Life education

I was really pleased to see that the empty little shop down the road had been leased out. I could see that the new tenant was renovating the inside, and we wondered what kind of shop it would be. And - hooray! - it was not a pizza shop, but a beautician. I will admit to being partial to the odd facial and the like. This was great timing as I have recently abandoned my old beautician (due to poor service) and have been looking around for an alternative.

I was really hoping that they would be good - so convenient to just walk down to the end of the road rather than fussing over bus timetables or car parking or drop-offs etc.

So, I was booked in this morning for a pre-Christmas underarm and bikini line wax. Aidan decided that he wanted to come with me - why not I thought. And thus was Aidan admitted to the inner sanctum of womanhood, a place where few owning Y chromosomes have gone before. He brought his pocket-sized whoopee cushion along too (something no five-year-old boy should be without).

He was quite interested in what was happening (even though he couldn't see much). I took care to tell the beautician that Aidan had brought this toy (because farts during bikini-line waxes are so not the correct etiquette). And yes, regular farty noises were made. But I assure you, it WASN'T ME.

And that was that. All over in fifteen minutes, a good job done and a small discount on the regular price. I had to say whoopee! to that.

(Of course that wasn't the end of the story. Aidan announced during our early Christmas dinner with the in-laws that Mummy went to the beauty shop and got her hair SHAVED OFF HER SKIN under her arms and HERE BY HER GIRL BITS. I really think my BIL wished he had put his fingers in his ears at that point! At least it's the holidays, otherwise it may have been shared with the class for Special News).

Cake and tree - check!

Christmas tree is up and decorated!

















Christmas cake is made. No nuts on top this year, but the three biggest made glace cherry patterns instead.

Chistmas is coming....

My christmas cake is a bit late this year - it's on tomorrow's to do list. A mixture of raisins, sultanas and currants is soaking in sherry on the top of the fridge.

A christmas tree is soaking in water outside.







And the first christmas card has arrived.

The countdown begins!

We were a bit late with the Christmas box this year. It's usually out on 1 December, but Brendon hauled it down from the garage last night while the children were in bed. Aidan found it first just before 6.00 a.m. By breakfast I had heard Silent Night approximately 400 times.

We'll get a tree this weekend, so in the meantime the children have to be content with fossicking around in the decorations, playing the cds and reading the books.

I get the children a new book each Christmas. This year's book is Wombat Divine. Worth buying for the title alone! And when I saw that the author was Mem Fox, that sealed the deal. And the story is really nice too.

Summer in Wellington

Tower

And just in case you thought that the only thing we do with blocks relates to guns or Star Wars (or guns AND Star Wars), Orla's been building towers. This one was for her trains - she's really into the train set at the moment. She was really pleased when she got the quad blocks balanced on their ends so that they made a corner.

More blocks

Aidan started using a single quad block as a gun in dramatic play. He then progressed to attaching octagonal prisms or columns to the quad block as a sight, then constructing types of guns (uzi, shotgun, rifle, pistol etc). And now we have....this rather fine example.








He tried propping it up with an x block, then constructed a slightly more substantial system.