Our Graduate

This year, Kees has been going to a family daycare/kindy one day a week. He has a lovely teacher, Miss Tammy, who we will miss very much, as Kees has now "graduated". As a thank you gift, of course I made her some bunting!

The graduation ceremony was quite a do, considering all the kids are five and under! They had to sing. I think I mentioned at the end of last year, at Kees' other kindy graduation, all the kids were dancing except him? At this one, all the kids were singing except him. He is sooo like Matt - painfully self-conscious about public performance (but on the other hand, a great big show-off). I didn't think these things were genetic, but they must be! I actually am scared of singing in front of people, but that's not genetic. That's cause Mum used to tell me to stop singing when I was young and crushed my spirit. Thanks Mum. We were very proud of Kees just for standing up in front of everyone, and our hearts warmed as he would join in for a verse here or there, definitely not singing, but whistling. Love those cute little pursed lips :-o

We are also very proud of Kees. He has been a model student at Tammy's - or so she tells us!

I think this shot about sums up how he felt. I'm guessing, "Can I go and play now?" or "I hope nobody smelt that".

Just one of the sensible parents we associate with...Irish, of course.

Miss Tammy has done such a wonderful job looking after Kees this year. She has really worked hard to create thoughtful activities specially designed for him, one of the great things about teaching just four children. Tammy has worked tirelessly, going above and beyond what is required for the job and we love her for it. Thank you, Miss Tammy!

And can you please take Jimmy soon? Cause he's driving us a bit nuts at the moment...

End of Year Blog Slog

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was busy and happy and I have to admit I can breathe a sigh of relief now that all that fun is over.

Now, I'm going to do my darndest to get all those posts I've been meaning to do this year DONE. By the 31st. So prepare for my blog marathon. There will be stuff that I should have posted months ago and other stuff from this week. So wish me luck as I embark on my

End of Year Blog Slog!

But before we leave Christmas behind completely, I would like to share a Christmas song and dance with you, performed by our family. Click on the link below to see the hidden talent you never knew we had.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/BfwIPfCVOiWcjbu3

(Post Script: Well, I didn't make it by the end of 2011, but I'll get started right now! xo)

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a wonderfully merry and joyful Christmas! Thinking of you all!

Love Cath.

Couch Cuties

Spring Corner

Two Moments

Sigh.

Smile.

Postscript to "Sleep"

I felt my last post about my horrific nights co-sleeping probably needed a little bit of an amendment. I actually love sleeping with my children. Those sweet little warm cuddly bodies are the reason why I keep going. It won't be long till they're lanky, bony, smelly teenagers, so I'm enjoying them now, as much as I can, while they are still deliciously squeezable! (And PS, I can't imagine anything more torturous than actually getting up out of bed every time they woke up!)

Besides, if I wasn't sleeping with Kees, I wouldn't have heard him clearly declare in his slumber, that, "Shit is a naughty word".

And if I wasn't sleeping with Jimmy, I wouldn't get to hear him talking in his sleep. The other night he murmured, "I'm lyin on a hammer". He was lying on his back with his arm stuck under him. xx

(Wompoo Pigeon and chicks - what a lovely mother.)

Chinatown Mornings

One of our nice little family outings is a morning in Chinatown, en route to an afternoon at

Mum and Dad's.

There's a bit of fun for everyone. The kids really like to play on the aggressive motorbike games and touch all the gun toys (yay, guns!) at the market stalls. I love a very rushed glimpse at the markets, before Matt gets fed up with the kids touching everything, and Matt loves the live music and ....

food, glorious food!

Our regular haunts are Thai Wi Rat (off-putting name, I know) and a new Korean place. Yum.

Look at those piggies stuffing their little faces.

It's a really great outing if you love food but your children are a bit naughty - I mean active - because they can run around the mall while you finish your meal. You can pretend you're on a date, and actually have a short conversation with your partner! Until they start trying to catch the goldfish, anyway. Or balance along the waterfall.

We always finish up with a trip to the Asian grocery where we choose a wacky ice-cream and pick up a few supplies. I didn't buy this though:

as I would apply caution before partaking in "savoury and spicy bottom material". Mystifying. Curious. Intriguing.

Loaded up and ready to carry on to our next destination: a little kip at Mum and Dad's. ;0)

"Horses" Unit

Many of you lovely people have been asking me how our homeschooling is going. I am sorry I haven't answered that question very well yet. Sooo, what we have been focussing on is alphabet and early reading, counting and basic sums and then I just try to make our "lessons" as varied as possible. I love to do themed units; I find it helps me to think up fun ideas and I do think the children retain information and experiences better when they are linked in to a theme. A unit lasts between a few days (letter "g", for example) or a few weeks, like this "Horses" unit. The units are based on topics that the children choose or that I think they will find interesting, or that fit into seasonal celebrations. I write up a mind-map of all my ideas then organise them into activities. I collect all the materials we will need and timetable the activities into whatever slots we have available; it might just be ten minutes here or half an hour there, or it might be something more extended.

We actually completed this "Horses" unit ages ago - but you know how it can be hard to get a blog post done sometimes! So, here's the "Horses" wrap-up!

I always begin a major unit with a trip to that wonderful, free resource: the library. Next, I like to start the unit off with something fun, so off we went to visit one of our local horses, with a bag of carrots and a picnic.

Doing this theme gave me a good excuse to sew these little felt horses. I was lucky enough to find the playmat at an op shop. Jimmy loved his golden palomino and enjoyed playing "Mummy Horse and Baby Horse".

Kees found an effective way to keep the carrots in the horses' mouths. Scary. Eat your carrots! Or else!

We attempted some Eric Carle-inspired collage:

We sang "Giddy Up Horsey", "Ride a Cock Horse" and "Horsey, Horsey, Don't You Stop".

There must have been lots of other activities but I've forgotten them now. We visited lots of horses, we did the letter "h" and I know there was a nice meditation about a magical horse that Kees enjoyed.

Anyway, at the end of a unit, I try to do some sort of culminating activity - this time it was a camping trip to our local horseriding property.

And that, my friends, was the "Horses" wrap-up! Stay tuned for "Halloween" and "Pirates".