The Easter Weekend.

Our Easter weekend was lopsided.  We had 5 social engagements in the first 2 days and then 2 much quieter days.  This turned out to be a blessing, because the 5-parties-in-2-days scenario was so much fun as to be exhausting.

Good Friday started with a hot-cross-bun party, then lunch at Astrid's house, followed by a family party to celebrate my Dad's recent victory in the Australian Science vs the Wi-Fi Thieves legal battle.  It was so busy that I forgot to take any photos.

Easter Saturday was family lunch with the Fixits.  See all that chocolate being handed out below?  None of it was for me.  Fixit's family assume because I am slender that I do not like chocolate, and nothing I say dissuades them.  Also, Mister Fixit never ever buys me an Easter egg.  If it hadn't been for Nell and another friend Mr Quiet, I would have been totally dependent on sneaking 'spare' eggs from my 'hunts and emergency present' stash.



A Fixit family lunch is always a massive meal, so I was unable to eat anything at the second engagement, Pizza in the Park with the Mothers Group.  Fixit and the kids were not such wimps though.



Now that Daylight Saving is ended, the kids were delighted to be out late enough to see some Possums.



Easter Sunday was mostly just us.  The boys left out baskits I mean baskets for the Easter Bunny, who did not disappoint them.



... and then I organised an egg hunt with clues for the boys. 







We also received visits, and Easter eggs, from Mr Quiet and from Nell, bringing the official level of chocolate in the house up to "obscene".  The boys are courageously working their way through it.

Another Year, another Toy Fair

A week after the last public performance, the Tap Kids and I were once again stomping it out in the open air for a good cause. Here's the link to the photos if you like.  And here's some live footage of a couple of dances.

 Apart from the usual aceness, the only things to report here are...

1. that the boards were VERY slippery (forgot to wash them with softdrink & detergent) but hardly anyone fell over.  There's a slightly concentrating look to our movement and faces because of this.
2. that (as always happens at this particular gig) a small child from the audience endangered itself, and us, by running across the boards during a dance.  I swear every year I always catch the same expression on the guardian of the pitch-invading child - one of gentle amusement at small child's cuteness / willingness to join in, and no concept of how this might inconvenience the performers.  I believe this year it was left to me to shepherd the child off stage, rather than her being grabbed by an embarrassed carer, but maybe I've remembered that wrong.
3. that my children scored rather well at the post-show prowl round the second-hand toy stalls.  Possibly the best item was a dvd copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I've put off letting the kids watch this as I thought (rightly) that there was a lot of violence in it, but they seem old enough now to accept it as fantasy (I'm not sure if this is a good thing) and needed no more than an adult presence in the room with them as they watched it.  I went to provide emotional support to them when the face-melty bits started but was reassured they were both fine.  (This in stark contrast to how stressed they got that night when I read a chapter from the very old-fashioned and wholesome book The Picts & The Martyrs -one of the books in the Swallows & Amazons series- where Dick and Dorothea almost get caught by the Great Aunt breaking into Beckfoot to get Timothy's chemical equipment.)  Anyway, the next morning, Cherub woke up and informed both Fixit and me that he was now officially obsessed with Indiana Jones.

Grade 3 Concert

Here you go, lots of photos of adorable children wearing rompers, including Cherub in his obligatory pre-show photo, featuring Action Pose.



The theme of the Grade 3/4 Concert was "School Days".  I think it was the best concert I've seen at our school.  Not a dud number or low point to be found.  The kids were absolutely shining with energy and joy. They sang and danced with this gorgeous mix of purity and gusto.  If you're the soppy type like me, you would have had a happy tear in your eye, even as you laughed at their antics.  Especially when they sang the finale: Cat Stevens' Remember The Days of the Old Schoolyard.



Cherub's class were doing The Playground.  Their two numbers were Get Ready (not a song I was familiar with, but rather catchy) ...

 
  
 ... and The Clapping Song (3,6,9 the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line) ...



... which included some playground activity where Cherub and his friend were completely hilarious and surprisingly competent with their hoola hooping.



Cherub and his bestie were on a high for the entire evening, and deservedly so.  We took them, as per tradition, for an after-show treat.



Mmm, gelati!

A Year of Lasts, Part I

This year is Climber's last year of Primary School.  (That's how long this blog has been going, he'd just started Prep the year I began blogging!  Here's a little reminisce, aww.)  Today we received the form for nominating his secondary school preferences. I can't believe we've come to that in so short a time. High School! How can that be?

Anyway. Being, as I am, the sort of person who is bad at letting go, I am really noticing how this is a year of lasts.  We just finished his last ever Term 1 at primary school.  He's had his last ever primary school School Camp.  He has had his last ever primary school School Photo, and Cherub and he won't be doing a sibling photo for another 4 years. *sniffle*



He has also had his last ever Carnevale Parade.  Climber has never been as keen on dressing up as Cherub, but he quite likes it and would happily join in; except that, his little posse of friends seem convinced that dressing up at school in front of everyone else would be the Most Embarrassing Thing Ever to happen, ever.  Never mind that everyone else is dressed up too.  They were never going to be up for the Grade 6 tradition of dressing as a girl for the parade, as some of the more socially confident boys did to great effect. So this year Climber did say maybe I won't dress up? possibly under influence from his peer group, who sure enough walked round the parade ground in their civvies.  But when I pointed out to Climber that he needn't go over the top - a mask and a cape would do, and wouldn't be flamboyant or anything - and that it was his last ever Carnevale, he cheerfully agreed to rummage through the dress-up basket and find something suitable.



Meanwhile, his little brother, who likes to put together a Look, decided on a Black Caviar mask, a pirate eyepatch to go over the top, a black hat, a cape with silver bats and the master touch, a pair of green gloves.



Later, he kindly loaned one of his gloves to his best friend, who had felt inadequate wearing just the mask and nothing else.