It's the most wonderful time of the year....

 December has been a great month for me! I always love the big build up to Christmas, and of course, Christmas itself. It's always pretty busy, but I love that!

It was my Mum's Birthday at the beginning of December. Seth was studying for exams so Caleb and I thought that we would get out of his hair to let him study in peace and went up to Norwich to spend some time with Mum. Laura came down from Liverpool and was also there. It's great when the three of us together under the one roof as that's how it's been for 18 years (Dad died when I was 12 so it's just been us girls at home since then). Mum and Laura come down to see me quite often but it's so nice when we are all at home. With one difference of course, my little Caleb tagging along and gatecrashing! He loved having the run of Mum's house and was desperately trying to figure out how to open the stairgate so that he could get up those stairs!

On one of the Saturdays before Christmas, Seth had to study. I hate it when he has to study on Saturday as that is the day when we should get to play but needs must! He went into university to study as it's always more productive than when he studies at home (not that Caleb and I are a distraction or anything!!!), so Caleb and I got the train in to South Kensington and met him for lunch. We then wandered around South Kensington and Knightsbridge and soaked up the Christmassy atmosphere. It was RAMMED with people. I can't believe that I actually even attempted going into Harrods with Caleb in a stroller but it had to be done. There was a woman who kept stepping right in front of the stroller and it kept clipping her heels. Each time she turned and glared at Caleb like it was his fault, which I thought was pretty funny. It was even funnier that, each time she turned, Caleb smiled sweetly, waved and said "bye". I love that monkey!

Caleb is riding the tube like a natural!

 Ahhh, Harrods, how I love thee!

Seth, Caleb and I headed up to Mum's for Christmas. It was lovely being there and especially watching Caleb open his presents. You know how people say that babies love the wrapping more than the presents? Caleb didn't really have that much interest in either, he was having more fun opening and closing the door of Mum's cabinet and trying to hide in the under stairs cupboard (I think he wants to be Harry Potter).

He ended up playing with his presents loads later on in the day though. We headed outside to try and get a little family picture. We took one last year and I thought it would be nice to take one every year but it came out really pixelated and didn't look that great! Behold the bad photo.

Christmas dinner was delicious, as always! Mum always cooks an amazing dinner and I overindulged. (I think I put on around 4 pounds over Christmas so I will need to try and shift that!). That evening, my sister Deb and niece Tor came over and we played games until the wee small hours. Deb and I were on a team together for Trivial Pursuit and we were so bad! It was a lot of fun though!

The day after Boxing Day we went over to see Lin and Steve (sister and brother in law) and my nephew and niece, Sam and Caitlin. We were meant to see them on Christmas Day but Caitlin had a stomach bug so we stayed away. I am so glad we still got to see them before we headed home.

Caleb playing with the ginger monkeys

 

My attempt at a panoramic shot

Lau and Cait chatting and the boys hanging out

 

Sisters! There was one with Lin too but that wasn't taken on my phone.

 

 We also got to see Seth's family over Christmas. It is the first time all of the children have been together in ages as his brother James and his wife Natalie and their boys were over from California. Seth's parents weren't there as they are serving a mission for our church in Greece but we got to skype them instead.

Seth and I had a pretty low key New Years Eve and when I say low key, I mean we did nothing. We were both ill (still are), so we spent our New Years Eve on the sofa rang in the new year with Shloer and watching the fireworks in London. We laughed that we weren't able to celebrate it properly and do anything special but we actually quite enjoyed it!

This is what we look like when we're ill. Aren't we gorgeous?! Seth would kill me if he knew this was up here for all to see, ha ha!


I hope you all had a great Christmas and a happy 2014 to you!