Best friends are the greatest

Stitching friends - look what my BFF Sarah gave lucky me for Christmas:

Aren't they just too fab?

Introducing.....

...the FB Family Furbabies:

Burma - the one who brings home stray laundry

Cheetah - she who yowls

Dini - rats beware!

and say hello to the newest member of the family:

Boodle - the inexhaustible kitten

Seasons Greetings

All the best for a wonderful festive season :)

It's here!

The first day of the school holidays....
so the girls are having a grandma day, which they have been hanging out for for weeks now. This means today is photo with Santa day. Jess picked out her clothes last night, but I'm sure Tamsin and I won't agree on her outfit and there will be a hissy in the offing. Oh well, that's parenting.
Also here is my last day in the office before 3 (yes THREE!) weeks holiday and a new job. I've not had more than 10 days off in a row since I left university.
After 5.5 years with Intermax I am moving on. As with most jobs, it will be the people I miss. On the upside, the company I am going to work for is in the same industry (but not a competitor) and does work for Intermax, so I'll still be in touch. In fact, the directors of current job have known and worked with the directors of new job since Adam was a cowboy, so the whole "I'm leaving" thing has been very friendly.
First day of school holidays is also traditionally the day for putting up the Christmas tree. I wonder when the girls will remember and start to nag me about hauling it out and decorating it?

If you can't go fishing...

...then you play in the boat on dry land, of course.

This is my wonderful DH (Steve) with his elder brother (Kevin) doing essential maintenance on Kevin's boat in our driveway.

On the proud mama front: Jess now has her back walkovers on the high beam, glide kip to clear hip circle, and cartwheel straight jump dismount (prep for roundoff back tuck dismounts) off beam. Go Jess!

She has had front tuck off beam for over a year, and can do pike - she's mentioned training front layout off beam just recently, but I haven't seen it. Her handsprings are there now too, so handspring front tuck isn't far away; her round off flicflac x3 is now solid and she's working on getting roundoff flic back tuck. I get the feeling Jess is not sure about back tucks - I think she prefers pike, or even layout position, but she only has a front layout (and the odd front layout 1/2 twist) off the mini tramp. Jess gets to train back salto work on the tumble trak, but she's not fond of it as a training aid, prefers to use the proper sprung floor - says she feels her spring/power better.

Tamsin, on the other hand, will move out of PreComp and into Level 1 next term. I won't know if it'll be 1C or 1B till then. Either way she'll be training 4 hours/week, which will hopefully tire her out a bit more than currently! In swim class she tries really hard and her teacher is really impressed with her progress. I am too as a matter of fact. Go Tamsin :)

Things that continue to grow in the night...

Since the sewing machines were still set up

I made three more tank leotards, using for the contrast a white with pink hearts nylon lycra.

Tamsin's fits perfectly, while Jess' are a bit baggy in the butt.

Still perfecting the pattern sizing and elastic gathering, but I'm definitely getting faster at completing them.

Things that grow in the night....

Every so often, things sprout in the pot that holds our nearly ceiling height ficus.

What amazes us is how there can be nothing at dinner time, but this will be on show at breakfast time. And it proves that air-borne spores do exist.

Very considerate of the fungi to match the wall colour, don't you think?