New Years Eve!

For New Years Eve we drove 45 minutes south to the Mornington peninsula. We spent the day on the beach and in the evening we got pizza and ice cream and waited for it to get dark. It doesn't get dark until 9:00 pm as it is summer over here.

To kill some time Olivia took up bridge jumping with this 11 year old boy...Olivia had some moves :-)

Mary jumped from the lower platform!

Here in the bigger cities, the fireworks are set off at two different times. There is a 9:00 firework display for families with children and then a midnight firework display for those willing to go the distance. We read in the newspaper that if you drive out to the peninsula you can see all three sets of fireworks set off over the city. Since it was our first new years in Melbourne we took the advice and drove down.

Unfortunately we needed binoculars to see the fireworks from this far away. After the 9:00 display we jumped in our car and headed back to the city. We got home in time for the midnight fireworks (our house is 20 minutes outside the city) and could see the fireworks from our bedroom window perfectly. This just goes to show you don't need to drive far away when paradise is sitting on your back door!

Either way, we had a fabulous time--here is a picture of the Melbourne 2013 fireworks--complements of the internet :-)

Christmas Day!

Christmas Morning!  The kids woke up around 7:00 am and after breakfast we 

Eggnog and french toast!

Thomas was on the "naughty list" so he only got one gift...a transformer from Santa :-)

Mary and Olivia were on the "maybe list" and did very well!

Here is my gift from Olivia, a beautiful poem that she wrote at school for me :-)

Littlest Pet Shops...we cannot get enough

Thank goodness for grandparents who sent Thomas a few gifts

Mary with a new coat- thanks Grandma & Grandpa

some more gifts from grandparents :)

Uncle Dan & Aunt Katie gave Olivia a Science game

Books!

Clothes

And more toys from grandparents...Thomas you lucky boy!

Stan finally got a toaster- the only thing he wanted all year! 

Each kid got another kid a gift this year. With only three kids, there is no need to draw names out of a hat! Here is an egg that Mary got Olivia. The kids were so excited to put their gifts for each other under the tree.

Awe- we love this Christmas book!

After Christmas we went over to a really good friends house (Suzanne Whitmarsh) for Christmas lunch. Suzanne is very classy so we had the full spread of china dishes outside on the veranda overlooking the pool and palm trees. The food was divine and as always I can learn a thing or two from Suzanne about how to host a great party! Sadly there are no pictures!

 Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

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!