Tag Archives: New Year’s Eve

This Boy

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 3 comments

Is pretty great, actually 🙂 I still can’t quite work out where I misplaced the last six years, but just look at that – we have a six year old! Happy Birthday Mr Finn!

The last couple of school weeks were pretty full-on for the boy. He was thrust suddenly into the world of car-pooling after I broke my wrist; he was one of the narrators in the Prep end-of-year concert (amazing me with his stage confidence – such a different boy from way back then); sickness descended ~~once~~ twice more upon the Sugarlemon household; as did headlice (blech); mid-illness, we survived a whirlwind (early) birthday party (tenpin bowling again this year, since *someone* (cough) didn’t manage to book the swimming party in time); there was a flurry of excitement over a Student Achievement Award; two days were spent at this swish school learning Chess and geometry and other fun stuff; then finally there came the last day of school for 2008, which ended with a bit of a teary meltdown (as Claire can attest!) Not surprising, really. (Thankfully, Santa drove our bus on the way home, so all was restored.) Then came the anticipation and actuality of Christmas, which as always is a story unto itself.

(Actually, all of those should have been stories unto themselves, but as usual, I’ve been a bad blogger, and this is the seriously condensed version. With many parentheses.)

But today, finally, a day just for Finn. And it was pretty excellent. Low-key, just the four of us, but with the requisite amounts of sugar and fun, I think. Still transport-less (cast comes off in 5 days, hip hip hooray), we took a train into the city for: Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Myer Christmas windows, Madagascar 2, Sushi, Pork dumplings, and Max Brenner hot chocolate. Thoroughly exhausted, we staggered home, where Niamh and I had to sleep it off for a while. Later there was some of this, lots of this, an excellent round of this, then early fireworks (televised) for the kids, and finally, blessedly, they’re asleep, and I’m just trying to keep my eyes open until at least the first few seconds of 2009. Happy New Year, everyone 🙂

3 Comments

Posted in Family, General Ramblings

Tagged birthday, Family, New Year's Eve

Too Late?

Posted on January 7, 2008 | 6 comments

Is it too late yet to say Happy New Year? And, uh, Merry Christmas, as well? (I don’t do ‘Happy Holidays’ – despite my pagan leanings, I’m pretty firmly in the ‘Merry Christmas’ camp!)

I kept meaning to blog, truly I did. I missed so many important moments. Here’s the ten-second run down of that-which-was-never-blogged:

Finn’s birthday party (Ten pin bowling, wheeee! The birthday boy bowled 96 to take the game – never mind the assistance of bumpers and a ramp!)
A little bit of frantic pre-Christmas crafting (Bags, bags, bags… I do promise photos, once I liberate them from the various cameras about the house)
Niamh deciding a week before Christmas was a good time to start climbing out of her cot, thus introducing us to a whole new set of bedtime challenges
Christmas itself (Cue yet another emotional meltdown from moi – 3-days of family festivities (his family/ my family/ my other family) is just a wee bit more than I can take, apparently)
Finn’s NYE birthday (My boy is five! Last year Scienceworks, this year the Museum. Lots of fun, but I wish we hadn’t been so rushed)
NYE party and overnight stay out of town (Thank goodness – we were about an hour and a half out of Melbourne, so no overnight low of 30°C for us – we had a pleasant drop down to 17°-ish)
Resolution making (Yes really – me! Never mind that I apparently jinx myself out of achieving goals – I’m quite determined that two-oh-oh-eight is going to be a whole different story. Stay tuned)

So Happy New Year then. May it be a wonderful and productive one for all of us. Also, may it bring more blogging and less blah-ing for me. Back soon with those photos, and not far around the corner, a name change and a facelift.

Erm… for the blog, that is, not me 😆

6 Comments

Posted in Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

Tagged birthday, celebrations, christmas, Family, New Year's Eve, party

No Parties for Us

Posted on December 31, 2006 | 7 comments

I am about as tired now as I was exactly four years ago. Then, I was finally trying to catch up on some sleep after a gruelling labour and eventual caesarian section, and a brand spanking new baby Finn was sleeping close by in a hospital bassinet. When the city fireworks went off at midnight (and continued for what seemed an hour :yuk: ), he kept right on sleeping. I think every other newborn on the floor woke up though, and I certainly didn’t sleep much through that ‘excitement’ either!

