Christmas 2010

It's been a very busy, but really fun Christmas. We went to my parents house in Mandurah the day before Christmas Eve, and stayed until Christmas morning. Christmas morning we drove home, then out again to Chesters Restaurant in the Swan Valley for lunch with Lewy's Dad.  Be warned, there are a stack of pictures in this post!!!

The Christmas cake..made by my very talented mum. Sam kept hanging around this cake and trying to get his little fingers into it the whole time!

Sam helping Nanna in the kitchen, of course you must wear an apron and chef's hat to do this... 

Cooking a carrot

Pop and Jacob

Blurry photo, but the sky was amazing. Everyone got sick of me talking about clouds after awhile... :) 

Nanna and Jacob - after bath time

My parents live a 1 minute walk away from this beach... it's gorgeous. 

On the way home, Sam walking Dad's dog Skip. Sam accidentally (or so he says) fell into the water so had to wear Dad's jacket home. 

The night before Christmas Eve, some of our relatives came for a visit. This is my Aunty Michele. 

My Nanna

My mum's cousin Karl visiting from England.. imagine coming from snow to our Aussie heat!

Nanna, Karl & Dad

It took about 20 photos to get this one kinda okay photo. Lewy thinks it's really funny to pull faces in every picture. It's funny for the first 3 or 4 photos...mmmm!!!

All ready for Christmas morning.

CHRISTMAS DAY!

It's never too early in the morning to do The Robot

Sam on his laptop sending some emails.. 

Jacob can officially sit up by himself and he even crawled for the first time on Boxing Day.. what a little champion :) 

CHRISTMAS LUNCH

Chesters Restaurant is a gorgeous restaurant/winery in the Swan Valley. This restaurant used to be a fruit drying shed, which was built in the early 1900's that has been refurbished to the restaurant it is now- these poles that you can see are the originals used when it was first built. We had a seafood themed lunch, it was absolutely beautiful and the perfect food choice for the weather. 

Starters - 1. Cherry tomatoes with basil pesto filling and feta. 2. Salmon on buckwheat pancakes with  salmon caviar. 

Starter - 3. Smoked chicken and corn chowder (this looks ordinary but was SO YUM!)

Entree - Crayfish and Yabby with an avocado, tomato and 'other stuff I can't remember' side... I enjoyed every mouthful of this!!!

Main - Barramundi with potatoes, tomato and a 'green but not basil pesto' sauce. 

(I thought it was a basil pesto type sauce but Lewy said it wasn't, I asked him what it was and he said "I don't know, but I know it's green but isn't basil pesto"... whatever it was, it was delicious!)

There was dessert but I only remembered to take a photo after I had finished it....that's how yummy it was :) 

When we got home from lunch, Sam went for a nap at 3pm... and we didn't see him again until the next morning! It had been a VERY busy time for the little guy! 

This morning my mother in law, Sharon and I hit the Boxing Day Sales .. and boy did I pick up some Christmas decoration bargains! Let me just say, bring on next Christmas because I'm totally organised!!! 

So overall, it's been a really enjoyable and special Christmas spent with our gorgeous boys and family :) The only downside was the unbearable heat on Christmas Day. For the first time in my 31 years of being an Aussie (or should I say an aussie living in WA).. is that I am completely and utterly sick of this hot weather! It's far TOO HOT and someone should complain (possibly to Julia Gillard?? maybe she can do something about it?! hehe) that we need to cool it down a few degrees to a more reasonable temperature. Anyone want to take on the mission? :) 

I did it!

I wasn't going to post again until after Christmas but I just had to share my good news, that today I hit my goal of running 5kms! Woohoo!!! Even though afterwards I looked like I had dived into a pool, I felt GREAT! Originally I was impressed thinking I was going to quite easily make it to 4.5kms then I thought how cool it would be if I made it to 5km so that I could write it on my blog hehe.... see, this blog is more than my random thoughts and pictures, it's becoming a good motivator!!!

Now the next goal is to actually keep it up and make running 5kms a daily habit.

The Christmas spirit is alive and well.... our lovely elderly neighbours bought me some roses from their garden, a bottle of wine, some home-made shortbread and a Christmas present for Sam. They said they miss having young kids around them as their grandkids are teens now... so I've promised that I will visit often with the boys :) They made my day :) 

Wishing you all a fantastic Christmas break! Thanks for reading my blog - I'm really enjoying it and love that you read it! xxx

Carols by Candlelight

Last night Lewy and I took Sam to Carols in Bassendean while Jacob was fast asleep at Nanna's house.  It was night of adventure :) I had visions of Lewy and I sitting on our chairs with Sam playing nicely on the picnic blanket, and us singing our little hearts out getting into the Christmas spirit. Well, well, it was lovely vision!

