I have finally had a free moment to just sit and look at my pics that I've taken over Christmas and the New Year, so thought I'd post a few collages as we've had two family birthdays this week also! So here goes....first off is Christmas Eve when we went to visit the DeYoung family. Some pics of the kids out the back. Ryan never lets go of Amy...always cuddling her & very tightly at that!
Next we have our Chrissy Day collage. I spent Christmas Eve at my Mum & Dad's so as we wouldn't be waking up on our own on Christmas morning. The kids had been at their Dad's for tea also but I went and picked them up and came back to stay at Mum & Dad's. They woke up around 7am which wasn't too bad but I hadn't gotten to bed till about 2am as I was still up wrapping presents and finishing off a DVD I make for Mum & Dad each year of all the photos on a DVD that I took throughout the year. As you can see from the collage, Mum's place was a bit of a mess with all the wrapping paper. Toby didn't want his photo taken early on in the day so he kept putting his hands over his face. Mum made her traditional plum pudding (by the way, I hate plum pudding) but everyone else loves it! I just love the custard.... The kids Dad dropped by in the afternoon to take them to his parents family get-together for tea as he had to work right through the week of Christmas. My ex-Uncle and my cousin also joined us for Christmas lunch so we had a nice relaxing day eating Mum's yummy roasts and drinking some champers too! But the kids got well and truly WAY TOO MANY TOYS and then their birthdays are 6 days apart at the end of April so we ain't gonna fit too many more things into our house! We've already had a big cleanup and given some baby toys, clothes and the like to a friend and the op shop.
Next I took the kids to Phillip Island to meet up at my Aunty & Uncle's new holiday house in Sunderland Bay. Boy was it worth the trip. This was the first time we'd been to their new house and it was just gorgeous. The view off the balcony was to die for and then the bedroom window had exactly the same view! Wow was all I could say as it was perched right across the road from the cliff tops looking across to the racetrack one way and down the coastline as far as you could see the other way towards Cape Woolamai. She had invited a few of my uncles and cousins and their partners along for the day and we ended up staying overnight as it was such a long drive for the kids to go there and back in one day plus we hadn't seen my aunty and uncle and their family for over 12 months. Now that everyone is grown up and works and has partners and travels, we don't get together nearly as much as we used to when I was a kid and all the cousins were babies. 10 of us packed into the house with my two kids who were so excited to be there and see everyone. My aunty had her dog there and the boys just threw the ball back and forward to her for the two days we were there - she loved it and just stood focused on the kids when they were around! My aunty also drove the boys into San Remo to see the pelicans being fed which is a daily event then took them to a park and got them some lollies and icecreams...she was their favourite for the rest of the day! The next day we walked down the road to the surf beach which was Ryan's first experience of noisy, crashing surf and a very windy day. He did not like it one bit and was quite scared by all the noise and once he got wet by a small wave, he just cried and wanted to sit down as far away from the water as he could. He got quite distraught when Toby was going under the waves but Toby had a ball out with my aunty, uncle and cousins watching him. Poor Ryan was a little too tired as it was around 2pm when we got there so he just crashed in my lap and ended up snoozing on the beach for an hour and as you can see in the pic, I've shaded him with a case and a towel! So much for swimming and playing! I got sunburnt on Boxing Day from sitting out on the balcony as it was quite cool with the sea breeze then by the time we arrived home, it hit me on the Friday when I felt nauseus and dizzy all day. Then the burning and the peeling to go with it! Yuk. But it doesn't take much to get burnt in our Australian sun these days. I can highly recommend staying at her place which is rented out through an agent in Phillip Island called Alex Scott or you can talk to me to see when it's available. It holds a heap of people and is fully furnished with a plasma, games and all you need including linen.
Might do my Mum's and brother's birthday collages tomorrow as it's just gone midnight!! See ya!
