Christmas 2012

Christmas has been and go all the decorations safely packed away till next December.As iv always said learning is day in day out sort of thing , even when we break with our home school rhythm we never ever stop learning .Especially at Christmas time with heaps of new toys to learn from.

The children were all very fortunate to have received every thing they asked st Nicolas for and more.
Lots of lovely new books and toys and art and science kits have been unwrapped and are still being enjoyed as well as lots of new games.

Christmas day was spent at home with visitors coming and going all day , it was lovely, exhausting but lovely !I  have as iv mentioned before 3 brothers and 3 sisters, although they were not all in the house at exactly the same time it is always apparent at Christmas time just how much we need a bigger house but also just how lucky we all our to have such a huge and loving family. I cooked us ( just me Paul and the five kids) the traditional turkey roast and everyone enjoyed it and we learnt Eva is quite partial to Christmas pudding!

They day started just before seven am but it passed all to quickly in a blur of cooking , guests, playing and generally having a good time.

Charlie has in fact has a Christmas filled to the brim with learning opportunities and they have all been grasped excitedly. He has been very busy with his swamp monster experiment sets ( gifts from father Christmas and auntie Tash) creating under water habitats for triops ,taking care of his own rose of Jericho , watching crystals form creating bubbling swamps and active volcano's. He has made eyeballs, a solar system model, a fake poo , an air powered rocket, carefully chiseled out fossils from a dinosaur kit, and many other things that iv probably forgotten to mention. He has been following instructions as he puts together Lego models with ease, he had been making cardboard skate boards with his pro deck work shop and now that he has his own tool kit is forever asking if anything around the house needs fixing or tightening up. His all time favourite gift was his Lego star wars wii game. much as the wii addiction infuriates me i take a deep breath and thing of all the benefits ..co ordination , exercise , reading on screen instructions  and well just that he is clearly loving it so much! We brought him a box set of star wars books which he has requested i read from every night ...i love how he interrupts me to tell me little snippets of information and how he asks me to stop because he can read the next word.

Summer and Gypsie had a fantastic plastic Christmas  much as id like to banish plastic toys from my home its just not doable. Not when you live with two of the biggest barbie addicts in the world.Summer was especially happy to receive the California dream house, and they both adore there walking dolls and horses. Many an hour or shall i say week has been spent videoing dolls to upload to You Tube and making accessories and clothes. They both received lots of arts and crafts for Christmas too, Gypsie has sewn a lovely purse and made a sign for the bedroom door Summer has been ironing transfers on to a bag and sewing beautiful flowers to add to the design. They have both been designing clothes and make up styles and using lots of stencils.

Summer and Jasmine both received a wreck this journal which has been a big hit.

Jasmine received a lovely shiny purple  Grit scooter...its beautiful. She has been hoping for less rain so she can use it more often . She received a set of small ramps to , im just hoping there are no more dental accidents. She also received lots of arts and crafts sets and kits and im dyeing for a go on her calligraphy set!!!!

Eva received a lovely wicker pram , tin tea set and rocking horse ...

Everyone apart from charlie was in good health for Christmas, his cough continued to lurk.

New years eve was a bit of a wash out as i had told everyone they could stay up , we were wanting to have a few snacks some drinks and play some games together , Eva had other ideas .Ideas which involved her feeding , screaming , screaming , feeding and wriggling.It soon became apparent that i would just have to hold her close and feed her all night .Jasmine and Gypsie went off up to bed at about ten thirty followed by Charlie an hour or so later. Summer and i stayed up to see in the new year and watch the fire works on the telly. Not quite what i had planned but never mind.

On new years day i came down with the lurgy too and have been out of sorts ever since . Today i feel almost human again and Eva has been so happy by comparison to the past week or so . I think we are on the mend!