I remember lastyear that I wrote we got a Christmas miracle in the form of visiting wild birds.   This year it is Christmas Cannas:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This plant is from my Aunty’s garden and she planted from her mum’s (my grandmother), so these two blooms are so very special to me – a Christmas miracle sent from heaven.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And since it is within the 12 days of Christmas, I am not late with either greeting :-).

We do hope you enjoyed your celebrations as we did.  Our Christmas Day was full of joy and relaxation – and you can’t ask for more than that!

This year’s Christmas Tree:

 

Isn’t it lovely?!  It needed a bit of re-inforcing to hold its shape, but that is to be expected.

I made new Christmas stockings this year – using a hand crocheted lace tablecloth from my Grandmother’s house – they turned out just as I pictured them :-)

 

Oh, and you might notice an impending hearth upgrade…yep, a few more courses - just so the stockings can be hung at a good height – these things are important you know?!!

This year, we decided to focus on desserts ;-)!! 

They were superbly yum!!  (Made by the eldest, she is a fantastic cook!).  And of course, we would have saved you some…but…

In recompense, I leave you with a Christmas photo of our beautiful Pepper:

Wishing you all the best, from our family to yours!  XX

I am very happy that I have always insisted on a full house clean before we put up the Christmas decorations. 

It might have taken a tad longer this year but it sure worked for me with everyone helping and doing such a good job!

Some rooms are still a work in progress of course…but there is red and green and sparkle out in the clean ones already J.

Very happy to have the Santas out and looking forward to choosing our tree soon.

I will stop looking at card blogs after I upload this.

Still inspired by the Double D challenge and followed links to this fun card so I had a go at doing something similar :-).

Don't you just love getting up quite early in the morning and finding two beautiful Christmas cards posted on blogs in your inbox??  :-)

So I was inspired to join in the Double D Challenge again.

Who could resist when you see such a beautiful card as this?

And I took my layout inspiration from this gorgeous one :-).

Here's my quick card. 

Getting excited for the red and green and sparkle to come :-).

A ‘catch-up’ post.

Our December was busy and we tried to fit in plenty of fun too – picking out our Christmas tree was a highlight.  We love buying it from the Lion’s Club, a great group to support – and didn’t it look wonderful?

 

And it sported a special, new decoration – Pepper’s First Christmas – bought for us by the biggest girl J:

We spent a few days away at a little old shack on the Murray River.  We *loved* relaxing on the jetty and watching the world go by by catching up on some reading – definitely one of my favourite things!

We made a trip back to the boys’ scout group for our younger one to receive his Silver Boomerang J.  And we made a trip back to a ‘pick-your-own’ raspberry farm on our last day – seriously yum!!!

Then the day after we got back home, we picked up our new chookens J.  Our friend in town had hatched 7 Bantam Faverelles and we chose 3 – two hens and a wee rooster.  Then as we were leaving, our friend mentioned that they were maybe looking for a new home for “Miss Clucky” as she didn’t really fit in with their flock – so we brought her home too.  She is a Bantam Plymoth Rock and has gone from being bottom of the pecking order there, to top chook here!  As she is fully mature and already laying, we thought this would be the case, even though our chooks, being standard size, are already bigger than her.  

We did what we could to get them used to each other to ease the transition and after a week, we let them roam together for an hour before bedtime, then the next day did the same thing but let them roost the night together and they are not too bad now.  She is still picking on the rest a bit and they are very wary of her, so we hope she will settle more when our girls are mature in a month or so.  The babies (the Bantam Faverelles) we also introduced the same way, but we keep them in their own sleeping cage.   Yesterday, the littlest one, Sunflower, had some pecks on her head, so we also kept them separate yesterday and today – poor little mites do get picked by 5 of the others, “Miss Clucky” and “Fred” seem to tolerate them well.

So, it’s been some time (again…).  It’s been some busy times, relaxing times, happy times, normal times.

We’ve had end of school events (lovely celebrations) and our first Christmas in our new home (just the six of us).  We waited until the big girl got home from her school trip to get a Real Christmas tree and then it got all decorated – isn’t it beautiful?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Santas got sat out in the entry hall:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a wee little display on our drawers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Christmas was our relaxing time – it’s been the usual busy otherwise – and mostly with (you’ll never guess!) paving of course!!  Michael went the extra mile this time – in fact extra 200 miles – to pick up 12 tonne of pavers from a property in Mandurah and relocate them to our verandah – and that is the literal pick them up off the ground too! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tell ya, this house sure has been a paving adventure – and still not quite finished yet – but getting oh so close…

We have also updated the garden beds – we have been harvesting so many tomatoes and silverbeet and just the last week, giant zucchini:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, they are on the menu today to be cooked up into passata, spinach quiches and zucchini relish – yum!

And because I was inspired to take an ‘artistic’ photo of the sunflowers in honour of Vincent van Gogh – here they are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now I don’t say I know much about van Gogh, but the Dr Who episode is very touching – so touching that I added a “For Amy” to the famous sunflower print (it will hang in our library, after going to college with the eldest I think, she’s the Whovian) and it led us to buy a beautiful book, ‘Sunflowers for Van Gogh’, by David Douglas Duncan at a garage sale, which has in turn inspired the photo.  More photos to come I think…really would love to get the wild, unkempt look of the paintings…

We’ve got an important announcement!

 











People who don’t believe in Santa get underwear for Christmas!

We believe J.