BCEC Kids Christmas Party

Can you believe it's this close to Christmas already? This year has gone so quickly, and last weekend it was time once again for the Kids Christmas Party run by the social club at the BCEC where Cam works. Last year Max did go, although he was too small to appreciate all of the fun things on offer. This year he had a much better time!

When we first arrived his attention was occupied by all of the good things to eat. He isn't normally allowed goodies like jellybeans, chocolate and chips but since this was a Christmas Party we let him go crazy and eat what he wanted to. Jellybeans are his current favourite and he demolished most of those in the plate of lollies on our table. Once they were gone he started to look around and just had to go and explore Santa's throne.

He loved the christmas trees with their decorations, the snowmen beside the throne and of course he loved climbing up on the throne itself, along with lots of the other children there. Here he is with Sam McKee and Daddy.

Next stop were the rides!
Max and I rode on this huge slippery slide several times. It was about 6m tall and had several bumps on the way down and we just flew! Apparently Max had a huge grin on his face the whole way down, but we were going too fast to catch this in a photo. He loves even the small slides at the playground so this one was a huge hit, and I'm sure he would have gone on it more times if he could have done it all by himself.

Lucky for Max he was able to ride the merry-go-round this year. He is still too small to ride on the horses but had fun going around in the wagon with Sam anyway. We have lots of blurry shots of the ride in action but at least in this one you can tell it's Max.

After we all had some lunch it was time for Santa to arrive. Max was fairly tired by this point and wasn't very good at sitting down waiting patiently for his name to be called to go up and receive his present, but I managed to keep him happy by feeding him some chips until it was his turn. He didn't need too much encouragement to go up and get his present from Santa, especially since he got to give Santa a high-five.


Daddy also got to have some fun at the party as well as helping to organise it. Here he is driving Santa back home!

After all this excitement it was almost time to leave. We stopped by the giant jumping castle first, since Max just kept wandering over to look at it throughout the day and we could tell he wanted to have a go. Although he is still too little for it, the operator said she would let just small kids on to make it a bit safer, so he got to have a go after all! He had a lot of fun bouncing around but since he is still a little unsteady on his feet sometimes he ended up crawling to get around. We went down the jumping castle slide as well and then it really was time to go home, since I lost my balance getting off and Max got a little squashed!

We all had a fun day, and thanks so much to Cam and Matt and the BCEC and all who helped to organise it!

Fun at the Beach

Last week headed up to Bli Bli to visit Nanny and Poppy so that Cam could attend the funeral of a close family friend. While this was quite a sad occasion, we also found time to enjoy the break by going to the beach.

Max absolutely loves playing in the sand, and he had even more fun this time because Nanny bought him a bucket and spade set, which he thought was the best thing ever.

What a great smile! We all had fun watching Max enjoy himself so much, and Kenna also enjoyed being able to go to the beach while she's in Australia.
When Max was thoroughly covered in sand we took him to the water's edge, where he had a blast paddling in the shallow water, since it was low tide. His favourite game was to pick up wet sand and throw it into the water. Of course he lost his balance once or twice and ended up wet as well as sandy, but he was having so much fun that it didn't really matter.

We managed to time our visit so as to catch up with some other coastie friends, Anthony and Pauline and their two sons. Mason is our godson and is about 9 months older than Max, and Spencer is still a tiny bub at 4 months. Max and Mason had a good time playing in the sand together and running around with Anthony.

Playtime with Kenna

It's been wonderful having Kenna stay with us during the past week. Max has really enjoyed the extra playmate and Cam and I have loved seeing an old friend again and getting to spend so much time with her, which we usually don't get to do since she lives in the USA.

The other day Max, Kenna and I went for a walk to the park and took some photos of us all having fun together.


Max loves this huge xylophone and always tries to walk off with the metal stick you use to hit the pipes and make noise. Luckily it is attached or he would have lost it many times over!

No doubt in anyone's minds that Max is a real boy! He loves to get dirty, and on this day he had fallen face-first into the bark chips, so that the dirt stuck to his sticky nose (he has a bit of a cold), and then he ate a mandarin for afternoon tea and added nice sticky juice to the mess!

Wheee!