Merry Christmas 2011

Charlie dog, Squealy String Bean and Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Sending everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a safe, happy and fun filled 2012.

Christmas Photos

Here is our family Christmas photo for the year.

The kids enjoyed telling Santa what they'd like delivered. Squealy just started singing!

Santa was really sweet to the kids... although by 3pm he must have been past it!

Courgette

Panacotta and berries.

Husband Deluxe had his Christmas party again at Courgette this year. Beautiful setting and the food is really something else!

The restaurant blurb:

Awarded one hat status by the Sydney Morning Herald three years running, Courgette is one of Canberra’s most gorgeous restaurants. Owned by celebrated chef, James Mussillon, Courgette is the ideal choice for an occasion that requires everything to be perfect.

We had lots of laughs, one practical joke and a few boring speeches. I've included a photo of the dessert as it was my favourite part of the meal!

Christmas Tree

L: before and R: after

The kids have been desperate to set up out tree this year and have been asking for around 3 weeks already. So we ended up letting them set up the tree a few days early.

Squealy jumped in afterwards and vacuumed up all the tinsel and bits of tree that was all over floor.

A good team effort all round!

Christmas Day

Here are some pictures from the day. Overall we had a great day, but it ended up being alot of work. Kids had way too much to eat. Fuzzy decided he enjoyed the punch and had quite abit of it (alcohol free!).

All three were really pleased with their gifts and they didn't know what to play with first. We tried sitting in a circle this year and opening a gift at a time. This worked really well and slowed things down a bit.

I still didn't manage to get any decent photos at all. Most of them were blurry. So it's going to make scrapping Christmas LO's pretty difficult.

Christmas Eve...

Twas the night before Christmas and three very excited children wouldn't go to bed. So we bundled then up into the car and headed off for a little Christmas light sight seeing.

We didn't have to go very far to see some fantastic light displays. Our favourite by far was to be found tucked in the street directly behind my new school in Charnwood! Wow what a display.The kids were so excited as it really has to be seen to be believed.

The good thing about this display is that quite a few of the Santa's etc all move. The kids loved the Santa who was fishing!

















The last thing to do for the evening was to put out food and drinks for Santa and the Reindeer. We had to put out carrots and 2 types of cookies, choc chip and milk arrowroot. Fuzzy insisted that the reindeer would need water, so out went a bowl of water. String Bean was sure that Santa would be thirsty so a beer would be the go! What a spoilt Santa :-)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Santa photo

Fuzzy, Squealy & String Bean with Santa.

We headed out to Brand Depot this morning as we had it on good authority that this was the place to get a quick and easy Santa shot. I had also heard that the Santa was really friendly and put the kids at ease.

We were first in line and walked away with 4 5x7 shots for $15. The photos were $5 each with the first one free! The kids really enjoyed the experience although we couldn't get either of the boys to smile at all. 6 shots later we gave up. String Bean of course looked radiant in all the photos!


















This afternoon we were treated to a rare visit from Uncle Ant and Aunt Bec. They bought along the adorable baby Olivia. The kids really enjoyed playing with the baby and Squealy even decided to share his toys with her! Cluck, cluck, cluck......;-)

The tree is up

Tonight has been the first chance we've had to set up our Christmas tree and decorate the house. The kids had so much fun. Squealy helped Fuzzy set up the mini tree (which will be placed on our dining room table). After he went to bed we started the big tree.


The kids were a fantastic help. They were able to follow instructions really well and hung most of the ornaments. I'm wondering whether Squealy will leave the tree alone? I guess we shall see tomorrow.

Christmas Time Already?

Well we decided to hit the much loved and raved about Christmas shop out at Breadbo. So we took a family drive out to the country with Grandma. Was quite a bit further out than the advertised 30 minute drive from Tuggeranong! Was actually 81 kilometres and around an hour away.

The kids were very keen to get there in the end. The shop truly is amazing and has to be seen to be believed. So many beautiful baubles in every conceivable design and colour. The kids were able to choose a decoration each, as is our Christmas tradition. Although the prices were considerably higher than the Reject Shop jobs that the kids usually choose!

Luckily they had some gorgeous and cheap glass train ornaments so the boys were in heaven. String Bean on the other hand wanted to purchase a dog ornament. She has always chosen dog ornaments! They didn't really have any cheap ones of these, unfortunately.

We then had to leave the shop as it really isn't the place for young children. The shop assistants, of which there are many, were zealots in policing the children. To the point that one of them physically picked up and carried out of the shop a child who wouldn't stop touching the ornaments. Luckily it wasn't one of our kids for once.

We finished the day by having pancakes at the lovely old pancake shop, followed by a play in the local park.

P.S. Karen String Bean is wearing the outfit you got her for her birthday.

The Lighting of the Tree

String Bean and Fuzzy Wuzzy waiting for the tree to be lit.

We went tonight to our local for the annual lighting of the Christmas tree. It was so packed so we didn't head down to centre stage, opting to stay upstairs and view things from above.

After it was all over and everyone had cleared out we had some 1:1 time with the very lovely Mrs Claus. She sang the kids three songs and String Bean had a wonderful time dancing on the stage (she is natural Irish Dancer!)

Mrs Claus & Squealy! Irish Dancing girl!