Christmas 2017

I thought I'd already done this post but somehow I missed it.

Our Christmas this year was different to how we've always done it in the past for a couple of reasons.


1. No tree or presents

2. Christmas Eve with Ormsby Family at our place & Christmas with Heke family at Waingaro Hot Springs


To give a bit of explanation to the no tree or presents business....it's something we decided on after christmas least year. I hate putting up the tree, I hate packing away the tree even more so that was the initial inspiration for no tree. That got me to thinking about how I'd be quite happy to have our 4 nativities up with no tree, so that's what we went for. Now we don't even own a tree and it feels good, not that I'm against them at all.

We decided on no presents as a way to cut back on buying things for the sake of buying things, being content with less and realising that what we'd prefer to do with that money is go on a holiday. We're not exactly sure how that will look for our family, but we've tentatively told the kids it will be a pacific island sort of deal, maybe a cruise...who knows!?!? Depends what the bank account allows and what work's like for Joe throughout the year. The kids were so ok with this idea that it was kind of weird. No one kicked up a stink or asked for a few presents on the actual day. No one demanded anything cause our 'christmas present' holiday was going to be so far away. It was almost just another day.

For that reason I'll have to make more of an effort this year to get into the Christmas spirit, still minus the presents, but focus on the real meaning of the season so it's not JUST another day.

This was my only picture on christmas day itself!!!!!
On the way home from Waignaro with these 2 beauties

I can't tell you how good it felt to have no wrapping to do beforehand, no clearing paper away afterwards. So refreshing....

The new Heke Christmas!

Passionfruit Birthday Sponge

I don't know the history to this sponge, but it's been around my whole life, that much I do know.

For every birthday of my brothers who passed away, we do the passionfruit sponge. That's 3 times a year every year!

And now that Grandma Julie is part of that 'club', she gets the sponge too. Lucky we love it, well I do at least. My family actually isn't quite so keen.

Hokey Pokey Bikkies

If there's a smell and taste that can take me back to being 4 years old, this might just be it.

Gran's Hokey Pokey bikkies.

I've thrown away my old recipe book with the intention to put all of the tried and true favourites on the blog....in time of course!

End of 2017

Now that I won't be working full time I should be able to be a bit more frequent with my blog posts....should! 

Since I've been doing it so sporadically I find that when I finally upload pictures, sometimes I can't remember what we were doing at the time....hence adding captions is a bit difficult. If these don't have captions it's cause I have no idea why I took the picture!

I can't remember why I got the kids juice boxes from Countdown on the way home from school because I NEVER do that, but anyways, this guy decided it was such a novelty that he'd just plonk himself down in the carpark and have it right there and then...no worries!

The big girls reminded me that I used to do 'ice-block Thursday' back in the day, when Faith was still in Year 0 and 1. So we started it back up again and Dalls became acquainted with Bubble-o-Bill.

For Halloween this year Ella was stricken with the chickenpox so we couldn't go to the ward trunk 'n treat but they were more than happy to play my silly games on the trampoline for treats instead.

Someone obviously had a vivid in the room at bedtime that night....sooo annoying!

Ella had a visitor in her room come in and talk about panning for gold and he gave them all some kind of 'precious' rock

1st ever project....so proud of her!

Mummy Bear is such a treasure in our home. She's so dusty and a bit worse for wear these days and we have some almighty arguments over whose turn it is to sleep with her. Sometimes it gets so intense that I take her off all the kids and sleep with her myself!

This little tutu was always going through things of mine and Britt's in our office and he was super chuffed one day when he found this domino that matched his reading group

Winky and Baify

This kid lucked out when his Mum tried about 20 times to win something at the school raffle thing and they finally got it

A lovely trip to the temple with 7 of our Young Women. Can't wait till I can take my own girls....and boy.

I wish I had more pics of our laughs, but this was a goodie. You had to be there so I won't bother explaining it, suffice to say....we're hilarious!

My not so sunny man getting a big telling off from Miss Britt about sneaking into our office at morning tea and eating the number 7 from her advent calendar

A great afternoon trip to the Zoo with the Tira family

Our family 'out' evening at Wonder

T-shirts that we got made for the Young Women's in Excellence Evening 

These 2 super cute ladies specifically came to our evening because they'd ordered a Personal Progress book and were excited to find out more and get started

We had a class Christmas potluck dinner and Dallin made great friends with this Mum of a little girl in my room. She's got a gift that girl!

Our 3rd annual carolling activity at the Carnavon Hospital/Resthome. It was extra lovely this year to take the Faith in God kids so they could be part of it as well.

Seth got the Sports Excellence Award for his class

Ella got the Sports Excellence Award for her class

And Faith got the award for Outstanding Citizenship for a year 1-5 student

Straight to the mall for McDs afterwards where we saw about 30 Summerland Families doing the same thing

Ella's choice of free book for her award the night before.....So Ella!.  I didn't get a pic of the others but Seth got a Lego Ninjago book and Faith got a Killer Shark book.....my kids are so predictable!

One of our first days of school holidays....hallelujah for the deck on a rainy day....and 5 minutes of playing cards nicely without trying to kill eachother

A couple of little clay gems that Faith made but were far to bulky to keep forever

Occasionally we sneak past Joe's worksites and this was one of those days cause he was just down the road in Glen Eden. Waiting for concrete as usual. I'm sure he spends half his life waiting for concrete cause that's usually how our phone conversations during the day start.