January Daze

Well the last few days of holidays have been and gone. Eight and a half weeks sometimes dragged but often flew. Some days it felt like it would never end. Then it was all over in a flash.
We managed to fit in quite a few fun activities in the last week. But not so many that we were exhausted when it came time for school.
Okay, well I was exhausted. But the kids were fine.
More or less.
Anyway.
Before then, Jesse squeezed in a day with a favourite friend's family. He even got to go out on their boat.
He caught his first fish ever and had the best time.

At the same time as Jesse was on the water, I took the girls and Arch to a Summer Reading Club event at our local library. I think all the public libraries ran a Summer Reading program over the holidays, and ours offered a special incentive for kids who had read a certain number of books: A Magician's show and pizza party. How cool was that!?

The librarians had put in a super effort to make the afternoon memorable and fun. There was great hilarity during the magic show, and I felt for the ageing magician in this age of Harry Potter movies and computer games etc. Is there any thrills left in the old sleight of hand? Still, when his grand finale was making a child seemingly levitate above the floor as he pulled a chair out from under her feet (she was lying horizontally on a board between two chairs), there was a collective gasp of wonder and amazement. Phew! Some tricks must be timeless.
And he produced a real rabbit at the end, out of a hat.
The kids loved it.

After a few games of musical chairs and pass the hot dice (which Arch was very taken with) it was time for pizza and cake in the library. Eleanore got to cut it. She's loving her $5 Christmas gift shirt, by the way (North Rocks pop-up store).

And then when all the fun was over. It was time to get out the uniforms and pack the bags.
It was done with a minimum of fuss.
Here they are beaming and ready to go.

Now the house seems a little too quiet with just Arch and I there during the day.
Not that I'm complaining mind you!
It's been nice to reflect on the last 8.5 weeks. How we got through (sometimes I wasn't sure we would). How we had fun. Thankful that the kids didn't kill each other, or get brain strain from watching too much television.
Another week to take stock and concentrate on getting Arch ready for preschool.
He might be ready in time, but will I be?
I'm looking forward to all that this year will hold.
I. Really. Am.