Family Christmas - in January

Yesterday was a very delayed family Christmas celebration at my brothers house in Glen Forrest. Christmas in January because of the gastro that went through our house between Christmas and New Years. It was a perfect day for it, with the pool looking oh so inviting for the kids.

Doug was a fair pack mule heading up the to the house with all the bags containing the kids swimming stuff, food and presents... nothing out of the ordinary for a trip to their house haha.

This had me in hysterics though... I had made veggie and ricotta parcels to take up and had the most hilarious surprise when I got one of the trays out of the car, he had eaten one of the parcels and stuffed the empty hole with leaves from the ground by the car. I could not stop laughing. Especially when he kept telling me that he had no idea what I was on about.

The kids had the best time in the pool with their cousins... and no matter how many times I see this pool set up with that epic view, it never gets old. I love how they've done it almost as an "infinity" style pool because it's above ground on the back side, allowing them to not need a pool fence that side by law as it's too high for a kid to climb into.

Alex was nice and snuggly after his swim and happy as anything and...

These bestie cousins were thrilled to see that their matching PJs from Christmas last year still fit. I love that they are so close. Today was an awesome day spent with the family celebrating, even if it was a little later than usual.

christmas 2021

this christmas was so different from the past three for our family. today we spent at home, just the five of us, with no one else. last christmas (2020) we knew we didn't have long with doug's mum and worried non stop about her and keeping her comfortable. the one before (2019) we had just days left with doug's dad and couldn't concentrate on much, other than when we would get to the hospital and spend time with him - and the year before that (2018) we had not long found out about doug's mums cancer and doug's dad had taken a turn for the worse. he was so unwell we were really frightened we were going to lose him.

it really lead us to wanting a christmas that involved no one other than us. so that's what we did. for the first time in years at christmas, we didn't have to stress about anything. didn't have to worry about anyone. it was just doug and i and the kids at home with no interruptions or distractions. we didn't go anywhere, we didn't do anything... we spent all our time focused on the kids and their excitement and it was the most perfect christmas yet.

instead of dozens of presents (which was grandma's tradition) we bought the kids a few things each that we knew that they really wanted and were rewarded with huge smiles and a lot of excitement. 

we scored this lego mario switch case for joseph when we bought him the lego luigi set and you could not wipe the smile off his face!

this random minecraft basketball i picked up months ago and stashed away was a huge hit. look at that smile!

alex loved everything. he was so excited to see presents for him. 

but his favourite part was ripping the paper off.

maddie loved her presents from the pinkers - they are all in isolation as theron and emily came from queensland and as intertstate restrictions came into effect again, they had to lockdown with them. uncle taui came to the rescue though, christmas shopping on their behalf and delivering the goods. she loves harry potter things (even though she hasn't read the books or even seen that many of the movies) and was so happy with this shirt

and this super cool "wreck this journal" which i had seen online just last week and had actually saved so i could hunt down a copy for her. it's a journal that you deliberately destroy and all of the pages have different suggestions of how to do so. i love it!

but her favourite gift was her skateboard. she has been asking for one for months and a month or so before christmas, i got online, hunted for a good one and ordered it with plenty of time to arrive. she was soooo happy and kept squealing about it all day. nailed it!

alex got some minion lego from his pinkers and he was thrilled!

i love how happy joseph was today. he so often is serious or subdued, but today we had the best of him with so many laughs and jokes.

before madeline went to bed, she said to me that her favourite part of christmas was getting up in the morning, coming out the lounge and seeing everything set up beautifully at the table ready for our family breakfast. i was so so tired last night (as a mum, part of christmas is being up to all hours the night before, everyone knows that lol) but still made the effort... and was rewarded with a cuddle and maddie reminding me how much she loves it making it so worth it.

these two loved their breakfast and were just so happy!

alex was happy to pose with me for some selfies, smiling away

and this dude was so thrilled to have his mario brothers set complete. 

look. at. that. face.

and my favourite bit of the day? having just us. not having to be anywhere. not having to rush. just relaxing at home.

alex even relaxed enough to fall asleep in the cool aircon, laying on my pillow. it was so cute!

seriously so glad i bought that skateboard haha.

we began the day with tradition, we had left out the scriptures ready for us to read the christmas story when we woke. we alwasy read luke 2 and have family prayer before we do anything else. the kids are allowed to open anything in their stockings, but mum and dad have to sleep until 7am... then we open our presents one by one (so everyone can watch each other and see what we all got) before having christmas brunch.

the kids left out treats for santa and the reindeer as always...

 

and doug and i went to bed once everything was set up just right. it really was the perfect christmas. 

just us. a family.

elf on the shelf: 2020 edition

we all agree in this house that the elf on the shelf tradition is ridiculous but it makes us laugh so hard and the kids have so much fun with it that doug has had it going for yet another year. they appeared again overnight for december 1st, just in time to decorate the christmas tree and it's been a riot ever since. i must admit though, the thing i took the most entertainment out of this time was the labelling them with the names jingle and jangle (the name of the street drug from the netflix show riverdale, which is why all of our friends are so entertained) so that maddie couldn't keep naming them each year. 

december 1st: time to decorate the tree

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december 2nd: in the dryer, stuck in some ridiculous knock off barbie doll clothes doug got them from kmart

december 3rd: illegal animal races on the chicken table (side note, i hate that damn rubber chicken as alex is obsessed with it)

december 4th: decorating the kids fabric advent calendar

december 5th: smoothie making with some rather questionable ingredients

december 6th: hanging out in the lamps in mum and dads room

december 7th: "decorating" the christmas tree for us 

december 8th: playing poker with some other members of our household, the heeler family in the nativity

december 9th: using their spidey senses to hang from the light fitting in the living room

'

december 10th: fishing in the kids bathroom sink

december 11th: hiding in another one of our nativity sets

december 12th: ironing their clothes

december 13th: having a work out in dougs gym

december 14th: hitching a ride on ron and hermoines brooms in alex's room

december 15th: locked up in the pantry

december 16th: hanging out in yet another one of our nativity scenes (that's a good thought for next christmas, we have almost as many nativity scenes as days we need for the elves to visit - perhaps they can do one a day. you can bet doug wouldn't allow it though, he'd say it was too boring)

december 17th: playing in madeline and joseph's bedrooms

december 18th: having a sleep in, in madeline's doll cot

december 19th: they peg attacked the house. doug had wayyyy too much fun with this one, i was finding pegs for days afterwards. 

december 20th: cruising in the kids tractor

december 21st: drawing the kids favourite things on our eggs

december 22nd: picking movies. this was hilarious... doug calls people dreamers all the time and one of them is pulling out a movie called dreamer.

december 23rd: back off home in time for christmas eve!

they have made me laugh all month and i am sure they'll be back next year, ugh. 

i had to add this photo in though, doug has cracked me up so much adding random things to this nativity all month. apparently a disco ball, iron man, a shark, a care bear and the heelers were present at the birth of baby jesus - and this was just one photo i took! what a crack up.