Santaland 08!

Tor appreciates that Christmas is Jesus' birthday. He understands the art form of crafting a letter to Santa and looks forward to the jolly fellow leaving a sack of goodies. But then there is the Santa Express. Constructed each November by the Melbourne Myer store, its bright lights, enticing tunnel and mock steam train are enough to make our 3 year old hyperventalate with excitement.

Alison's nerves managed three visits to Santaland this year. For as every Melbournian mother knows, along with the train comes the general public in increasing quantities and with increasingly less patience as the festive season progresses. And so when it occured to her on 23 December that she must explain the immenent departure of the train for another year, she gritted her teeth, feigned an enthusiastic smile and agreed to one last visit.

We survived, visiting Santa and emerging together with our plastic keyring well satisfied.

Mini Maestros?

Here are some shots of Tor and his classmate Tabitha at their end of year music concert. Always an enthusiastic class participant, Tor had proved an excellent solo performer at last year's concert. Parental expections were high. And so we were suprised when Tor chose to stand still for the first concert item and to lie down for the second before jumping to his feet and participating actively in the finale! You just never can tell with kids!!!

For us the concert was the culmination of two years of musical fun. Together with his classmates and teacher Tim we've shaken a lot of maraccas, tapped many claves and danced up a storm. But with 3 year old kindergarten starting next year its time to hang up our ribbon sticks. There just isn't enough hours in this kid's day!

Tor pictured during the second and third items together with Alison, classmate Tabitha and her mum Angela.

Taking the cake...

When it comes to 'helping' at birthday parties my aunty Julie takes the cake. Yes, she discusses, designs and brings along a theme coordinated/made-to-exact-specification birthday cake. And so come October when my three year old 'Wiggles' party loomed on the horizon and mummy received my request for an 'electric-guitar-cake-just-like-Murray-pleeeeaassssee!!!!' she reached straight for the handset and dialled S P R I G G S H E L P.

And what a phone number it is. Not only did aunty Julie bake up a beauty but her personal connection with Dorothy the Dinosaur brought a very special visitor to my party. Dorothy was kissed and cuddled, teased and tormented as only we three year olds can. Julie's girls (my cousins) Zoe and Gabi also deserve heaps of kudos for arriving in their own purpose-built big red car. Now quite the feature of our living area its here to stay a wee while yet.

With so much fun about the house it was easy to forget the sleet and gale-force winds which caused mummy to relocate our party from park to house. Much as she had dreamed of a sunny day with children frolicing about the park with helium-filled balloons, the state-wide SES warning was brutally blunt in facilitating a re-think to an indoor venue.



And so you can see we had a lot of fun. That funny person in some of the shots is daddy. Cupcake the clown also dropped by to work some magic tricks, paint faces and tie balloons in more ways than mummy thought possible. We all had a great time. Thanks to those who were part of it and especially my very very very helpful aunty.

Toot toot!

Visiting Grandad is always fun. Wagga's wildlife park has kangaroos and there's no strict limit on icecream after dinner. But just when you thought it couldn't get better the Wagga minature railway fanatics (or 'society' as they possibly call themselves) held a family fun day. With more trains circling the tracks than the Sodor Railway Company, our toot-train junkie was in heaven.

Rides were long, packed with thrills and at $2 a ticket represented fair-dinkum country value. Very very very unfortnatelyAlison's shoes did not meet safety requirement standards, requiring Grandad to accompany Tor on some half hour of train rides.

Pictured on board a train together and riding 'Strawberry' the pony afterwards.