Christmas day 2013

Marty told the church (as he MC'd the service) last week that I always get up before the kids on Christmas day.  It is the ONLY day of the year I wake up first in my house.  No exception this year.  I was up at 4am...then 6am...and finally caved and got out of bed at 7am! But nope, even then I still had to wait until 7.30am before the girls appeared, and we tried waking Luke but he rolled over and ignored us.  He joined us later..and once he got into the whole present thing he was away: all day he was asking to "open present?".  The girls were so excited about Christmas this year, as they get older they really get into it so we had lots of fun together.

  

We started the morning with stocking opening and a fairly normal routine of breakfast, before heading off to church for the morning service.  I love seeing my wider church family on Christmas day and sharing well wishes, it really sets the whole mood for the day.  Then it was straight off to join the cousins, aunties, uncles, and nana at Granma and Grandads house.  Present time was chaos with 7 very young children all opening the bounty of gifts at once, but that is all part of it.  The kids were delighted to recieve Ukelele's and have been  strumming (terribly, must take lessons on YouTube) them ever since - Kate has even written her first song.  It pretty much says on the paper "I love my ukelele x3.  It is soooooo muuuuchhhh funnnn yeahhhhhhh"!!  Love it Kate, keep up the songwriting.  

 After a huge roast lamb lunch followed by an even bigger dessert, we sat in the sun and chilled as the cousins played.  As the tears grew louder from tired children though, we nudged ourselves along to head home for a bit of a rest before the other side of the family arrived for dinner at ours...oh yeah, and our kids finally got the chance to unwrap their presents from US!  The girls were delighted to get lego friends (girl lego) and Luke loves his 3 wheel scooter.  A quick skype with Poppa and Oma in Auckland was the perfect addition to our family day, I love skype, its so much nicer then a phone call on these occasions!

Then it was all go again, with a BBQ dinner and dessert that we barely dented after a day full of eating.  Gramps and Colleen totally spoilt the grandchildren, with a very realistic T-rex for Luke and new duvets for the girls being highlights.

 Dinner was full of laughs and fun with Martys sisters and their families and his cuzzie AJ joining us.  Once the kids settled down, we got the cocktails flowing and started a very rowdy and hilarious game of Charades on the ipad.  This version of the game requires you to hold the ipad to your head and you have to guess whose/what name is on the screen based on the help from everyone else giving clues via describing/impersonating/humming/acting.  It was so funny and we kept the fun going until 11pm that night!

You're a reindeer obviously!!!

Boxing day fun with the new toys

And that brings us to Boxing day, when I have CRASHED on the energy levels after a totally busy fortnight.  I woke up with a headache that has lasted all day (hmmm...result of cocktails or just tiredness?!).   We were all tired out - Kate and Luke didn't even get dressed at all today.  I spent most of the day cleaning up the house, exchanging double up lego (I am NUTS for going into the Warehouse today) and playing with the kids new toys with them.  But finally i gave in and had a nap in the afternoon and then us girls blobbed in front of a movie before a dinner of leftovers.  And now I think its more Christmas TV before an early night for me....Merry Christmas!

Christmas buildup of festivities

We had our first christmas dinner on the 22nd December, kicking off 5 days of chaos that has left me completly wiped out!! Christmas with Granny and Gramp Muz was a relaxed BBQ tea, followed by presents (utterly spoilt!) and then football for the lads, music videos for the ladies.  

  

 The girls adored the beautiful dresses they were given, all the way from the UK and Marty and I were delighted to open not 1...not 2...not even 3...but FIVE new murder mystery dinner party kits!  We love that we have all these laughs and social fun to look forward to, and we can lend/swap with friends too.

 
  
That was Sunday night before Christmas. On Monday we spent the entire day in the kitchen, baking up treat after treat after treat for Christmas day.  Monday night, Marty and I escaped for the date I had been waiting for all year - the Hobbit movie in 3D - my first 3D movie!! I LOVED it, it was really awesome (I kept leaning over and whispering this fact to Marty through the movie) and I can't wait until next Christmas when the adenture concludes.

On Tuesday us girls cleaned the house (the girls are very good dusters) and then joined the cousins at the park to feed the ducks once daddy finished work.  After a quick traditional  reading of "Twas the night before Christmas" we headed out to church for carols by candlelight.  The kids loved holding glow sticks and candles as they sung in the dark church.  Afterwards it was dark enough to join our great mates (the Winters family) at the "fiesta of lights" - walking around the showgrounds which was set up with fairy lights galore.  We then made sure they were all well and truly exhausted by driving around the houses which were all lit up and decorated.  Needless to say, at 10.30pm, the kids were asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow!!! It was a great build up to one of our favourite days of the year.....

 

A family day trip!

The kids on "Danny the train" in Dannevirke Fantasy Cave!

Today all of us Hawke's Bay branch of the Trowbridge bunch took a road trip to Palmerston North to hang out with Marty's baby sister and her family as she celebrated her 30th.  We decided to make the most of the fact that this special occasion was so close to Christmas, by doing a quick stopover in Dannevirke at the Fantasy Cave, which the kids just love.
It was crowded with people visiting Santa at this special children's spot, but the kids didn't notice (us adults sure did!).  They were far too busy checking out the tiny thumbelina on her flower, the shark that came looming out of the underwater cave, and the teddy bears picnic scene complete with tiny sausages on the tiny barbeque.  My neice Brianna exclaimed "This is the BEST place in ALL of Dannevirke!", summing up all the kids thoughts in a sentence.

I got told off for taking photos - a volunteer actually waggled her finger at me as she grumbled "the sign is RIGHT THERE".... and then as I put the camera away she even said "Now you HAVE turned it off now haven't you?" I assured her that I had not seen the sign as I was busy looking at the scene with the kids on the other side, and that she did not need to tell me twice!".  Hmpf.  I then turned to my sis-in-law and whispered "well, there goes her free advertising on my blog....it might be quite a different blog now!!"

