Christmas Day

Merry Christmas to everyone...hope your day was great! Our present opening took forever, not because of the many gifts, but because we had to prod Rhys along the whole time to actually rip the paper open to see what was inside! He did enjoy his gifts though.

Getting into his stocking
His main present takes up his whole room and its not even set up completely!

Toy Library Gingerbread House

This year I made a gingerbread house for the Toy Library Christmas Party. It was a great hit with the kids and adults and it was quite yummy too!

Close-up of the little people and pile of books at the front

Really bad picture of me at the library

Bad picture again (my camera)....the ladies who run the Toy Library

Aussie Jingle Bells!

To get you in the mood....

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree..."

I braved the shops this Saturday and got some Christmas shopping done...thank goodness Eldon stayed home with Rhys! I know Mount Isa isn't a very big "city" but all we have is Kmart...so just imagine 25,000 people trying to buy all their presents etc at one shop...two weeks before Christmas. Anyway I was successful at least...I got the last christmas tree available...the checkout lady had to unplug the display one for me! (the 50 people behind me in line were none too impressed!) I really wanted a tree this year to make it feel like christmas. It doesn't hold a bar to a REAL tree but I can settle for this. ;) It has fiber optic lights on it so we just decorated it with red balls, silver bells, and candy canes. I thought Rhys would get a kick out of it, and he did...he even let me take pictures of him putting things up which lulled me into complacency. The fun game now is to take off all the ornaments and stick them inside the tubes of wrapping paper where they fit perfectly! I must have had a severe mental blockage when I thought if Rhys didn't see me getting the candy canes out of the cupboard he wouldn't know you could eat them....what was I thinking? The first thing he did was stick one in his mouth. Then he let me hang them all up and proceeded to take off all the bottom ones one by one and try to eat them! So...our poor christmas tree doesn't look nearly as good as the pictures lead you to believe! There are a couple candy canes left at the top where he can't reach and every night after he's in bed I put all the ornaments back on for tomorrow's game!

This is our christmas dog, Mr. Jingle Bells. Rhys loves him! Rhys has a little conversation with him: "Push the button?" "Ok, push the button." (jingle bells, batman smells...) "Push the button?" "Ok, push the button." This goes on 10 or 11 times before he moves on to something else!

Christmas Day

Well, we were so lucky this year with the weather! Forecast called for rain and thunderstorms...not very exciting! But we ended up with nice breezy cool (if you call 32 cool) weather! It was a great day for just hanging out, eating, and relaxing in the pool..which is exactly what we did! We spent the day at our friends' place (Tim and Danielle). Tim's brother, Pete, was also there. They have a baby girl, Eva, who is just getting big enough for Rhys to take notice! On the menu was: Turkey and stuffing, ham, butternut squash bake, 3 kinds of cold salads, broccoli and cauli bake, cranberry (of course)...hmmm can't remember if I'm missing anything. Anyway, it was delicious! We had 4 different desserts which ended up as our dinner as we were too full to eat them after lunch!

Had to get a picture with the stocking!

Rhys managed to open his first present...a book from Arlen and Jessi...and then he promptly sat down to read it and forgot about all his other presents!

Eldon reading "The Gruffalo" to Rhys

Eva likes the music from the frog on this bouncer so Rhys is helping her pull the cord

Sitting down to our feast! (Notice Eva in the bumbo...getting very interested in food!)

Rhys in the pool...he wasn't very happy to begin with

One of Tim and Danielle's dogs relaxing on an inner tube

Dinner! Pavlova, apple pie, christmas tree cupcakes, and chocolate marshmellow balls (not pictured)

Christmas baking....

Merry Christmas everyone! We are heading to some friends' house tomorrow for the day....a day of eating and relaxing in the pool, playing games and then more eating probably! Hope everyone has a really good day! Here are pics of my baking to get you in the mood!!!

Orange Cinnamon Bread

Apple Butterscotch Pie

Christmas Tree Cupcakes

Stocking complete!

I have finished the stocking for Rhys! It turned out pretty well considering I didn't really know what I was doing!
These are the fabrics I found...didn't want traditional christmas-y fabrics so we went with blues and dogs...Rhys loves dogs!

These are the two sides cut out...the back is navy with gold pin stripe and the front is going to be quilted...

All cut out and quilted...just putting the stars and cuff on...
Here's the back all done...Finished!

Close up of the stars and cuff

All ready for Christmas!

Back-tracking....

Christmas in the heat of the Kimberley summer...

This was our first christmas without any family around, but we still managed to have a great time with our friends.

Christmas Day was spent eating (of course) and relaxing.

On Boxing Day we got up early and went out on Lake Argyle with some of our friends, Don and Louise Major. It wasn't a particularly good day weather-wise, so we didn't go far. We found a nice little inlet to have morning tea and ended up staying there quite a while. A few of us hiked up to the top of the hill and got a view of the rest of the lake. However, this picture only shows the very beginning of the lake...this is one huge body of water! The little inlet you see is where the boats are...you can just see the little white specks down there. It was a really good climb and beautiful view when I got up there.

So, Christmas in the summer isn't so bad after all...