Elfie Escapades 2013 Part 4...

Day 6

After the debacle that occurred on Day 5, we were all wondering how Day 6 would dawn....  Would Elfie still be on strike?  Would this be the end of Elfie as we know it?  Would Alex stay on the nice list?

Well, fortunately for Alex, he really (finally) got the message about his behaviour....  There were moments of course - he is, after all, a 5 year old!  But his efforts were enough for Elfie to put down the placards and fly back to Santa....

We'll never know what he told him - but it seems that again, Elfie got back in the wee hours while everyone was asleep, and needed to have a bit of fun while he passed the time....  And so, he grabbed a pair of Alex's undies, used them as a sling, and made a bit of a swing!

Yep, that little blur hanging from the ceiling fan is Elfie!  He was having a super fun time!

Alex was wondering how he managed to get up there in his undie sling and still turn on the fan!  Gosh Elfie, you're so clever!  Must be his elf magic...  ;)

Day 7

Well...  this could be the BIGGEST prank Elfie has ever pulled....  Mummy is not impressed!!  This morning, I got up and walked out our door to find this....

Those pebbles mark my car spot.... but you might notice that my car is not there... and in the shot above you can see it is out on the street!!

When I got a little closer, and let Alex into the car, this is what we found....

Elfie draped across the steering wheel!!  When I got into the car I found my seat and mirrors had been adjusted, and quite a bit of petrol missing...  It seems Elfie had been joyriding!!!!

Alex and I moved the car back and marched Elfie inside....  Alex is demanding I write a letter to Santa about Elfie's behaviour - I might have to actually.... He's got a little out of control!!

Gosh I wonder what he'll get up to tomorrow!!

Bye for now ;)

Elfie Escapades 2013 Part 3....

This is not the fun post you've come to expect....  Let me rewind a touch - Alex has become a bit of a fashionista!  Every day there is a battle over the shoes he wants to wear (black dress/school type shoes), the pants he wants to wear (jeans - even though we're living in a sub-tropical climate!), and the shirt he wants to wear (dress shirt - button up, with a collar and preferably long sleeves thanks!)

Well, one day after school this week, Mim took him for a nice long swim in the pool - he was a very happy camper and had lots of fun.  But when he came inside, full wardrobe meltdown ensued...  We're talking a good 45 minutes of screeching, throwing himself on the floor and walking around in his underwear (because he wasn't budging and neither was I - hey, is it too much to ask for your son to dress like a normal almost-6 year old?!)  Sadly, this has become all too common in our household - we've told him about the many people across the world who would give anything for a nice, clean tshirt and shorts to wear (let alone a dress shirt!) and unfortunately it's all fallen on deaf ears.  I warned him several times that Elfie was watching and would not be liking what he saw, but he did not take heed.

Unfortunately for Alex the old saying rings true - you reap what you sow.  And the very next morning, Alex woke up to his Elfie on strike.  He was very unhappy indeed with Alex's behaviour....

He wrote Alex a note to tell him that he did not fly home to Santa, because he was upset and did not think Santa would like what he had to report.  He said he must stop throwing these tantrums and be more respectful - he also said he knew Alex could be a very good boy, and so when he could show Elfie his nice side again, the fun would continue....  But until that point, this Elf will stay on his shelf.

Oh dear :(

Elfie Escapades 2013 Part 2....

Day 2

After such a grand entrance, Elfie was a little subdued on the second day (as he was last year too)...  It seems he's missing his cold climate really early on this year, as he enlisted the help of Alex's Hawthorn Bear to throw a bit of 'snow' around in the lounge room.....

They had a great time (evidently) and even built a snow man (out of tissues)...

Hawthorn might have had a spectacular grand final victory this year, but I think he was no match for Elfie...

Day 3

Twister!!!  Not much to say here....  Elfie and Lizzy had fun with the twister board....  Alex was less than impressed at first (he doesn't know what Twister is yet!) but once it was explained to him, he saw the fun in it too :)

Day 4

This one could be pretty close to Elfie's funniest prank yet.....  Alex could not believe it when he woke up and saw that Elfie had PHOTOCOPIED HIS BOTTOM!!  Goodness Elfie.... SO rude!!!  Hahaha...

Tune in for the next installment in the Elfie Escapades, won't you!

Bye for now :)

He's Ba-ack.... Elife Escapades 2013 Part 1...

