Butterfly Girl

Today we had our breakup Christmas party for the playgroup we go to on Tuesdays... What an event it was, with a couple of hundred people attending! Elizabeth and I had such a great time, even though it was incredibly hot and humid! (Unfortunately, Phan had to go to a work thing so couldn't come along.) The theme for the Christmas party was "Teddy Bears Picnic", so everybody brought along a teddy bear or much loved soft toy... Elizabeth insisted on bringing along our Cancer Council teddy bear "Dr Dougal" and also her soft toy dragon (a recent present from her birthday... Thanks again Gina, Sebi & Gaby!)

Events kicked off with everyone congregating in the auditorium for a concert and everybody singing "Rock-a-bye Your Bear" (a famous Wiggles song for those of you who have been living under a rock) and progressed with a rendition of "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around". The main event was an illusionist (Christopher something... apparently he's on Toasted TV, so he is quite famous) who was fantastic... captivated the kids, amusing sense of humour and his illusions were amazing... I was scratching my head at how he achieved his tricks!... I thoroughly enjoyed watching him... After the illusionist, we sang some more songs... Beth was happy that we sang her favourite song at the moment which is called "Great Big God" (she loves dancing and singing to it!) and then Jingle Bells... and then we had a visitor from the North Pole... Santa himself... (except Beth was absolutely terrified of him... her reaction this year was exactly the same as last year... she huddled in my lap and closed her eyes really tight and held onto me tight as she waited for him to go away... Lucky our friend Claire went up and got Elizabeth's present from Santa on her behalf!

After the concert part, there were tonnes of different things to do... a jumping castle (which Beth avoided due to the large number of children in there... wise I think!), an inflatable slide, an animal farm, playdough tables, photobooth and Christmas craft where we made a little paper manger with a baby Jesus in it... and morning tea was provided with lots of yummy things to eat like teddybear cupcakes, and teddybear shaped nutella sandwiches (Beth was in heaven!). The highlight of Beth's day was getting her face painted for the first time... she asked for a pink butterfly and sat very still while she had it painted and didn't touch or smudge it at all afterwards... Beth actually fell asleep in the car on the 10 minute car ride home and I managed to put her into bed and she had her nap without smudging the butterfly at all! So when she woke up I took the photos above of her on my good camera... I have a few snaps on my point and shoot from the morning itself which I'll post up if they are any good...

All in all a fabulous was to round off what was a wonderful year for us at playtime... the church, the coordinator and the many volunteers did an amazing job of putting on such a great party for everybody... We felt very lucky to be part of it all!