Clever marketing...

My kids favourite song at the moment? No - it is not even a Christmas song - it is the Oral B kids advert. Very clever - I thought it was a song from nick jr lazytown when I first heard it. Won't complain though because it has made cleaning the teeth much less painful!

Kids shoes ...

Love them!

Christmas traditions...

There was an article in December's Notebook magazine written by Sarah Bryden-Brown from Kidspot about finding your own Christmas traditions. It struck a chord with me as it is something that Kirk and I are quite aware of for various reasons this year. There are lots of lovely traditions that we are a part of, the first of which we attended today.

I come from a large family and my dad's side get together a few times throughout the year. Today my fresh and delightful Adelaide cousins were able to join us enroute to Nelson in NZ to be with their parents and brother over Christmas. There are thirteen cousins and now with partners and my kids there are twenty of us to exchange Kris Kringle gifts. My cousins are a special bunch of fun and caring people and I love getting together with them. They are the types of people whom you always feel better after having a conversation with. I am the eldest and I feel privileged to be a part of the Harris clan. My kids think that they are the cousins as mummy is too old (at 32!).

As I get older, I am finding that there is so much more joy in finding gifts for others and seeing them open them than there is in receiving. I gave my 22 year old cousin a Pantone mug and a black tshirt - he was stoked with both and esp the mug. He is a designer and colours, fonts, etc are his thing. I was unaware that there is a Pantone colour of the year - yellow is the colour of 2009 apparently. I love learning random bits of information! This week we sent a mug to Cornwall, UK. There is obviously a Pantone following across the world!

One of the tricky things is that there are cousins in Oxford, Cambridge, Adelaide, Melbourne and Nelson other than in Sydney so co-ordinating getting the gifts to each other can be quite a feat. It is a tradition that I hope that we continue.

Decorating Henry's room

Henry is currently in our bedroom, tucked in the corner in his little timber Boori rocker. I love hearing him breathe and recently hearing him chatter (well, I guess more like coo) before the cry for food!

Thomas informs me (and as told to his class in news time) that once his little brother is one he will be moving into his room (I hope he is as enthusiastic once the move becomes a reality!). Thomas has a double size bedroom and his little brother will be joining him at some stage. We ended up keeping the nursery as a study and decided that the boys can share. I am not sure how to deal with the lego all over the floor and a toddler but I guess we will jump that hurdle down the track.

I came across this bedspread today (I am having a love affair with Sheridan) and have put it away for when he is old enough for a bed, which hopefully doesn't come around too fast. It is a perfect match for the Little Chipipi Ships Ahoy wall stickers. We grew up spending holidays and weekends in the water and on the water so I am a lost cause for anything nautical. I still love the breeze between the ears getting rid of the cobwebs. Bring on some summer weather and a holiday on the coast!

*Love some ideas of how to control lego especially when it is a work in progress and all sorted into piles across the carpet ready for the next design but impossible to manuevre a vacuum cleaner around!!!