We’ve got one more day here – and Chris’s conference has finished so it’ll be spent together. Then we’re off to London very early the next morning.

Not me, of course, I was holding onto the girls like the rapture was upon us. Also, fortunately for us the journey was bookended by the discovery that we’re stayingin THE most amazing hotel, on the 15th floor, harbor views. It is described as a ‘budget’ option in all the guidebooks – makes me wonder what would be called ritzy in this town.

It feels like we’re in heaven, perhaps even more so because of the hellish flight. Withoutgoing in to too many details, I thought at least 52 times, “I’ve had ENOUGH!” and then had to suck it up because it was my turn to walk Tess up and down the aisles. But don’t worry, I’m forgetting it already. Especially because I can hear the snuffles subsiding in the next room, two georgeous girls going to sleep on the pull out couch.

It’s 11pm, we’ll all be wrecks tomorrow, but wow, so glad we’re here.

NOTE: I’m writing this on my iPod, apologies for any spelling issues or typos.

We did a bit of crafting this afternoon to celebrate mother’s day. The girls made up some “crown kits” that Granny Jo had sent.

(Yes, I know. Not the best picture. Sometimes trying to get a good shot of two moving preschoolers is hard!)

Also, this week Tess got glasses and Rose got earplugs (making bathtime a lot easier). We’ve found a similar set of trials with getting Tess to wear glasses as there have been with the patching regimen; some good days, some “oh my god it’s only 9.30am” days. But steady, incremental acceptance over a period. She will now happily wear them for about 30 minutes, which is up from 5 minutes earlier in the week. Onward and upward!

But still, she’s super cute (and she knows it!)

Birthdays!

Rose and Tess both had hospital admissions this month

LOTS of craft

Granny Jo came to visit for a few days

Lots of work (Chris is trying to finish a book)

Fun with friends!

And a fair amount of weariness

Her first photo (of my arm)

She took quite a lot of portraits of her family, like this moving one of Tess

Here’s a photo of me, a testimony to a knee-high life

Daddy, which captures his frenetic moving.

There were a serious of photos that were absolutely perplexing. Strange, childlike images of drawings or colours. Until I realised that she was taking photos of the TV.

She took one self-portrait, capturing a knowing look

…and at least 24 photos of her feet, in the car journey on the way to her fourth birthday party

She clearly found the camera too distracting at the party because there was but one, an incredible likeness of J’s grandmother, arriving with a tub full of chocolate crackles

Me: Awesome! What’s your special power?

Rose: Fairygalaba

Me: What does Fairygalaba do?

Rose: I can make other people feel very itchy whenever I want.

I remember that at one point Oliver asked her about “school” (what we call day care) and she said, “I’m going really well at school at the moment.”

Adorable!

I’ve also added some photos of Rose’s 4th birthday party with our other parents group friends. We hired a play centre. It was a rainy day, so the kids pulled their fancy clothes off and ran around in the rain in the nude. It was adorable!  (I only uploaded internet-safe pictures).

We selected Canberra. Lots of people said we were mad: What could you possibly want to do in Canberra over the Christmas break? Isn’t Canberra about as interesting as watching parliamentary question time on TV? Well as it turns out, we’re watching-question-time kinda people. The drive to Canberra is very pleasant, taking about about 3 hours (unless someone has their fingers in your ears the whole way):

In Canberra we stayed in the most amazing serviced 3-bedroom apartment. Not only did we have full laundry facilities and a swimming pool, it was massively spacious, in fact bigger than our house in Sydney, and situated in Kingston which is one of Canberra’s few suburbs with nice cafes and pleasant walking areas. The girls shared a room, in fact Tess slept in a single bed for the first time and that side of things went great. Dad woke up one morning at 8am and everyone was still asleep!

I think it was because they were absolutely worn out by going to museums:

Yes, she’s wearing a tiara. In a science museum. Example #623 of fights I’m not prepared to have. We also visited places of national significance like parliament and the national war memorial:

Miniature park

Did I mention they had a scale replica of machu picchu and stonehenge? And a miniature railway?

We were there for five days and by the end of it I still didn’t want to leave. I was sad for missing out on the Art Gallery and Portrait Gallery and Botanic Gardens and all the other things we could’ve done. We had a blast. Lots more photos over at flickr.

Maybe it was the fact that Grandad was here?

Somehow, even, we timed the number of presents right. There seemed like a lot but we opened them all pretty quickly and the girls were not overwhelmed.

If I can say so myself, I even aced the Christmas dinner. I made an italian spread, most of it ahead of time so low-stress, and lots of it came from our garden.

Yes, this year Christmas was ace.