Unfortunately, I took zero photo's! It's funny, years ago, I could never put my camera down, but now I forget to pick it up - all the time! At Christmas time I rely on Travis to take pics, but even he only got a couple this year.
So, in the lead up to Christmas (22nd-25th) we managed to squeeze in a fair bit.
*After a nice Sunday church service we had a lovely visit from Guy & Jasmine Perret (a couple in our ward who are assigned to visit us due to our inactivity, or mine and Hayden's inactivity throughout the year I'm guessing). What made the visit even better was that Jasmine baked a fruit cake for us that was really delicious (not too heavy and just the right amount of fruit).
*Some families from our ward came and sang carols to us early evening.
*We went to a very nice FHE Christmas/desert evening at the Osborne's home. We sang carols and listened to a few stories and poems. Afterwards, we went to KFC for dinner. Always Tony's choice and decision, but some evenings I'm just glad I don't have to prepare anything.
*Hayden and I went shopping at the mall to try and find him some nice casual nike sneakers. We didn't have any luck since he has extra wide feet and it completely limits his choices, but we still enjoyed having a turkish meal at the food court together.
*On the 23rd I squeezed in some last minute Christmas shopping, which was great as I ended up finding two perfect gifts - I love it when I find just the right gift for a particular person.
*Juliet helped me wrap presents for our neighbours Rhonda, Paul and Blake and Fleur and Sienna.
And on a side note...as they do every year, our other neighbours, Karen and Dave, gave me a key to their house so I could hide the kids Christmas presents in their upstairs guest room. It's so fun sneaking back and forth, and still til this day, the kids have no idea where I keep the presents or where I've disappeared too!
*Juliet and I wrapped up presents for Nicola's kids, Kaylee and Daniel, and Ashton came with me and Juliet to deliver them. We had a really nice catch up and it was great to see the kids so happy. It's been 7 years since Nicola passed, but she would be so proud of how well her kids are doing.
*Tony and I went to the garden centre and bought a pretty pink hydrangea for Anna Osborne, and then delivered it. Anna's one of my ministering sisters who I sometimes go walking with. She never fails to remember our family by inviting us for church potluck get-togethers at her house.
*The boys and I got to work and made the house look nice for Christmas day. Ashton did a fantastic job at weeding the garden, all of us scrubbed/hosed/soaped the trampoline down to get rid of all the leaves, cobwebs and bird poo. Hayden did a fantastic job at washing the back windows and kitchen windows, and Tony even helped one day after work to do the vacuuming.
*Oh, we also made it to Summer's baptism (Juliet's little friend in her primary class) and to the Northcross Baptist Church to drive through their well known Christmas light display, and nativity. It's very popular and very well done. For the nativity, all the members are in character and are so lively and humorous. They have every prop imaginable. And what's really neat, is that scriptures from Luke are written out on extra big boards/scrolls for everyone to read as they drive through. The line up of cars to get through takes quite awhile (this year we got impatient waiting in line and tried to walk through, but they wouldn't let us!)
The day before Christmas I was completely behind in the washing (to the point the kids had no undies) so I spent the morning washing. Then Juliet and I got festive by dressing up and playing our favourite Christmas music. Juliet was blasting the music in the car while waiting for me, and charging her iPad at the same time, so as we were just about to head off and get all the food for Christmas day, we discovered we had a flat battery! Me being slightly panicked on the inside, but very calm on the outside, got Hayden to come and help me get out the battery charger and get the car started again, phew! It was a good learning opportunity for Hayden since he hadn't done it before, and I was glad to have his help since I was in a pretty new dress, and didn't want to lean over the car engine and mark it. Anyway, the count down was on with supermarkets closing early, and so far no food in our fridge, but luck was on our side at fighting crowds and getting quick car parks. Another phew! We went to our favourite fruit and veggie shop and got a ton of strawberries, and then we went next door to the cheesecake shop and got a passionfruit cheesecake (Ashton and Noah's favourite).
Christmas eve we got home just after 10pm and once the kids were asleep I finished up the wrapping. Even Tony stayed awake late and did a little wrapping too. There wasn't heaps, just 2 presents for everyone, apart from Juliet and Noah. I was just turning off lights and getting into bed at 2.30am when I decided to check on the boys. As I was leaving their room, there was an ENORMOUS bush spider on the frame of their bedroom door that had come in through the window. I had to psyche myself up to make a run out of their bedroom!!! Thank goodness Noah was asleep or he totally would've freaked out! Fortunately, Tony woke up to help me get rid of it. We patiently kept a close eye on it (from a distance) waiting for bug spray to make it drop to the ground. About twenty minutes later it was FINALLY sleep time.
