........ and then it was New Year's Eve!

As if we hadn't eaten enough food with 2 weeks away and 2 Christmases, we still had New Year's Eve to go to add a few kilos to the scales.  Every New Year's for the past 6 or 7 years, we have celebrated with some friends of ours, at either their place or ours. The number of children seems to be going up each year (we are up to 5 between us now, with 2 added this year), so the nights get louder but earlier each year.

It was hard to believe it had already gotten to the last day of the year....... especially since our second Christmas was only the day before. That time at the end of the year really does fly!

NYE was another warm day so we spent the morning taking the alpacas for a walk to the paddock near our house. Soren likes his rides in the pram. Even though Astrid has to walk these days, which makes her slightly less impressed!

It was a nice day to have a rest under the tree in the paddock while the alpacas munched on the very dry grass!

I had mostly taken my camera to the paddock to play with my new lens I had received from Anto for a Christmas present the day before.  The alpacas played model for me, showing off their new short hairstyles.  Yeah I am liking the lens lots...... it can stay :)

In the paddock we take the alpacas too for their run around, we let them off their leads and when they have their leads put back on they get a peppermint as a reward. Yes, alpacas love peppermints!  Astrid thinks it's her job to hand out the mints and Chimu is quite happy to receive them from her.

Late Afternoon we headed over to Amy and Rob's for our NYE dinner.  Of course it was at a kid friendly time. Such party animals we are!  The kids hung out eating their BBQ at their own table and the adults got to eat in relative peace.  Soren napped on me, not wanting to miss out.

For the kid's dessert we decided to crack open Astrid's gingerbread house.  Sugary biscuit stuck together with sugar and coated in sugary lollies.  What could go wrong just before bed time?  The kids enjoyed it at any rate............

After the gingerbread house demolition they jumped off some energy on the trampoline while both the babies were supposed to be sleeping. I think the trampolining was ended prematurely by a puddle of pee that ended up on the trampoline. The supervising adult happened to be one of our childless friends.  Come out to dinner with a bunch of kids we said......... it will be fun, we said......... find yourself jumping in a puddle of pee... left that bit out of the sales pitch!

Once all the kids had been banished to their beds or the couch for sleep we tucked into dessert.  I had made a white chocolate and raspberry trifle for our eating pleasure.  It tasted pretty darn good. We also had some home made chocolate delicacies to accompany dessert. Anto had injected alcohol infused chocolate ganache into some glace figs and coated them in dark chocolate.  Just because you can never have enough chocolate!  It's a terrible photo of them but they were pretty good.  Soren just had to sleep through the whole thing. On me of course!

Astrid did eventually go to sleep on the couch and Soren napped on and off on me...... but full of good food we headed home by 11pm and didn't quite see in the new year.  Not a bad effort though.

Our second Christmas....... the Canberra one!

We arrived home on the afternoon of the 29th and proceeded to unpack and get ready for Christmas take 2!!!

The 30th dawned bright, and only marginally early, since everyone was tired from travelling and still operating on Queensland time......  It was Christmas again! We weren't celebrating until the afternoon so Anto and Astrid headed off to the shops to pick up some last minute gifts that hadn't arrived before we left for Queensland and a few extra supplies for our dinner. Soren and I stayed and he supervised me tidying the house and preparing the house for our Christmas dinner.

After Astrid's nap all was in readiness for Christmas take 2!

Once the grandparents and Uncle arrived it was time for afternoon tea and presents....... there certainly were alot of presents, and again Astrid got the joy of helping open pretty much all of them!  Soren was largely oblivious but did get to witness one or two of his opened before he had to head off for another nap.

Astrid had a ball discovering all her new bits and pieces. I'm not sure what was the biggest hit, her new blackboard/whiteboard or dad's remote control helicopter. Gee, Astrid and Soren are good shoppers making sure their dad had a new toy to play with!  Once Astrid discovered how the train set worked that was also a big hit.  She immediately named all the trains Thomas :)

Once Soren was up from his nap it was cuddle time.

  

Then he got to open his presents with Astrid's assistance.  He doesn't look all that impressed with the whole process. Lucky he has a big sister to help with all his goodies.  She is quite fond of most of his presents, so they have good use before he has even gotten to them.

All the presents opened and played with, it was time for dinner.  We decided to go for the hot roast and on the menu was:

• Stuffed roast turkey
• Lentil loaf for the vego's
• Pancetta stuffing cups
• Roasted sweet potato, pumpkin and potato
• Freshly shelled peas and green beans
• Home-made cranberry sauce
• Anto's turkey gravy
• Tahini and mushroom sauce
• Brown onion gravy

As you can see we had an abundance of sauce options!

Soren had to spend dinner in his bouncer, he looked a bit unimpressed about his lack of turkey access.  What are the chances he will share my vego ways and leave the turkey for his sister? Astrid certainly enjoyed the turkey and cranberry sauce this year. She is happy to eat it all year around so she wasn't complaining about a nice turkey dinner.

After the smallest members of our family were happily in bed and asleep it was time for dessert.  We went traditional again with the dark chocolate and treacle fruit  Christmas pudding we made and home-made custard.  With coffee on the side of course!

There might have been a food coma, or at least a sugar one after all that. Christmas was over, again......... and I'm sure the next one is around the corner........or so it will seem!