Christmas Twenty Thirteen

 

(These strawberries provided many laughs on the day - the pic in the magazine my mum saw
looked so cute, but these look like they should be on a website similar to cake wrecks!)

 I've pretty much been in a self induced food coma since Christmas day.  A week has almost passed and I can't say that I've done all that much at all which has kind of been nice.

We had a really fun Christmas day.  Ella was so excited about it and seeing her face when she came downstairs first thing in the morning and saw that Santa had been absolutely made my day.  She smiled and laughed with glee when she saw that the cookies we left out for Santa were gone, as was the carrot that we left for Rudolph, then when we went back inside to the Christmas tree and she saw her My Little Pony from Santa her eyes were so wide and she just looked completely astonished.

Lucas, although he's too young to understand what Christmas is, was also his usual happy self.  He squealed and gurgled as he ripped open the paper surrounding his presents.  His favourite by far was the Christmas bear that Santa brought him.  He clutched that thing and laughed so joyously for most of the morning.

We had a delicious lunch at our house with my family.  We usually have Christmas at mum and dad's place but since we had just had our pergola put up, we thought it might be nice to have it at our place for a change.  We roasted a turducken and dad baked a ham.  It all tasted so good but there is nothing quite like mum's roast on Christmas day so I think I will hand the reigns back over to her next year.

In the afternoon we went to Tim's parents house and had fun opening our Kris Kringle presents.  It was so nice to watch Ella playing with her cousins. And again, everyone cooed over Lucas because all he does is smile and everyone instantly falls in love with him as soon as he flashes his little gums.

Our kids were absolutely spoiled by both sides of the family.  On boxing day we unpacked all their toys and it looked as though our living room was part of the Fischer Price warehouse.  Nanna and Pa bought Ella a princess castle which I put together for her (many blisters on my hands later...) and I think that was her favourite present.  She's really good at playing by herself and using her imagination so I love standing near her door listening to her as she plays with the princesses and hear her little conversations.

Since then we haven't done a great deal.  We went up the coast one day which was really nice and relaxing and other than that we've just been pottering around the house eating left over ham and reading books we got for Christmas.  I've been trying to do a major declutter so that I start off the new year on the right foot.  It's NYE tomorrow and I can't believe how quickly the year has passed.  We won't be going out again this year.  Instead we'll cook a nice meal for dinner and enjoy family time and have an early night so that we can go to the beach early on New Years day to start off our new year.

2012 was a good year for us for so many reasons, but of course, by far the best part was our family expanding as we welcomed baby Lucas.  What a gift he is.  I'm really optimistic for 2014, I've got lots of plans which I will work hard to make come to fruition and I'm really excited for the challenge.