School Holidays thus far.

Marty snapped this one the other night....it didn't last long with Luke though!

Well, its half way through the school holidays and we are all very relaxed here, enjoying the slower pace of life.  Today I lazily got out of bed at 8.30am, Kate and Luke woke 15 minutes later (Jaimee was watching cartoons) and we had pancakes for breakfast at around 10.30am....

I kicked off the holidays by taking the girls to the local theatre groups pantomime of 'Sleeping Beauty'.  It was the kind of production where we crammed into a tiny little hall where the kids sat on cushions at the bottom of the stage and the lovely old lady plays the piano to the side of the stage while the queen (a guy in a wheelchair) and the king (an older lady) try hard to remember their next line.  The kids did enjoy it though...well until the third and rather confusing act where the wicked witch kidnaps the prince and Sleeping Beauty has to rescue her from the witches caves.  I don't remember that bit from the story, but ah well....anyway, my kids were terrified of the very convincing witch with her evil cackle, and begged me to take them home as they buried their heads in my lap.  Sigh...one day, my kids will be able to handle villains.
At the moment, they won't even watch 'Tangled' because they are scared of the witch!

sticky mosaics keep us quiet for hours

Anyway, the holidays had begun and so did the rain....and it didn't stop for an entire week! I rushed out and purchased a cheap box of sticky mosaics (seriously, they are the coolest craft activity for 4-5 year olds to do without help) and some colouring in books. We went to the library and found 30 books. Next stop was the DVD store ($1 hire day rocks) for 5 movies that they got to choose for a change, making their day. There....all set for the long week of rain! Ok, perhaps a few hours. I love the holidays....It was so so nice to just hang out at home with no agenda (housework aside). I got pretty lazy actually, and had to force myself to cook meals and exercise at the end of a long day doing not much.

Jaimee had a birthday party at Jungle Junction on Tuesday with all her school mates, so that was a nice treat for her. The girls love it there, but I can't stand the chaos of the cramped and crowded kids spot, so I am always relieved that other people have parties there so I can drop my kids off and run. We even managed to avoid tears, because Kate happened to be invited to a party for the following Sunday at the same place - whew, its hard having girls who are used to doing everything together sometimes!
However, life still does go on for us adults, and I still had to work Thursday and Friday.  We were almost late to work on Thursday because Marty hadn't been waking me up all week and forgot to on my work day!   At 8am, I woke with a start and hit the ground running to make it on time.  Playgroup was packed out with 5 year old visitors, making a much noisier bunch then we are used to, especially with cabin fever added to the mix due to the wet week.  We had a slight drama when everyone left and I went to put Luke to bed...and then realised that someone must have taken home his muslin cuddly by accident!  Uh oh.....how will he sleep without it?!  I resorted to popping him into his car seat and leaving a car door open as I worked in the open room beside the car....luckily he crashed out.

The best baby

In the weekend, Marty took the girls out for a 'daddy-daughter' date.  Normally we do these individually, but the girls really don't mind sharing daddy at this age...so I timed their outing for Luke's sleep time and was able to sneak in reading a few chapters of a book - a cunning plan by me!  After a trip to the local school with their scooters (one of our favourite spots - large open concrete to ride on and an empty playground bonus), He took them out to the old fashioned lolly shop, somewhere we had not been before- you know, the kind of shop where they point to giant glass jars lined up and choose what lollies they would like.  Sadly, the prices are not as old fashioned as the shop is, I think Marty just about had a heart attack at the price of their small bag!

And that brings us back to this week and our lazy cycle of getting dressed at 10am begins again much to our delight.  We do have a few loose plans this week -  Jaimee has a friend coming to play on Wednesday and is off to another friend's house on Friday.  I have promised that Kate can have a couple of days off daycare to hang out with her sister this week, meaning on Thursday I will be dragging THREE kids along with me to playgroup and work.    A doctors visit is in the agenda tomorrow too for poor Luke, who has a bleeding red bum despite lots of creams and some limited 'air time' without nappies...something that I am always nervous doing so it never lasts long enough.

TWO WHEELS! Go Kate!!!

Big Girl Bike (Thanks  for handing it down Paige!!)

Tomorrow we are going to hit the school again with their cousins and their bikes because that is what we did today ...and guess what? Both my girls upgraded their bike skills today much to our delight!  Kate has almost mastered her sister's 2 wheeler (once we get her going) after just one session, and Jaimee is feeling super proud at being able to ride her (new to her) big girl 16" bike for the first time.  I attempted to put Luke on a little ride on bike..it was so funny: he totally locked his legs when I sat him on it.  I could not budge them at all!  Guess he is not quite ready for wheels. But this all reminds me that my babies are growing up....and I am so glad that I have this time to hang out with them before they get too big to enjoy mum's company.