Our Christmas Festivities............

We started off a couple of days before Christmas with exchanging gifts with our dear friend Patty, had a couple of Chrissy drinks was a really nice night. Renee received a gorgeous handmade gift from Lauren, a Scrapbook page of their friendship, you will see her in the pictures with it, was so special and Renee loved it!

Christmas Eve, was at our place. We did the full Christmas lunch for Mum and Kevin, Donna and Ben, before heading up to Waikerie to have Christmas day with Celina. Check out our tree, it really was a money tree this year with all those special envelopes!

After lunch and present opening we headed up to Waikerie with Dad to spend Christmas Eve night and Christmas day with Celina and family. Celina was working until about 9pm, so she managed to get home to see most of the Carols, she is normally working and doesn't get to indulge like that LOL, check out this pic of Renee to the right singing her little heart out!!!

Christmas day started early with us rising at about 6.30am, Jarrod was the only slow one LOL, took a little while to get him moving, even Renee was up early and that's saying something! Was so nice to be able to wake up with Celina Christmas morning, we were kids the last time we did that. It was also really nice to have all the kids together on Christmas morning, this is the first time that this has happened, so was extra special. Only downfall was, was that I forgot the video camera charger....bummer....I had everything else, even remembered to buy extra tapes, I was not happy!!!

Christmas Eve we set a small tree up outside, as Celina's lounge room is quite small, I don't think we would have been able to see the kids for paper otherwise.

So here comes Christmas in pictures. I love the first one, it's Renee dragging Phillip outside to see what Santa has brought them, how cute LOL.

Then came Celina's surprise to her family, Clipsal tickets and merchandise, she was so proud of herself because she actually managed to keep it a secret from all of them!

And then time for Santa to give out the presents from the families to each other.

And the lunch, to the left. Celina and John had also asked John's Aunt and Uncle over for Christmas Dinner, It was Uncle Les's Birthday as well, it was so lovely. Aunty Mary has not long been in a nursing home, so was great that she was able to come out for the day. In a few days this lovely couple will be celebrating 60 years of marriage, amazing, huh! The group photo taken was taken on Renee's new camera. She loves it and was taking photos of every thing, even dishes and dinner being served, she just could become a scrapbooker armed with this device. It's a great little unit with the self timer feature, was so funny waiting for the camera to take the pic, I think you can almost see the anticipation in some of our faces!

Then to finish off here are a couple of pics generally from the day.

We headed home Boxing Day, but not before stopping in on an old family friend. This was totally a blast from the past for me. As kids we grew up knowing Uncle Ted and would knock around with his kids most weekends. He is now in a band and lives out in the bush, he and his partner, Maxine have a lovely set up, having built everything from scratch, no electricity, just generator power, cheap living I guess, but you wouldn't want to forget bread and milk.

The most amazing thing to see was his old Chev Ute. As kids we would be at the drags a lot of weekends watching this old ute race down the track. We would spend hours polishing wheels and to go and see the ute in the shed was very special, really brought out the OOOHH's and the AAHHHH's. However it has changed a little since those days, it now collects wood!!! It almost made me cry seeing it like this LOL.

Then a group photo, not the best, oh well.

So here's hoping your Christmas was as much fun and as special as ours...

BRING ON 2008

Holidays are here and Donna at 32 Weeks

Wow we have all been on holidays for a week and we have been busy.

Last Sunday we took the boat out again, up to Walkers Flat, had a great time. Tried to get Renee up on Water Skiis, she nearly got there, was so close. In the end she was getting tired and decided it was "boring" so then spent the rest of the day on the kneeboard. Aaron on the biscuit only because his knee was hurting from a small accident that he had at school!!!!

I even got brave enough to tow Renee on the kneeboard, was so scared, but I managed to get her up out of the water on about the third attempt and she got back safely, phew, LOL. Dad also wanted to have a go, I tell you I was a little freaked out at the thought of trying to get him out of the water. He never got up on the skiis, but did manage about two seconds on the kneeboard before his shoulder gave out on him......oh well at least he got up!!

So here is a couple of photos of my beauties, no kneeboard shots today.

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We spent early in the week painting Renee's room, she decided that fairy floss pink had to go after all these years LOL. We made the mistake of when she was about six, letting her choose whatever colour she wanted and that's what she picked. I never really liked it when it went up, but she did and that was the main thing, so I must admit I wasn't too sad to see it go.

She wants a Betty Boop theme this time. Initially the paint sample tins came home coloured Red and Cream, she wanted a Red feature wall, with the other three Cream. I wasn't too keen on the red wall idea, I figured she already has an issue with teenage attitude, without throwing up a red wall to help it along!!! Thankfully with a little bit of coaxing she also decided that maybe it might be a bit much, so in the end it was decided to go a light blue, the idea here is that it will match in with her new quilt cover set that she is getting for Christmas, the mummy said, thank God, let me tell you.

It also was an opportunity to give her room a good clean out and so I then ended having to find boxes to store all the unwanted items, but not so unwanted that she wants to give them away or sell them on EBAY, so subsequently the spare room, now has two additional boxes with Renee's treasures in them. I tell ya though for the size of the room that she has there sure was a lot of stuff in there, check out this pic LOL. This is it all piled up in our loungeroom, was very glad to see it safely back to her room again!!!

Haven't got an after shot yet, will post one of those later once she has her quilt, but here are a couple of before and in progress shots. Her quilt is blue and red, I am thinking that red curtains would look pretty good here, would give a real retro feel, but at the moment, madam is not buying it, perhaps I should have suggested green first, LOL, then maybe she would have come to the party, it just seems lately that if I say black, she will say white, argh teenagers, who needs them!!!

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Then finally for this post, we went to Donna's yesterday, to see how the nursery is progressing, only 8 weeks or so go to go now, very exciting. It was also belly picture time as well. So here are the pics of her nursery. It does look a little male toned, even the tiny little clothes in the drawer have a definate male feel about them, but man they are so darn cute. If she does have a little girl, I am sure she will be inundated with lots of pink!!!

And here are her 32 week shots. Her best friend Kirrily was there also, so it gave us an opportunity to get a few pics of the two of them together. Kirrily is 6 weeks behind her and having a little girl. And Donna being so obliging for her big sister wore a pink top for her photos this time. I love to scrap in pink....not that I have done much of that lately, really must get back into that, just a little short of time at present and am enjoying doing a little bit of nothing at the moment.

That's about it from me, took me ages to post all this, have been having trouble with my camera recognising the computer for some reason, a real pain, so had to download photos to Renee's laptop first, oh the hassels LOL.

Anyway for those that stop by and have a read I hope you all have a very Happy and Safe Christmas with your families and friends, because I don't think that I will be back here again until after Christmas.

Take care

Leanne

xxx