You know,  having these amazing days with all three of my boys home is really making me remember why I love homeschooling.  It will be a little sad to pack Merry & Sam off to school again next week, despite the fact that they both love it.    Some days I wish they didn't love it so much, so we could be having more time like this.  But, I remind myself that it's all about doing what is right for the child in question... and for those two, at least right now... school seems to make them very happy.

We have actually had two weeks of fun... Art gallery visits (see previous post!),  a train trip into the city with Nana to see Ice Age 4 and wander South Bank.

Monday started 2 weeks of school holidays, so I have all three of my hobbits home and wanted to do some fun stuff.  In my last post I shared a few things I have planned, today was to be Sea World.  And then, last night,  the weather turned dicey.. and this morning ... the sky fell. It's still falling.  It's actually predicted to keep falling and finally start letting up on Thursday.  So, mother nature is officially off my christmas card list this year!  

This morning we all got geared up, packed a few snacks and while it had been cloudy all morning,  the rain started almost the minute we got into the car.  So we detoured to the local coffee shop where we had coffee (ok, hot choccies & minicino's for the kids ;) and discussed alternatives.  We could try to book into the planetarium, but that is iffy without trying to book in advance.. or we could head out to the Ipswich Art Gallery for their Wild Thing exhibit and workshops.  The art gallery won out  :)

Amazingly we got a parking spot just out front, which was great as it was really raining now lol.  They had a rock climbing wall set up .. outside.. lol.  We took a pass on climbing up the wet rock wall, but the cupcake decorating workshop was pretty popular with the boys!   Then we went in and managed to score spots in the balloon animal workshop.. we made dogs hehehe.  The boys were a bit meh! that we didn't get into the one after.. THEY made pirate cutlasses!  *sigh*  Such is life.


It was a fairly popular activity, which I'm sure the rain helped with ;) so we actually had to wait about 10minutes before going upstairs to the children's gallery because they were at capacity.  They had a great 'hill' built in on big corner of the room where the kids could climb, roll down, bounce on these big squishy things, wear costume bits & pieces etc.  Then they got to make their own mini 'wild things' out of paper cups, straws, crepe paper streamers and all sorts of things.

After we got home, some baking was in order so Merry helped me make corndog muffins.. which are entirely gone less than 6hours later!  The weather is supposed to continue along this dreary vein for at least another whole day, so I'm planning a day at home tomorrow.  There may be fort building, movie watching, and popcorn making :)  And probably a bit of mom looking longingly at the wine cabinet before the day is over LOL!

 And I scored a cool little plaster 'paint it yourself' magnet kit at the Reject shop for 5$... the kids spent a couple of hours on the patio painting and having a good old time.  Merry's sun got painted so much, it ended up black.  The end is night people!

 And there were lots of visits to the park and exploring around... and Dad surprised the boys with tennis rackets all around!  So we wandered up to the courts several times to play a bit... Daim & I have the general idea how to play, although neither of us are great... but we just wanted to boys to get the hang of hitting the ball!

Then school went back... and THIS is what happened to Frodo & I  on the way to his first Spanish in the park session of the term!  UGH!  The car died... on a hill... on a busy street.  Poor Frodo was bored to death for the entire 2 hours it took the tow truck to get to us (apparently Mondays are a bad day to need a tow, apparently 'people' wait till Monday to have their car towed to the mechanic... I must just have a great mechanic, I can have it towed to him anytime and just leave a msg to please have a peek at it :)
 We got towed to Larry's Pitstop (Larry is a legend!) and he had it fixed and on the road again in under half an hour... FREE of charge.  Larry and his wife have earned themselves a case of vino for being so awesome.  (we sorta have 5 cases sitting around ... hubby's employers give us a case about once a month lol)
 Since our day was shot... we decided to bake cookies!   Frodo did almost all the work, including the using of the mixer @@.  Yeah there was a bit of mess lol but he had fun...

