So I'll go back to the beginning of December. After school finished for the year I had the first two weeks of the holidays off with my beautiful Jack. We did a few fun things...went to the movies, went to the Rockpool Water Park (which resulted in sunburn for both of us which I felt awful about), went to the beach and went to the Botanical Gardens for Jack's cousin Alyssa's birthday party.
Jack and Ally on the playground with Patrick.
And then Christmas!! This is part of my Department 56 Christmas village. It makes me :)
The days before Christmas is a flurry of activity. My Mumma came around to give me a hand with the cooking on the Friday before Christmas and then my Aunt Diane and Uncle Paul dropped around on Saturday. They got the dirty job of rolling the truffles. LOL, looks like hard work hey. This was taken at the end of the rolling too btw not during.
I made a couple of fudges, an Eggnog Fudge and a Salted Caramel Fudge which was to die for, yummo!! I also made a Cranberry Chilli Chutney. I don't cook alot of hot foods because I don't like to eat hot foods but after cutting up all the chillies for the chutney I remember the last time I cut up chilli and told myself not to forget to wear gloves, I forgot. Stirring the fudge for 8 minutes over the heat with chillified fingers is not fun, eating the leftover caramel fudge though made it worth it.
The kids lunching in the theater room on Christmas Day while watching The Santa Clause 3.
And a dip in the pool after lunch...
This is my Mum and my brother Kevin.
My Mum with her brother and sisters and my Grandparents: Fay, Mum, Jaamy, Rob, Diane & Jenny with Grandad and Grandma.
Me and my brother with my Grandparents and my Mum.
Christmas Day was soooo nice this year. The last couple of years it's been hot and sticky and wet but this year was really pleasant with a nice breeze and nice and sunny. I normally am up very very late the few nights before Christmas running around like crazy trying to get everything done but this year I was pretty organised. I was up a bit late the night before Christmas though because I forgot that I had to make the pavlova and didn't remember until about 10.30 Christmas Eve. You know how it is when something happens like that things always seem to dcmino. So I remember that I have to make the pav, then I couldn't find any caster sugar so thank goodness for Google, I read that you could blitz normal sugar in a food processor instead. Being the middle of the night though I didn't want to wake up Jack with the noisy processor so at 11pm I'm on the floor in the bedroom huddled over my food processor blitzing up the sugar. I take my processed sugar out to the kitchen and then I can't find the cornflour!! So I'm pulling out half my pantry and what do I find...caster sugar of course but I also found the cornflour. Pav was done and baked by about 12.30 and I jumped in bed. I couldn't sleep!! When I last looked at the clock it was after 2am and then of course my beautiful son who normally sleeps until at least 7 was up at 5.30 in the morning!! I was fine though after a couple of coffees and the day was great. I think everyone had a good day.
New Years Eve!! O and I took Jack to the Carnival near the PCYC. It's the first year they've had anything like this on in Rocky and it was great to have something fun for the kids to do. The last couple of years we've just spent it quietly at home so it was nice to have something to do. They had a few rides including a rock wall and the Hurricane!! I was very surprised that Jack wanted to go on. My baby is growing up I guess (sigh). I'm pretty sure O enjoyed himself as well.
On Boxing Day our friends the William's invited us to this beautiful beach down at Byfield (I'm pretty sure it's called Sandy Point) Again it was another great day, not too hot with a nice sea breeze. There were a few bugs around but otherwise it was perfect.
The boys did a spot of fishing. I threw in a few lines too but there were no fish biting unfortunately or fortunately I guess as O and I are not the best at the whole fish from hook removal business.
Like father, like son.
Don't you love Owen's pink fishing rod (it's mine of course). Looking good honey ;) With Owen working so many weekends it's hard to get time together to do fun things like this so it was a fantastic way to start off the New Year (thank goodness for an occasional actual public holiday!!)
Jack and Ollie decided that it would be safer to dig a hole to swim in since we had spotted a couple of jellyfish. They didn't have much success though but had fun trying. I even found a couple of sand dollars. I always look for them whenever I'm at the beach but they're pretty scarce around here.
So that's about the year so far. Jack is of course on holidays so he has been spending time with a number of my very generous, lovely friends and family which has been great for him to have kids to play with.
I'm looking forward to the new year and seeing what it brings with it!!
And lastly a cool photo I took tonight of a cicada shedding it's skin. It was on the door of the guinea pig hutch when we went to put them to bed.
Ciao!
3 comments:
I hear you on the lack of blogging (and your side bar nicely reminded me that it's been 3 months since my last post!), I really miss it. Your Christmas sounds lovely and I LOVE your holiday village! Look forward to more posts Jody (I am ON TO IT tomorrow night!).
Nice to see you bloging again Jody :) I always love seeing your pic's and all the yummy things you make! Wow Jack is growning up, suppose my Mr E is too...lol..
I've made a promise to get back into my blog this year too :)
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