It's Beginning to Feel a lot like Christmas!

It's the Sunday after our street Xmas party! Which means that we are all still tired and the street has been quiet since early Saturday morning.
The night started with the arrival of the jumping castle. As usual we had the jumping part and the slippery slide part! The kids went wild while we parents started setting up. This meant tables and chairs pulled out of our back yards, bins organized and the BBQ was fired up. It always takes a while for people without kids to start wandering out of their houses (perhaps they are put off by the wildness of a dozen kids with a jumping castle all to themselves). Slowly but surely everyone started to pop their heads out and join the celebration. Once all the stragglers arrived it was time for Santa! The kids all took a break from the manic jumping to receive a present each and then resumed the aforementioned manic jumping. Drinks and food started to flow, BBQ keeping everyone warm on the unseasonably cold evening. And on it went, everyone talking, music blasting and drinks flowing.
It's the nicest part of the street party, everyone gets to relax, have a drink if they want. The kids are running and playing in the dark (with all with glow bracelets or sparklers) and popping from one house to the next to raid the fridge, and play. No one has to leave early to put kids to bed because we are all just outside.
The castle was packed away after all the adults got on and had a jump and as it got late I put a movie on in my house for the medium sized kids, a neighbour put a different movie on for the littlies and some of the straglers (my kids included) where still riding their bikes at 10pm. Finally all the kids were asleep, 2 of the little ones had been put to sleep on a mattress in the middle of the road and Hamish had fallen asleep playing a game on a pile of cushions in the middle of a neighbours driveway.
It was a hilarious night! And as always it was great to get to talk to some of the neighbours you only see passing by most of the year.
The next day was unusually quiet on the street, most of the kids staying in for a quiet day. Unfortunately AB and I had to be out by 11am for separate kids parties. Luckily (seeing I hadn't gotten to bed until 3am and was slightly hungover) the party I took Hamish to was lovely, full of food perfect for a hangover (a great salad of potato, mint, salt and olive oil, greasy sausages and a lovely fresh watermelon salad) and really relaxed people.
The afternoon was spent watching DVDs and having cat naps on the lounge.
Today we woke up to a gorgeous sunny day but by 10am it was overcast, cold and windy. I decided to give AB the house as he needed to work so I took the kids to the indoor pool. We spent three hours in the warm and incredibly busy pool. Thankfully they make a great coffee! I was so proud of both the kids, they played beautifully and Hamish (who is still very nervous in the pool) was incredibly brave practicing going under water with his brand new goggles on.
And so that was our weekend. It's certainly starting to feel a lot like holiday time, and I must say I can't wait. Not only am I extraordinarily excited about Christmas finally getting here but I am mostly excited about having my two boys home a lot, feeling free to stay in our jammies until late and being free to do whatever we want for six whole weeks!
Watching - my neighbours film that I had talked about with him last Xmas party and I found out thos as party had been released direct to DVD earlier this year. It's a zombiesce film set in the Australian outback called 'Primal'. And it was as good as any low budget zombie film I have seen and had some really great gore scenes and funny moments. I get a little twinge of joy that (as a lover of zombie films) a guy across the road actually made one! It's sort of like the Kevin Bacon game, I'm one step away from a zombie movie maker lol.
Reading - I've finally read the next few chapters of my BFFs book. I'm not allowed to talk about it at all as its still in draft form, and am honestly the worst friend in the world cause it is taking me this long. But as I've mentioned before I want to make sure it's not my before bed reading (which I haven't done in ages anyway) because I want to take it in and not rush it.
Advent calendar - we have had; have a picnic for dinner, Xmas party night worked as a picnic (fri), kids pick for dinner, tuna paste (sat), go out for ice cream, which we did at the pool today (sun)
State of mind - completely and utterly mind blowingly tired! But oh was a lovely weekend!