New Year's Eve 2013

New Year's Eve and a piece of spare cardboard? Obviously a sign had to be made! Lol! Big bee coloured in the letters while I tried to keep little bee from (in big bees words) 'ruining her sign with scribbles!' Lol!

Then we made cookies, choccy peanut butter creations..

Fab recipe actually as was lovely dough to work with. Big bee done this whole tray completely on her own while I filled another couple of trays. Little bee napped while we were doing this which was actually very helpful as big bee was really enjoying herself and taking her time. She even done a pattern in the tray, teddy/star/teddy/star etc..

My cookies and pie experiment. Which actually worked incredibly well. Not sure what I'll fill with yet but its a start! 

Little bee woke and joined in with the decorating. We made some homemade choc and spooned this on, then stuck on apricots/dates/cranberrys.

The finished cookies, with our one big 'pizza cookie' for our own New Year's Eve party picnic.

The picnic tea. - Made some mini lamb burners which we all enjoyed. Lovely way to see in the new year with my little family. Perfect. I have no desire to be out anywhere, I honestly don't miss anything like that. I feel so lucky and blessed to have my gorgeous bubbas and hubby. 

We all watched our wedding DVD tonight which was lovely, and we're 'camping' in the lounge tonight too. Perfect moment as I tucked my bubbas in tonight. I said how much I loved them and thanked them for another wonderful year. Each in turn I said 'I love you' and while big bee always replies, little bee normally just nods. Tonight though he replied 'too' and looked all bashful. Bless him. Perfect end to the year. :-)

Happy new year!

Boxing Day

Boxing Day with hubby's family.. Our 'second Christmas' :-)

Little bee helping with the fruit salad, 

The bees with there yummy little cousin B and Nanny.

Christmas Day!

Christmas Day is here! Some of my fav piccies from the day....

A fab memory of the day, everyone singing Christmas songs loudly with bells too! :-) *happy*

Merry Christmas! 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve - an interesting day to say the least! We had a power cut at some point during the night, we think around 2am. I had a ma-hoooo-sive list of jobs to be done in prep for the big day and I was thoroughly messed up. It felt like a dark day, I tried my utmost best to keep spirits up while getting on with things I could do. I played christmas music through ipad to get in the spirit of things. :-)

We made these place names for the table

Got the table ready.. All the time doing this I kept thinking, will the power come back on?! Am I doing this for no reason! :-(

Hubby rather optimistically prepared the turkey.. We had a back up plan for Christmas Day of going to my sisters if still no power. I was meant to be hosting for the family and had been so looking forward to it. I was just praying all day it'd come back on.

My original plan for Christmas Eve was stop all jobs at 3pm and open our Christmas Eve box. It contained, new onsies for all, Christmas movies, Christmas book, popcorn, nuts, hot choc, cups etc. 

well at 3pm, there was still no power so my sister very kindly let us and our box and all my remaining jobs invade there house for the evening.

Turns out it was a great decision, the children had a blast! We saw Father Christmas go through the sky at 6pm (international space station). It was so magical. :-)

Movies, pop corn, hot choc...

Fab evening!

Then back to our candle lit house... We had a story, 

Left out a mince pie, carrot and drink..

Big bee drawed by candle light..

Then at 9pm! Woooooooohooooooo!! 

Power back on!! Me and big bee done a 'power on dance' was soooo happy!

Bee's in bed and Father Christmas came!

Am so very thankful our power came back on but my heart goes out to the poor people who got flooded out. I feel so very lucky. I'm blessed with a healthy happy family. Nothing else actually matters. :-) 

Choccy nutty creations

Pancakes this morning, daddy bee has two little helpers! 

Smiley pancakes!

Good day, my cacao butter arrived! Yay!! While the bees played today I managed to make some peanut butter cups :-) mmmm..

Then big bee said she wanted to make something so we ended up making pomegranate crispy cakes! 

Little bee joined in, he done ever so well.

Big bees on the left and little bees on the right..

Next big bee wanted to paint the walnut shells from the nuts they ate the night before. I didn't quite understand what she meant when she said she was making a puzzle but she obviously did as she matched all the pairs up and painted each 'puzzle' a different colour. 

Then a matching pairs type game was born along with a few others! Amazing how much fun can come from some walnut shells! Thankyou nanny for the walnuts!! The bees enjoyed the nuts so much too! Kept begging for more :-)