Oh hi there 2024! Lovely to see that you have begun with such gusto and excitement! I have started writing a few blog posts in my head in the last month, but apparently I actually have to make time to sit down and get them out of my head. It has been a huge start to the year around here, after a bit of a challenging end to 2023. I got covid in the final week of school and passed it on to Chance on the final day, but by some miracle, thankfully none of the other kids got it! I felt a bit unwell for about a week, and then just as I thought I was getting better, the fatigue hit, as did the post-covid cough. Both lasted early into the New Year which was not ideal but I am feeling almost back to normal now so all’s well that ends well!

I plan to do a wrap up of Christmas and New Year celebrations in the coming days, but here are a few things we got up to in the lead up to Christmas. Each year I put up all the previous Christmas cards I have made since I started in 2008. The only year I missed was 2012 when we were mid-move from Wangaratta to Townsville and I was 36 weeks pregnant at Christmas.

Even though I didn’t manage a home-made card this year, I was happy to outsource to Snapfish and it was still a lovely way to keep my yearly tradition alive and well. I have worked only a handful of days over the holidays thanks to my very flexible workplace, and I’m grateful to have found the job I am in. I took the kids bowling in the first week of holidays and we went out for lunch (in the food court) and it was so much fun to get out of the house, hanging out just the five of us and getting to be a fun mum!

We also managed a trip to the skate rink for a Christmas skate (I didn’t get any photos) then my fab friend Kelly was up for a visit and she hung around to help with the gingerbread making! I had already made the dough in advance, but I was in the midst of covid fatigue and honestly couldn’t bring myself to do it with the kids. Kelly was more than happy to help out and between us, had a very successful bikkie making afternoon. I honestly could not (and probably would not) have done it without her there.

As we do wherever possible, we took the opportunity to catch up with these fine people at the Brickman Jurassic World Lego Show.

It was such a fantastic exhibit with HEAPS of interactive things for the kids to do. It kept them very busy and got their creative juices flowing for over an hour.

And some of the builds were out of this world! We then went for sushi train (all 15 of us!) Followed by ice cream and a play in the playground at Southbank.

We took the train there and back and the kids were mostly well behaved, albeit very excitable.

The last few days leading up to Christmas were a mix of down time and exhaustion and last minute gift wrapping and cooking and all the great things that make Christmas time wonderful. Marty had driven down to Sydney with his boys 10 days before Christmas so we missed having him around but he had a lovely time catching up with family and friends in the lead up to Christmas as well.

Christmas wrap-up blog post to come! Stay tuned….