CHRISTMAS IN BRISBANE....(2014)

Once again I am so far behind with this blog...
with recording the memories and day to day life...
the little things,  the treasured things, 
It might be mundane at times, but it is a life I am grateful for...
I feel so blessed, that I want to record even the simple things...  

We decided that Tuesday 30th December would be the Latham Christmas with Sarah and Colin and Willow, so we started the day just as if it were Christmas with the opening of the Christmas presents from around the Christmas tree.

One keen little chicken ready to open her presents....

 Once again Chloe played Santa and handed out the gifts.  Willow was a big help and would take them and give them to person whose turn it was to receive the gift.... she especially loved giving them to her Mummy

Helping to hand out the presents...

She loved it even better when it was her turn to get a gift.

 She was beautiful to watch....
She never asked for more and was really beautiful saying thank you to everyone..

Happy to help hand out the presents...

Willow made Poppy his present....

More gifts.... this little chicken got spoilt...

 It just goes to show that you don't have to spend a lot of money on gifts for children to love them..
I bought a $2 cyclinder of lizards from KMart and Willow loved them... She played with them for ages, and it wouldn't have worried her if she didn't get another present...
She had them crawling up both her Mummy's and Poppy's arm...
Such a small gift but it bought so much joy to her...

Playing with her lizards

They were crawling up and down Mummy and Poppy's arms. 

 In fact we had to pull her attention away from her lizards to open her next present from her great grand parents....

Butterfly pillow from Nanna and Paud...

 Willow, made her grand mothers and her aunties necklaces from Pasta which we wore all day.
Chloe was thrilled with hers and wore it proudly even when she ducked out shopping for an hour or so...

Wearing her new necklace from Willow

Willow is really into Princesses at the moment and has the Cinderella DVD which she watches over and over again.  Sarah had mentioned that it would be nice to have a few other Princess DVDs as she was sick of seeing Cinderella all the time....

Open them Mummy....

Some new Princess DVD's

Willow got "Thumbelina" and "Tinkerbell". as well as "The Little Mermaid" DVDs for Christmas and already she has watched them all, her new favourite being Thumbelina..

I got a necklace from Willow, and a new Santa necklace along with a lovely present from Daina..

I even managed to get a couple of gifts too, although, I had already got my present for Christmas in Rocky, as all the kids had put in to get me an iRobot vacuum cleaner....
It was a lot of fun opening our gifts, especially watching Willow with hers...
She did get rather spoilt.   We bought her some "Little Mermaid" Duplo.  She is really into her duplo at the moment and will play with it for hours.... I am really amazed at her concentration for her age.  We have so many kids at school that have no where near the concentration that she has now.

More gifts...

Playing with her new Duplo...

Chloe kept her present for Willow till last. 
We knew she would love it as she loves to jump and bounce all over the place. 
She really had no idea what it was when she opened it and didn't show a lot of interest in it until later in the afternoon when we all set it up for her...

Opening her present from Chloe and Dan...

She was very impressed though that it was a BIG present.....
By the time we finished opening all the presents it was almost lunch time...
Like other Christmases, we had put the Chicken roll and roast vegetables into the oven to start cooking whilst we opened the gifts...
It really did feel like Christmas Day.

We had a lovely Christmas roast dinner for lunch along with Christmas home made plum pudding and custard...
After lunch it was time for Willow to have her sleep...
This gave us a chance to clean up after lunch and put our feet up for an hour or so before she woke up and then it was pull on playing with her in the back yard....

After Willow's sleep it was time to set up her Jumping Castle in the back yard...
Whilst STeve, Chloe and Daina set up the jumping Castle,  Colin and Sarah set up her pool that she got from Chloe for Christmas last year....
She was so excited...
She couldn't wait for it to be all set up but started jumping as soon as her pillow was inflated...

She couldn't wait for it to be all set up...

 Aunty Chloe is sure a winner when it comes to presents for Willow....
She was definitely excited and definitely Aunty Chloe was her favourite on this afternoon. 

Lots of Aunty Chloe cuddles...

Mummy and Daddy cleaning up her pool and setting it up for her to have a swim also....

 Whilst Steve Chloe and Daina were getting the rest of the Jumping Castle put together, we couldn't get Willow off the pillow part of her jumping castle.  She was in her element...

Jumping, Jumping, Jumping....

Love these photos of her...

 It was really great value and much larger than I thought it would be...
Sarah is hoping to have a circus party for Willow this year and this jumping castle is sure going to come in handy...

Taking Shape

Tying it all together...

 There was no holding her back, the moment it was finished she was jumping in there.  She really wanted everyone else to jump in there with her...
Unfortunately none of us could...

It looks so colourful and inviting...

After they all built up a sweat it was time to cool off by jumping into Willow's pool. 
Others could join her in this one....

Feeding the balls to the Crocodile...

Water Play

Just a little bit thirsty

 Wasn't long before Mummy joined her in the pool

Wetting Mummy

and Poppy helped her on the slide

 Poppy was a bit cheeky and started wetting Mummy because she hadn't sat right down in the water.  Then it blew out to a big water fight....
Moppy found all the balls I got for Christmas and bought them out....

Tipped all the balls into my pool

 Then we had a big ball fight... We were throwing them at Poppy and he had to walk all around the yard and pick them up and then he threw them back at us..

I had lots of fun feeding the balls to Mr. Crocodile

It was a great Christmas Day even if it was the 30th December

 One of the best parts about Christmas in Brisbane was that Chloe's friend Daina got to join us.  Daina is very much part of our family, so it was good that she was able to share this very special day with us...

Chloe and Daina

 Even though it was a Tuesday and the rest of the world was busy going about their business, working shopping etc,  it was fun for us to take the day out and celebrate Christmas... Sarah commented that night that it really had felt like Christmas.  Love the fact that we can have special days like this together....

We decided that since Tuesday the 30th was Christmas that we would celebrate Wednesday 31st of December as Boxing Day and spend it as we traditionally would by all going to the Movies together.  More about that next post...