bangs. . . Who Killed Baby Car?

I guess technically I did, since I was the one driving it at 1am last night on a mission to pick up P8 from a friend's sleepover. She woke feeling ill and I drove carefully through the dark and rain to go and bring her home but. . . 

I encountered a truck carrying poorly stowed stolen timber, which was driving rather fast, with no lights, and completely failing to give way. I was spun more than 180 degrees so it was a good impact against such a tiny car, but the truck driver took off as fast as he could, losing the timber all over the road. I tried to chase him (so I apologise for the crazy-lady-horn-beeping all through the township) but when I realized the crushed door was scraping rather loudly against the wheel and more timber was falling off his load ahead of me, I gave up and hobbled to our friends' house to pick up my girl. I'm just thankful that no-one was hurt of course, but also that she wasn't sitting in the back when it happened.

Fingers crossed the police find him, otherwise we still have to pay the insurance excess, despite not being at fault. Really not what we need so close to Christmas :(

Bangs

 P8 is determined she wants a fringe again. I told her if she nagged me every day for three weeks then she could have one. (I don't really mind either way, I just don't want to deal with her changing her mind and being sad for three years while she grows it out.) She wins.

Uh!

Anyone wanna make me this for Christmas??!?

ooooooooooooyeah

Create

While P8 and I were in the garden on Sunday, L11 took himself off and emerged with these:

 And I can reliably inform you that they really hurt! That pic also shows our quirky concrete floor. It's good to have a floor that makes a neutral photo background.

L11 is also the first in our family to have a go with a 3d printer, thanks to the tech class at school. He brought home the 'artifact' that he made at soft materials, with his 3d object on one side.

The sides have to represent you (or maybe things you like, I'm not sure what the brief was) so this is what L11 put on his - 3d name, kayaking, books, maths, lego and a bicycle. Seems like a great sample of sporty and geeky :)

Outsiding

Spent a lovely family afternoon pottering in the garden. We let the chicks out for a big explore, but despite L11's fears that they'd all run off and we'd never see them again, at first only one of them was brave enough to venture out.

They've been desperate to get to all that grass, but they only wanted to eat it through the doorway.

In the end it took a small girl with a bowl full of corn

and soon they were all roaming happily.

P8 and I also spent some time making tiny secret things -

little fairy doors at the base of the trees.

 But P8 wasn't satisfied with that, so soon she had enlisted the help of her brother to create a real house that fairies could live in.

Ah, a real summer evening.