paper reindeer

Nathan last Saturday felt the need to "Christmas-fy" his room before our visitors came over. I wanted just to tidy up after a busy morning, but Nathan went about doing his own thing.

He took more than a dozen pieces of scrap paper and sticky taped them together for his blank canvas to work from. Then he just snipped away free hand until he came up with this.

For some reason it now graces our living room wall (which is off white). Our house is not going to be decorated in any shape or form like something from a magazine. But it certainly will be one of a kind.

Rowan is entering the Christmas spirit too, but he doesn't hog the scissors and sticky tape like some short people in this house.

Work was frantic today. Renata, I did 38 patients! Are you proud of me? Six were ultrasounds. I'm not quite sure how I did it, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

Have a good weekend.

Nathan the red nosed reindeer

The Christmas excitement continues.

We dropped in to the shops to see Santa after school yesterday. Rowan had written a letter for him and was desperate to deliver it to him post haste. The letter may have mentioned Lego once or twice. Or about twenty times. He had gone through all his Lego catalogues to make it very clear to Santa he was interested in Lego. Well Santa has already done his shopping way back in the middle of the year, so this might be a problem.

They did had a nice chat with him, he was a friendly fellow, we delivered the letters and they were very happy with their reindeer antlers that they were given for their troubles.

They were babbling away on the way home about how they were going to dress up as reindeer. Nathan said he was going to paint his nose red but my mind was on dinner and feeding pets and feeling a bit deaf due to a blocked ear.

Fast forward 20 minutes when I come back in from feeding the squeaky one to find tubes of paint in the bathroom. What's this all about? I wonder.

Yes, he used real paint to colour his nose. I guess it did the trick.

I should be grateful that I came in when I did. He was most put out that I wouldn't let him colour in the rest of his face brown.

Rowan obviously found this all hilarious.

I like how these brown clothes have doubled as a possum costume and now as a reindeer costume.

But I need to lock the paints away.

Christmas lights

Well hello again.
Happy December to you.
We've been busy getting ready for Christmas.

Yes, you'd be right in thinking they look a bit younger in these photos. Four years younger in fact, but I don't think they've changed that much in their facial expressions.

A great group of people at church have been busy working through November to get Christmas lights up on the buildings. Last night they got turned on for the first time. They looked awesome.

Ok, not "win the competition" awesome but they made me happy. A few families dropped in last night to have a peek too. It makes it all worth while to have people from the community stop by and share in the joy. I love Christmas.

But I didn't bring the camera along and I can't find any old photos of past years lights. You will just have to wait a bit longer to share in it with me.

Have a great day.

Dinner success

Here's an idea to add to your recipe collection.

Taco mince pie thingee

Take 4 burritos and arrange in a pie dish to cover the plate. Bake in a moderate oven while you do the next bit till it's a little bit crispy.



Brown some mince and then add some taco mix powder (I use about a third of a packet so it's not too spicy for immature palates).

Then take some of these

and mix 'em in.


Ok, you're with me still.
Pour the mix into the burrito case. You may have left over mince which you could use on sandwiches or make little pies or have your husband gobble up when you're not looking.
Spread the top with cheese.
Now depending on if you did it in the order I said or if you got interrupted and the mince is now cold, well that will depend on how long it goes in the oven. If it's all hot I think it should only need to be grilled to melt the cheese, but sometimes I leave it a bit longer to warm it through.
And then it should look like this.


Serve with salad or whatever takes your fancy.
It's a little bit tricky to get out of the pie dish in a tidy fashion.

It is well received by the small and big people in this household. And it uses a lot of pantry items, so not to tricky to pull together. Hope you enjoy it too!

Super Nana liked her birthday card. I think she liked her presents too. It was a bit confusing for her to unwrap them however. I got to see Mum and Auntie H too which was good.
In the background, I am still worrying about H's op and Grandpa's op too. So is the rest of the family. My sweet MIL rang up last night to ask how they were. She is very kind and thoughtful.
Thank you for remembering them too, sweet people!

