Christmas Carols

Tonight was the carols service at church.  It was surprisingly smooth and very fun and gave a great message about how candy canes can remind you of the real meaning of Christmas.  Heaps of people came and it the church was packed.  Highlights for me were:

- singing in the choir - especially Joy to the World being backup to the excellent voices of Sarah, Reece and Lauren
- playing Christmas minute to win it "Handy Candy' game - yes we totally made that up with Dizzy and Christmas Kate (Lisa in a very convincing blonde wig)
- watching the storytellers 'own' chapters one and two from Luke - excellent work people
- a sausage sizzle with actual salad
- hearing the phrase 'glow stick mosh pit'
- watching my kids faces as they witnessed their mum being a lunatic dancer in the carols
- being reminded of the freshness of the story of Christmas, and how a girl in another country thousands of years ago accepted what God had in store for her, and helped change the world

three fifths of the storytelling team:

choir!

Dizzy and Christmas Kate

playing 'Handy Candy'- keep the balloon in the air for a minute with the pool noodle candy cane

The photo I kept making Brett take because Dizzy's eyes were not looking straight.....

Happy Christmas everyone!

extra curricular

I am sure most parents would have had these thought processes -  What activities should my children do?  How many?  How much?  How far will I have to drive them?  Will it benefit them?

I find I am thinking maybe a little too much about this, and polling all my friends to see what their thoughts are.  There are so many things to choose from - art, music, sport, dancing, circus, gymnastics, drama, actually probably not sport for my girls, training butterflies, needlepoint - I think I would love an activity called CHORES.  And we are not counting kid's club at church as an activity at the moment.

We have told our girls they can choose two things each to do after school.  They both want to do about four.  Enter NEGOTIATION WOMAN - a lesser known super hero who likes to draw up lists of pros and cons, and does lots of reflective listening. 

Currently the top choices of activity for my two are:
- oldest - piano and dancing (tap and jazz).  She would love to do art.  She is also starting trumpet at school next year so something has to give.
- youngest - dancing (ballet and tap) and ummmmm - she can't decide between gymnastics, swimming, speech/drama, and cricket.

NEGOTIATION WOMAN's foot may have to go firmly down.  There is only so much driving and follow up practise that you can do.

Stay tuned.

Comments and opinions welcome on this issue.

mickey stories; chapter five

I have a small friend called Mickey.  Not his real name.  But his real current age is five.

He is a thinker and a problem-solver.  Just way out of the box.

This story is about his care and concern for a cat, and happened about a month ago.

Mickey's neighbours acquired a kitten.  They were uni students, and didn't really know how to take care of a cat, or care to take care of a cat, so the cat would often appear at Mickey's house looking for food and affection.  Mickey got to know the cat and become concerned for it.

One afternoon Mickey's mum found Mickey washing his hands very thoroughly in the bathroom, and smelling a lot like tuna.  His clothes reeked of tuna, his hair reeked of tuna and his hands stank of tuna.  She found out that Micky had taken a tin of tuna from their cupboard, opened it, taken it down the street to the neighbour's house, and thrown an open can of tuna through the window to the uni students so they could feed the cat.  Then he had come back home and tried to wash away the evidence.

His concern for the cat was touching.

I am not sure how the uni students reacted to the tuna window bomb.

The end.

random thoughts

There are some traits and skills and features that animals have that I would like to possess and utilise.  Here are a few:

- a handy pouch at the front like a marsupial - it could store keys, tic tacs, a game of uno, tissues - oh the possibilities
- a sucker fish kind of animal that lived at my house and crawled around the floor cleaning up the toys, bits of paper and maybe even folded the washing
- a parrot that said things to my children like 'time for bed', 'clean your teeth', 'put on some shoes', 'practice the piano' - then they may not get surprised at me all the time that I make these completely unreasonable requests and demands on their time, like they have never gone to bed before any night previously in their whole lives
- the big reproachful eyes of....umm...a cocker spaniel to sit mournfully besides the fridge and beam thoughts into my head like 'don't eat that, let's go for a walk instead'

Just thinking.

puppet box

I have received my Christmas present early from my wonderful husband - my very own puppet box!! Yayy!  From this design.  I have already used it three times in the last week doing various performances at Christmas carols, and it is very wonderful.  My husband made my box 10cm taller than the design and it is just the right height for me.  I decided on black so I can add colour if I need, and so the focus is on the queen bee herself.  I also added modifications such as velcro on the top to attach the curtain, and a spa and movie theatre with surround sound and lounge couches in the box.

Dizzy is finding it a wonderful home, and she is thinking up ideas for decorating already.  But I am drawing the line at pink lava lamps and pictures of furry little kittens labelled breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I am really looking forward to many years in this box performing puppetry.  It is very satisfying and creative.  Soon I will be 'that mad old puppet lady'.

I took a few photos of the box at the Gap Presbyterian Carols night where it is on loan tonight.

This is Razzle testing out the box before the carols night.

This is Dizzy being overexposed in the spotlight.

 She would argue that you can never have enough exposure.

tree up

This afternoon the tree was hauled in from it's resting place in the garden and decorations were thrown upon it.  We bough the tree as a small Norfolk pine cluster of three when we were first married, and have re-potted it gradually over the years until it became a manageable size - and I have not given it a new pot for about seven years.  It keeps losing branches from the lower section, and this year we have about four upper layers to put our decorations on.  We had to spray it for spiders and clip off the brown bits, but it keeps coming good for us each year. Maybe one day I will plant it in the garden and it can grow into the twenty metre monster it is meant to be, but for now it is a perpetual Christmas tree that can enjoy the month inside dressed up like a toddler that has got into the costumes.

Presents will be wrapped soon and placed under it.  Excitement is building.

mickey stories; chapter four

I have a small friend called Mickey.  He is very inventive and cheeky.  I have taken it upon myself to write up the stories of Mickey's life as they need to be told and remembered.

He is currently five years old but this story is from when he was two.

Mickey was in the bathroom at home for a very long time, being busy at something.  His mother assumed it was just some long business, but after about fifteen minutes she came to check what he was doing.

Remember he was only two at the time - so the literacy skills are pretty high.

Fortunately his mum remembered to take a photo of his handiwork - and this is what he had done.

"HI" back at you Mickey.

The end.