First Christmas!

Christmas this year has probably been one of the most exciting for us and I can imagine that they will only get better from now for some time to come! Finally I could put some of my inner child to use and had a good excuse for decorations and present buying! To be honest, up until this point, I've not really bought master G many toys to play with, so it was nice to be able to go and buy a few to spoil my baby! I think we had a few wins and he got very spoilt by everyone.

The Friday prior to Xmas we had most of the neighbours for some drinks and nibbles, it was so lovely to catch up with everyone. Great company and the food wasn't too bad either. It kind of felt a little bit ominous with the threatening military acquisitions looming, I think we all felt a bit like it was a 'last supper' together as a community although I'm certain it won't be!

 After the party Mum and I got a bit creative and made a wreath that I had seen on facebook! We were both pretty impressed with our efforts! Which also seemed a good opportunity to take some photos! 

Mum and I spent Christmas Eve afternoon with a few cocktails and after lots of giggling we both went to bed early with a bottle of water each. Fortunately we pulled up pretty well! 

Mojito my fav! 

Something with cardamom and rosewater! Yummy

Kerrie special! 

With two sets of grandparents to play pass the parcel (the parcel being the baby), he was fairly well exhausted by the end of the day!

 

Christmas lunch was a lovely pork belly, chicken, potato bake and a vegetable salad and it was a big hit with everyone I'm sorry I didn't get a photo! Grandma made a lovely coffee and chocolate dessert with fruit and nuts! We were all so stuffed that none of us ate any dinner.

Poppy was given a lovely rug that bubba thought was pretty nice! 

Loads of toys!! Tonka truck, paw-patrol truck and some paw patrol clothes, lawn mower, walker, play station table, bubble bath toy, duckie bath toy, lots of books and a mini monkey camp chair! Wow!

Corinthian wafers!! The best!! 

Dad and bub posing for the camera! 

The nicest shot I've got of the pair of them and I didn't have my flash on!! Grrrr! 

Four generations! Great Grandma Shirley, Garrett, Justin and Nanna Marina. 

Bubbles in the bath! How cool!

Bub was not the only one to be spoilt this year! I got a number of wonderful gifts and these are just a couple. 

Xmas wreath for my table. 

And another table decoration for the rest of the year. Just lovely. 

We attempted to get some nice photos with some bubbles, but G wasn't really that impressed. More interested in a plastic cup! Far more entertaining!

Yeehaw, bring on the new year! How was your xmas? Did you get spoilt like we did? I'm thinking a cruise next year to save on washing up! What do you think?

HO HO HO

I've said before that it's a rare thing for us to get a family photo and since we have not really had any professional ones taken since master G was born, a santa photo seemed most appropriate. G was an absolute star and even the 'elves' thought he was adorable! 

Are you sure mum

This one is my favorite. Can't believe he is already 10 months!! Where has that time gone?

Phone photos. 

Maybe next time we take the photo at the start of the day rather than 6pm when we are all ready for bed! 

My little parcle.  

Gma and G-man

Sometimes we just can't get a smile! 

Poser!

My first Sao! Yummy!

Mango had her 30th birthday last weekend and you know that it's a good party when the next morning there aren't very many photos except for a couple that were in the dirt!

Mel and I

With the blokes showing their skills at the 'Goanna Pull', I opted that the girls needed to show off their mean skills. Mel demonstrated how to do a 'leg pull' and then proceeded to kick my arse at it! Also beating me at arm wrestling.... looks like I need to get back to doing some exercise!!

Master J had a bit of a sore neck the following day and I had a few miscellaneous bruises which is always good sign of a great night!

Mel showing me how far superior she was at "leg pulling".

The next morning was a miserable drizzling day, so we packed up our sore heads and wounded prides and headed for home! What a great weekend to catch up with friends, but a bit hard to get back into work mode at this time of year! Bring on Xmas!

Happy Birthday Mango and many more to come!

Have you been good this year? Will Santa come? Any wild xmas parties?

Kaboom!

The last couple of weeks seem to have passed in such a blur I can't even seem to recall what I got up to! Lucky for phone photos that I regularly take to remind me! 

Some cooking I have been doing which you can read about here.

To maintain my nursing registration I have to do a certain amount of shifts each year. I'm fortunate enough to be a casual nurse at the Yeppoon hospital where they really have been looking after me in this regard and they managed to squeeze me in for several shifts and dad took to babysitting for a few days. 

The photo below is from after I had finished my shifts and dad had bought G-man to town so he could look at some of our cattle there. I was knackered from late nights and early mornings and after a bottle, bub and I passed out together. 

The biggest bombshell (pun intended), came from a letter we received in the mail last week from the Department of Defence, some of the details you can read about here. Without going into too much detail, it implies that our property in the in potential expansion zone for the Shoalwater Bay Training Area. Their map for expansion is below. 

I've added an image from my property maps book to show some of the properties that will be affected in this proposed expansion. 

This is a photograph taken from the Atlas of Queensland and Northern Territory Pastoral Stations etc 10 edn. by Terrance and Rosemary Allick 

As you may imagine this has opened up a real can of worms for the locals here! Some of our neighbours have had their families on the same property for 140 years, my son will be the fourth generation here on Banksia. It has left the district with a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty! We understand that the defence force has already purchased two properties in this area which were for sale. It has certainly given us all something to talk about and kept the phone lines operational, not to mention many sleepless nights for some.

If only we had a crystal ball!

In other news, G-man has now reached level stage GREMLIN! or WET FURBY! He can stand fairly well now and is starting to want to let go! But it has made bathing time very..... saturating to say the least and play time now requires more close attention.

Mischief!! 

Aren't I sooooo clever!! 

We got to do a lap with dad on the lawn mower!! Thought he was pretty cool!

My first chocolate finger biscuit!! YUMMO

Messy mango!! 

Have you been to any parties lately? How is your plans for xmas going? Do you have a better crystal ball than mine?