Christmas revisited

I thought I'd do a proper write up of my Christmas day with some more photos since I took so many!

We had an awesome day celebrating with family.. All my siblings had come from near and far (Brissie, Sydney, China and locally, mainly for grandma's funeral - we farewelled her on the 24th), it was definitely wonderful to have a family reunion despite the circumstances..

It was forecasted to be 36 degrees with a afternoon change, so we adjusted our menu a little to accommodate the heat plus we didn't really have the time to prepare anything fancy.. So instead of a roast, we had bbq sausages, cold rolls, chicken patties, dips, chips and salad etc.. Everything went down well which was the most important thing, right? =)

Before anyone arrived, Brian blew up some balloons with the left over helium from Lucas' birthday party and we also added to Lucas' Lego Duplo Zoo collection with a Duplo Police Station for him. It was more of a hit compared to the Zoo as he loved playing with the police car.. We also gave him some matchbox cars and helicopters, which he unwrapped later..

My older sister, brother-in-law, nieces and nephew were the first to arrive at around 10.30 to help with the food prep, plus the children wanted to come over to play with all of Lucas' and Brian's awesome toys..


B, D & L came by on their way to their family lunch to drop off some toys for the kids also - Charlotte's gift was a Fashion Show set, so the guys helped Charlotte and Serena with setting up that up.. It was hilarious watching them trying to work out how to create the girls/models etc, as D didn't bother reading the instructions and it seemed a bit too complicated for a 7 year old, despite the recommended age on the box.. They eventually worked it out in the end..

The rest of the family arrived soon after midday, including Brian's parents and sister, so we started on our feast, Lucas woke up from his morning nap soon after we started, so I was lucky to be able to get a few mouthfuls in..


After lunch, I set up the tripod, camera and flash - it was the perfect opportunity to have some family photos done since everyone was there.. Here's one of each family, myself with all my siblings and one of my parents with Lucas, who surprisingly let them hold him for a good 10-15minutes before they left!

Brian's parents and sister left soon after also, so the rest of us just hung around our place playing kinect sports and lego star wars on the xbox 360, jenga etc.. We also went outside so the kids could blow bubbles, then later went for a walk down to the park as my brothers wanted to play a bit of cricket and the kids wanted to play at the playground.. The cool change had arrived by that time, so it was just lovely!