Well last night we took Grandma to the airport, it has been a wonderful 10 days and we all wish it had been longer. Alec and Riley so loved having grandma here, she read them stories, gave them baths, took them to the park and did my laundry!!! The fact they could just sit and talk to grandma and play games with her was the best gift we received this Christmas.

The festivities started with tree decorating on the 20th and my mum and dad came up and bought yummy dinner with then, the 23rd we had open house and were able to sit and share a few drinks and a nice relaxed chat with our friends, Saturday was cooking day as Christmas dinner is at my house now. Christmas morning Alec woke up and we hadn't actually put the presents under the tree but we did them a chair each, Alec said "oh dear mummy, got to put presents under a tree" and that is exactly what he did, amongst exclamations of "wook at all da presents Santa bringed mummy" Dinner was yummy and my 8kg turkey was divine, can't beat our bbq for cooking the perfect turkey! Then boxing day saw us at the park having a leftover picnic with the Monday morning tea group.

It was a wonderful time, I would love to be able to do this for Alec and Riley every year.

was fantastic.. we somehow ended up with more booze than we started with, as i type Michael is on his way home with an 8kg turkey that there is no room for, better invite some more people around for drinks today!

All the fixings for the trifle are done, Michael left at 7am to get the turkey... now at 9:44am, yes 9:44 people.. he still isn't home and the floor needs moping and I have to make candied chocolate dipped oranges still, this is for my dad, he falls under the man who has everything and if he wants it he gets it, I can't compete with or even come close to being able to get something from his wish list so I make things.

The boys have calmed down, they had so much fun last night with their little friends they were all just gorgeous, I'm trying still to get arty/professional looking chrissy photos but after about 90 photos the tree still has too much light at the top and i'm not going to ask for the lights to be re-done, we will just have to remember for next year.

amongst bowls full of shrotbread mix, turkey stuffing and shopping crowds here I am... grandma is here and the boys are just loving it, grandma lives in Brisbane so we are a long way away. It's been great this year Michael has seen his mum 3 times and we have seen her twice, it is so nice have somewhere for her to stay now, before we have lived in nasty pokey places with no spare rooms or room.

Alec has just been gorgeous, he has been filling his empty santa sack with toys and going around giving them out to people, he so loves Christmas, everything we are doing is for Alec and Riley I want them to have a wonderful day.

We are having open house tonight (hope someone shows up LOL) then Saturday is cooking day, all the shopping is done and I am just scanning the..wait for it.. 16 layouts I have done in 4 days for my mum and Mike's mum to go in their new Basic Grey albums for Christmas!!

It's been very hard hiding from Mikes mum while I finished them.. well off to load the albums and start making copious amounts of food... have a wonderful Christmas

Alli

so I'm wrapping the boys christmas prsents, all those things I have collected and hid over the year and all I can do is cry. Earlier I went to the boys christmas party at daycare. My baby is so different to all the other kids, they were all jumping around singing and jostling each other all excited, and he sat on the rug with his eeyore sucking his thumb in hs own little space, looking a bit bewildered by everything going on around him, I just wanted to scoop him up and take him away so he didn't have to deal with it so people didn't look at him with pity in their eyes because he is odd, not like the others, well i want my baby to be just like the others. I thought I was past the grieving stage, but now I realise that it will never go away, he will be the outsider and my heart breaks for him everytime something like this happens.

I hate autism, it is cruel and it will rob Alec of so much and make so many things we take for granted so hard for him. At times like this I feel so powerless and ill equip to guide him, everything is so raw and I am so emotional about things, but I will send him out there, he does love daycare he has leant so much I just hate seeing him on the outside looking in.

I'm having an 'everyone is better than me day' I have been blog surfing and all those scrapper girls are doing such gorgeous stuff for christmas, I have been making altered notebooks for some girlfriends, they look nasty, firstly I was lazy and didn't take off the binding before I covered them so you can see the pink fluro edges... too late to go back now but to compound it I went on and did the next 2 the same. I'm hoping a gajillion bits of ribbon on the spine can camoflague the hideous pink, it wont help the rest though.

We set out early today to brave centrelink, it was very quiet and everyone smiled and the man at the front desk guided me to the right people, all the while my two banshee's were running squealing with delight stopping to make every door open and close and pretending to be Buzz Lightyear and jumping to infinity and beyond from the chairs. Then on leaving Riley wouldn't be carried so we had to cross the road all holding hands, thank god every person was off shopping and not driving. Coming home I tried to commit to cleaning, so far the kitchen is tidy and so is the lounge, after nap time I will clean my room, ok tidy, clean seems to be that step I just can't take, I loathe to clean and when I do I do it poorly. Atleast with the kitchen tidy Michael will be more inclined to make the pikelets for the boys daycrae christmas party tomorrow while I am out :)

My baby can pee standing up!!! he is so proud of himself, he can pee like at daycare he tells me, I am a bit worried he might do it an injury though because instead of a shake he squeezes and squeezes and squeezes LOL..

UPDATE!!!! The decotations were actually 10cm from my feet as I sat and typed.. Michael started coming out of the office and holding out one bauble at a time, we even had on every side in big black letters CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS the box honestly hasn't moved since we put it there after Christmas last year!

Mystery solved!

New family tradition..

We went and selected a christmas tree! a real live in the ground tree :) Once Michael's mum arrives we will go out and cut it down and bring it home and decorate it, hopefully with the found decorations, we have the little 90cm tree set up in the playroom for the boys, it has 0ne piece of loney tinsel draped over it right now.. oh and ofcourse we found the singing santa didn't we ... the boys love it, as I tucked Alec in last night he sleepily said,

"thank you for making christmas for me mummy"