An ode to red lipstick.

I have been in the worst mood all day long.

It started this morning and as my, self imposed, to= do list grew, my black cloud just got bigger. I tried so hard to shake it. It's New Years Eve for heavens sake yet I felt none of the fun. I enrolled the girls to help me clean and sort. All extraneous items had to be removed from the house today. We loaded up lord knows what and dragged it to the charity shop. I'm quite sure tomorrow I'll be looking for half of it.

From there we went to the store for finger foods for our party tonight. As the time grew later I felt as much like throwing a party as I did like listening to the girls playing there musical instruments. I was really cranky.

After I bathed the girls I told Lily she could wear any one of her favourite dresses and helped Rosie chose one too. Lily casually asked if I was going to get dressed up too. Not bloody likely, was what I was about to say but instead I said, yes. With that I raced upstairs plugged in my flat iron with one hand and grabbed my make-up bag with the other. I pulled a little black dress out of my closet, ferreted about on the floor in my closet looking for some heels, threw myself head first into my jewellry box and then raced back into the bathroom to put on some lipstick. Lily chose red for me. As soon as I looked in the mirror my bad mood magically disappeared. Finally!

If only I had known it was so easy I would have put on some red lipstick earlier!

Since the girlies looked so pretty I took some photos of them. Actually Lily looks scary. She looks about 13. She has some hand me down dresses from Jakie. Jakies girls are really tiny so they wore these dresses when they were 12 and 13 but they fit Lily now and Lily is tiny for 9. I don't let her wear them out of the house as they are just to grown up for her but inside the house they are fine and she really looks smashing in them.

Rosie does not like wearing dresses but wanted one tonight. She made me laugh so much as she tried to pose like her sister. Lily is a natural, Ro Ro, not so much. Well not yet. And for that I am thankful!

We wish everyone a very happy new year. I hope that all your dreams come true and this is your best and favourite year ever.

Happy faces, happy girls

The un-sleepover actually involved sleep!

They didn't wake up until 7.30 and no one was more surprised than me. I guessed that my early bird had woken everyone one but I was wrong, it was Joie's turn to be the alarm clock. Considering they were still holding court at 11pm and they usually get up at 6., they did pretty well.

They spent a very leisurely morning playing board games, watching telly and playing Wii when I decided to shake it up a bit and suggest we go out for a while on the bikes, scooters, jeeps, pogo sticks, you name it they could have it. I have an insanity gene that allows me these mad thoughts without a second of remorse. What was the worse that could happen? One of them could run me over but other than that I had it all under control.

After a quick safety briefing they were off.....at full speed with nary a glance over their shoulders. They tore this neighbourhood apart. Our clubhouse has a bike path that goes around it so that is where we headed to. I knew they ( and the rest of the world) would be safe there.

At first I decided that H's girls could not ride the electric scooters. They aren't familiar with them and H wasn't with us. I rode them about on them for a few turns and then called an executive decision and let them have them. We have enough safety gear to kit out the British Army but of course we didn't use a lick of it. No, no, no, I am such a great friend and responsible person that I just threw them to the wolves, so to speak! I couldn't stand watching Joie squash herself into the Jeep for another second, she needed a toy with some pizzazz that didn't cut off her blood supply. A quick tour of what button did what and they were gone. Peals of laughter filled the air as they raced around the path.

Racing fools

I'm not sure why Rosie looks so forlorn hereSpeedy
maniacs

Trevi on the Bum Wiggle Scooter. It may, possibly, have a different name than this but this is what you have to do to make it move.Lily on her Daddy's electric scooter
Now how did you two end up sideways on a perfectly srtaight sidewalk, huh?
Oh, just look at that concentration.
funny girls

All good things must come to an end and this playdate/un-sleepover was no different. Hollis was greeted at the front door by Lily saying in a disgusted and sad voice, oh no, it's your mum. (have I mentioned lately that I am working on her manners. LOL)

Another un-sleepover

It really wouldn't be a school holiday if we didn't celebrate with an un-sleepover. Today Hollis drove the girls down this morning and then drove off all alone in her big old school bus. Must have felt very lonely! Nobody in this house was lonely, oh no. They were in heaven.

I don't really have any idea what they did this morning. They all branched out into various rooms and did whatever it is that they did. I do know that Rosie and Trevi made a camp under the dining room table because I had to secure the blankets for them. I had to disband their little camp so that they might eat lunch, I wasn't very popular.

