Excitement!

I just got an email saying that there is a super awesome parcel on it's way to me!  Do you want to know what the best bit for you is?  It's for a FANTASTIC GIVE AWAY!

But that's all I'm telling you right now.

So, what else has been going on around here in my bloggy quietness?  Lots.  That is partly to blame for the quietness.  It's been a busy two terms at school and last holidays we were so busy with endless invitations to here and there that we didn't get much of a break.  Now we are in our second week of these holidays and I am feeling refreshed and ready to face the final chaotic term of school.  I made a purposeful decision to stay home a lot these holidays.  As much as possible to do things that included all of the kids and to spend lots of time just being together.

But, leading up to the holidays we did have a little bit of fun...

Lion's school does a school concert every second year and in the other year the do something on a much smaller scale.  This year they presented a Food & Dance Fiesta!  Each year level presented a dance and there was all sorts of food for sale and the year levels all manned stalls selling different things.  The year ones all had to bring in cupcakes to be sold at their stall which was a raging success.  Lion's class danced to "boot scootin' baby".  I was thrilled when the classes came out in lines and Lion was right at the front down the end where I was standing (I had Monkey in the pram so I could only get to the ends).  Then they decided to do a re-shuffle for some reason... Lion ended up at the back, in the middle, behind some rather tall kids.  I got rare glances of him and managed to get a couple of photos that weren't real good but hey, we got a record of the event.  After the first time through they had to come and get a parent to dance with them.  Unfortunately with Monkey in the pram (against his wishes) and Wolf at work, I couldn't be the one to go and dance with him.  He had taught Dragon some of the moves so I encouraged (bribed with an extra cupcake) Dragon to go and dance with him.  You can imaging how much of that I saw with all the parents of the kids in the front two rows dancing in front of my tiny little boys.  Oh well, I was proud of both of them for getting up there... even if I couldn't see most of it.

We went down to The Strand Ephemera to check out some of the artwork on the day before Father's Day.  The kids had a ball but I was suffering with sinus headaches from a horrid sinus infection that just wont go away.  Some of the art was good... some was just really really poor.  These are two pieces that the kids particularly enjoyed.

Last week (1st week of school holidays) Wolf had the Tuesday off so we took of up the the beach hut for the day with Grannysaurus and Cheetah.  We played in the sand, swam in the ocean, boogy boarded, went to Frosty Mango (Aunty Chimera and Little Bear joined us for that)... we had a generally awesome time.  Not many photos were taken because the photographer was having too much fun!  Mum did grab a few on my camera while I was in the ocean though.

I was so proud of my kids... and Cheetah.  We'll start at the oldest...  Cheetah had never ridden a boogy board before and was struggling to catch a wave.  Even after I explained when to push off.  I had a thought... I don't use the top of the wave to tell when to jump, I use the feeling around my ankles of the water rushing back out to sea as well as the look of the wave...  As the next lot of "big" waves were starting to roll in I quickly explained how waves work and at which point in the waves life you need to push off and all of a sudden he was riding like a pro!

Lion was dumped wave after wave.  He saw a particularly big wave coming and got a gleam in his eye... He caught it and it took him two metres and dumped him.  HARD.  His little head popped up from under the water, he spat mouthfuls of sand and sea water out and looked at me.  I thought he might be about to cry... his little voice spoke up... "that. was. AWESOME".  He grabbed his hat, wrung the water out of it, put it back on his head and took of to find his next wave.

Dragon is usually a one wave boy.  He gets dumped once and that's it.  He's sitting in the shallows and wont try again.  He was dumped over and over and over and he just kept going back for more.

Monkey is also a stick to what he knows kinda kid.  Especially in the ocean.  He got out there and was riding the boards with no one holding on to him (much to mummy's horror), he was jumping waves and pretending to fall over... he had a blast!

So there's a little of what we have been up to.  There's still so much more to share... but not today.  I hope there are still people reading this little old blog... it'd be a shame if there was no one to win the fantastic prize I'll have to give away soon!