Christmas morning the kids woke about 7ish and Mum/Peter and Travis/Laura were all at our place by 9am. Our Christmas breakfast was our usual tradition of warm ham and peach croissants, yoghurt and fresh berries, followed by lots of hash browns cooked by Tony and Ashton on the bbq. Mum always enjoys making the croissants for everyone. I was going to skip the hash browns this year, but there was no way Noah was going to let me (they're his absolute favourite).
After everyone chilled for awhile, Travis and Laura took Juliet back to their place and Juliet did some nice paintings at Laura's art table.
At 5pm we all meet at mum and Peter's for our usual Christmas dinner - kransky's, kebabs, lots and lots of different kinds of salads (rice, almond & cranberry salad, chicken, ginger & pineapple salad, potato salad, egg salad, green salad) followed by ice-cream and strawberries. Peter cooked approx. 40 kransky sausages and 40 kebabs. The boys hoed in and made sure there was none left! I won't even mention how many kebabs Hayden ate :)
The highlights of what the kids received under the tree;
Noah got a cell phone. It was huge for him as for most of Year 8, all his friends at Intermediate had the latest iPhones and he had nothing. (He had an old one of Travis' at the beginning of the year, but it died). He did really well waiting so long for it, I know it was hard for him. He also got wireless ear buds to go with it which he'd also been longing for. And he chose his own cover. (Note: About a month before Christmas I got myself super organised by going to Vodafone, buying him a sim card and getting his phone activated, so that he could start using it on Christmas day. But unfortunately I blew it, as on Christmas day I couldn't remember the password I had put in, nor could I remember what finger I had used for the fingerprint identification, lol!!!) There was some serious disappointing groaning from Noah! But fortunately, Travis googled how to unlock everything and after 2 attempts they were able to reset everything. Noah was finally a very happy boy!
Juliet was super excited to get a new scooter from Grandma and she was also mega excited to get a microphone, since she loves to sing. It's awesome, but also loud...and so is she, so the boys are already fed up with all the noise. She takes it out on the trampoline and sings her heart out. She makes me smile and laugh and I'm sure the neighbours find it quite amusing too.
Oh, she was also soooo excited to get a huge box of lego from Nana which she was desperately wanting.
Now the hype of Christmas day is over. Juliet has gone on holiday to Opononi with Fleur and Sienna and they are staying in a 2 bedroom bach right opposite the beach. It's Juliet's first time being away from us for so long (4 nights) but Juliet is having a total blast. Tonight they sat on some rocks having fish n chips for tea, as they watched the local kids bombing off the wharf. I can't post videos on here, but I have a cute clip Fleur sent me of the girls screaming with delight as they attempt to venture into the cold waves.
Photos below are of Opononi beach, Juliet and Sienna doing tug of war with seaweed, and hitting the dunes today.
Last night the boys decided to sleep the entire night on the trampoline! They'd been planning this for a number of weeks. They challenged themselves to stay on it from 6pm until 6am. I gave them tons of blankets to keep warm and bought them pizzas so they could eat dinner on the tramp too. They were only allowed off the tramp to use the toilet (their rules) so I played along and had fun charging their phones for them, getting them water, insect repellent, more blankets etc. In the morning they were really happy and proud of themselves for making it through the whole night. Nice one boys!
Noah waking early morning;
Below Juliet relaxing in the bath on her last week of school. She really wanted to put cucumbers on her eyes, and as you can see by the slices it was a very big cucumber! Cucumbers are Juliet's favourite vegetable, it's the number one snack she has continuously put in her school lunch box this year. She couldn't resist eating them after her eyes felt nice and cool (luckily she had showered before getting in the bath!)
Just found another photo from my camera of me quickly preparing a sugar overdose for the 12 kids on Noah's baseball team! On a Saturday we're always at the baseball field for 3 hours, in the hot sun, so Hayden chilled these in the freezer and they were still cold by the time the game finished - all boys were pretty happy to chug down a cold sprite after a great win.
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