Today we christened our family gift by going to Movie World and getting our seasons passes made :)  It's about a 40minute drive from us and by the time we arrived the boys were beside themselves!   It was not too bad, crowd-wise, in the morning, but got a bit much after lunch time.  We arrived and took a wander down Main Street around 10am to find THIS coming up behind us!   Some evil villains were up to no good, attempting to wrangle a young lady into their clutches when the Caped Crusader himself rocked up on his very spiffy looking Batmobile to save the day.  There was a mock battle, just like in the movies, and in the end the damsel was saved by Batman and he rode off  into the sunset.

Frodo did not care for the rather loud Batman music playing, but thought the scene was cool... while Merry lost the plot and burst out in tears.   I think he actually thought it was a real fight and that someone got hurt.  So we sat down outside the Harry Potter shop (which looks JUST like a shop out of Diagon Alley) and explained to him that it was all pretend, just like watching a movie.... took him a few minutes but he perked up.

 On our way to the Kids Zone we passed THIS very evil shop!   Thankfully it was NOT open yet! lol
 On arrival in Kids Zone, Merry & Sam went on the Tijuana Taxi's, who's patron was Speedy Gonzales.  These taxi's were not terribly speedy though lol... but once he got the hang of it, Merry did quite well.  Sam sped past  before I could snap a pic of him (he must've gotten the fast car :P)
 While waiting for Dad & Merry to come back from the Yosemite Sam train ride, Frodo & Sam hung out with Taz for a bit and we had some fruit & cold drinks in the shade.  The boys all had a go on the bumper cars and thought it was great fun.  I noticed a pattern... Merry cops the poops about getting on every single thing, there are tears, he rides and has a blast... then wants to go again after LOL.
 Then we went back to Main Street to watch the Looney Toons Rock n Roll show, which included Bugs, some 'girl rabbit', Daffy, and Tweety...  Good fun!

 Hubby went off with the Teen, who was unable to ride the Superman Escape roller coaster without someone to hold his hat,glasses,wallet etc... and took Frodo with him.  This left Sam, Merry & I to our own devices.  We checked out the Kids Zone, but it was 1230 at this point and omg where did all these PEOPLE come from??  The lines were absurd so we went exploring the rest of the park.  We wandered down the little replica China Town, and then meandered over to the Wild West part of the park.  This was SO cool :)  There is a little old west style main street with decked walkways and fake shop fronts (nice shady spots to sit for a cold drink & a rest).   Sam & Merry thought Boot Hill cemetary was entertaining... I have weird kids ;)

Sadly we did NOT get to ride the Wild West Adventure, because while we waited for the rest of the crew, the line went from fairly short, to positively ginormous!  We did watch a half dozen logs full 'o people go splashing down though, and Sam is adamant that he MUST ride this next time :)

Such is the beauty of season passes,  from now until June 30 we shall regularly darken the doorsteps of the theme parks.  We are testing out Wet n Wild on New Years eve, as they have a special evening for littlies.  Free activities included with admission, and a movie at 7pm (Smurfs.. but I shall persevere) and they bump the clock at 5pm so the kids can enjoy ringing in the New Year at 9pm :D

Aside from that, Merry & Frodo and I went on a special park day with some home school friends, both old and new :) and had a blast.  Merry was incredibly water logged by the time we were done!  Frodo was rather shy & reserved most of the day, but given the crap treatment he's recieved from kids at school, me & the other mums were very understanding of his reticence!  We've signed on for classes starting in February with them though, so hopefully he relaxes and enjoys it :)
 The first week of holidays we went to the Ipswich Nature Centre, which is an animal park :D   The boys love it, but Merry was quite young last time we went so he really got into it this time!  The first critters we saw were some rather LARGE Goana's... they were about as long as Frodo is tall ( and he's nearing 1.5metres!).  I would have taken photos.. but Mr. Goana was feeling VERY friendly to Mrs. Goana (who didn't seem interested lol) and yeah.. that just doesn't make for blog friendly photography! Next up were the wallaby's and they were much more photogenic :)
 But when Sam stopped, the Emu stopped and stared him straight in the face!  I was pretty glad for that nice tall fence between them.