After lunch our friend Rose joined us and we went to the park for a couple of hours. (I am about to rant so you may want to skip this bit: Why the h*ll can't dog owners down here clean up after their flipping dogs? 3 out of the 7 of us trod in it in the park. A park that clearly stated NO DOGS. A park with a childrens play area. How disgusting.) Continuing on..... the girls, Rose and I played quite merrily. It was one of our unusual days, perfect crystal clear skies and temperatures in the low 70's with a wonderful breeze. By the time we got home I think we had just about killed Rose so she made a fast exit and the girls and I continued on with our shenanigans.

Getting ready to slide

5 kid pile up
Big Rose
Trevi
The gangs all here


Tonight as I write this post the girls are all eating popcorn and watching Nanny McPhee Returns.
I wonder why they like to sit on the floor?


I expect they'll go to bed at some point and sleep for a whopping couple of hours! In the morning they'll be up, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to repeat today. Somehow I don't think Big Rose will be so ready.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade

This time of year is meant to be cold. Snow flurries or blizzards, rosy cheeks, seeing your breathe, that kind of stuff not sweating in 80 degree weather. How can you drink hot chocolate when your A/C is the closest you are going to come to cold?

Well we found the antidote for all this hotness. Today we took ourselves to the local Ice Arena for some good old fashioned fun. We met our friends Ed, Jen and Evan there and we donned out skates and hit the ice (some of us hit it literally). I would just like to add that at no point did Jenny or I ever go belly up. We are just that good. LOL A couple of times we were flailing about but we managed to stay upright. Egads was it funny.

In Lily's short little life she has only found 2 things that she cannot do, 1 is roller skating and 2 is ice skating. After her birthday party last year at the roller rink she has pretty much licked the roller skating but this was only her 3rd time on the ice. Little miss true grit and determination, made it happen. She wiped out so many times that I lost count. She hit the guard rails so many times my head was spinning. She sucked it up when her skates started to hurt so badly and she even sucked it up when some clown mashed her hand in a metal door.

Through it all she just kept pushing and she did it. She really was skating like a human and not some sort of animal on loopy juice.
Evan also made it happen. He fell so many times I am sure his butt is blue and his knees must be raw but each time he dug a little deeper and tried it again and again. Rosie held my hand for most of the time. I few times Lily and her would skate off together and she did OK. She was so proud of herself also. We skated for 2 hours.

As much fun as we had the best part was being so cold! Towards the end I was starting to get a little bit too cold and it wasn't fun anymore. I only wore a sweater, I should have put on a jacket as well. I bundled Rosie up as if her life depended on it but she was also starting to show signs of being cold when we left. Some kids were skating in shorts, I have no idea how they didn't get hypothermia.

I didn't take a camera with me as I didn't think we would be allowed on the ice with it but I did keep my phone in my pocket so these very poor shots are courtesy of my phone and that fact that I tried not get busted whilst using it!

3 musketeers.

Rosie found a Rosie-sized Zamboni.

The real Zamboni. I just love that word.

waiting for the Zamboni to finish polishing the ice.

Scary fast aren't we?

Lily dragging her sister.

The pro's again

Don't be fooled by Evan's dejected look, he got back up.
Jenny with the girls
She loved it!

Cold is good, seeing the kidlets with Rosy cheeks and red noses was fabulous, seeing them have so much fun was inspiring but seeing Lily's smile light up the ice and listening to Rosie chant, over and over again, I'm doing it, I'm skating, was priceless.

Ho Ho Ho.

Happy Christmas.

Ours has been truly wonderful. It started early-ish when Rose awoke and realised that Santa had been cos she could see her stocking which was followed quickly by the realisation that Santa came into our house and didn't scare or maim her. Shocking!

The girls got into our bed with their stockings and foraged about for quite along time with all the Christmassy goodness. After what seemed like an eternity I suggested we go downstairs. The ohhs and ahhs were quite spectacular as the girls eyed the bling under the tree.

I don't like everyone to just rip into gifts, instead the girls get to pick a gift from under the tree and read who it is for and wait while that person opens it. That way they actually appreciate each gift as opposed to just getting into a ripping pattern. Half way through we had to go outside for a while why Rosie tried out her new scooter and Lily tried out her new pogo stick. After that short intermission we were back at the gifts. Rosie changed into her Thing shirt and was once again content.

