Christmas Festivities

Happy New Year to All.
I am finally getting around to loading up our photos from christmas 2010.
Above is a picture of Sean and I dressed up (high heels and all - a rare occurence!) for his office's christmas party. Off to Catalina at Rose Bay. Very Very Yummy Food!!

We had a lovely time catching up with a few of the Bannon side just before christmas. Aunty Maureen, Uncle Ned, Jodie and the kids Tom & Ellie from Cootamundra were here to visit David & Lucy and family at Lane Cove. Lisa and Graham have moved to Sydney from the UK so we were glad to see Lisa again and meet Graham. Lots of blondies in the family. Above is a picture of the girls making milkshakes with James and Ellie. Next to it is a picture of Archie Thomas Miller growing tall- looking a lot like David!

We had christmas at home for 2010 which was relaxing for us. Megs, Nige and Nate came to visit. Here are the girls on christmas day with some pressies...Elise with Tinkerbell outfit from the Sparrows and Gisele with her baby penguin from Santa. She named it Isla.
We went Clifton Gardens for a christmas day picnic lunch. It was a gorgeous day and as you can see the ice cream truck made a fortune off all the picnickers!! The kids even had a swim.


On boxing day we took the keen shoppers into the city for the Boxing Day Sales...
Nate loves the train and Gisele was keen to take baby Isla for a day out.

Here is my beautiful sister....Choo choo the train goes Choo choo!!

Here is Natey Boy in the cubby - waving with Elise
On the 27 Dec we had a gathering of the Baldwin family (My nanna's family on mum's side) on the Central Coast. The Haysoms were up from Adelaide as Anastasia, Sami and Ella were visiting from Finland) Leonie, Kerry, Kimmie and Grandma Crowe were amazing hosts and we had a huge yummy spread. Gotta love the christmas time and summer time desserts.

Some of the gatherers and soon to say goodbye to Aunty Meg. Don't Go!!

Everyone together and then the girls power - matriachs. I have to say there is a lot of wonderful strong female energy in this family!

Elise's last day at preschool for 2010

Gisele and I went to a morning tea at Elise's preschool today for the christmas party. We had a lovely surprise with an invitation to join their music time and the kids were singing and showing us all they have learnt.

Here is some video of Elise joining in the song "I'm a Little Firefly"

The preschool sent home a CD of photos of Elise at play during the year. They are very sweet and capture the action. I had to share some of them...

1. Singing at the disco 2. Girls on the slippery dip

3. Look what I made 4. Playing Hairdressers

5. Some felt fun 6. Playing the drums

7. A wonderful creature 8. I made a cake

9. Patting the special visiting mouse 10. Moulding clay

11. Here is my painting 12. Her name and a drawing of herself.

Elise has loved her 1st year (apart from the rough few 1st couple of weeks) She has learnt so much. I felt teary today as she said goodbye to some of her friends going off to big school and to some teachers who won't be there next year. I can only imagine how teary I will be at the end of next year and then in 2012 when she starts school!!

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

A busy time of year with lots of festivities. We are enjoying meeting up with people we haven't seen in a while. We had some friends over for brunch recently with the growing bunch of little ones - the youngest Bethany only a few weeks old. Elise and Gisele were bursting for her to wake up so they could have a nurse. Elise is with Alex and Bethany in the picture below.

The girls are not too fond of a live Santa in a shopping centre but they love this mechanical dancing Santa at the fruit shop at Meadowbank (below left) and I get requests to visit him often.

Below is a video of Gisele dancing with mechanical Santa. Every now again she breaks into freestyle then goes back to dancing with Santa again. I have to drag her away she LOVES it!

Below is some pictures of the girls playing cars with Nina for Edmiston christmas we had last Sunday. Nina is walking now and they had a lovely time chasing each other around.

We wish everyone a wonderful festive season! Hope Santa is kind to you. Safe travels and relaxing sleep ins over the holiday period. Looking forward to reduced traffic and less hectic lifestyle over Janurary.

Elise's 4th Birthday

Above is a thank you for Elise's birthday with a slideshow of some photos of some of the games and her cake. Can't believe she is so grown up! Elise had a wonderful time. She has been telling everyone for so long about her birthday and turning 4, she was so excited. Thank you so much for the presents and the well wishes.
Tonight at dinner she said "mum, for my 6 birthday..." She knows she can have a party again when she is 6. Of course we had a great time too but Sean and I need a while to recover!

She got a new bike for her birthday- Tinkerbell, of course and loves riding it to the dog park. We also made her a special fairy garden and she and Gisele go and have a chat to Clarabel (named by Elise) and her friends - so cute!

We have to share a funny photo with you. While I was at the fair trade market yesterday at Manly, Sean was looking after the girls for the day. He couldn't find Gisele. He was looking around the house and calling out to her with no answer. Eventually he spotted her in the kitchen , grinning and very amused with herself, perched up on the side cabinet holding the vase of flowers like an ornament. What a funny chicken!!

Hard to believe it is almost December. I have been super busy with Every Little Girl. It is a peak time for fair trade markets as well as all the fun of pre-christmas catch ups!
Megsy, Nate and Nige are coming to Sydney for christmas so we are looking forward to having them stay with us. Gisele told Meg on the phone today that she and Nate can eat rice cakes when they come to stay....mmm yum yum!

Family Photo

Here are the recent family photos we had taken at Elise's preschool. The girls look very sweet. So rare to get them looking and smiling together.

Nova came along for a photo too- impossible to get her to smile?!
How fast they grow *sigh*!

Long time between posts

Hello,
I haven't blogged for a while as Sean and I have been very busy setting up our online store. A labour of love that has taken a while but been a very enjoyable process. http://www.everylittlegirl.com
Here is a picture of the girls below modelling the felt necklaces for me. These necklaces have been popular and I am sure it is because the girls modelled them so well!!

The local fetes and festivals have been a treat. Getting into the spring spirit. Here is Gisele patting a bunny rabbit with her friend Madeline (looking the otherway) and here is Elise in the kid's ferris wheel. She's a brave girl!

In September we went up to Lake Macquarie for the afternoon to see Natalie, Otis, Reuben and Hugo. We met at Murrays Beach which was a lovely spot and we had a lovely time. Here are the kids wetting their feet.

At the start of the school holidays the girls and I went to Dubbo for a few celebrations. Uncle Mick's birthday. Hip Hip Hooray says Archie. The kids love a birthday cake - don't we all!

Here is everyone at the restaurant for Mick's birthday dinner just before Gisele's memorable big BURP that went everywhere....well we won't talk about that anymore....

It was Aunty Byna's 70th in September in Dubbo so the girls amd I were there for her special afternoon tea.

Little Archie is keen for the hip hip hooray again in this picture!

Sean has been to the USA and back again. Sailing season has started but he hasn't had too much of a sail as yet as there always seems to be something happening. http://www.everylittlegirl.com
Can't believe it is the end of October. I realised I had hardly taken any pictures of the girls this month because I had been so busy. On the countdown to Elise's birthday and christmas now! We plan to stay in Sydney for christmas this year and we will head to Canberra after christmas for the national sailing championship.