Happy Birthday To Me

It's my birthday today, yep a Christmas baby! I used to hate having a birthday at Christmas when I was a kid, but now I don't mind so much. The weather is generally awesome and we're still in relaxation mode after Christmas.

Hubby took the day off as he wasn't able to swap with anyone at work. This morning I was treated to waffles with icecream, raspberries & strawberries, YUMMY!!!!! My all-time fav special breakfast. Morgan bought my card to me in bed and helped with opening pressies. Then after brekky we packed a picnic lunch and headed up to the Blue Mountains. The plan was to have lunch at Katoomba but we got stuck in a traffic jam that never seemed to end. So after crawling along for 45mins we did a u-turn and headed back to Glenbrook, one of the villages at the start of the Mountains. We had lunch at the edge of the National Park then wandered round the shops. As it's holiday time, the only places open were cafes, so we grabbed a drink from a dairy and headed back to the car. The shop must've known it was my birthday cos they had cans of L&P for sale, oh happy day!!

When we got home I skyped my parents & buddy Lou. This evening Hubby is cooking dinner and we might get a dvd out. Still working on getting Morgan used to being babysat, so will go to the movies another day. Happy Birthday to me!

Christmas 2011

We've had a busy couple of days and finally Sydney turned on some gorgeous weather, just in time! I think we even got up to 31deg yesterday. Not bad considering all the rain and grey days we've had leading up to Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we were invited to Hubby's brother's house for a celebratory dinner. My sis-in-law put on an amazing spread, with stuffed mushrooms, salad, gourmet chicken balls, pasta salad and delicious Atlantic salmon cooked to perfection. Plus yummy chocolate truffles for a light dessert. The kids had a great time running round the back yard, swinging, jumping on the tramp, squirting water pistols and Morgan played in a bucket of water which he ended up dumping on himself! After dinner the kids all had a bath together then we headed home, hoping to give Morgan an early night, however he was too hyped up and didn't get to sleep til around 9.30pm. Hubby & I finished wrapping pressies, placed them under the tree then headed to bed. 

Due to Morgan's late night (and a few wake ups during the night), we managed to get a sleep in til 9am. Why not make the most of it, since next Christmas he'll be more aware of what is going on and will probably be up at the crack of dawn! We sat on our bed to open the pressies in his stocking then headed out to the lounge where he ooohed & aahhed at the tree. We skyped my parents while eating breakfast and Morgan kept them entertained with his antics. We had yummy trifle for breakfast, just cos it's Christmas! I was quite impressed at my first attempt to make trifle. 

Anti clockwise from top: peppermint bark, kiwi card picture, new pressie, trifle, checking out pressies. Main pic: surrounded by chaos at lunchtime

After Morgan's nap, we headed to the in-laws for Christmas lunch. My niece & nephew were so excited when we arrived as they'd been waiting for us to get there before opening pressies (we were a bit late due to Morgan having a big nap!). Paper went everywhere and the kids had fun playing with everything at once. Lunch was then served, and we enjoyed yummy ham off the bone, prawns, fish bites, crumbed crab (I gave mine to Muz, yucky!), pork, chicken and salads. For dessert we had chocolate mud cake, choc macadamia slice and Christmas cake. We headed home around 6pm and just had a light dinner of leftovers. Morgan had another restless, wakeful night so is making up for it today with a big nap. 

It was a lovely, reasonably quiet Christmas although still exhausting and I'm glad for a day of doing absolutely nothing today. My plan for the evening is to go through Morgan's toybox and sort out some of the baby toys to put away/give away so we can make room for his new pressies. And maybe have some more trifle!

Christmas Decorating

I was in two minds about putting up a Christmas tree this year. I love having a tree but wasn't sure if little hands might find the decorations too tempting. Last week we decided to risk it and while Morgan had a nap, Hubby and I put the tree together. Breakable decorations have been placed up high out of reach and plastic or material decorations are at the bottom. The fairy lights also stop three quarters of the way down, so looks kinda funny lit up in the evening! Morgan has been pretty good so far, a couple of plastic decorations have been pulled off and thrown around the lounge but other than that he's usually too busy playing with his toys to bother with the tree.

 The new additions to the collection have been a couple from my Mum - an old cross-stitched decoration I made when I was young and an embroidered pohutukawa stocking (not made by me!). I scored a bargain on a Christmas plate & bowl for Morgan, $2.85 for both! The plan is to use it for breakfast each day during December, just to start a new tradition. I love the little tree with Morgan's name on, also sent over by my Mum. She had one made for each of us, someone cut the wood out then a friend painted them. Very original!

This year I thought I'd try my hand at making my own Christmas wreath (way overpriced in the shops!). Inspired by these Christmas trees, I went to Spotlight and picked up a polystyrene wreath, green wool, red & white mini pom poms and red ribbon for $8. I spent an evening winding a couple of layers of wool round the wreath then bought a glue gun (I'm a first timer!) and stuck the pom poms and ribbon on. It doesn't look to bad in my opinion, as long as you don't look to closely! The only thing I'd do differently is buy a bigger wreath as it looks a bit tiny on our front door.

I haven't started Christmas baking yet, although I have to get cracking as I'm planning to give Morgan's swimming instructor some Peppermint Bark in 2 days time. Yikes! Hubby's family are having an early Christmas this Sunday for family members that can't be here on the day, so will be making something festive for that too.

Loving Fancy Dress

I'm doing a bit of a catch up with blogging as we've just got our computer back up & running after a couple of weeks. Turns out when I clicked on a message which I thought was updating our virus checker, it was actually to upgrade to a higher level of protection. Then at the end of the month trial it shut off our firewall as we hadn't paid for the full package. Ah well, all sorted now.

So this week I'm loving taking Morgan to his first fancy dress party. Our playgroup was having a Nativity/Christmas party for the last day (yep playgroup is finishing super early for the year!). I suddenly remembered the night before that I needed something for Morgan to wear. There was no way I was going out to buy/hire a costume just for a couple of hours so managed to find some items in the wardrobe. The long shirt was actually a nightshirt Morgan wore last winter which actually looked perfect except it was a bit tight on his arms. Nothing a little stretching wouldn't fix. I used a muslin wrap as the headpiece and some brown wool for the head and as a belt. Then just his normal sandals and a soft toy sheep to complete the look!

Morgan wasn't so keen on the headpiece at home but once we got to playgroup he strutted around the place looking like a mini shepherd dragging his sheep along. It was a muggy hot day so halfway through playgroup I took the costume off so he could run around in shorts & a singlet. During morning tea he managed to tip water all over himself so ended up just wearing his nappy. I think he must've had a good time as he had a 3hr nap when we got home!


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