Over for another year.

Well christmas is done and dusted for another year and I have to say I honestly felt glad, relieved even, when it was over and very ready to move on.  I mentioned a fall out I had with a very close friend in my last post and thoughts of her and what went wrong have been eating away at me taking up a lot of my spare brain energy.  This should NOT be happening and it was ruining my christmas (no-one's fault but my own for letting it bother me) so I was kind looking forward to christmas being over so that I could stop trying to make myself feel like I was in the spirit of things when I just wasn't.  Now that we're back to normal it just is what it is and I'll hopefully get over it and be able to move on with my thoughts very soon.

Anyway, enough of that! I'm glad christmas is over (I was even glad to put away the decorations and have christmas completely forgotten by the 27th), but that certainly doesn't mean that I didn't have a good day.  We trecked our little family to 3 different venues on the day and had our own little celebration at home with just the 4 of us before we went anywhere.

We started off with breakfast at home (toast in my new 4 slice retro looking toaster that I love thank you daddy!) and some present opening.  I opened Milly's sand and water table the night before to build it only to find that it was missing a leg and I would have to return it.  I built it without the legs and she loved it anyway.

opening the sand and water table

Claire's present hadn't arrived yet, which was a bit disappointing because Milly would have been excited for her, but never mind.  When it did get here, she loved it and already seems to be growing into it in only a few days.

Testing out her new activity centre

Daddy had to decipher some word play and do a crossword to figure out his present, but he will be going to Melbourne to enjoy some time with a friend.

solving his find a word

Then onto brunch with some family where we were fed, received and gave many more presents and had a swim.

ooh, shiny paper!

Next was lunch with more family.  More food, present giving and receiving and catching up.  Milly spent quite awhile riding her new bike up and down dad's hallway and we had a lovely surprise visit from some more relatives.

New 'big girl' bike

Quickly raced home to empty the car and reload it for dinner with more of daddy's family.  This was our first christmas without Daddy's grandma and although not necessarily sad, it felt very different to past years celebrations and it was quite tough to see and feel the changes, even with 2 small children to distract me.

We didn't make it to one of my family's celebrations as 3 venues in a day was enough for a toddler and a 3 month old.  It was also another first christmas without my grandma (we've both lost our grandmother's to cancer this year) and I think I would have really struggled with 2 in one day.

 Overall we had a great day and we were all very spoilt with our gifts, but I also think the gifts we gave were well received even though there was no handmade, except for a few small food items.  I made this rocky road, one of these cookie jars and a few jars of Nigella's chocolate peanut butter fudge sauce.  More important than the gifts though, is that we got to spend time with our families and that's why we moved here.

bobbing for lemons