Almost half way through December already!??

December is whizzing by and again I haven't managed to get onto this blog for a couple of weeks. I am sure I have asked this again and again, but can anyone tell me where the time is going??

On top of the decorating/renovating, which is still going strong, we have been busy with end-of-term/school year/Christmas events at William and Katy's schools, and at Tom's preschool. Tom finishes preschool for good next Wednesday and enjoyed the annual Christmas 'concert' last Friday - the little ones sang songs, we all brought food and there was a special visit from Santa himself. It's funny to think that is the last of nursery events for us as we've been enjoying preschool entertainment for almost eleven years now!!!

Katy and William have both had presentation days to mark the end of year 5 and year 2 respectively. At William's, every child got an award this year which actually seemed a shame as it reduced the meaning of the awards. It was quite amusing to hear the innovative awards given out though - some for things like 'improved classroom self management' (sitting down and shutting up in class?) and 'wonderful visual art displays' (good at colouring in?) William got Citizenship which was at least a 'proper'-sounding award and one he should be proud of! Here he is... not at the ceremony but just a nice recent photo...

The older classes though do get more meaningful awards - Katy's ceremony was full of pomp and circumstance and only 3 children per class (of 28) got awards - one for 'class conduct', one for 'academic', and 'most improved' so we were thrilled when Katy got 'class conduct' for her class. She hadn't known in advance so was rightfully proud and surprised when it was called (again, not a pic of the ceremony or award, but just a nice one of her!)

Katy is now on school holidays and on Saturday she and I went to the Masterchef Live show in Sydney with her best friend, her best friend's Mum, uncle (over visiting from New York) and grandmother! The girls were beyond excited when we told them we'd got tickets, and the day was absolutely wonderful.

The weather was hot and sunny and the stage show was fantastic - we also got to wander around heaps of stalls sampling all sorts of food and wine (every stall was giving out samples so we didn't stop eating or drinking all day!) and were able to meet all the people we recognised from the show. We bought the Masterchef cookbook and had it signed by the three presenters Matt, George and Gary, and the girls were photographed with all the contestants and got their autographs too as we walked around the pavilion.

Katy with Anna, the presenter of Junior Masterchef

It really was a lovely day, and was rounded off superbly by a detour to Balmoral Beach on our way home - by this time it was about 6pm but still lovely and sunny, and the girls couldn't resist a dip in the ocean despite not having their swimming stuff on!!

We returned home to the house to find that Ally and the boys had put up Christmas lights outside the house in our absence, so it was all looking really pretty, and Ally cooked delicious prawns on the barbie that night using a recipe from the new Masterchef cookbook. What a perfect day.

The next day it was time for the boys' treat - a trip to see Sydney FC in action. They headed in to Sydney on the train and had a lovely time at the match, eating chips and returning home 'late' so they could enjoy a late night!! William has not yet broken up for the holidays but does so on Wednesday (he has a class party tomorrow) but we are definitely on wind-down mode already.

Everywhere is looking really festive now, even though of course we don't have the cold snowiness of the traditional Christmas scene to add into the mix. Our tree is up and twinkling and we took the kids on a night wander the other evening to look at all the houses on our road with their impressive outdoor displays. It doesn't get dark here until quite late at the moment so this was an extra treat for the kids as they needed to stay up quite late to see them. Katy has also found a nice festive use for my bunting scraps (and a coathanger!)

The weekend before last I enjoyed an afternoon and night "Christmas Party" in the city with the girls from my bookclub. We met up at lunchtime at the Opera Bar for a long champagne lunch, before heading back to the penthouse apartment (overlooking the harbour) that we had booked for the night.

After our bookclub 'meeting' we enjoyed drinks and nibbles and karoake on the Singstar before heading out for the evening. A beautiful hot night, it was a lot of fun, and we finished the next morning with brunch (my favourite Eggs Benedict) before heading our separate ways (in my case to do a last bit of Christmas shopping - almost all done now...)

What a busy couple of weeks, but absolutely lovely... and it's not getting any less busy what with Christmas just around the corner now... hope you, too are enjoying the festive season everyone!