Christmas 2012 and Depot Beach (far away in time...)

Christmas was fabulous.  Apparently I was even having too much fun to take photos.  Luckily my Mum snapped this one before the kids got to the crackers.

Followed by a trip to the beach house for New Years.

As we are on tank water this is the most convenient and fun way to wash off after the beach.

I spent a lot of time doing this.... (nothing).

Will someone please take me down to the beach!?!

oh okay.....  R teaching them to surf.  Me, still doing nothing.  It was a lovely break.  Happy New Year all.

                       

A salty, sandy Christmas in Sydney

I hope everyone had a magical Christmas!  I will be along to visit you all soon.  In the meantime,  here are some photos of our Christmas in Sydney:

Decorations hanging from my beloved rusty lobster pot.

The Captain King and his favourite gift from Santa!

A Snow Sandman

Wishing you all health and happiness for the New Year!

Christmas Lolly jars

This post originally appeared on an old blog called The Brothers Trimm - I just wanted to add them to my personal blog in order to store the memory!

Christmas Lolly Jars

Materials:

old jars

buttons

glue gun

poms poms in white and red

glasses

eyes

pipe cleaners

(all of these items can be found at Spotlight or similar craft shops)

Making the lolly jars:

Get the glue gun out and start glueing!  Make sure you supervise closely as the glue gun gets super hot.

Lastly fill with lollies or shortbread, ours are to decorate the kids Christmas table with, but they would also make great home made Christmas gifts!

Christmas button ornaments

This post originally appeared on an old blog called The Brother's Trimm - I just wanted to add it to my personal blog in order to preserve the memory!

Christmas Button Ornaments

Button Christmas ornaments are a fabulous Make and Do Project as almost all the necessary supplies are readily available and very cheap.  I had a big jar of buttons that didn't seem to belong to anything and combined with a pack of pipe cleaners we were all ready to go with a great Christmas craft activity.  This is an activity that can be done by children as young as two, Baby Pirate is two and a half and with a little help every now and again he loved it.  Threading the pipe cleaners through the button holes was great for improving his eye hand coordination and the organising of the buttons was great for sorting skill development.  All in all, a great Make and Do project!

Materials:

Buttons
Pipe Cleaners
Scissors
Ribbon

Making "wreath" button ornaments:

Select a pipe cleaner and start threading!
When they have decided that there are enough buttons on their wreath, loop the pipe cleaner ends together and wind closed.  Trim off any excess and then tie a ribbon on to the bare spot of the wreath  making a loop.  The loop can now be used to hang the ornament.

Making a "tree" button ornament:

Select a pipe cleaner and make a little dent in one end to stop the buttons sliding off the end of the pipe cleaner.  Then sort out the buttons into large to small size order and thread onto the pipe cleaner starting with the largest on the bottom.  We topped ours off with a little red star found at Spotlight.  Then wind a little loop into the excess pipe cleaner and thread some ribbon through!

Getting ready for Christmas!

This year for the first time I am hosting the family Christmas.  Admittedly not the entire extended family is attending, however there will still be 10 adults and 5 children and I feel a little overwhelmed by it all!  So far, all I have done is dress the tree and put up some of the decorations around the house.

Not these ones though!  My beloved vintage Shiny Brites are well and truly out of reach for the time being and I am currently undecided as to where the safest place to display them is.  Obviously somewhere high though!  Very high, as I am afraid I can't trust my two mountaineers not to attempt an expedition to retrieve them.

The rest however are fairly hardy and have been hung by the boys on the tree, with a little tweaking by me afterwards!  I am loving the baby's tongue poking out in concentration here!

And his tippy-toe stretch here!

We have been reading Christmas stories every evening before bed.  We only have this small selection, some of which date back to my childhood and I would love to get some more, does anybody have any good recommendations? 

And if anyone has any ideas about what Dragon Island might be, I would be even more grateful!