Another festive day behind us.

Christmas Eve saw us at hubby's family home. Loads of food, drink and good company. It's always a big affair with siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts, great cousins, great neices and great nephews and the odd significant other halves. Santa even made an appearence much to the delight of MasterSmiley(DS4).
We took the kids to look at all the christmas lights around the town. Some people go to great lengths with their displays, it's quite amazing. We then visited a friend for festive drinks and ended up home well after midnight!

Chrsitmas day was an unusually quiet day for us. We'd partied too much on the 23rd and the 24th and could hardly keep our eyes open on the 25th lol. We spent the day at home with the kids enjoying their gifts they found under the Christmas tree and stockings overflowing with loads of goodies.
We had a huge fruit platter for breakfast and a simple lunch of cold meats and salads followed by a store brought christmas pudding with home made custard.
The afternoon saw us curled up on the lounge watching dvd's and snoozing but we were all together as a family and that's what counts :)

Boxing day my parents and siblings surprised us with a visit and gifts all round. I have to say the gifts the kids got from them were the best ever presents this christmas. My mum made them each a lap quilt :)

MissFloss

MissMogs

MasterSmiley


All in all we had a nice few days and now it's back to normality, well, what we might call normality for the moment lol. Hubby is home for a few more days before the call of the road beckons him back to trucking. We will be making the most of that time and may just fit in a short camping holiday.

I hope you all enjoyed the festive season how ever you may have celebrated it.

Until next time
-x-

To the beautiful, warm hearted soul who brought me into this ever changing world, my loving mum :) A milestone birthday at that, 50 years young today.

She was adament she didn't want a big party, infact no party at all, just the usual relaxing meal down on the beach. I was happy with that, my dad and siblings were just as happy. She's very, very lucky to have such festive friends who weren't going to let her birthday slip by uncelebrated lol

Her sweet friend C opened her house to mums close friends to help her celebrate. Most of them C knew, a few she didn't but welcomed them warmly. She put on a spread of cold meats and salads followed by yummy deserts and a mouth-watering red velvet birthday cake, mmmmmm.

I think i can safely say mum was happily surprised, she hates surprises lol The smile never left her face all night as she laughed and chatted with all.

Until next time
get those party shoes on and party hard
-x-

Last night saw us at the end of year school concert/graduation. As usual it was a great night, the students and teachers got into the whole theme, which last night happened to be ABBA. There were lil Benny and Bjorns running wild and gorgeous Agnetha and Frida's dancing around the hall along with others dressed in '70's get up, some quite colourful!.
Each grade sang an ABBA hit and a few times the audience got in the groove and sang along lol.

MissFloss


MissMogs and MissTeacher


For us it was a night tinged with sadness as it's our last end of year concert at this school. MissFloss (DD9) was very emotional, lack of sleep probably didn't help either! She has made some wonderful friends and really excelled at school, her report card was outstanding! Miss Mogs (DD8) has come along way in the last 12 months. She was lucky to have the same teacher in the past 2 years and this has really built up her confidence. She's not really into school, i think she goes more for the social aspect lol but her report was glowing.

Today the girls sleepily went to school to say their final goodbyes and took the camera's for extra happy snaps lol. Now we have 6 weeks of late mornings and loads of family fun!

Until next time
-x-

I received a phone call from DH yesterday morning as usual. He was letting me know he'd be home early afternoon for a few hours. Sounded good, i was happy :) He rang me later and said he wasn't coming, he thought it best if he went straight through to his destination so he didn't get held up in traffic and hopefully he'd be home earlier today (Friday). I promptly burst into tears but reassured him all was good, i understood. 45 minutes later he walked through the front door, again i burst into tears lol. I spent the next hour curled up in his arms not wanting to let go. It was a bizzarre feeling but certainly not the 1st time it's happened in the past 10 years.
I realized i had unintentionally manipulated DH to come home. I felt sooo bad and angry at myself but at the same time i was more than happy. As a bonus, the kids got to see him :)

Until next time
Keep your loved ones close
-x-

I'm not sure i achieved too much in the past week. I've had a few could be buyers come and inspect the house so i spent a good deal of the week cleaning and packing. I seem to be able to make more mess while cleaning, not sure if this is just a me thing or if others experience it too.

The christmas tree went up. Only one this year due to alot of things being packed away and put in storage. Normally i'd have 7 trees of all sizes throughout the house with a vast array of decorations on shelves. I've let the kids make decorations for the tree so we have paper angles, paper chains, paper wreaths, all very christmasy :)

The weekend saw us lighting bonfires again. We have 1 shed that is completly emptied of rubbishy timber and anything burnable. It's also cleared of unwanted items, so 1 shed down 4 to go! We visited the hardware store and brought a pile of items to finish odd jobs around the place. If we don't sell we will rent the house out so i need it to have fixtures like curtains, doors, door locks, sink plugs.

DH was bitten by a bull-ant and had another allergic reaction. I wonder if his recent bouts of cellulitis have played havoc with his immune system. He never used to have a problem with insect bites until this year, hmmm.

DD9 came down with tonsilitis. I've had it with illnesses this year, it's a continuous circle of late. DD8 had her earring ripped out by the dog. She was very lucky it didn't split the lobe completely. The dog won't jump on me or DH or DD9 but has a thing for DD8 and DS4. No matter how much we dicipline him he won't listen. He was banished to the kennel for the day.

And last of all we had a visit from DStepS and his girlfriend :)

It's now raining and i have groceries to put away.

Until next time
-x-