When Little People Play

There was constant activity with all the little people here over the last few days. They were well entertained (and entertaining!).

Poofy had the time of his life with all the kids and extra dogs. Here he's getting up close and personal with C.

 Hey Megey, take my pic, quick!!

 There was the thrill of the four wheeler. Here, Gibbo is teaching C how to brm brm it.

 G has a go.

 There was play dough.

 And cake eating..........

 And bathing.......

 And just looking cute!

 And sliding.....

 And playing sillies.........

 And just looking cute again.........

 And cards. Lots of cards.

And so another Boxing Day and Beyond is over. We'll do it all again next year!

Meg and Me and Grandma and Meg and Mum and Mate

Here are the three girls in the family - my Mum, me and Megan.

 There was a bit of interference by a certain black four legged animal in the recording of this photo. She (Pepper) ran through the middle with Meg chasing after her. We took these photos on Boxing Day.

 We gave Mum a photo gallery of pictures taken when Meg and Drew were together in Canada. I've got one too. They're some of my all time favourite photos of the kids.

 Mum and Mate, my parents. They've been married for 52 years; not always smoothly, not always living together but still married!

 There they go............

Does this Christmas Tree look Familiar?

As sometimes happens in our household, the two women in it changed their minds. We ditched the idea of the living gum tree and decorated minimalist dead branches and went with the traditional tree. I took a lot of photos but only kept these few; I had trouble getting the lighting right.

 This is one of my favourite decorations from years gone by. I can't remember when I bought it but I do remember falling in love with it as soon as I saw it. I bought two big stars at the same time. All three are really quite big, much too big to hang on the tree.

 This year we have quite a few decorations from around the world. Meg brought most of these home, but we also have some from Prague and London (Kylie B), Ireland (us from last year) and Canada (from Chris).

 This is the closest I've come to my minimalist look - two lots of little lights on glitter sticks. They look really pretty when all the overhead lights are turned off.

There was no disagreement over who was going to put the angel on the top of the tree this year - there's only one child here. I took a photo of Meg as she put it on but it wasn't especially flattering so we'll have a re-run.

I'm feeling a little anxious about the lead up to and waking up on Christmas Day. One of us won't be here and I don't know how that's going to go. Whilst I know he's going off on a grand adventure just after, it's not going to be quite the same this year with one empty chair and an unpulled bon-bon.