Tinsel take-over & weigh-in week 17

I'm down 0.2kg this week for a total of 8.1kg. If I maintain over Christmas I'll be satisfied but I'm still going to try and lose at least 1kg over the next 2 weeks.

I found the tinsel and lights for the tree but the Advent calendar is still AWOL. The kids are quite pleased with their decorating endeavours and I am refraining from re-doing the job - not least because I simply can't be bothered :P OMG the TINSEL!!!!


Alright, I confess, I may tweak a couple of things....

Singing at the dinner table

Adam and I were serenaded tonight by the kids with a spontaneous chorus of the Futurama version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

He knows when you are sleeping.
He knows when you're on the can.
He'll hunt you down and blast your ass from here to Pakistan.
Ohh.
You better not breathe, you better not move.
You're better off dead, I'm telling you dude,
Santa Claus is gunning you down.

I'm so proud :D

(Adam suggested they sing it at next year's school talent quest.)

Sydney WW catch-up

I spent the afternoon in the good company of fellow members of the Weight Watchers message boards. We braved hot and humid weather to gather at Bungalow 8 on Kings St Wharf for food and fun. Many thanks to Kerry for organising the event.

Here we all are, except for me - someone has to be behind the camera ;-)

Jan, Janice, Lou, Anne, Kerry, Nicole, Carmen and Michelle.

Christmas earrings

Not bad for my first ever play around with Fimo. Caitlin has already appropriated the third pair of candy cane ones.

The stuff of Christmas

The Advent calendar - my made-by-me, chocolate-free, re-usable felt wall hanging advent calendar, is no-where to be found. Seriously, I have no idea what I did with it.

The tree - first haul it up from down in the garage, next find the box of decorations...realise the tinsel and lights are not in the box which you were SURE had everything in it...tell the kids they can't decorate the tree till you find the lights...2 days later give up and let them decorate the tree anyway...if the lights and tinsel turn up we'll worry about it then.

Christmas cards - gave up on these a few years back because we were seeing everyone we'd be sending cards to for some form of Christmas celebration anyway and the perceived redundancy was a great excuse to avoid writing them. This year I'm noticing that we're getting cards from people we won't be meeting up with. Time to put this one back on the list. Bother.

The Christmas party - every year I promise myself that I'll get the invites done early and every year I find myself inviting people in a completely random fashion that invariably leaves several people copping a very short notice "OMG! So sorry! Of course we're having a party this year and of course you're invited!" (Tom and Barb, I put the invite in your letter box this afternoon!). The next week will be dominated by me stressing out over getting everything ready, I sat down with my diary this afternoon and tried to work out what I need to do and when I can do it, I suspect I'm at least one day short :P

The outdoor lights - these go up ready to be turned on on the 1st of December. Unless that clashes with daughter's dance concert, hubby's travels and torrential rain whenever it seems like you have a few spare hours. As long as they're up by the 15th I'll be happy, we'll find the time somehow (see Christmas party preparations above).

The scent of Christmas - mangoes, I bought my first case of mangoes today, that smell along with the vanilla and cranberry candles makes the house smell like Christmas to me. Mmmm mangoes..... :)

Christmas stories - The Night Before Christmas takes pride of place on the bedtime story list, I'm working on putting together a collection of other books too (need to scour the bookshelves, I KNOW we have plenty I just can't instantly lay hands on them) and may well steal Chris's idea. For myself, I re-read Connie Willis's Miracle and Other Christmas Stories and intend, yet again, to track down all the movies and books on her Twelve terrific things to read and Twelve to watch lists, maybe if I stared to do this in January I'd have a better chance of having them on hand come December. Hmm, that may well be a plan there....

The gingerbread house - why, oh why did I allow this to become a tradition? The kids don't even like gingerbread very much, but I DO! So very dangerous to have around, it smells so good but if you eat too much you feel so sick. But the decorating? An unadulterated pleasure :D It's like the cake decorating, very satisfying to create something that looks so good and the kids can pretty much do it themselves now. I've scheduled this for the 22nd, I'll cook the gingerbread the day before.

Fruit mince pies - I make LOTS of these in two shifts, the first lot is for the Christmas party, the next batch goes as gifts for the kids teachers and for Christmas day supplies. I'm a fruit mince pie snob, shop bought just doesn't do the trick (not that I make my own fruit mince or anything, I just like my pastry best).

The Christmas Day negotiations - who we're seeing, where, when, are we exchanging presents? This part I don't enjoy, why does it have to be so damned COMPLICATED?!!! Anyhoo, it all seems to have sorted itself out ok for this year, we're seeing most of my side of the family at a picnic on the 23rd and then hosting Christmas lunch at our place for any of Adam's family who care to show up. Then we'll go to my mum's place in the evening to see my Grandma and aunt and uncle. And I'm giving presents to people whether they like it or not!

So, there you have it, the stuff of Christmas. Well, some of it anyway.

Weigh-in week 16

I lost 0.1kg over the last two weeks, which I am insanely happy about. Last week I sort of stepped on the scales and then bounced off again before I could really read what they said, but not before glimpsing the wrong digit in the tens spot - YIKES! - which would have been a gain of nearly 3 kg. So, I must have lost that again in the last week and um, yeah, pleased I am :D Total is now 7.9kg gone, I want that 10kg loss back before Christmas.

Definitely easier this year.

Caitlin received her five year trophy for dance tonight (which she's been hanging out for for three years) and it's sitting in pride of place on top of the entertainment unit, the equivalent in this house of sending it straight to the pool room. She danced well, I can see such a change from last year, much more precise and focused, and she coped very professionally when she slipped and fell in the evening performance doing ballet - just hopped up and kept going barely missing a beat. I seem to be having a "be proud of Caitlin" week, can't be helped, she deserves it :D Tap and Jazz both went off without a hitch at both the matinee and evening performances and ballet was without incident at the matinee too. I was in the audience for the evening one and helping backstage as usual for the matinee.

Five years of dance and five years of helping out backstage and this year, for the first time, I am NOT a quivering wreck at the end of the day. There are new mums coming in to help out with the younger kids and seeing as they are the ones that need the most help and supervision I found I was able to sit back a bit and enjoy the increasing independence of the older kids. It also helped immensely that this year we had a hairdresser backstage to help with all the changes of hairstyle, we mums did the easy ones and palmed the harder ones off on her ;-)

Here's my girl in her three different costumes - NB three completely different hairstyles as well, it's always good to have a challenge!

Tap

Jazz

Ballet