Being sun wise

Sun safety is an important lesson to learn in our sunburnt country.

Nathan's class have been learning about this topic and did a presentation on parade last Friday.

Work got in the way of me attending, but Brett videoed it for me. And it looked awesome!

There were different groups that had different parts of the lesson to share.

Nathan's group had forgotten their hats. They were sad and sore and realised they had made a big mistake. That's what all the red tape is about. The other groups had less means of protection and more sunburn to show for it. Oh they were a sorry bunch, sad about their mistake.

I know it sure doesn't take me long to burn if I'm out in the sun. I have to be very careful. Despite our best efforts, the boys already have freckles and such on their arms, much like myself. But thankfully, we remember to slip slop slap and keep out of the sun in the hottest parts of the day. No red peely burns for them!

You can see old Syd the seagull in the background who has been singing about Slip Slop Slap since I was little (the campaign started in 1980!). In my last few years of primary school, the policy of no hat, no play came in. This was reinforced by the personal example of our Deputy Principal who at the time was diagnosed with skin cancer on his ears. I really liked and admired him and was saddened to hear when he passed on not long after that.

It has been great to see how the culture has changed from letting kids play for hours in the sun unprotected to seeing how the kids now are teaching their peers about being sunsmart.

So, in the sun this summer say: Slip, slop, slap. (and wrap)

And great job Junior A!

Nathan's creations

I like cardmaking and other paper crafts. There is some beautiful work out there. I spend more time admiring other people's efforts than making my own however. It's quicker that way.


However, Nathan decided that the presents we bought for Super Nana for her upcoming birthday needed a card. And that he was the man for the job.



He worked very hard at it.





I think he did a good job.


He stamped it, coloured it and stuck it together. OK, I tied the ribbon. He wanted to though.


I suspect there will be a lot more crafting once the school holidays start in a few weeks time.



With Christmas approaching, I have stirred myself to make something. I am quite pleased with my own recent effort in making these Christmas wreaths. It is shamelessly inspired by the talented lady, Linda Duke. She is probably why I bought the nestability dies to cut out the flowers. But I do like Poinsettias. (I do like Poincianas very much too, but that's another story)
I hope to make some more to give as gifts. They do need some fine tuning as the flowers aren't staying very firmly attached and I need to think more about how to hang the wreath. And if I wasn't so lazy and did a proper job of photographing them, they would appear a whole lot better. Ah...
But it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Stuff going on in the background

My lovely Nana has dementia. She lives nearly an hour away and I don't get to see her as much as I should.
But Mum keeps me updated on the phone.
Nana finds it hard that they need to leave their rooms unlocked and as a result anybody could walk in and take her things. So she sends just about everything home with Mum and then complains that she doesn't have anything.
One day when Mum was visiting her, they headed back to her room to find that the door was locked. They hunted down a nurse and unlocked the room to find another lady sitting on Nana's bed with her hair all clumpy and lumpy. The tap in the ensuite was turned on full.
The lady said she had discovered an easy way to wash her hair. With toothpaste.
Ah huh, toothpaste.
The nurse took her back to her room and Mum and Nana went out for a while. On their return the same lady had found her way back again and was sound asleep on her bed.
They let the poor love sleep.
I told them that the lady must have heard the kid's song about washing your hair with orange juice and your face with tooth paste and made up her own beauty tip.

My father's dad, my grandpa, is also heading down this track. He asked my sister the other day if she had any brothers or sisters. I know I hadn't seen him in a while...
This is quite funny because not long after we were married Brett, Aunty H (when she was just H) and I visited my grandparents. After half an hour of visiting Grandpa asked Brett to be introduced to the young lady beside us. Namely my sister. We rolled around laughing at that one. It wasn't entirely unreasonably that he didn't recognise her because she had shaved her hair entirely off the day before. She visited him the next day with a wig on, but he was wise to her.

Aunty H has had a bad trot for the last 10, 15 years. Yesterday she found out that her abnormal test means another operation and this one a bit more serious. Could you pray for her please?

So, all this and more is going on in the background of my life.