Sam getting excited about his new found freedom to run wild

This was the reality:

Picture this... a park packed full of people. It's getting darker.. Sam is wearing glow sticks around his neck, thankfully because for the most of the night that was the only way we could locate him in the crowd. Sam, being one very confident, fear-less, sociable little guy, wanted to individually go and visit everyone at the Carols, run around like a nutter, and investigate the stage and everything that was happening.

Eating cherries, getting his strength up for Project "Embarrass Mummy in front of the whole crowd"

So here we are, Lewy and I sitting back, enjoying the atmosphere when they bring the puppets out and invite all the kids to go to sit down the front to watch the show. Sam bolts to the front, we can see him so this is fine. All the kids sit down, I see Sam is still standing, I figure someone will tell him to sit down so all will be fine. Still standing.... and then I see him starting to walk over to the 'out of bounds' area of the stage which happens to be the actual front of the stage.. in full view of everyone at the park. I realise that unfortunately I am going to have to go into the spotlight to bring Sam back.

So here I am running to the stage, while all the kids are sitting nicely watching the show, Sam bolting up to the choir, past the presenter, right in front of the puppet stand.... he decides to stop here right below the puppets and face the entire audience. I am frantically scrambling almost on my hands and knees to get to him, while trying not to get in the way of the show, apologising to the choir, the presenter and everyone that I am getting in the way of... to grab Sam and pull him to the ground... by this stage I am feeling rather mortified and wanting to get us out of the spotlight as soon as possible!!!

You might need to click on the pic below to enlarge and see the full extent of Sam's adventures. After the first journey to 'out of bounds'.. I took this picture the SECOND time he decided to visit the stage... with another presenter and a puppet... As you can see, by this stage I had given up on being a good and responsible parent and left him to it... :)

Just when you thought I had spared you all from another sky shot........ isn't it beautiful?

So there is a little insight into our night.... life is never dull let me tell you! In all seriousness, and moments of mortification aside, I love that Sam is so full of life, confident and outgoing - as a parent I love to see these characteristics in him. Watch this space, I'm sure I will have plenty more 'Sam Adventure' posts to come!!!

A day in the life of....

I decided this morning that I would take photos throughout the day as a bit of a snapshot of what a typical day is like in our little household! Just a warning...this has the potential to be the most boring post ever... 

Morning activities... 

"Look how strong I am mum!"

Sam came up to me dressed in one of Lewy's work shirts and told me that he had packed his lunch and he was off to work .... he asked me to walk him to the door to say goodbye.  I said we needed to take a picture of his "first day of work", he was happy to pose to capture such a big moment.. my boy makes me laugh :) 

"Cheer up my lovely boys, it's not that bad"

"Ummm I guess that's a bit better?!" :) 

Breakfast time .. (note that Sam is still wearing his "work clothes" :) 

I got a lovely surprise this morning.  My boss called around with a beautiful hamper to say thank you for my work during the year. It meant a lot as doing well at my job is very important to me.  (See that bottle of wine in the middle? I'm enjoying that right now :) 

I managed to find 10 minutes to sit down and read the Bible... nice refresher and time out :) 

Lunch time! I made Sam and I some yummy wraps. See that Heinz jar? That is Mayonnaise Aioli with Dill... I HIGHLY recommend this, it's gorgeous!

Treadmill time! Guess what... I made it to 4kms today :) It's amazing how quickly your body gets back into the swing of things.  I have realised that I can trick my mind into thinking I am actually a better runner than I really am! I can do this by doing interval sprints. That way after 1 minute of a sprint, by the time I get back to jogging my mind says "this is WAY easier than sprinting.. I can do this for ages!". Woohoo! 

Time for work. This is my work area... I probably should organise something more permanent. but the dining table will do for now. And while I work I can look at the treadmill with pride knowing that I've used it well... (this works the other way too.. if I haven't done a run, the treadmill sits there taunting me)

Beautiful :) Sam and Teddy = best of friends who enjoy napping together. 

Look at my precious Jacob - this is the look I get when he wakes up from nap time. There is nothing more beautiful to me than seeing such a big lovely smile on my sons face. Obviously Jacob has been having some fun moving around while he waited for me to come and get him.  

Next task of the day - tidy up the patio area while Jacob supervises.  I meant to post a completed patio picture a long time ago.. so here it is :) 

Sam was still napping, while Jacob and I enjoyed some nice quiet time together. 

Intermission Note: It might look like it's all relaxing and fun here, but I have spared you all from posting pictures of me doing the dishes, laundry, nappy changes, cleaning up messes made by a toddler, more cleaning and tidying, work that has come through during the day, phone calls, dealing with unsettled kiddies etc etc! 

Dinner time

Okay, so having crayfish for dinner certainly isn't the norm! But definitely a lovely treat. :) 

So that sums up a kinda normal day in our house :)