Two Days of Wonder

Last May we redeemed some credit card awards points for Family 2-Day Passes to Dreamworld and White Water World on the Gold Coast. And last week, we went!!! :D We were all SO excited. I hadn't been in 13 years, and it's grown and changed so much. How wonderful to build up the suspense and wonder for 7 months!

Waterslides! Wave pool! Wiggly Bay!

Hooray!

Blues Clues Ride

Traditional Merry-Go-Round

William got rather wet on the Rapids Ride (sorry buddy)...

... and much preferred the Vintage Cars! I believe on Day 2 he and Stuart went around the track 6 times while I took the big two kids on the Log Ride. ;)

Wiggles World was great.

The beautiful tigers. I just loved this white one, sleeping in the shade.

This ball pit was AWESOME! 2 whole storeys, vacuums and machines and hundreds of coloured balls. Fun for the kids and for us!

We had the most wonderful time. This was a big holiday for us. We don't do holidays often, so they are very special times. It's nice to be home again this week, but we're all enjoying the great memories of our week away last week too. :)

Week With Family

Boxing Day we packed up and headed south (in the rain) to spend a week with family.

Did I mention it was raining? Wide expanses of our state have been affected by flooding this summer - parts of it devastatingly so. We've been blessed where we live, and are sitting high and dry. I'm so thankful.

A reader asked if there are any popular Australian traditions for Boxing Day. Well no, not really. There is the Boxing Day Cricket on TV, and eating the leftover food from Christmas Day. ;) And sitting under the fan as it's usually very very hot. There is a big yacht race from Sydney to Hobart which some people follow too. Other than that, we usually spend the day catching up with family.

We were all happy to be out on the big highway.

We arrived to this view - nice!!! Everything is SO green due to all the rain.

My aunt and uncle, cousins, brother and his fiance, and parents were all there! We shared gifts and ate (way too much) together and played board games and swam in the pool and used the paddle boats on the lake and learned our lines at night when the kids were asleep ..... and generally had a great, relaxing time.

Saraya getting stuck into a book (Boxcar Children series, from Mum) virtually the minute she opened it!

Ours (and Will's) bedroom

Saraya and Elijah's room. Here Saraya was so deep in a game she didn't even notice me taking the photo. :) Love that girl.

So that was Sunday - Wednesday. Lots of rain and lots of time with family. And sneaking out into the beautiful rural resort every time the teeming rain stopped.

What did we do on Thursday and Friday? Well that, my friends, is a post for tomorrow!

A Quiet Christmas Morn

We were home this year, just our little family for Christmas morn.

The children rose by 6am, and we opened stocking gifts, had breakfast, and shared more gifts together. The day was spent enjoying fellowship with one another, playing, and reading, and keeping cosy indoors out of the incessant rain!

Little stockings filled with love gifts

And Tractors for Will...

Books and Dollies for Saraya....

Knight miniatures, and a big boy bike for Elijah!

I missed my family terribly, as I always do when we spend Christmas Day at home. We live 3 hours from our extended family, and this year we chose to drive down to be with them on Boxing Day. So we had a quiet, reflective Christmas Day. It really was lovely.

A Parcel, Christmas Countdown and an Unwell William

Sorry, this post will be a mish-mash of bits and pieces! It's Christmas Eve and although I wanted to blog today I don't want to spend too long on it. ;)

I entered a giveaway on the beautiful Lovely Little Cottage blog a few weeks back, and won! :D My beautiful parcel from Elizabeth arrived this morning. What wonderful timing, the day before Christmas.

Thank you so much Elizabeth. Everything was so beautifully packaged! And the children thoroughly enjoyed threading their candy canes and decorating their angels. Please thank your children for me too for sending them!

We've had an awesome time counting down for Christmas this year. We've had several means of doing this. Our Jesse Tree.

Our felt advent calendar.

We've also been having treasure hunts most nights for wrapped Christmas stories. The children have taken turns. Over the past months I have purchased some little Christmas stories, as well as borrowing some titles from the library. This has provided the children with plenty of Christmas reading material!!

William has really got to know the Christmas story through all this reading. It's been great. He knows tomorrow is Jesus' birthday, he knows what the star on top of our tree symbolises, etc. And we can pull out all these books again next year!

We also try to break up the presents for the children a little, so they're not bombarded on Christmas Day. I want their focus to be on Jesus' birth, not just presents! So we break up the gifts with prayers for those the gifts are from, some singing, meals, and readings. Our Christmas gifts are usually given over 3 days, to give us time to enjoy and appreciate each one.

Today we also cut Christmas Cake number 2. I took so much of our first cake to gatherings, etc. (and we've clearly eaten too much...) that I decided to bake a second one so we had some for today and tomorrow!

And last but not least, we have a sick little boy this week. :( William started coughing last week, and after days of reading all I could get my hands on, I decided we had to get him looked at. To me all his symptoms were very characteristic of whooping cough, which happens to be going around this year. The doctor who examined him declared it to be viral, though gave us a script for antibiotics "just in case". Well. I know my boy, and I have seen viruses in my kids enough times to know this is different. He has the characteristic "whoop", and is coughing to the point of blue face and vomiting. So I got that script filled pronto, and am also dosing him up on some immune boosting probiotics, and lots of cuddles and lots of prayer.

Today, cuddling on the couch with his new little knitted cowboy and tin drum. And towel handy on his lap just in case....

He is responding well. Most nights he is coping better, though still wants to sleep with me and get lots of cuddles. :) I'm watching the other children closely for symptoms, but my reading suggests older children rarely get it to the point of it being diagnosable, just very mild forms. And adults very rarely contract it at all. Praying we all return to good health soon.

Merry Christmas my dear readers, I may not see you until the new year, so I pray you all have a safe and joyful holiday! xxx

The Big City

Last Friday we took off for the Big City, 3 hours south of here. We enjoyed lots of time over the weekend with both Stuart's family and mine, met our new little nephew Ezra, gave and received lots of wonderful gifts, stayed at my Mum's for 2 nights, caught the bus into the city (much to the children's delight!), shopped for the childrens' annual ornament for their own little collection, and visited the "Christmas Windows" at the Myer Centre, the theme of which was The Nutcracker this year.

William received a priceless cross-stitched stocking from Mum - sooooo beautiful - and a tool kit from an Aunt which may get an award for "present of the year" from William. He hasn't stopped tinkering with his tools yet. :) And he loved learning the names of all the gadgets with my brother Michael who is a mechanic!

Praise God for this wonderful time of year, for holidays, and for the precious gift of Jesus.

Now I'm off to wrap some gifts for my children while they are out in town on errands with Stuart!