One Christmas Book A Night Advent Calendar!

This year we started a new Advent Calendar tradition. I found 24 different Christmas books - noisy ones, serious ones, funny ones, big ones, small ones, flap opening ones and everything in-between. I wrapped them all individually in newspaper and put them in a basket between the Christmas tree and the armchair.


Each night the kids pick a book to un-wrap and read.




The books we have read so far are:
That's not my Santa - Fiona Watt
I'm not Santa - Jonathan Allen
The Christmas Tree - Julie Holland
Mr. Men 12 days of Christmas - Roger Hargreaves
I love Christmas - Anne Walker
Dear Santa - Rod Campbell
The Jolly Christmas Postman - Janet & Allan Ahlberg
Slinky Malinki's Christmas Crackers - Lynley Dodd
Grug and his first Christmas - Ted Prior
Willow at Christmas - Camilla Ashforth
Lulu's Christmas - Camilla Reid
Christmas Time - Alison Jay
Ladybird Noisy Noisy Christmas
Fair Dinkum Aussie Christmas
Father Christmas needs a wee! - Nicholas Allan
The Nativity
Fancy Nancy's Spendiferous Christmas - Jane O'Connor
How the Grinch stole Christmas - Dr. Suess
How Santa really works - Allan Snow
Where's Santa - Louis Shea


The other books are still wrapped and after a quick count Milla has worked out there are only 3 books left which means Santa must be coming REALLY soon!!

Christmas light hunting!

Last night we took Milla and Harris out to hunt for Christmas lights. There are a handful of AMAZING homes close by where we were able to get out of the car and walk around the displays (please excuse the terrible quality photos - my iPhone isn't the best camera at night)



We saw Santa sleigh, the elves making toys in a workshop, reindeer and one house had a snow machine going too!!


While we were walking around Santa himself arrived and had lollipops in his sack for all the kids!




The kids had a ball and didn't want to come home even though it was waaaaay past their bedtime.... needless to say we all got a sleep in this morning.

Butterfly Milla's party!

Just a few happy snaps from Milla's birthday party today for those who couldn't make it.


Afternoon tea was a yummy selection of treats such as coloured popcorn, smarties, marshmallow pops and fairy bread.








We had all kinds of butterflies fluttering around for decoration too





I had made bunting for the party but it was used in a more 'un-traditional' way... Anyone for a game of 'Butterfly Badminton'? With a bunting banner net, butterfly net bats and balloons for balls all the kids (big and small) had a play!



We had a few laughs with a butterfly Pinata too (I was a little freaked out about getting hit with the bat!)


Happy Birthday was sung to the birthday girl before she blew out the candle on her butterfly cake and she tells me that she had 'the best party ever!'


Happy Birthday Miss Milla, we love you LOTS!

Birthday Interview: Milla 29/11/2011

I saw this idea recently and LOVE it. You 'interview' you child every year on their birthday with the same 20 questions and see how they grow, change, develop over the years. I thought I would start with Milla's birthday yesterday and I had a few giggles as she answered my questions.


1) How old are you? 4
2) Who is your best friend? Harrison
3) What is your favourite thing to do? riding on ponies (*giggle* she has never done this)
4) What is your favourite colour? Pink
5) What is your favourite food? Sausages
6) What do you like to do with your family? Play games
7) What is your favourite toy? Barbie
8) What do you want to be when you grow up? Milla (*giggle*)
9) What makes you happy? Cuddling toys
10) What makes you sad? Hurting
11) What is your favourite show to watch? Barbie
12) What is your favourite book? Bambi
13) What do you love to learn about? Music
14) What was the best part of your birthday? Doing exercises with dad (*giggle* she pretended to be Matt's personal trainer and 'taught' him exercises in the back yard after dinner last night)
15) Where would you like to go for a holiday? the snow
16) Who is your teacher? Matt (swimming teacher)
17) What is your favourite treat? Strawberries
18) What do you think about before you fall asleep? my scarves (*giggle* she has 2 scarves that she sleeps with every night)
19) What is your favourite animal? Cats
20) What was your favourite birthday present? Barbie clothes

Now to remember to do it for each birthday Harris and Milla have from now on.... remind me if I forget please :)

Gingerbread Builders!

Now our real house is all ready for Christmas we thought it would be fun to make and decorate a mini house - a gingerbread house!!

With a kit from Gingerbread Folk we had lots of fun building our little house the covering it in lollies!!!







The proud builders with their creation!

Christmas decorations are up!!

A full day of playing with our Christmas decorations has the house looking very festive!! The rain cleared just at the perfect time for us to finish our breakfast and head to the front yard to create some Christmas cheer in our street.



300 plastic ball pit balls threaded with string are our 'baubles' on our row of pencil pine 'Christmas trees'



A HUGE wreath I found for an absolute bargain on ebay with a handful of the plastic balls added to it now hangs on the very front of the house.


These are our three elves re-named Fliss, Milla & Harris.




Now just to add a handful (or 5) of Christmas lights and we'll be all done - Yay!

Trick or Treat!

Our house is all decked out for Halloween and tonight we had a steady stream of door knockers so of course Milla and Harris who I thought wouldn't 'get it' wanted to have a turn!



At the last minute I ran around the house to find two outfits and two buckets and off the witch and Dragon went!




Every house in our street has some kind of decoration and everyone was handing out chocolates, candy, stickers and more!!



Happy Halloween!!