Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve was very very magical!  We spend the day as a family with the combination of Swinton/ Tengelsen traditions. First and foremost, decorating sugar cookies for Santa.  This is always turned into a contest where Stan is the judge and no matter how hard anyone else tries Stan awards himself the 1st place trophy.

For the record, my cookie picture didn't turn out but I took a white cookie and made a snowflake out of tiny silver balls...just sayn'

After cookie decorating we had Christmas dinner. In Australia it is very popular to eat sea food on Christmas eve and Christmas day. The fish markets are open for 24 hours the day before Christmas eve and then they are closed on Christmas eve and Christmas day. This means around 4:00am the markets are jam packed full of people who are looking for fresh fish to BBQ the next day or day after and getting fish older than 3 days is a bad idea so EVERYONE has to come on this one day.  Stan got the salmon and shrimp- we didn't go all out this year. I made some corn and potatoes, we had some cherries and of course the traditional "crackers!"

Sea food on Christmas eve is also a Tengelsen (my maiden name) tradition. My mom used to tell us that Jesus was a fisher man so that is why we eat it...later we all realized Jesus was a carpenter but the tradition still stayed :-)

When you pull on the crackers a small crack goes off and out comes a toy, joke and crown. Here are Stan and the kids with their Christmas crowns!

After Christmas dinner the kids got into their PJ's and Stan read them all various Christmas stories.

After stories, the kids watched Christmas movies (miracle on 34th street, Elf, Polar Express and finally the Nutcracker Ballet (around midnight we started that one).

Olivia was determined to crack the Santa question (she is 9 years old) and stayed up most of the night with an I-phone to video who puts the gifts under the tree. I stayed up with her and told her I would sleep while she stayed up and then we would take turns. I was out and later Olivia hit me on the face and said "SANTA'S HERE" I woke up to look and realized she was sound asleep and was talking in her sleep :-)  So precious...she was dreaming!  Merry Christmas-

2012 Christmas Card

In case you missed our Christmas Card,  here it is in all it's glory!

We had another fantastic year in 2012 with two big changes. Our first change was moving from Sydney to Melbourne at the start of the year. We LOVE Melbourne's culture, activity, and entertainment in conjunction with the ocean, mountains, and countryside. We were not surprised to learn that if you wiki 'most livable cities' Melbourne has been ranked as the #1 city in the world! Our second big change was becoming permanent residents in Australia.

This year Stan has continued to work at Bain in consulting and we continued to explore more of Australia. We spent a bit of time driving, but managed to see the White Cliff opal mines, Bendigo, Broken hill, Darwin to Broom and in August, Stanford and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary on lovely Hamilton Island!

This year Olivia (9) has really blossomed! She loves to sing and preform. She had her first major audition this year - making it to final round for the Broadway production of Annie. We were so proud of her and are trying to facilitate her natural talent with dance and singing classes this year which take up much of her time. Olivia also started Kumon, Surf/ lifesaving and guitar this year!

Mary (7) is at a very sweet age and has had a lot of 'firsts' this year, e.g. Mary lost her first two teeth and started riding her bike without training wheels to school. Mary also started surf/ lifesaving with Olivia, got her first pet a bunny named Chloe (later re-named Henry.)

Thomas (4) started his first year of pre-school at Brighton Grammar (an all-boys Anglican private school).  Thomas is very social, he makes friends easily and loves nothing more than spending the day with his 'mates' This year Thomas started swimming and soccer.
We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and wish you all the best in 2013!

The Swinton Family!

The Christmas Pagent

Since Thomas attends an all-boys Anglican private school, the school puts on the "Nativity" every year for the parents. This is very entertaining since Mary is also played by (you guessed it...a boy); most of the boys are a bit baffled by the "dresses" they have to wear to be angels, shepherd,  wise men etc.... Obviously the sheep and barn animals got out of the dress bit! :-)

Thomas was an angel and has been singing his Christmas songs all over the house for over a month now. He is very cute.

We brought Nyah to the show (Thomas' friend from primary at church) I think Thomas was a little embarrassed about his dress but she liked his fuzzy halo (as most girls would) so it was all cool! :-)

Merry Christmas!

End of School!

Most of December has been very busy. Christmas parties for every child's extracurricular activities and Stanford's work would keep us busy enough; BUT here in Australia it is also the end of the school year and the beginning of summer break in December. Imagine the regular Christmas run around in addition to all of the end of school concerts, class parties, school graduations and so on. IT IS INSANE!!!