Their gifts from us were hidden at the very bottom of tree, under 50+ gifts ( no we didn't buy that many, we have a rule in this house where we only buy 3 gifts. 1 big one from Santa, one from us and one from each sister to the other.). Rosie was starting to think that Santa hadn't heard her and Lily was just as happy as a clam with everything she had already received. Finally they opened the last 2 remaining gifts at the same time. Lily opened hers first and screamed, thank you, oh thank you so much. Within seconds Rosie was jumping up and down and also screaming thank you. Thank you Steve Jobs for making my girls day so very very special.

Snippets of the Christmas fun

It's a tradition in our house, you go outside in your jammies on Christmas morning and try out your new toys. Rosie would not do it and had to change into a shirt from Auntie Sally

pogo-ing p.j. clad fool
Rudolph the red nosed Rosie
A much desired game!
Working her way through her money ribbon

We all played Wii. I got creamed.

Jakie and Lucy
Jacob, Lily, Rose and Caro
happy girl
Things indeed. Crazy Auntie Sally kept calling them by the wrong names so she sent them Thing shirts but Lily noticed right away that she should should have been Thing 1 and Rosie should be Thing 2.


Richie Rich sent the girls a book, Pooh's Little Instruction Book. It is the most delightful book filled with invaluable advice. Page one reads as follows:
If possible try to find a way to come downstairs that doesn't involve going bump bump bump, on the back of your head.

Not 10 minutes after Lily read it to Rosie, Rosie came crashing down the stair arse over elbow. Lily happened to have already made it to the bottom and looked to see where Rosie was just in time to see her trip and start cart wheeling to the bottom. Lily flew as fast as she could to catch her and Rosie is a little bashed about but just fine. Apparently she wasn't listening to Pooh's advice!
The girls love the book and it has made me laugh all afternoon.

Having children makes this day absolutely fantastic. Having friends join us for the day is just the star on top of tree but what we really want is a Christmas with my family. I'm crossing my fingers for next year...I've started to hear murmurs.

I hope your day was also filled with magic and sparkles.
Merry Christmas to all.

Visions of sugarplums dance in their heads

I think for most of us Christmas Eve conjures up Norman Rockwell images of snow and family all gathered around the fireplace. Well you can scratch that idea if you live in Florida and your family is on the other side of a rather large ocean.

For starters, our traditional Christmas Eve fare is Chinese Food. Don't know how it started but it works for us. We have tried many different ideas with regard to Christmas food and that whole Turkey thing is not happening so now we add a little international flavour to both days. We mix some of my traditions from the U.K. and some of Jacobs and then we there are the ones we have just made up and thrown in for good measure, ie. the Elf that appears sometime during the day and leaves a package for the girls on the doorstep. At some point we hear jingle bells and when they dash to the door they are always seconds to late and nobody is there. The package always holds 2 pairs of matching pajamas. We have a laid back day since both of the girls are so excited we always try to keep things low key and incorporate a trip to the park.

Rosie made the reindeer some special food this afternoon. We like to be sure they get more than just carrots.

Sparkly Reindeer food. It looked so pretty sprinkled all over the grass.

Deep in concentration as she measures everything out
Stirring it up.


We had an early dinner this evening and then headed out to see some Christmas lights. There is a house, not far from ours, that really goes a little over the top with the decorations. It is so tacky and trashy and I love to take the girls to see it as they find it just breathtakingly beautiful......gag. Actually this year Lily commented that she thought it was a bit much. That's my girl!

This is the mans garden

this is his garage with an elaborate train set.
Santa being accosted by 2 strange kids
His roof
another part of his yard
more of the roof
And yes people, this is the INSIDE of his house. They let you go inside. It's just weird and tacky.
I have no words left!
I really think that house is horrid but I admire the time and effort that the owners put into it. Rather them than I.

Once the girls had had a bath it was time to get ready to the Jolly Fella himself. Cookies and milk were placed, with love, on the table, the reindeer food was sprinkled outside, and the carrots were placed on a plate for the reindeer. I suggested a paper plate but Rosie would have none of that, thank you very much!

Rosie placed Santa's magic key outside and then we went upstairs to read , Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Polar Express. I then tried very hard to reassure Rosie that, Santa is in fact a very nice person and that it is fine for him to come into the house and that, NO, he wouldn't hurt her in any way. She still seemed rather dubious but I do believe she is sleeping now. That or she is scared stiff and can't actually get out of bed and come downstairs to find me.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Goodnight.