It's handy being married to a g33k...... (Who I love to bits!)

So, for Christmas - I had to order my own present... I got a Metal DDR mat on ebay - sent out from the States ($379.99AUD - which included freight to Australia... Yay!!!)

I didn't bother wrapping it - it's HUGE - and I refuse to do everything... it plugs into PS2, PS3, Wii, XBox 360 and Computer.... so we tried getting the Wii game for it - and honestly, it sucks....

So, being married to a g33k... Rob built me a computer to put in the gym - with DDR on it (Dance Dance Revolution) - he's also put Media Portal - incase I want to watch TV or my shows while I'm gymming..... and he bought me a 32" LCD TV to go with it.....

You'll have to excuse how it currently looks, as you'd be aware - we're still in the middle of millions of renovations - so nothing has been set to places yet... Rob's bought a wall mount for the TV - but we have to work out how the rest of it is going to go before we fix anything to anything.... for now - it can stay on the bench where it's safe...

The idea behind all of this is that next year - Blake will be at daycare with Jade.. so I'll have 2hrs per day (Tue-Fri) - where I'm kid-free.... I was hoping to join up a gym and start doing my pump and step classes in that time.....

It's all well and good to say that the gyms have care in the afternoons so that I could put Jade and Blake in there and go do my gymming, but it's not realistic... I've got to have the kids home by 5pm so that I can feed them and get them off to bed by 6:30pm... and going to a 6:30pm class would be all well and good if Rob were a 9 to 5 worker....

But, he's not... and this is how we have to work around the solution...

(Have had heaps of people try to suggest ways that I can get out and do the exercise that I want to do, but none of them seem to stop to think about how unrealistic that is in my situation... I don't have a normal situation... so we don't have a normal solution.... but I'm happy with my life.. and at the end of the day - that's what matters!)

Presents from Grandma

While Blake had his afternoon sleep today - I used the break to put together the storage items for the kids from Grandma... (jade had been bugging me all day to make her tinkerbell bench)

Blake's 9 storage shelving system....

(I love this! so much room!)

and what little girl wouldn't kill for a Tinkerbell Bench with storage?

Jade went and filled all of her boxes with various toys - including Blake's Thomas Trains....

When I said to her that she should put HER toys in there and not BLAKE's - she said

"Oh, he doesn't mind sharing his toys with me!" she's so cute!

And before it was dinner time - Jade and I went to play on the trampoline.... and I can still do my back flips..... I'm gonna be sore in the morning I think!

Tooth #11!!!!

We have another tooth - #11 popped through this afternoon.... Bottom Left Molar.... explains the grumpy :)

Dance Puggle Dance......

((Video))

This is what Blake's spent the last couple of weeks doing, going up to Santa - pressing his button and dancing..... unfortunately he didn't do it for very long for video - hopefully he'll do it more down the track and I can get a better video....

Christmas Afternoon.....

Mom messaged about 3:50 to say that Blake had woken from his sleep - so we headed back around to have another swim with the kids before bringing them home for the night... both in bed a little later than their usual bedtime - but that's to be expected on Christmas Day right?

This is what it looks like when you try to strangle your mother!

"Off with your goggles!"

A worn out little puggle....

Then, it was time to have the desserts that I'd made, the plan was to get them out of the containers and decorate them, but they wouldn't budge from the containers - so we redesigned... it still seemed to work ok... plan for next year is to find better moulds.....

Anyway, they still tasted the same!

The lighter bits you can see on the chocolate is where the ice magic had set already.. the others were still trying to set....

Showing Mom the features on the new camera we got them for Christmas....

Back at home.....

Looks like the Trampoline is a hit with Greg'n'Meg too....

Kids are asleep... I'm absolutely worn out. So, I'm going to go and watch the Jonathan Creek DVD's that Angela got me for Christmas and go to sleep :)

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Christmas Lunch.....

After Blake woke from his morning sleep, we headed around to Mom and Dad's place to do presents and Lunch there.....

After we'd done all the presents under the tree - Mom said "Jade, come and see what Santa left in the back yard for you and Blake!" - - - a swing set... it's fantastic... they both love it.... it'll come up to our place once we've got our gate.. har har! (First week in November it was promised, so I'm assuming we may have it by June!)