There was a point where every night for three weeks was booked. I thought the first two weeks will be fine but by week #3 I might start dropping a few balls. Balls were dropped...I think I missed two parties, I mis-booked babysitters for wrong times and wrong dates and last of all both girls ended up with the flu (or gastro as they call it out here). There was so much of a run-around that by the time the kids had their last day of school Christmas was just two days away and I was already exhausted :-(

So here are some pictures from the past few weeks:
Olivia has officially finished year 3. She had a hard time as the "new kid" when we first moved here but by the semester she had made friends and is now thriving!

 Olivia with her senior choir...these girls are all in her class- Olivia still looks so little!

 End of science lab
 Some pictures of Olivia's school work so I can throw it away :-)

Mary showing me some of her school work. Mary just completed year 1. I love first graders, they are so precious!!

Below is a picture of her brochure that she created for cancer awareness (she chose the topic because her good friend Millie still has cancer)

More school work-

(and if I can get stan to upload this clip....)

Here is a clip of Olivia singing for her end of year school BBQ. She had a fun time!

Little nippers!

Along with getting ready for Christmas we are also starting our summer sports routine. One activity that runs from December to February is called "little nippers."  Little nippers is a youth program preparing kids for surf/life saving.  Every week you train for 2 hours doing sand and water competitions. Near the end of the year all the suburbs get their teams together and compete in a carnival. 

This year is our first year participating (it starts at 7 years old).  I am in love with the kids swim caps (different colours for different age groups) and "rashies" or rash guards (those shirts they wear over their bathers (swim suits).

Since Thomas is too young to participate he and I sit on the beach and watch the competitions.

Here the girls are playing dodge ball-

Olivia is the one with green goggles!

This is Olivia's favourite competition, basically you start lying down (ready) on set (you lift your head up) and on go you run 50 meters to grab a stick. This game is similar to musical chairs. Each race, someone is eliminated. Olivia has made it to top 3 the last two weeks in a row.  This is impressive because our suburb (Hampton) usually wins the carnival competitions :-)

Olivia down to final 3 again!

Another activity is on the nipper boards (smaller surf boards) the kids race on a buoy, go around it and paddle back. 

They learn the best way to paddle and how to use rip currents to give them an advantage when riding in and out.

Here is Mary (in a red cap) getting ready for her competitions

Tug of war is another competition...Stan is helping the kids with technique :-)

Anyway, I LOVE nippers- it is every Saturday evening for 2 hours (3-5pm). When it is finished the kids are tired and we all go out and get food (fish and chips) and then have an early night in. I love just sitting on the sand with Stan and getting to talk. I can't say it enough... This is the life!

Decorating the tree!

This year we decorated for Christmas a week after Thanksgiving. Tangent: we hosted two Thanksgiving dinners on consecutive weekends between the actual Thanksgiving day. They turned out wonderful-(sorry no pictures) and I would love to continue the tradition as the years continue. We sent out formal invitations to Stan's co-workers and my school mum friends.  I had so many friends tell me that they were flattered to be invited to an American holiday and that this would be their first one and everyone offered to bring something to help with the feast. I intentionally delegated 'unique dishes' to the ones that were the most excited about the dinner (i.e. sweet potato casserole, corn bread, etc.. things you don't eat out here). I had printed out a description of what Thanksgiving dinner is, what you eat etc...overall it was a lot of fun and  I loved it!

The week after our dinner I returned all our tables, chairs etc... and got out the Christmas stuff, the kids were so excited!

 Here we are fighting over the mistletoe ...Stan and I won- XOX

 My favourite part about decorating the tree is the excitement from the kids while the Christmas music plays and the memories that flood back as I look at old decorations. Here was an early decoration when it was just Stan, Olivia & I in 2003

 Olivia putting up some decorations

 A Christmas decoration given to Stan and I from Grandpa Harry and Grandma Sue Tengelsen when we were first married. Stan specifically mentioned how he wanted to get our children decorations each year because it was such a good idea and he really appreciated this gesture in hindsight. We  were given a decoration from my grandparents every year until we were out of school. 

 Mary kissing the toy soldier 

 An ornament we got in Sydney in 2010 with all our names on beach chairs. I started ordering decorations after my grandparents stopped, now we have one for every year!

 Mary with her purple tree that goes in her room

 Stan put on one decoration- his Precious Moments decoration from when he was a child. 

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!!