Category Archives: Holidays

Christmas Eve!

I had to work today so when I got home there seemed to be a lot to do in order to get ready. The boys wrote their letters to Father Christmas, made christmas crafts, baked christmas cookies, and read christmas stories together. We put the boys to bed in our room, because ‘Mr & Mrs Claus’ had a lot to do tonight! 7 hours until my boys will be up to see what Father Christmas left them. That means 7 hours to put together an IKEA loft bed, IKEA play kitchen items, make the Indiana Jones club house, find the two missing presents, wrap everything, fill the stockings, and to eat the cookies, the carrot, and drink the milk!

Mistletoe for sale near my work

The boys write their Christmas letters to Father Christmas

Mimi sent the boys lots of packages of Christmas crafts!

Making Christmas crafts!

Making snowman ornaments!

Christmas crafts complete!

Making cookies for Santa!

Christmas stories with my boys.

Time to eat the cookies and drink the milk!

Wrapping presents and placing them under the tree.

Setting up the loft bed in the boys’ room.

All ready for Christmas morning!

Happy Hanukkah!

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IKEA , COOKIES, AND CANDLES!

We got our new furniture items from IKEA and I was more than excited to finally get our new bed put together. Sleeping on the floor has been fun, but having a bed so much more fun. I will admit it took me longer than it should have because I did not follow the IKEA directions quite easily. I finished and draped my scarves from Cambodia over the top to complete the look.

Tonight the boys and I got together to make holiday cookies. They were not normal chocolate chip cookies, but filled with Nutella and covered with white chocolate stars. They were very delicious! They also got to work on their nightly holiday craft. Tonight is also the first night of Hanukkah. We put together our DIY mennorah and Ronan had the pleasure of lighting the first candle.

Our new bed put together!

Nutella inside

The boys making cookies.

Ryan and the boys with their christmas crafts and cookies.

Nutella filled biscuits!

Ronan lighting the first candle.

Chanel 527 Nouvelle Vague and silver glitter for Chrismukkah spirit!

Happy Hanukkah!

Christmas Shopping in Town

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It is Monday but no school for the boys since they are now on their Winter break. Ryan had work early this morning and I really wanted to do something special with Ronan and Maddox. Instead of having porridge at home, I took the boys into town for some special time together. We started off with breakfast at one of the bakeries where the boys got to choose what they wanted to eat. They enjoyed a delicisous banana milk to drink. I had a jacket potato with beans and it really hit the spot with the cold weather outside. Afterwards we went into several of the shops, trying to find the right Christmas presents for their dad. Not to spoil the surprise, I will not post what we ended up buying online. But the boys did have a lot of fun picking out something specifically from them. At the end of our morning out, we found some cute santa hats at Claire’s for the boys to wear. Getting into the holiday spirit we took some fun photographs around all the Christmas decorations at the shopping centre.

Breakfast with my boys in town.

Silly faces and Christmas spirit.

Maddox makes decorations!

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When I dropped Maddox off at school I got to see all the ornaments they have been making for school. He was very proud to show me the ones he made specifically. He looks forward to bringing them home at break so we can put them on our own tree. Afterwards I stopped through town to check out the charity shops. I found a huge tub of assorted legos for less money than a new lego set costs in the store. I could not pass this up and so I bought it for the boys for Christmas. I will just need to figure out how to wrap it up.

Maddox showing off some of his homemade decorations at school.

Maddox and his classmates decorated these to hang up on their class tree.

I really like the rudolph ornaments they made too!

My charity shop find: a huge tub of legos! This will be perfect for under the tree at Christmas.

Gingerbread House

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The Boys with their finished Gingerbread house.

Build your own Gingerbread House

St. Nikolaus & the Shoes

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I have picked up many a customs and traditions along my life as a nomad. One of these is St. Nikolaus, from my time living in Germany. On the Eve of December 5th, children put out a boot or shoe outside of their front door. In the morning the children find that St. Nikolaus has filled it up with gifts and sweets after checking to see if the children were ‘good, polite, and helpful the last year’. The boys woke me up as they were opening up their goodies from their shoes. There were candy canes, lego figures, toy airplanes, and a helicopter. It is a nice tradition I have enjoyed thus far with my kids. ‘Morty the Moose’ left some moose paper for the boys to make paper chains with today. They enjoyed the craft and we will have fun growing the chain through out the month.

Maddox holding the candy and toys left in his shoe.

St. Nicholas came and filled the boys shoes with candy and small toys.

Crumpets with jam and clotted cream

Ronan and Maddox at school.

Lamb with sweet potatoes and roasted veggies.

Step One: Folding the wrapping paper in strips.

Step 2: Cut along the fold to create long strips.

Step 3: Cutting into smaller strips

Step 4: Fold strips into loops and tape to secure. Add another strip into the loop and repeat.

Step 5: Hang up on the wall

Our hanging decoration.

Our Polar Express Christmas bells from Christmas 2008

Bows, cookie cutters, bells, ornaments, and lights.

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Candy Canes in London before headed back home on the train.

Yesterday my partner and I took my boys to London for the day and I posted photos from when we played in the leaves. Here are the rest of the photos from our adventure out in London to experience the Christmas atmosphere. We started at the German Christmas market where we enjoyed hot cocoa that tasted like melted chocolate bars, ate yummy goulash soup from a bread bowl, and got to sample one of my favourites, German Rittersport chocolate. The boys were read for a lot of photo ops and so this blog post is quite picture heavy. I ended with our time at Hamey’s, the toy store in London and some of the beautiful Christmas lights seen around town. I hope you enjoy, as we had a lot of fun together in London.