Christmas 2

Here are some more photos of Christmas day...

Sophia licking the beater with the Pavlova on it! (She's wearing my old dress.)

Sophia putting her own Lip Smackers! I was sick of her messing up my chap stick, so got one for her in her stocking. It's strawberry flavour and she is really loving it.

Sophia and Daddy opening her Christmas present. (I tried doing a little "green" wrapping this year and using sheets, pillowcases, and re-usable ribbons.)

Enjoying her new easel!

Zoe opening her present from Sophia (a stuffed lion from the zoo).

Christmas lunch with friends which was really fun (but we do miss our family).

Michael (another one of our Christmas guests) enjoying his chocolate cigar after lunch.

Christmas Pavlova. Yum!

Sophia playing with the sand at the beach.

Me and Zoe at the beach (yes, this was the best one I got of us).

The Christmas evening craziness (pictured here are Neville, Kristine, and Jan who spent Christmas with us). There are some other crazy pics, but I don't think Michael would appreciate it if I showed them to the world on my blog and facebook. We sat around and watched Elf to end the evening. All in all, a good day.

Christmas Morning

I took so many photos of Christmas that I'm going to have to share them in a few posts. Even though I was in the southern hemisphere for Christmas last year, it still seemed weird to have Christmas in summer. It was another enjoyable day, however!

Sophia opening her stocking, and giving me the stink eye. :)

Sophia and Kristine (one of our Christmas house guests) opening stockings.

Sophia eating her "fish and chips" for breakfast (which were a chocolate marshmallow fish, and banana flavoured chewy chips).

Me, not looking quite awake yet, with Zoe opening her stocking.

Zoe chewing on her lamb's nose (this was a lamb that someone gave Zoe when she was born that I just stuck back in her stocking. Is that cheating?). :)

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, but Sophia was a little confused. We think she was thinking it was her birthday again because we sang the song, and she opened presents. Oh well!

The usual Christmas morning coffee cake. In the US we were able to use a can of cherry pie filling in these, but here it is nowhere to be found. I used fresh cherries, cut them all, took the pits out, and made my own cherry pie filling. It was worth it!

Yum!

Opening my stocking (after a shower, feeling a bit more awake). :)

Travis not quite awake yet, opening his stocking. It was a good start to Christmas day! More to come. For now, good night!

Christmas Cookies (Biscuits)

Last Friday there were only 2 of us who could get together for our weekly coffee group, so Tracy and Luke came over to our place to decorate the Christmas Cookies Sophia and I made the day before.

Sophia rolling out the dough on Thursday (in one of my old dresses!).

Warming up by eating some sprinkles.

A little icing made it on the cookie, and not just straight into the mouth. :)

Zoe, you'll be able to help next year.

Yay, look at what I did! Can I eat it now, please?!

Sophia and Luke ended their time together by playing in the dirt and flinging it around the deck. Such fun! It's so cute because the kids are finally starting to play together. They did a good job of sharing toys and taking turns. :)

Pool

This is our first family trip to the pool of the summer. Zoe had been to a couple other pools before this, but it's a little harder to get photos and videos when I'm alone at the pool with 2 kids who can't swim. :) I think she likes it for the most part.

Both Zoe and Sophia are in this little video. Sorry the sound is a bit funny.

O Christmas Tree

I have been in New Zealand for nearly 2 years now, but it is taking a bit longer than I thought to acclimate myself to having holidays in opposite seasons down here. There was something nice, but something wrong about going to chop down a Christmas tree in summer. I did not want any hot cocoa when I got home, that's for sure. It's so hard to switch over when I had Christmas in winter for over 30 years.

Sandy came along to get a tree too!

The Christmas Tree farm.

Catherine and Sophia (she's living with us for a few weeks).

Travis chopping down our chosen tree. (Too bad someone accidentally took it and we went home with someone else's tree!)

This is the first time we've had a tree in 9 years. I finally talked Travis into it. So, this is Sophia's first tree. She wasn't really into decorating it too much yet. Trying to explain to a 2 year old why we chop down a tree, bring it in the house, and decorate it is interesting. Check out this clip about the holidays from Jim Gaffigan. Love it!

This photo was taken at 8:30 pm. That's another thing that's weird about having Christmas in summer...the lights don't really show up when the kids are awake because it's light out so late. Not that I'm complaining about having long days! I love it! But it just seems like maybe we should celebrate Christmas in the winter here too. :)

Sophia's Second Birthday #2

This has taken a while because my computer has been in the shop. I had lost almost 2,000 photos. Thankfully they were able to find them all. Now I am trying to sort through them and it's taking a lot longer than I thought.

Here are a few more photos and a video of Sophia's Birthday.

We hung up some balloons outside her room for her big day. She was pretty into it! I love how she can be so easy to please.

I made her heart shaped pancakes for breakfast.

I made a crown again for the birthday girl.

Alisa came over in the morning to help us decorate the cupcakes for the party. We made butterflies, among other things.

Can you tell which ones Sophia did? She licked most of the candies before putting them on the cupcakes. Yum yum!

This little cardboard computer is part of an activity book I got for her called "My Mummy's Bag" and it is the only part she's played with. She loves having her own computer. Her computer is a pear, and we have Apples. Ha ha! Clever!