Flying High and Home Again

What a Christmas! As mentioned previously, we all lobbed onto a plane on Christmas day and flew down to Sydney. All bags arrived, all children were unharmed and the flight was a breeze.

The following day was our 2nd Christmas and we enjoyed a hot day followed by a small summer storm. Nothing as fantastical as the Queensland storms but a cool change none the less.

My mum lives on a very steep hill with an evil hook to the right at the bottom of it. Since the kids took their scooters with them, they were under strict instructions NOT to scooter down the hill...they were given strict instructions ,twice. While enjoying the cool afternoon, it came to my attention that three children were flying past the window at warp speed. Contrary to former death threats, they were indeed scootering down the hill, hitting Mach III. My rather worried Mum asked if she should go out and tell them not to. You know, we could have done that. You know, we then would have had an entire week of telling them over and over again not to go scootering ....you get the drift. So, I said no. They have to learn...the hard way.

Sure enough, not five minutes later, there was a crash followed by Caitie screaming. Yup, the evil right hook had got her. She had swept round the corner at devastating speed, wobbled, lost control and hit the grass which effectively stopped the scooter cold. When a scooter going at over 40km an hour is suddenly stopped, the law of inertia means that the child ON the scooter keeps right on going...over the top. She had a massive graze down her leg, a small graze on her elbow and more worryingly, she couldn't move her arm. We bandaged it and watched her over the next few hours. There was no swelling, no pain on bending, so it was quite obviously a sprain.

Mind you, they didn't go scootering down the hill again!

The following day we spent wandering around Taronga Zoo. I will post more photographs and info about that another day. I will finish however with this truly lovely photograph from the Zoo which has the infamous "Nuns In a Scrum" (aka the Sydney Opera House) as well as one of the Tall Ships sailing through the harbour.

Cheers,

Cin

A few months ago, the kids and I discovered Mushabellies. These cute little toys are round and furry and they make weird noises when squeezed. After buying a couple as presents, we decided that these toys would be the perfect reward for the kids behaviour chart. If they got ten good marks, they would get a mushabelly.

The first one was Caitie. Because she was at school, I had to choose hers for her and she adopted a cute, fuzzy lilac elephant called Farron, who trumpets and makes a raspberry blowing sound. The kittens love it and constantly try to beat it up.

Just this week, Aiden earnt his points so we went off to the toystore. Now Aidie is a funny kid, he has a wicked sense of humour, loves to make sound effects and has the quickest death fall I have ever seen. Pretend to shoot him and he literally drops to the deck *BAM*, gone, all over red rover. The kids entered a talent contest last year and they performed an air guitar solo of Dueling Banjos. Caitie had the serious guitar riffs and Aiden had the more playful banjo. I told him that all he had to do was make Caitie laugh while she had to stay serious. Well, he did ballet moves, high kicks, wiggles, bobbed up and down, the audience was in hysterics and I laughed so hard I snorted! They won the Judges Choice award. I knew that finding a toy to suit his personality would be a hard task.

And it took forever....the frog, NO,the bear, NO, the beetle, NO, the dog, NO, the horse, NO, the duck, NO, the monkey, NO, the birdie, NO, the sheep, NO...things were looking bleak. Until Caitie climbed up the shelves (thats my girl). Admittedly the staff refused to lend us a ladder to look at the top shelf so she improvised. Caitie was elbow deep in stuffed toys when she suddenly yelled, "Hey, there's alien Mushabellies up here!"

Down came the blue one, the pink one and then *BINGO* the red, three eyed, four limbed, purple tongued monster. It made a stupid sound, like gobbledygook and soundled exactly like Aiden! We had a winner...and Blapso joined our family...

Now thats two down and one to go, hopefully Conor will try to be more gooder in future (grin).

Cin.

p.s. I couldn't help myself and bought the kitty!