Tonight, I certainly hope to sleep through any fireworks. I don’t plan on seeing in the New Year, I plan on being in bed very shortly. Finn, too, is finally sleeping, though it took him a good hour after bedtime to fall asleep. I think he was telling his bears all about the excitement of his birthday 🙂

I’m always a little dismayed on his behalf when his birthday rolls around – friends and family are often gallivanting away on summer holidays, or have NYE plans which prevent them from coming to a party. This year, we decided instead of getting upset about it, we would make his birthday into something special by going somewhere new, just the four of us. So off we trundled to Scienceworks, and it was great! Perhaps the only problem was not allowing enough time to see everything. We spent about 3½ hours there, and Finn had an absolute blast. Add to that a new bike and too much sugar (because what would a kid’s birthday be without a garishly decorated cake? Pictures tomorrow!) and you can understand why he was slightly wound up this evening.

So… while the rest of the world is seeing in the New Year, I’ll be busy with my dreams. And hopefully not up more than once to Niamh. However you’ll be spending your night tonight, I hope it’s exactly what you want it to be. Happy New Year! 🙂

7 Comments

Posted in Family, The Kids

Tagged New Year's Eve

Resurfacing

Posted on January 13, 2006 | 1 comment

Ahem. Hello! Remember me?

Sorry. I seem to have been in a bit of a blogging-minislump lately. Coinciding with a stitching-minislump, unfortunately. So what have I been doing? Well, sleeping, shopping, studying, and stuffing my face, mainly 😆

New Year’s Eve, aka Finn’s Birthday, was quite something. The hottest NYE since… well, ever! In Melbourne the temperature eventually climbed to 42.9C (that would be 109.2F for some of you). In the part of the state where we were – somewhere north-west of Bendigo, it was somewhere close to 46C (that would be oh, about a million in Fahrenheit terms, I think). I say “somewhere close”, because opinions were varied between those who had thermometers attached to their cars, and we had no other measuring device. Suffice to say, it was Not Good. Much like an oven, really. We managed to summon enough energy to sing Happy Birthday for Finn (He’s THREE… OMG!) during the afternoon at some point, but mostly we just sat around in my Father-in-law’s half-renovated, non-airconditioned house and melted into people-puddles. The point where the power failed and our one little pedestal fan was no longer, that was really, really Not Fun.

At close to sunset (temperature still v.high 30s, at least), we drove up to nearby Melville Caves, where we ate prawns, drank champagne (though neither for me 😥 ), and watched the sun set. Well, kind of. Visibility was a bit poor due to the bushfires raging across the state in Stawell.

We had plans to stay the night with my FIL and drive to Mum’s (about an hour-and-a-half away) in the morning for another mini-party for Finn. But at around 11pm, with one grumpy boy on our hands, temps still in the mid-to-high-30s, little hope of restful sleep, and no shower to be had in the morning, we decided to pack up and drive across the state right there and then. So that is how I came to see in 2006 as the only person awake in the car in the middle of nowhere. (After saying the obligatory “White Rabbits”, I woke OtherHalf to wish him Happy New Year :giggle: )

The change in the weather didn’t come through until mid-afternoon on the 1st, but how blissful when it did. I celebrated by burning the wagon! Yes… that’s right. I SHOPPED FOR STASH! I’m glad I managed to last out the year, but heck, I’m not doing that again :giggle: I headed over to Stitching Bits and Bobs and reduced the size of my wishlist by 8 charts, some beads and sparklies to kit out Mermaids of the Deep Blue, and a few other bits and pieces (or bits and bobs, I guess!) My package should be here any day now, I’ll be sure to take a picture for you!

Christmas and NYE (and shopping) having taken the wind completely out of my sails, I pretty much slept through January 2nd and 3rd… and then I went back to uni on the 4th. Eeeek! I have been immersing myself in the exciting 😐 world of web servers ever since, and that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks, oh joy. After that…… FREEDOM! Free, free, free as a bird! No more studying for me, for at least… err, well, let’s not make any promises we can’t keep now, shall we?!

Anyhoo… here’s a couple of NYE pictures for you. These were taken up at the caves. 1) Happy Birthday Finny Banana! 2) Happy New Year to 3 generations of boys 🙂