pool

well we are moving on to the next leg of our holiday. it's been great so far.

beach holidays

the twins and I have joined some very good friends for a mini break at the beach. we are having a blast. the brats are happy cos there are 2 fantastic teenagers who play with them and who they absolutely love and idolise and I get to kick back and chat with 2 of my favourite friends while watching the circus that is us around us.
It is therefore necessary for me to try my hand at mobile blogging.... we'll see how that one goes :D

as usual the kayak was a huge success but so was the $15 raft my friend has.

Summer heat

It has been very hot here lately and there are bushfires across the state. Yesterday the brats and I stayed home - except for a small excursion to the local shopping centre for school shoes and lunch. ONe way to keep cool - hang out in airconditioned centres and passionfruit flavoured slushies

Hannah was keen to dance like one of the baby swans in Swan Lake

She has been doing a little reading and sometimes more with me most days so on this day I gave my little swan the gift of a princess tiara after some lovely reading - so she could be Odette - the Swan Princess. She is also hoovering lemon sorbet - her favourite.

Despite the sweltering weather I did manage to finish off a quilt set I was making for Kit as well as the wallhanging he designed and made for himself. The pics aren't the best as I put it up in the spare room - will try and move it into his room next time I clean up in there!
The quilt top:

 Combined effect:

 Kit's wallhanging that he can also use as a lap quilt

 My first pillow case

 Over the Dr now...

Party

We had a lovely gathering at our place last night. Invite 2 families over and before you know it there are 12 mouths to feed. It was lovely.
Party frock:

and party fare:

Outings

One of the treats that I love about holidays is that my usually lazy and homebound self - well let's face it - home is usually full of so many distractions (like cleaning and facebook and washing and facebook and cleaning and facebook and sleeping and facebook) that I often end up going nowhere....but not when we are all on holidays.

So we have ventured out to our local park - which happens to be a lovely all abilities  playground:

Checked out the neigbourhood Christmas lights

and sat in traffic for an hour to get to the beach:

And then one of the best things about outings is that they seem to often be accompanied by icecream - to finish them off

Hoo Haa

There is an ongoing media row that is also happening over dinner/lunch tables around Sydney about schools. "Good schools". The MySchools website was released with fanfare last year (?) as a way of ranking every school according to its academic performance in the external exams that occur in year 3, 6, 10 and 12 or at least that is when I think they happen I might be wrong on the 6. This week it also includes the funding levels - usually a mix of fed gov't, state gov't, fees (for private schools) and others (like fundraisers and benefactories etc).

The community response is very much driven by ideology. Elite private schools have superior resources. 'Private schools' those that are not charging fees in the nature of $20 000 or so and Government Schools. I have friends who are committed to a public education for this reason. They cite the diversity of students, and the responsibility of gov't as part of their ideological views. There are a number of people who believe that their child should go to the local public school for primary but then on to an elite private school for HS. Some people simply think in terms of expensive schools all the way through for their children. It turns into a battle of haves and have nots, of for universal and diverse student populations or not - although our public system has responded to some of the elitist issues by creating a series of specialist and selective schools - and within the public shcool vanguard there is a fair amount of elitism over these streamed placements where children must sit for an examination and achieve entry into the 'creme de la creme' of the public school system. Some of our top schools in the state are our gov't selective schools.

I have always been scepitcal of this level of streaming. It certainly isn't for everyone. Is it because our school system fails bright students if it has to provide a qulaity education for a range of students - much better to group them so we can adopt a one size fits all approach? No children are one size fits all  and so the brawl spills over into the My Schools website...

World Down Syndrome Day 2012 - 21 posts

Now 11 days late - but I started these posts on fb and have decided to copy them over to my poor neglected Shams... One day late...I'm going to try for 21 photos - 1 a day for World Down Syndrome day...I will get some from the 'vault' but for now here is an early one ...

Holidays are over

Hannah LOVED this kayak that our friends have. The twins and I drove down to 'crash' their family holiday on the south coast. We had a blast.

The day before school resumed we took the kids into the Powerhouse museum.

Wiggleland was a big hit but I think Hannah's favourite was the climbing structure in the playground.

Just before school returned one of the girls in Hannah's year had a 'pamper party'. It was scary how naturally the girls took to it...like ducks to water!

In the holidays Hannah clearly established that she can ride her bike all by herself.

She did it because she is so keen to show us that she is ready for a byke like her brothers:)