We eventually convinced Jade to go for a swim... apparently not wanting her big brothers to watch her swimming, we managed to convince her.... - then as you can imagine - it was a drama to get her out of the pool, luckily we can leave her in there on her own these days.... aren't kids fun??

Looks like Rob was trying to teach her to do handstands...

Kisses for Dad

Blake was trying to get himself into the pool area.... his head is too big! :)

Mat

you can see Greg is sms'ing... AGAIN... he spent the entire morning on the phone sms'ing.... he did at least stop to eat lunch....

After lunch, we brought the boys home with us, Blake had already gone down for a sleep at Mom and Dad's place - and Jade decided to stay there to spend the afternoon with Mom and Dad...

I'm supposed to be sleeping right now, but I figured I'd get the blogging done! :)

There's ironing to be done - and I keep wondering if I should just do that now too... but everyone is saying it's not the done thing on Christmas.....

Christmas Morning.....

Last night before putting Jade to bed, she'd mentioned that she was going to wait up for Santa.... and I told her that she couldn't wait up for Santa or he'd go shy and wouldn't deliver her presents.... so this morning, I don't think she was daring to come out of her room - even after Blake went in to wake her up....

I went in and she said "has he been and left presents yet???" and I said "yup, there are presents there" - and she said "can I come out now???"

SO CUTE!!!

We let Jade open her stocking - and let Blake empty his.... but we told them they'd have to wait to open presents because it was still early and the boys weren't up yet.....

So we decided to show Jade hers and Blake's big present....

(You'll have to excuse ME in the video... I was hoping to not be filmed...)

I was a bit concerned that Blake wasn't going to be too happy being on the Trampoline - he doesn't particularly like the Jumping Castle... but he did enjoy it while Jade wasn't bouncing right by him....

Unfortunately, thanks to the good folk at Australia Post doing their strike thing - the presents for Rob, Mat and Greg didn't arrive... luckily they had other things under the tree... and hopefully the other stuff arrives before Mat flies back on Tuesday..... (ok, so there's NO chance of that - I hadn't thought about it before today... grrr... even more annoyed now!)

Christmas Eve.....

Trying to convince Jade to go to bed early on Christmas Eve is now a challange..... well not early, just - on time would have been nice.... didn't manage to get her to bed til 7:30pm... and after having two disrupted sleeps for the previous nights.. (as much as SHE loved her slumber parties) - I was hoping she was going to WANT to go to bed early and crash.... but no.. :)

I had just got Jade settled down - and was about to go out of the room when she said "we didn't put out the mince pies for Santa"

(the reason for mince pies this year is that I simply haven't had a chance to cook more shortbread... plus it never stays long enough in the house to have some left for Santa.... Santa has been eating it as soon as it's cooked this year!!!)

So, we had to go and put the mince pies under the tree... Jade was so excited this morning to come out and see just empty mince pie tins - and no mince pies

"He ate them all so that he can get fat!!!"

While all this was happening, Rob, Mat, Greg & Frank were busy in the back yard building the trampoline that we got for the kids.....

Of course, once it was put together - I *HAD* to test it out!!!

Yup - it's fine!

Then the boys continued with putting it together - safety nets and pads....

Greg wanted to test the safety equipment apparently!

Did you know you can SMS and jump? well - you can!

yup yup - still sms'ing...

At about 10pm - I decided that Jade had been asleep long enough that it was safe to start getting everything set up....

The kids Santa Stockings.....

Everything was finished and set up by 11pm - then it was time to try to get some sleep before the kids woke... and Blake decided 4:30am was a good time to get up......

What more can she get from school?

Last week we had an outbreak of school sores.... this week..... Nits!

Poor Jade!

She was very excited about her green shower cap though!

Marina with Xander, Kate, Mitch & Lachlan....

After dropping Jade and Blake at daycare today, I still had Xander for some time before Damian was ready to pick him up to head up to Rocky to see his Mum and his baby brother....

I arranged to meet up with Kate and her boys at the park...

We had a great time at the park and had to leave to pick Mat up at the airport as he was flying in at 9:55am.... he landed late (around 10:10 - so we decided to hang around for Rob who was due to land at 10:55am.... who also (as it turns out) landed late - arriving at 11:15 or so....)

(There's more to blog from today - but I'm just too tired to try to do it now... it's nearly 11pm - and the kids will be up at 5am... (as well as the fact that Blake will probably be up at some stage during the night - given he didn't sleep well at daycare again)).