Yep, you heard it here first....  Our little mate Elfie has returned!  If you're new to the blog, check out his escapades when he came to town last year, starting here :)

There has been much anticipation in our household for the return of our wonderful Christmas Elf - we were so hoping Santa would send him back to us, and he did!!  We've been watching some messages from Santa recently via is Portable North Pole (seriously Parents - if you've never checked this out, I highly recommend it....  Alex thinks Santa is speaking just to him, and dare I say it, it's the best tool for encouraging good behaviour that I have ever seen!! I know... Mother of the Year right here!)...  So anyways, initially Alex was actually on the Naughty list - oh dear!  But he's been trying very hard over the last week or so, and when we watched the new video from Santa a couple of days ago, he confirmed Alex has now worked his way onto the Nice list - hooray!

And with that in mind, Elfie has now arrived to make sure Alex stays on the Nice list - as usual he will use his Elf Magic to fly back to Santa each night and report on Alex's behaviour.  The thing is though, from our experiences last year, Elfie gets back in the wee hours and gets a little bored while he's waiting for us all to wake up.... and it seems he can't help himself... he just likes to create mischief!

So, without further ado, what did our Elfie get up to this morning?  Well, we got up to a big breakfast spread this morning - lots of cereal, bread and spreads.....  With a BIG message to Alex!

And Elfie had cut Crackle out of the Rice Bubbles box and put himself in his place!!  Naughty Elfie!!

He also wrote a letter to Alex...

And the most exciting part of all..... left Alex a microphone that changes his voice so he sounds like an Elf!!

It also plays lots of Christmas songs for him to sing along to in his little Elf voice!  He's has so much fun with it today...  And as you can see, he was very excited to wake up to all this today!

Wonder what Elfie will get up to tomorrow?  We'll have to wait and see....

Bye for now :)

Our newest family member...

Recently my friend Michelle over at Falafel and The Bee wrote a post called Kitty on a Piano – which is a post containing photos about exactly what it says, a kitty on a piano… it was very cute! :)


So anyway, I commented on her post and mentioned that we have a new addition to our family! We weren’t going to do it yet – I was just looking on Gumtree to try to get a price on what ragdoll cats might cost, with the aim of bringing home a furry feline sometime around Christmas for Alex…. And then I came across these photos of Yunie…

Who could resist such a beautiful and seemingly so easy going kitty? She is 2 years old, so she’s not a kitten, but Yunie’s owner was going travelling for an extended period overseas and couldn’t take her. We arranged a time to go and meet her – he had turned down other couples who he felt were not the right fit for her so we were a bit nervous, but she took to us fairly well and he was confident enough in us that he was happy to let us bring her home (actually he was quite sad to let her go, but you know what I mean).

So we brought her home! And now Yunie (aka Yunie-bear, Kitty-Boo, Little Miss Furry Pants or damn cat - dependent on what mischief she is getting up to at the time!) is a member of our family.... and Alex has a new best friend... actually he calls her his (furry) sister :)

He never leaves her alone! She’s a very playful cat, and ALWAYS getting into mischief…. She launches herself at our bedroom doors in the middle of the night with great crashing thuds, followed by a bit of mad scratching and two little furry paws going back and forth under the door at great speed… Very funny, unless it’s 1am and she’s woken you from a sound slumber (which is often the case!)

So anyway, this post is really gonna be about the photos isn’t it – apologies that they are all grainy iPhone pics, but here you go anyway:

Napping with Boofy….

This chair is taken… and that one too….

I wasn’t even looking at the cake boxes, honest…..

I love you tail….

Overall, I’d say she has settled in well and is nice and relaxed in her new home….

Wouldn’t you?

Bye for now ;)

We're dumped :(

Anyone who follows blogs in Google Reader knows that from July 1, Google's decided it's not them, its us!  If you used to find my (like, twice yearly!) posts via Google Reader, please feel free to....

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Bye for now :)

Mid-Year Random Roundup...

Hello friends!!

So, as I'm sure you've come to expect, its been a long time since I've popped into this blog or paid it any attention at all!  I've been thinking about blogging, honestly I have... but life always seems to get in the way :)

So please enjoy this completely random catch up (mostly in grainy iPhone pictures) on the last 6 months!  Warning - this post is positively laden with photos!!!

In January, Alex and I scooted off to Sydney to catch up with family and friends....  We met my completely gorgeous new baby niece, Lily and I was very happy to get LOTS of cuddles :)  Alex loves babies and he was totally smitten - I think the feeling was mutual....

And here's Alex, Ella and Lily chilling out together:

They had such a fun time :)

While I was there I also met my Sydney bestie's gorgeous little boy, Mihalis - isn't he beautiful!!  I was so  busy snatching cuddles, that I completely forgot to take a photo!!  Fortunately, at a catch up with my old school buddies, my friend Faith shot this little gem:

And while I'm at it, here's a photo with some of my old school buddies and all our kids (its fortunate that photos don't have sound, as Alex was in full meltdown after poking himself in the eye with a pipe, hence his back being turned to the camera... and I'm pretty sure Mihalis was crying too - although his sweet little baby cries would be totally eclipsed, so intense was Alex's hysteria!)



