Child labour

I love how enthusiastic Jake is at helping at the moment. It really does make it easier to clean the car when I just sit back and write blog posts. He's remarkable. Go Jake!

Unbare-ably cute

As you may know, my theory on kids is that their cuteness is related to their level of trouble. Bianca really is very cute at the moment, here she is in her favourite skirt, on the day she woke up at 4.30am and refused to go back to sleep. Arhhhhh. Normally she sleeps till at least 5.15am. Unfortunately she is not one of those kids who will go back to sleep in her parents bed or if her parent gets into bed....or for any reason it seems. She is also still happy to scream for entire 2 hour car trips which doesn't encourage us to travel further afield just yet. But did I mention how cute she is??? She's also a bit of a clown. In case you miss her jokes, she's taken to saying "I funny, I funny".

Family goal for 2013

They don't know it yet but I would really like if the while family did a little more walking next year. Jake walked for miles and miles when we went to Macau/ Hong Kong but back here there can be some grumbling when walking involved.

Distraction is the key to success like so often in child land, so when we went Santa hunting at Darling harbour the other day, there wasn't too much complaining. So I need to find distractions......hmmmm.

The girls

The walk was enthusiastically undertaken by two little boys but was a bit far for one little Bianca. She got to ride from halfway.

Xmas day walk

Look what's just down the hill from Nana and Poppy's new house? Boneyard beach. Actually Bombo beach, a proper surf beach is just down the other side but we headed north on this day. Nothing better than a pile of rock pools to explore.

I really like Christmas

Yes I do. I really like Christmas although I am sure being tested this year. Bianca, or is she The Scrooge re-incarnated, took to our lovely Avent calendar. Only one box was ripped into shreds before I noticed. And all of them spread around the living room, twice....or was that twice daily.

Hopefully she's got her Christmas angst out now. Unless of course being anti Christmas is hereditary in which case her trail of devastation may continue.

Meanwhile Jake and Toby seem to enjoy their daily messages from Santa which vary depending on the prior days behaviour levels but usually he sends them a couple of stickers. Or a pencil. there is a single clue about where today's pressie can be found. We do like a treasure hunt in this house.

Look.

The show did go on, even with a bite taken out of the side. Then most of the pieces were broken and based on subsidence issues last year, I thought I'd give the melted sugar a go for glueing together. I am now recovering from a few toffee burns but the house stood up.

Gingerbread house?

Turned my head for a second and my little opportunist started munching on the gingerbread house. Opps.