Christmas Eve 2009

It’s here! The children have been asleep for hours and went without wanting stories and much earlier than normal (Charli even tidied her room!). They have been incredibly excited and there is so much magic in the air.

We have (I have) spent most of the day making a ginger-bread house…

The girls started off helping and then I was left to it, as the ginger-bread came out a little crumbly and needed some modification… then I discovered there wasn’t enough for the front and back of the house so had to make more ginger bread (found an easier recipe second time round). By lunch time I’d done it. All the parts of the house were baked and all that was left was the construction. The girls enjoyed decorating some little ginger-bread cookies, whilst I went quiet about the house and thought I’d wait for Daddy-O to come home.

After the children went to bed we armed ourselves with cocktail sticks and constructed the house. It only took us about half an hour to slaver it in icing and lollies (and consume a good few). We can’t wait to see the girls faces in the morning 🙂

Aside from baking copious volumes of ginger bread, the girls have enjoyed dipping in and out the pool, blowing bubbles, playing together beautifully (yah – sisterly harmony is returning, after a bumpy first day of the school hols).

We’ve been reading our favourite Christmas stories from around the world…

Each year I get a new book to add to our collection, which takes pride of place by the tree throughout December. We have a wonderful mixture of fun, meaningful, fantasy and factual books. They all have their place and I love that the girls have an understanding of different cultures around the world and what Christmas may (or may not) mean to them.

We stopped by the beach…

After picking up Dan from work and stopping by Kaffee Eis for scrumptious gelato we drove round to Scorching Bay for a quick game of boules.

And of course, left out food for Father Christmas and his reindeer…