Winter Break has Arrived

This last week the children finished school for three weeks holiday. Which also means that I have three weeks holiday - YAY!

We always do teachers gifts for Christmas and it is usually something we can do together.  This year we made cinnamon dough ornaments and here is my trusty little elf helping paint and decorate them.

Sami and Eyad helped briefly but by the time I got up and went to get my camera they were gone and onto other more exciting adventures. But not Lulu she would sit and do arts and crafts for hours if she could. 

The support staff (nurse, librarians etc.) and special teachers (art, music etc.) all got a jar of homemade sugar or salt scrub. 

I save our jam jars throughout the year just for this occasion and just as well as we needed 15 of them this year! 

I laminated a pretty label with to and from on one side and the name of the scrub and how to use on the other.  Then I stuck a sticky label on the back with the contents just in case anyone was allergic to any of the ingredients. We took one of the ornaments and used it as a gift tag with a ribbon long enough to make it a tree ornament too. 

For their main teachers I admitted defeat in the "homemade" department and purchased them some lovely candles.

This week Lulu and Sami had their winter concert too. It was gorgeous! Here they are in the morning before we left for school. 

Oh and I have to include a picture of Lulu in her boots for DeeDee and Aunty Sharon to see ;-)

The Winter concert was a great success for the kids and I love the fact that the school live streamed it so it meant my Mum could watch it later in her lounge room with a cuppa! 

Thanks for stopping by ...

A December Catch Up

I really do mean to blog more but somehow time just gets away from me.  Here is a little catch up from the past few weeks. 

Laith was the Ghost of Christmas Future in the Grade 4 / 5 school musical "It's a Dickens of a Christmas". 

It was a wonderful performance and we look forward to getting the DVD to show our family Laith's great performance. He took his role very seriously indeed. 

We made some cinnamon dough ornaments.  Wow how easy were they! We let these dry naturally over three days. My husband ate two thinking they were cookies. I told him not to worry a little bit white glue was not going to kill him after all kids eat paste all the time don't they? 

This weeks job is to decorate them to give away with our Christmas gifts. 

Speaking of winter ... well someone did not flick the switch to change seasons and we are still well up in the 20's each day with no cold weather in sight! Just as well I don't have much in winter clothing. 

I took my girl out for a hot chocolate after a party because she was upset that some of the kids call her Lulu Banana. I still have not quite figured out why but it was a little life lesson and I hope she will remember our chat next time someone throws some names her way. 

Sami, gosh he makes me laugh. I opened my phone photos the other day to find a heap of saved pictures he had created on a Grinch App.

I took a personal day last week and submitted passport renewals for Laith and Sami as the embassy consular official was in town. He briefly looked at their photos and took a second look and asked me if they were twins!  Don't you just love their "no smiling this an Australian passport photo" looks. 

I had to snap a few pictures of the kids last weekend. It was a moment when they were all playing nicely together. 

Eyad thought it was amazing he was holding Thomas the Tank Engine and he could see him on TV too. Too cute. 

Little Eyad has been in the wars this month with colds, coughs, conjunctivitis and now an ear infection. Gosh I feel so guilty about working when he is poorly. 

Finally this afternoon we sat around crafted together. Ah it felt so nice to do something together where the kids were being nice to each other, we chatted, we sang and we created some nice ornaments for the Christmas tree. Eyad's medicine must have kicked in as he was able to sit with us for a good 20 minutes before he remembered he was sick and upset and came back to Mumma's lap! 

The kids wanted to give their stars to their teachers so we wrapped them up with a little note. 

So much is happening this week. Lulu and Sami have their Winter Concert and they all have a great crafty time at the school Winter Wonderland. Wednesday is a noon dismissal and then we start a three week break - YAY! 

Thanks for stopping by ... 

December's Giving Message

It is so easy to get caught up in all the commercialism of Christmas and the receiving of "things". This year I asked the children to reflect on the things we could do together to "give" to others so that we would give back a little of all the receiving I know will be coming our way (errr a certain Auntie will be coming soon!). 

We came up with 24 things we could do that would allow us to give back a little.  We are treating it a little like an Advent Calendar of sorts.

Here are some pictures from two of our giving days. 

We made trays of cookies for staff at school who do so much for us but are not the most recognized publicly.  These were for our cafeteria team, security team, maintenance and gardeners, and accounts teams. 

They are peppermint cookies and this was my first year making them. What a treat they are, I love the little minty explosion you get from the crushed up candy canes. Here is the recipe I followed ...

The Peppermint Cookies , yes mine do not look as nice as theirs! 

I really liked that this was a learning point for the kids about giving unconditionally and not expecting thanks etc as its a "secret" gesture. 

Here is Sami and Lulu writing an anonymous message to them saying Thank You. 

We also did a huge batch of Gingerbread people and put them in a little bag with a thank you note for the bus drivers and monitors.  I followed this recipe with great success. I used molasses instead of golden syrup, oh and I only baked them for exactly 7 minutes and they were "just right".  I love that this dough can keep in the fridge for a long time or you can even freeze it. 

We have fed stray animals, "paid" it forward, been a friend to someone who needs it, donated a heap of toys to the Cubs who sold them to raise money for an orphanage.  Laith stepped out of his comfort zone and helped out on that stall selling the toys, it was a proud Mumma moment.  We have many more still to accomplish but I have to say it has been enjoyable and I do hope we can make this an Al Abri tradition. 

A final note on receiving. Last week I received this gorgeous thank you poster from my son's KG class thanking me for the tent and capes I made for their class. Awww these kids are super sweet! 

Thanks for stopping by ...

Christmas Tree Time

As luck would have it we had a nice long 4 day weekend this past weekend (National Day holidays) and it really felt like a mini break! 

We went bowling on Thursday and this was Eyad's first bowl we were surprised at how well he managed that ball. 

       

Yesterday as everyone so relaxed we pulled out the tree from storage. I am always scared something is going to jump out at me when I open the box as it is stored in a room outside so Ali got great pleasure from scaring me and making me jump out of my skin! The kids thought he was very funny. 

This is Eyad's first Christmas participating in the tree decorating and he embraced it with great enthusiasm. That is until he realised which ones were chocolates and started eating them instead of hanging them much to the other kids horror. 

This year it was Sami's turn to put Santa on top of the tree but as you can see he was not feeling a great deal of trust in his Dad not dropping him. It took him four or five attempts until Santa was dumped and Sami announced it was good enough.  

Eyad is having great fun today trying to "improve" on the tree's decorated beauty ... I hope the novelty wears off soon. 

Thanks for stopping by ... 

P.S. Just as I finished writing this post I noticed Eyad was very quiet so I looked up to see he has managed to fin another chocolate decoration, opened it and it devouring it with great pleasure. Well looks like I am off to move them even further up the tree!