 And some cool scaly critters! This is a blue tongued lizard (left) and a frill necked lizard (right).  There were also Wombats, which I couldn't get a good pic of due to glare off the glass of their posh air conditioned sleeping dens.... and Bilby's, which are housed in a semi darkened enclosure since they are nocturnal critters.  

 Which catches us up to yesterday, Christmas Eve :)  The grandparents came out as always, for our traditional seafood feast, which was delish.  Frodo was Very pleased with himself as he got to decorate the Pavlova.
 After the boys went to bed, and the grandparents wandered off home, the stockings were .. well, not hung lol but filled at least ;)  We don't do a massive gift fest like so many do these days but the boys were thrilled with their loot.
 A couple of much anticipated wii games were received so there was a little bit of this :)
 And a lot of this (hangin out on the patio)-
 To play with this!  A totally cool little pirate ship water play table.  We don't have a big yard so no pool, and our trampoline is bundled up in the garage.. but this and a slip n slide we can accomodate!   Frodo has had a 2nd bout of tonsillitis, poor kid... and a bad reaction to some penicillin (not allergy, just puky!) he's finally on the road to recovery.
Which is a good thing because the one thing we really did splash out on (pun intended lol) was locals passes to the big 3 amusement parks until June 30, 2012... and we're making the first trip in a few days.  I was a tad worried but I think he'll be through with the first antibiotics and good to go have some fun!

Until then, I'll be spending my time relaxing on the veranda reading my fave book, The Mists of Avalon, on my new Kindle!  Merry Christmas to me :D  And a super wonderful holiday season to you and yours, whatever holiday your family celebrates at this time of year!

Today was the end of two blissful and relaxing (mostly) weeks of school holidays. The boys have mostly enjoyed their time off... we've gone to a couple of awesome parks, they made their own band, spent some time with Nanny &  Grandpa, and their Uncles were over from New Zealand.  On Friday night, we rounded up the Uncles' visit by having dinner at the RSL club near the grandparents house... it was a huge hit with the boys as always.  Sam was quite stoked because we bought them tickets in the raffle of the night, and he won a $50 meat package from the local butcher hehe.  He has requested that Nan pick it up for him, and that she get stuff that would be good for a bbq so they can come help us eat it :)

 Sam was itching to get back to school to see his little mates,  Frodo seemed a bit excited too even!  Yesterday, we spent some sorting out the boys backpacks, finding lunchboxes etc, and getting uniforms set out for today. (An aside, must go buy Sam a zipper pull to put on his school hoodie... a $46 hoodie and he's had it a month... and the zipper pull rips off... awesome quality *scowl* )  Sam & Frodo didn't even complain when we told them that no, they cannot sleep together because it's a school night.  (these boys will happily sleep together, in a single bed, every night if we let them... except it takes them till 9pm to GO to sleep, so we only let them on weekends!) 

I also spent a good portion of the day baking :D   I made blueberry muffins for school snacks, and corn dog muffins for their lunches today.  A corn dog muffin, is just what it sounds like... a corn bread muffin, with chunks of cut up hot dog inside... a tasty treat in the boys' opinions!    I am, unfortunately for the budget, back on the hunt for lunchboxes... our easylunchboxes have not stood up well to Frodo's lack of impulse control *sigh*  He swings his lunch bag around and CRASH onto the concrete it goes... cracking whatever is inside... hopefully he's lucky enough that it has happened AFTER he ate whatever was inside? 

Merry is at his 2nd to last day of preschool today, Thursday is the last day for him.  I'm going to try to find something special for he & I to do together either Friday or Monday of next week  ... and I'm going to try to find some more preschool activities to make up for him, so he can have learning games and fun stuff for our days at home.   I need to give our days a loose structure, otherwise Merry will beg to play the wii ALL DAY LONG, which is not a viable option!   Any suggestions for activities, websites, or printables would be very welcome!! 

With that... I'm off to enjoy the few hours that I have on my own :) 

* my iphone isn't wanting to send pics so that I can post them dangit!  Might try to insert them later IF they come through!*