Christmas Daze

Well Christmas came and went and a good time was had by all.

We decided this year to stay at home for the day and to make it just a day for our own family. We woke up when we wanted to and had no fixed schedule or responsibilities for the day other than what we wanted to make of it. Luverly.

After a cup of coffee and cuddling in bed we all went through to the lounge to see what Father Christmas had brought us.

The boys were understandably excited by the pile of tempting loot under the tree. They soon got into the business of opening their presents and were thrilled with everything they got from boxer shorts, swim suits, goggles, through to the larger gifts like cricket set, bow and arrow pool set, meccano set etc.

I am really glad to see how grateful and appreciative they were, and they have no issues with what the other one got, and whether they have the same or even the same number of gifts. Well done boys!

Richard got a Diesel watch, 2 large silver Buddhist inspired mantle piece ornaments, a bicycle helmet and cycling gloves from me, and 4 P.S chocoates from the boys.

I got lacy undies, black suspender stockings, a watch, several CDs and some beautiful sparkley crystal bracklets.

Quinn was thrilled with his Meccano Crazy Inventor set, and said several times 'this is really cool', 'I like this', 'Wow this is quite NICE'. We spent a good portion of the day building it and I was amazed at how it held Quinn's attention and how much of the construction he was able to do. Some of it is pretty fiddly and tricky and he got a good fine motor work out twiddling the bolts and nuts etc. I also found out that he is pretty practically and mechanically minded as I was reading the plan and he pointed out a few times that I had made a subtle mistake and or found easier ways of doing what I was doing - like when I tried to very awkwardly screw into a tight corner he mentioned it would be easer to put the screw driver through the hole on the top and point it straight down to the screw I was inserting. D'oh! We built on a nd off through the day and eventually had to send him to bed at 10:30pm when he was half asleep but still wanted to finish it.

There was a lot of swimming throughout the day, although I avoided the sun altogether because my Christmas Eve sun burn is pretty bad, and is still very sore 3 days later :(

Richard spent much of Christmas Day cooking up a storm. He is a confirmed carnivore, and althought there were only to be 4 of us for lunch we had to have a smoked pork roast, big stuffed chicken and ANOTHER chicken, this was rounded off with loads of roast potatoes, and sweet potatoes and butternut, and I made gravy and a salad. I felt bad that we could have fed a small African country on all the food we had... but once I tasted it I forgot about my guilt, because it was delicious.

After lunch we lay around recovering and wishing it wasn't so hot, and we weren't so full. As soon as we started to feel human again and were able to roll off the couch we looked at each other and said, 'Pudding!' and started on the Christmas pudding and custard. It was delicious. I LOVE Christmas pudding, and you only get to have it once a year but - Arrgh!

Yesterday I decided to go to gym to stay out of the sun and move some of the artery lining I had accumulated the day before. Strangely (or maybe logically?) I had a lot of energy and ran nearly 10km on the treadmill and then we did some weights. Later in the afternoon/evening we went Ice Skating and I skated for close to 2 hours until I was really tired and at risk of falling. We went home gorged ourselves again on left overs and now it's today.

So far so good. This is the life.

More pics on Flickr