Silly Season

Even by our standards, last weekend was a bit mad. Jossie, Toby and Andrew all had Christmas parties on Friday night. On Saturday, in between dropping kids at birthday parties, friends' houses and picking up friends, we did some Christmas shopping (it's a relief to see that coming under control). On Saturday night I had seven women (plus Joss and her friend Hannah) making Christmas tags. During the afternoon I had thought that I might prefer to curl up with the new Sense and Sensibility on my laptop but ended up having so much fun stamping.

On Sunday morning all three congregations of our church went to the Multi-purpose Centre at the school to celebrate our 75th anniversary. We had lunch together afterwards and watched the scary weather roll in. Thankfully, the decision had been made on Friday night to move the Inter-Church Council's Carols in the Park to the school. I spent a fair bit of the afternoon sound checking and running through the performers' biographies and the run sheet as I was hosting the event with Benjamin Shuhyta who is a journalist on our local Prime News. I do a fair bit of MC work at the library and church but this was by far my biggest gig! Here is a very dark picture of me on stage. Next stop Carols in the Domain.

It was a bit rough on the kids to get up for school after a late night at the carols and it was followed by the Junior School Musical and Presentation Night. The musical is called A Creepy Crawly Christmas. I have only a vague idea what it was about because the sound wasn't brilliant and I couldn't understand any of the lyrics. I took Bethany up to her classroom beforehand and helped her get dressed. The costumes were outstanding.

Not exactly camera shy, all the lady beetles wanted their photo taken. I was really just humouring them and took this without waiting for proper smiles and lots didn't fit in. Things started to get a bit hairy when they all demanded to see the photo and find themselves. Luckily, they were called together to head down to the show before I got hurt.

This is the whole Junior School dressed as insects.

As usual, Bethany put her heart and soul into her dance and was a delight to watch. We were (obviously) too far back for good photography. We were also too far back for proper identification. We took lots of photos of this boy on the right and watched him very closely, only to discover that Toby was in a different costume all together and hadn't appeared yet. It didn't even twig that this boy had a broken arm!

Toby is in the group of dragonflies below and had the misfortune of breaking a wing which he then had to hold up with one arm. He kept looking at his friends and shaking his head as he did the dance with only one arm. We think he coped very well under the circumstances.

When the musical was over the award giving began. They give one to all students in the Junior School. Bethany got hers for excellent story telling.

Toby got his for a caring attitude and excellent achievement in mathematics and spelling. That's him with the glasses on, next to the very large caterpillar.

Tuesday night was Jossie's Presentation Night. They don't all get awards but Jossie got one for academic excellence in English, Mathematics and Human Society in Its Environment. We decided not to keep Bethany up for another late night, so she and I stayed home. I finished making the teachers' presents. Little boxes filled with Christmas tags. Jossie's teacher got a cake because she doesn't cook and is a coeliac so doesn't get good cake very often! Belinda Jeffrey's buttery almond and coconut cake is the best! Not that I even licked the spoon because I have ceased to eat sugar (really! It's not that hard).

That brings us to today, the last day of school. The children are now on holidays. There were floods of tears when I arrived to pick them up as Jossie said good-bye to her friends. They are all going to the movies together tomorrow but won't go to school together anymore so it was very sad.

We are having a nice, quiet evening at home this evening. Tomorrow night is the piano concert - Bethany's first!