Grandad and his neices check out the "pussycat, pussycat, where have you been" scene

Family photo with Santa went BIG this year!
Granma, Grandad, Aunty Shona, Uncle Paul and cousins Jakob, Brianna and Aedyn joined in!

After the caves, we headed down to the deer park for a picnic lunch.  The girls were very excited to be here, as they have watched (over and over) video footage of them playing here about four years ago with their cousins, and so they "remembered" it!  The huge amount of ducks and chickens were ridiculous here though, stealing our lunch from our plates and our hands!  Luke freaked out a bit, trying to climb into the middle of our laps as they got closer and closer.  Check out our monkeys playing together :) 

 And then it was down to Palmerston North for the big birthday party.  Cheryl is an AMAZING baker, and she had totally gone cupcake crazy for this one...baking over 450 mini cupcakes!! There were vanilla, lemon, red velvet, chocolate and caramel (they were the best i reckon) all presented beautifully beside other scrummy treats.  Needless to say, none of us left hungry!  The kids all disappeared outside to sand and water play, keeping them busy and happy all afternoon and allowing us adults to chill out together.  And I got plenty of cuddles with my baby nephew...ahhh.  Nope, not clucky....but VERY happy to hold the baby whenever needed of course!

Happy Birthday Aunty Cheryl! In her place of honour - surrounded by her adoring neices and nephews (and with her son on her lap!)

I managed to round up the family for this photo too, much to the mens disgust.  But hey, I am part of this family so you should be used to the photos and blogs by now people!  And to be fair, the last family photo we had is missing the youngest three members of the family, so it was time for an update!
Left back: Marty's dad, brother in law, nephew, brother in law, stepdad, mum, nephew, nana (holding nephew) and Marty.
Left front: Marty's dad's partner, sister, neice, sister, and ....us lot, his very own lot!

Christmas holiday spirit!

It's been a glorious weekend here in the Bay - an absolute scorcher, lots of fun activities and best of all - Christmas festivities galore! 

Friday night we watched "the grinch who stole Christmas" with the kids, our first family Xmas movie, but not the last! It led us well into a weekend really focused on the Christmas spirit. 

On Saturday after the girls final swimming lessons for the year, we spontaneously decided to hit the beach - it was just too hot to stay home. Never mind it was already 11am and we had rehearsals for kings kids at 3pm - we had time to hang for a while in ahuriri! The kids just loved getting back to the beach - this was the first time for this summer we have made it, and although Marty is not a big fan, we both do love that the beach is the one place we can take the kids and really leave them to it - they amuse themselves with sand, water and each other, and we pretty much lie there and observe in peace! They had fun making a spa pool:"but how on EARTH can we make stairs!" I heard Kate pondering loudly! Luke stood and pondered the wide ocean for ages before venturing near it with me. But it wasn't long before he was lying in the shallow waves on his tummy yelling "Luke swimming! Luke swimming!" As he waved his arms furiously around in circles (still solidly on the sand)!

The next day we had our Christmas production in church. As long as the kids are on the stage, as director I don't really need to worry about anything else - their cuteness makes it awesome! Kate made a beautiful Mary, rocking her baby Jesus to the tunes of silent night. Jaimee was relieved to be an angel after swapping roles with Kate at the last minute (she didn't like Mary's costume!). 

Then we whisked off to Napier for Luke's barnardos home based care party. I was able to snap this lovely shot of him with his little buddies, here is grandma with her three charges: Luke, Sophie and Ben. Luke adores both Sophie and Ben, talking about them all the time, and was delighted to play at the park with them on a special day! 

Shortly after this photo of Luke and Sophie at the water/sand play, Luke decided to go swimming in the watery sand on the upper far right of this picture - soaking his clothes right through! Luckily we had a change of clothes in his nappy bag, because next it was off to havelock for Christmas carols in the domain.

Carols. Ahhhh...This is one of my favourite Christmas events! The girls had a blast with the important task of handing song sheets out to all the crowd, and as soon as the music started they were off to the front of the stage to dance the night away with all their wee mates from church. I begged them to come back to our mat and join me for a dance at one point - it's just not cool to dance all by yourself with no kids apparently, although I don't care - social etiquette didn't stop me from getting up and having a bit of a boogy though! Hehe. 

And here's one of me and my special "little sister" Katie! Katie is adored by my girls (actually, the whole family!) and comes after school and has tea with us most mondays, and today was her birthday so it was nice to celebrate with her :) 

Sun, beaches, carols, nativity plays, Christmas movies, sausages ....It's certainly "beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...."

 The only sad bit so far for me is the obviously dying tradition that I love so much - card exchanging! 10 days before Christmas and I have a whole 6 cards on my wall. Normally this hanger is overflowing with cards, but the last few years it's been less and less. It makes me a little sad because it's the one time of he year that I really look forward to checking the mail box each day. There is something special about knowing someone cared enough to send you a card. I know we are all busy, but ahh I do miss this one.  I sent out over 40 this year, it's one of our traditions to sit down as a couple and write out cards. To me, it's a little present for those we can't afford to buy for bit still want to acknowledge.

  Ah well, I guess that's the life we live in now. Facebook sentiments and Christmas shared video files, which are also lovely, if not as personal.  But for now, my girls painstackingly create and write out cards to their loved ones just like mummy does. 

Final reports 2013

Don't think I need to say much - just take a read, it says it all - our girls are amazing and we couldn't be more proud. 

Marty said we should do a home report to show the teachers... Not sure they would look quite the same!! Hehehe 

.....Well done girls :) xxxx