HI girls,

Vanita school holidays started 6.5 hours ago and already we've done some fun cooking and currently Viv's sitting up with John eating ice cream. Oh it's a hard life being 9! Normally I stress about her being in bed by 8pm but not tonight. Unfortunately she's not the sort of kid to sleep in. She's awake at 6.30-6.45am every morning regardless of what time she goes to bed, so I still have to get her into bed at a reasonable hour during the holidays. I feel like such a party pooper but she's awful when she's overtired and very hard to reason with if something goes wrong. Sorry to hear Dion's asthma's playing up, but really it's not surprising. The air quality is so bad with all the smoke from the fires. I hope we get a bit of wind to disperse it a bit and that helps him. Lots of indoor play time for him! for Rianna and her TT. WTG Baby!!!! And a bit woo hoo for your gym review. The exercise is obviously making a difference. Enjoy Christmas and stick with it again in the new year - you deserve a treat.I hope Chris doesn't have to go back to the fires, but I guess his 'day job' is the same thing so you're used to the 'danger factor'.

Deb, sorry to hear your sick again! You poor thing, you and Al have had a rough trot lately. I hope you pick up quickly and can enjoy a white? Christmas. And keep looking on the apartment front... there's one out there for you soon, I'm sure. And you are a brave Mum buying textas!

Lisa, Blake hasn't had a bottle since he was about 15mths. We gave it up when we went to sleep school and changed our whole routine. He has milk 2 or 3 times a day - usually with his meals. He also has cereal every morning with milk and usually has yoghurt after dinner. He's getting plenty of calcium! "Officially" they are 'supposed' to stop bottles at 12 months but do whatever works for you and Brooke. I was pretty happy to give Blake's up cause he's a big boy to start with and 3 x 200mls of milk each day with good sized meals was adding to his size and he didn't really need that either.

OK. Gotta go settle my boy - he doesn't like the warm weather. It throws his whole day out. DD aint much better!