Due to extreme weather in Queensland, we were unable to fly back on our booked flight and Alex actually missed his first day of School!  After a call to the School we were all good to go for the following day though, so here he is all ready to go on his first day...  doesn't he look so grown up?

And his first day in his new sports uniform:

While we were in Sydney, Boofy painted our master bedroom with my chosen colour (which I finally decided on - you can read about my painting paralysis here!)  Just for a refresher, here's what it looked like at that time:

And after the paint job in my chosen gray, it was very bare still, but we'd made progress none the less!!  (Changes have happened since then though, so I'll try to write more on that soon!)



For Easter this year, I really wanted to do a bit of decorating (having still not come to terms with putting the Christmas decorations away - boo!!!) - so Alex and I got busy with some little eggs I'd bought post-Easter last year on sale....  these ones are my favourite:





And since this is a completely separate room, we broke out a different colour scheme in this one:







But my ultimate favourites were these cute little nests....  they look so real!!

Around this time also I got a hurried call at work from a respiratory specialist Boofy had been seeing - he'd done a routine blood test a few days earlier as part of a 6 month post check up from his hospital visit last year - and the Pathologist had picked up that he had dangerously low salt levels.  The Specialist told me he needed to be taken to hospital immediately, and that he was in danger of seizures and fatality....  (I nearly had my own fatality to deal with at that point!)  So off to hospital we went - they took him off all medication and broke it all down, they thought he may have been misdiagnosed for an unusual condition 10 years ago... and on it went.  Boofy was in bad shape during his visit, and I don't mind telling you I was very worried:

It turned out he was correctly diagnosed, but over medicated - this had caused his low salt levels...  So the stint in hospital regulated it all again and he was cleared to come home.  This then prompted some fairly hilarious doctor and patient exchanges in our household, whereby Boofy was informed his xrays showed "he has a slow heart beat and his bones have turned black.... he's going to need an operation and lots of needles"....  Poor Boofy - as if he hadn't been through enough!!!  Hahaha...

Somewhere in between all this, Alex had his first ever school holidays... which of course means a sleepover with his besties!  To keep the kids occupied, I went all MacGyver and made them this marble race track out of old pool noodles and an empty beer carton:

They loved it!!

Boofy also had a birthday - Alex, in his wisdom, decided Daddy needed a stick on beard and mo for his birthday....  he actually chose this himself...  so hilarious!  (He wanted to stick it on Daddy while he was sleeping so he woke up with it, but I managed to talk him out of that!)

And Alex and I made a trip to Seaworld:





I completely cleared and replanted the vege garden (AGAIN!!!) in preparation for the Winter garden....

....unfortunately only to nearly break by back a few short weeks later removing dreaded nut grass that had actually pushed up through the wet newspaper I'd topped the bed with.... sooo frustrating!!!  Oh well....  It looks a bit different to this now - I'll try to post some more up to date pics soon.

A month or two back I also decided something else needed completely clearing too... so after a couple of years of having long hair, I hacked it all off again.....

....and went for a shorter style (its a lot shorter in the back than the front):



With my 40th Birthday Party imminent, we got a lot done around the house, and I finally fulfilled my dream of a pergola ceiling covered in a sea of fairy lights.... It started out like everyone's worst Christmas nightmare:



And I couldn't even tell you how many minor electric shocks I got during this process, but it was worth it in the end.... that is 150 metres of fairly lights right there!!  Quite a feat for Boofy and I if we do say so ourselves!!

The day before my party (of course!) was the book character parade at Alex's school....  There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on what he would go as, but in the end he decided on Harry Potter (he was one of about thirty on the day!! Haha)....  I bought the glasses and robe from the Harry Potter shop at Movie World (thank goodness for season passes - which meant I could just pop through the gates on my way home one day, dash in and dash out!)  I picked up the tie in our local Op Shop for $2, and the white shirt was one he already had.  The wand was all hand made by myself and Alex - and I LOVED how it turned out (we made three at a time)....  I got the idea from the very talented Michelle at Falafel and The Bee, and you can see her tutorial here....  Check out my little Harry:

And our marvellous wands...

He also went as Harry to my fancy dress birthday party the next day (the shirt with vest was the same as the one he wore to his Baptism back here....  I bought two sizes at the time and the larger one fits him now!  The glasses were also noticeably more lopsided than the day before....) Here he and I are on the night - I was dressed up as Eddy from Absolutely Fabulous (more party photos to come soon):

So there you go!  A bit of a random roundup of what's been happening since I 'saw' you last...  hope you enjoyed it!

Bye for now :)