and so this is xmas

As others have put their feelings towards christmas down i shall follow. This has never been a happy time for me, filled with long memories of christmas past. In a previous life that is before we moved up here I had always been in casual labour hire employment. Usually by this time of the year the factories which i had been working in on a regular basis would have closed for christmas and therefore all income would have stopped. Yes I would have had heaps of overtime and therefore lots of money in the bank. but... usually by this time I would have registration on a car, insurance car and contents, plus I knew very well that sometime between 24th dec and 1st jan someone was going to come around and read the power, gas and water meters, therefore no money. So down to centrelink I would go, the hour long drive into geelong full well knowing that my regular job would go back in feb so that we would have money to buy food for christmas. Ahh the bad old days, always bleak. Thankfuly those days are behind us and while yes I have to work through the christmas and new year period I'd rather that than no money and no food for 2 months.

december

It is here again, time to take the kids on that 3 and a half hour trip into the big smoke and look at Myer's pathetic attempt to do a window display to beat melbourne. To ride the train around santa land. Wondering whether i should part with $85 for a smile that would serve as a mormen recruting poster, justifying why they dont do christmas? ahh yes i started doing this when we moved here. So i guess i will have to keep doing it, its all worth it in the end. Maybe no.2 might be able to hop on this year, who knows, the things we do for our kids let me tell you i would not have it any other way. So join me on this adventure the wonderful journey of parenthood.

advent

And this weekend is the start of Advent it is a time where we light a few candles and at the end someone puts the baby in the nativity scene (we catholics put the baby in after it is born, not before like others). Ahh the ignorant bliss i can sit back, stand when told, sit when told, kneel when told, kiss the ring and go home. Right... wrong, you see there is a little thing called Gods plan and what was gods plan? well so far it's meet a hot chick, hot chick gets pregant, children come along and children ask questions. Now the grandparents say that it is so much easier now days, back in our day... blah blah... whinge whinge.. You see you have it easy, all you have to do is google and all the answers are there at your finger tips. And so there 2 coloring sheets were found, so we could start teaching about advent, there are 4 candles and the white one but that does not count till the end. Three are purple, one is pink, the white one which goes in the middle on the 25 dec, this goes around a green wreath. Two purple are lit first, then the pink one on the 3rd week and the final purple one on the 4 week. The white one gets lit on the 25 of december to signify the birth, each candle has a meaning that you are too focus on each week. I would tell you what these were as they were printed on the candles to be coloured in, the problem is it was turned into a paper airoplane and number 2 hid has relocated it to a top secret loction only known to itself, that even james bond may struggle finding. But if you want to know what the meanings are google it.
p.s. we don't kiss the ring anymore, apparently things like coldsores and hep b can remain on the surface of the ring and this is why we don't kiss it. I do not find that one on google by the way, it was told tome by a bishop.

the bee

last Saturday our no1 child performed in her first performance i would say half the island was there to watch the kids preform i knew most of the people there i nearly missed it though lucky they were late starting it must have been a site with me running down the road at 5pm with a baby strapped to my front we both got there at 535pm i would have to say i did not recognise my own child with all the gear on my other half had to point out who my no1 child was how sad for me and that was after the performance when we got home we asked no1 child what was the best part the applause and the bowing at the end maybe a diva in the making let me tell you i will not be making any trips other then to Australia over seas to watch her get a gong like some other brave soles we know

connextions

we recently went on a trip down south to visit family and old friends it was nice to catch up with people that we have not seen for a while it was also good to get off the island and visit Australia taking the kids to the zoo and into town to see the big city and out to the bush and beach of our former home down there took some pics of heads to show liddy what i am talking about sadly it was not displaying its might on that day and looked rather still which will weaken my argument on mother nature fury interesting times were also had at work in my absent and i now thing others now have a understanding of what i do in there so now at least i am ready to be run into the ground again just in time for Xmas yea

lives of the saints

During mass today in order to control my number 1 child's behaviour I decided to start reading a book of saints. Now I realise that I should be sitting dutifully during mass listening to the wonderful sermon but with a hearing impairment (even though i have hearing aids) sometimes the priest can be difficult to hear. Mrs Bean has taken the book of saints off the bookshelf in our pathetic attempts to control number 1's behaviour, this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Therefore, there i was sitting there reading a book of saints and a few of these saints i was reading about have jumped out at me. Before i rattle off those names, I have decided to share some of my personal favourites. One I will start with is saint Robert,this was the saint i chose for my confirmation which is a catholic sacrement that we all have to go through. Robert was a simple man who lived in a monestry, he was friends with a hermit and they would often discuss heavenly mysteries. I still to this day remember sitting in that window with Father Casey bearing over me doing what an irish priest does best telling me it was time to make my decision. The other saints that i like is saint theresa of lisieux, she was a carmelite nun. The other thing that means alot to me is our lady of mt carmel. Getting back to our original topic which was the book i was reading our number 1 child the saint that jumped out at me was saint louise de marillac, saint joachim, saint boniface, saint helen, saint nicholas, saint john nepomucene and finally saint lucy. if you want to know more goggle.

how long will it be?

I came home from the office today to find some of number 1's toys in the sink, which leaves the question, how long will it be before number 1 and number 2 will do the dishes? vaccum the floor? clean the toilet? put out the rubbish? mow the lawn? fetch my slippers? get my paper? hand over the remote? and make my soup? Am i dreaming? Is this all possible? Maybe it is or maybe it isn't but there could be a glimmer of hope as i see that number 1 was washing some of her toys in the sink. That it could be possible that some of the above tasks could be done by number 1 and 2.
Nah Im just dreaming.