Christmas Weekend

Merry Christmas

Best wishes to all this Christmas Season

Much Love

The Earth Walker Family

xxx

xx

Our mango table

Last year some time we purchased a dining table for Donald to use as a work desk, it was a dark brown stained mango table that we bought at a bargain price because it was floor stock and had a few marks on it.  It has served well but more and more it was the wrong height for Donald to be using with his drawing screen (cintiq wacom tablet).   Luckily for Donald a place he works at were giving away a desk which was the perfect height and size to work at so he jumped at the chance.  This meant we had to do a little shuffling around of tables.  Our own dining table, passed on to us from my aunt and uncle Desley and John, had seen better days and was well loved, but it was time for a new one.  The mango table was very dark and so we decided to sand it back to it's natural colour, which Donald did, and gave it a coating of bees wax with the help of Sam.  It has come up so beautifully and looks so warming dressed in festive colours.  I love the markings and knots of the natural wood, they glimmer and shine reflecting the light, it makes us feel happy to have something so lovely as this table in the heart of our home.

Celebrations

We have had many reasons to celebrate,  surviving last week is one of them, surviving a spider/insect bite (it is slowly improving), celebrating Toby's MRI being clear of any scary stuff....Yay!!! Celebrating Christmas carols in the park with good friends with a picnic, fireworks and glowing light sabres.   Graduating from pre-school and finishing school for the year.  There have been lots of ups and downs but oh what a relief it is to reach the end of the school year.  Here are a few celebratory images.

We celebrated tonight with fish, chips and salad and a little purple bubbly grapetiser.

Cheers big ears and Happy Holidays!!

Our busy, busy life

Oh what a week it's been!!  A week full to brim and pushed to the limits with end of year celebrations, activities and things to organise.  A week and more of getting things done that need to be done and all the extra on top, all the while trying to avoid the dreaded migraine.  A big week so therefore a big blog post, so bear with me, put your feet up and get comfortable.

We had Toby's MRI on Tuesday, that was a biggie, we are still waiting on the results as his neurologist is away at the moment, so we're hoping to hear from her some time next week.  Thank you for all of your thoughts, prayers and well wishes for Toby, they are much appreciated.

Wednesday saw me baking three large cakes ready for a year six farewell that Sam's year have to put on for the year six moving on to high school.  It was also a very important day for Sam at the school presentation day as he found out he was to be a school prefect for next year.  The front row, with Sam in the middle, are the school leadership team for 2011, the 2010 leaders standing behind presented the new leaders with their badges.

Thursday was spent preparing the cakes, joining them together into one big cake and then the grand icing job done by my personal, in house, icing expert Donald.  I used his talents to produce a magnificent dragon cake for the year six farewell party that was themed "Magical Fantasy". 

While Donald was icing I accompanied Toby to his last playgroup Christmas party, where he graduated with a certificate and a book and dressed up as a Wise man for the last time.  We listened to the story of the Nativity and sang some Christmas songs while the little kids poked at baby Jesus' eyes.

On returning home from playgroup Donald was putting the finishing touches to the cake.  It was huge, it was massive and it was magnificent.  Five hours of making the icing, colouring it and then actually icing the cake.

That afternoon while Sam and I went down to the school with the cake and some decorations for the cake table, Donald was driving Ethan and Toby to a preview screening of a movie, Santa's Apprentice.  Donald had spent a few months animating for it at the end of last year and beginning of this year.  Sadly it won't be available in Australia until next year, so keep an eye out for it next Christmas.  So while they were at the movies, Sam and I were having fun in the land of magical fantasy, where the decorations were absolutely amazing, prepared by the year fives and the mums.

It was a really fun night, the year five mum's served food and cleared tables and we even got to do a little dancing with our kids.  I'm really glad I was part of the year six farewell as next year it will be done for us by the next year fives and the year six parents only get to come in at the end of the night.  The only horrible thing about the night was the stinking hot humidity.

Friday was another stinking hot humid day, Toby and I spent most of it at school helping organise the end of year class parties, I was Ethan's class parent this year which involves these kind of duties.  Lots of running back and forth, laying down tarps, collecting food, preparing food and getting hot and sweaty.  Friday finished with pizza and an appropriately dragon themed movie, "How to train your dragon" (absolutely love that movie) after a very hot indoor soccer game for Sam.

Now this brings me to Saturday, I was treated to a little breakfast in bed, toast and mango....thank you Donald!!  It was hard dragging myself out of bed, but we had a few things to do, I had to make another run to the plant nursery for last minute teachers presents and a few additions to my outdoor room (my front porch) which I am very happy with.

I potted a few Maidenhair ferns with some pink African violets for Toby's pre-school teachers and they look so pretty.  My mum potted one up for me when she was here, it's the purple one on my wooden table. 

The lounge was in dire need of tidying up too, and rearranging to make room for our Christmas tree.  Donald and the boys went to buy one at last, mind you nothing has been decorated yet as we have spent more time tidying and shuffling things around so we could fit the Christmas tree into our squidgy lounge room.  The decorating will have to wait another day.  I am so longing for the holidays to begin and all of the pre-Christmas festivities to end so we can start relaxing.  Although we do have our local carols in the park tonight that we never miss, it's a lovely evening of carols, fireworks and friends, I only hope I can stay awake long enough for the fire works.......and I hope you're still awake and made it through my epic week without dozing off.

End note: Here I am sitting on my front porch on another Sunday morning, I have just been to the hospital to get an insect bite checked out.  I was bitten by something on Friday whilst at school and the bite area has just gotten bigger and redder and I wanted to make sure I wasn't suffering from necrotizing fasciitis (a gross flesh eating disease) it turns out I have Cellulitis (I already knew I had cellulite!!) which is a skin infection from the bite.  The doctor has given me some antibiotics to help stop it from spreading any further.  So close your eyes if you don't want a peek at my Cellulitis picture below or just scroll up and look at the pretty flowers again.  The faint blue circle on the bite I drew on  yesterday afternoon, so it shows how much more it had spread last night.

And now here endeth my epic week.