Zooper Dooper trip to Young

Post-Christmas we headed north to visit family and friends. First stop was Young to catch up with Anthony King and his beautiful daughters Bonnie, Jessica and Holly. We splashed about at the town pool and enjoyed a family BBQ at Chinaman's dam. Kingy introduced Tor to the culinary delights of zooper doopers and cabinossi. We haven't looked back!

Pictured are the boys enjoying the Boxing Day test match; Jessica about to throw Anthony (B) into the pool; Tor cruising for kisses (this time from Bonnie); mooting visual art with dad; and gosh dang, this is how you watch DVDs outside! (What will they think of next?)

Christmas Day

Tor delighted us on Christmas morning with large numbers of 'oooh's and 'ahhh's befitting the 'brum brums' and 'toot toot's that were no doubt carefully selected by Santa's elves. Readers will be pleased to hear that new additions Percy and James are getting along famously with their 'more competitively priced' IKEA counterparts. Other toys recieved a passing glance as Tor mined down the bottom of his sack for the much requested 'TWO!!! fruit bars' that no less than 3 Myer Santa Clauses had promised on pain of death to deliver by daybreak.

We bolted down brekky just before Nonna and Nonno arrived, commencing a rolling influx of folding chairs, elaborate dishes, crackers and family members that culminated in a feast around oneish. Come twoish, the athletic among us headed to the pool where the traditional Christmas arm wrestling tornament morphed into 'tower vs tower'. The victors? Team Jordan and Alana! Not just a formidable force in the water, Alana created 'la piece d' resistance' of this years festive lunch with her biscotti Christmas Tree. Thanks to all who made Christmas day special for us by coming to lunch this year.

Pictured around the table are Hayley, Louise and Alana, Gabi, Zoe and Jordan. Alana with biscotti tree and Zane opening crackers.

'Twas the night before Christmas'

'Twas the night before Christmas at Blog Bettanin house,

where Grandad was reading 'bout Maisy the Mouse,

to a grand-son so hyper on rum-balls that he,

thought he needed his grand-father's specs just to see!

Tor's huge sack (forget the stocking), was laid out with care,

as the jolly big present-vendor was due to stop here.

We made him some treats, for his mid-night snack,

lest he become hungry while filling the sack.

As for mum, she was busy with potato peeling,

and its good that her hands are now restfully healing.

Come 8pm dad turned off Tor's bedroom night,

in hopes of some peaceful and sweet dreams that night.'

Merry Christmas to all Blog Bettanin readers!

Oh Christmas Twig...

Oh Christmas Twig, oh Christmas Twig,

your baubles spangle brightly!

By daylight softly shimmering,

by night-time slightly frightly....

Do not despair, because your foe,

Can only reach the shelf below...

Oh Christmas Twig, oh Christmas Twig,

Our young son doth adore thee!

Pizza alla Tor...and a very patient Daddy

Tor enjoys helping in the kitchen where pizza making is one of his favourite activities.

It is important to grate twice as much cheese as is needed for topping...or accept the consequences.

'Everything important in life on the back mat'

Groupee

Tor joined Melbourne's toddlers at the Rod Laver Arena to welcome the Wiggles to town. Mummy's expectations were high and the multi-media spectacle did not dissapoint. Tor's expectations were clearly much lower (he'd only previously seen Dorothy the Dinosaur play the Yarraville club) and so was struck dumb and blissfully cooperative for the first 30mins of the show. One fruit-bar later and he had mellowed sufficiently to laugh at Captain-Feathersword's jokes.

What a special morning. We'll be back next time.

Chasing the Chaser

Blog Bettanin is no paparazzi, but couldn't resist snapping Chas and Chris at their book-launch in Melbourne last week. Long-time watcher/addict of the ABC show 'The Chasers War on Anything', Alison even hazarded a disastrously long fan queue for autographs...only to discover that this arguably centre/left group employ vigilantees that boot you from your queue place if your discovered to have purchased 'other ABC publications' for signing. Blog Bettanin chooses to excuse these capitalist tendencies, reasoning that they are after-all currently unemployed

(none of the fab five have yet signed for next year) and so must earn a buck some-how.

Deck the halls...

Its well and truely Christmas in our house with Christmas education (in all its forms) underway. And what a popular subject its proving. Not only is it about a baby and his birthday (both exciting topics in themselves) but some guy called Santa is coming to bring toys...and you even get a say in which ones! Yes, there's been little shyness from our chap around the big jolly fellow who has now promised to leave a 'FRUUUIT BAR!!!' in Tor's Santa sack. (For the full list of anticipated items see below).

Constructing the list was a small feat in itself. For although Tor clearly understood the concept, his developing vocabularly proved unable to fully articulate his hearts desires to Daddy (scribe). After some 20 minutes of attempting to get his parents to understand, Tor bent over with head in hands and surfaced to suggest that we just go for '5 brums'. A few more minutes of cool-headed interpretation/negotiation yeilded a more balanced list of requests.

Other Christmas highlights have been riding the Santa train (pictured holding golden boarding ticket) at Myer, gazing in wonder at the beheaded reindeer the department store's using to decorate its corridoor to Santa's office and decorating our own Christmas twig. What is a Christmas twig I hear you ask? Oh where have you been! There's a drought on. No one can grow trees let alone chop one down! So we rescued a couple of gum branches blown off in a climate-change wind storm, sprayed them with silver paint and hung up the baubles....all on a high shelf :-) Anthony coined the phrase when attempting to describe Alison's 'creation' (pictured below in progress). No photos of the assembled twig have yet been taken but if you'd like to admire it then leave a comment as I respond well to nagging.

What's cook'n good look'n?

Fruit balls. Or more precisely, 'FRUUUUUUIT BALLS!!!!!!!' They're crunchy, their munchy, their on the side of the weetbix pack and they're the latest craze sweeping the Blog Bettanin family kitchen. (Quite literally as the coconut goes everywhere). Mum's plan was to hi-jack Tor's fruit-bar addiction with something a little less commercially made and therefore choc with additives. The verdict, a winner...but not quite as lushous as the forever favoured fruit-bar. Tor pictured 'helping' with the cooking.

Zane, Zane, Zane

Tor's cousin Zane visited recently with his mum Susie and dad Geoff. It was 24 hours of hard-play action with both Dr Suess and the playdough getting a workout. Zane showed Tor how to mix paints and so a new world has opened up before us with pink, lime green and grey, grey, grey! Thanks for playing Zane and we'll catch you again at Christmas.

All Clear

Tor's consultant phoned today to advise that all test results are clear. Tor celebrated by downing two very yummy cream cakes at our bible-study Christmas break-up.

Debut

Tor made his stage debute at the local Mini Maestro Christmas Concert. As the sole representative of the 1-2 year old class, Tor treated parents and toddlers to a maracca-shaking, ribbon-waving spectacular lasting some 5 minutes. Weeks of rehersals paid off with a rousing applause and glossy certificate proudly displayed on the bed-room wall.

Tor pictured standing 'on his spot', albeit in the wrong direction as he's used to facing his teacher Tim (top right). Tor quickly turned around when he realised that he had a captive audience and then proceeded to work them for the full 5 minutes.