Melbourne for Christmas

We've been in Melbourne for about a week... running all over town catching up with family and friends.  It's been really good to see everyone again but today we're happy to just be hanging out in our apartment waiting for G's family's Christmas festivities tonight (G's family are Chilean so Christmas well and truely begins on Christmas Eve).  In fact the kids have just been sitting down checking out the Christmas tree, as you do.

I'm hoping I can get both girls down for a sleep sometime this afternoon before their late night tonight.  Both of them are a bit out of whack with all the new people, places and late bedtimes they've had all week.

Amongst it all we have had a chance to get into the city to check out the Christmas windows (which I had always been led to believe were better than the Brisbane ones, but they are exactly the same!) and the trees in Federation Square.

And we've been still getting through our Advent Calendar.

Making reindeer food

And gingerbread

And snowy scenes (using these instructions from Cakies)

And I have a new favourite wrapped present, for kids. I love these Santa mailing labels from Babelisme.

Hope Santa visits you tonight and that you and your families have a wonderful Christmas together!

Craft Day

Our internet has just returned today after being out of action for about a week, hence the crazy number of posts.  Sorry!! This is the last one, promise.

Although we had our last craft night for 2011 a few weeks ago, we snuck in an extra session during the last week to get some Christmas projects done.  I had a few projects I really needed to get finished for the girls Christmas stockings so I was on a mission.

I made two fabric necklaces, I think the greeny coloured one will be for Polly and the other for Matilda.

And I finally finished my baby oobees that I had cut out about 2 months ago. 

Matilda's -

Polly's -

I still have three things left to make before we go although I don't really like my chances of them actually happening.  We'll see, one late night could knock at least 2 of them over. 

An early Christmas lunch

Over the weekend we celebrated lunch with my family as we'll be in Melbourne with G's family this year.

My job was to bring desert so I made a pavlova with berries and lemon cream out of the latest Donna Hay magazine.  So yum.  The cream was meant to have limoncello in it, but I didn't have any so I added the lemon zest of about 1 and a half lemons to the cream and it worked really well, if I do say so myself.  Can't go wrong with lemon and blueberries.

Of course there was also bon bons, too much food, lots of presents and the necessity for a nap afterwards.

(Polly making her pirate face)

Christmas Baking

North Pole cupcakes for mothers group.  I've been a bit keen to try these since seeing them on Pinterest or Tumblr or somewhere, I think they originally came from here.

Santa's hat brownies for our Brissy family Christmas lunch.

And that may be just about enough crazy themed food for this Christmas.. except gingerbread men, which are on our list of advent activities to do once we're actually in Melbourne.

More Advent activities

Package up reindeer noses for our last mothers group of 2011.

Head into 'town' to visit the big Christmas tree and the Myer windows.

Check out the local Christmas lights.  Matilda loved it, Polly went nuts (good nuts).

Christmas Days

Well, the Advent Calendar is a hit with the girls, particularly Matilda who is wanting to check the day's pocket as soon as she wakes up.

Monday was 'make a Christmas tree collage' day, which I think took me longer to organise that it kept the girls entertained for.  Although they did go back to it a few times during the day to add more glitter to their trees and themselves.

Today our activity was to wrap Christmas presents, which was never really going to be a good idea with a 3.5 and 1.5 year old.  Polly wanted to keep on adding sticky tape until you'd need a saw to get into the present and Matilda wanted to keep all the pretty paper for her presents.  Matilda also wanted to wrap her presents and declared that she did not want any surprises.  We got 3 presents done, but it's a start.

Tomorrow we have a busy day so I'm cheating a little and the pocket contains a freddo each for the girls.  A few free passes are ok though, right?

We'll make up for it on Thursday night though, we're going to visit this local house which enters the Christmas lights competition every year and opens up their garden so you can walk through all the lights.  Matilda loved it last year (she keeps asking about it) and I think Polly will go a bit mental for it this year too.

Advent

After it being on the 'to do' list for a few years now, seeing Leslie's DIY Advent Calendar panel finally gave me the boost required to actually get it finished.  That plus I figured Matilda at least is old enough to get into some activities and get excited about Christmas.

Of course, I didn't finish it until today.  But it's up and after day care today, Matilda got to check out the first pocket and we decorated the tree.

My calendar is just some very simple linen pocket bunting.   It took me ages to decide what to do and I am pretty sure that anything more complicated wouldn't have happened so I'm happy with it.

I had some 'helpers' with the sewing, so it's a little 'rustic'.

Polly helped me string them up and set up the tree today so we were ready to decorate when Matilda got home, I'll have to take some photos of the tree tomorrow.

Our Christmas tree is up on it's little table for a couple of reasons.. it takes up less space and we can put all the presents underneath and it also makes it harder for the kids to pull down all the decorations.  At least that's the theory - last year our Christmas tree was safe behind a play pen, I'll let you know how we go this year.

For the most part the calendar has little activities to do but with a few choccies and other little surprises mixed in.  I'm not sure I could sustain 24 days of activities.

Our activities, borrowed from a few others around the place with a few of our own added include:
Decorate the Christmas tree
Read Christmas stories
Go for a drive to see the Christmas lights
Walk through the Christmas light garden  (there's a great house near us that goes a bit crazy with the Christmas lights and opens up their yard so people can have a walk around and have a look)
Christmas lunch at Granny and Pa's house (we'll be in Melbourne this Christmas, so we'll have an early lunch with my family)
Watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer movie
Sing Christmas songs (this ones for the drive to Melbourne)
Make snow globes
Go into town to see the Christmas windows and big tree
Wrap presents
See the Myer Christmas windows in Melbourne
Count how many Christmas trees we see (another one for a day of driving)
Make reindeer noses to give out at mothers group
Make reindeer food
Make gingerbread men
Turn on our outside Christmas lights
Put a present under the K-mart wishing tree
Make a Christmas tree collage
Christmas craft with C (my sister)

We have been partaking of a few pre-Advent sneaky Christmas activities too.  Last trip to Spotlight I bought (because Matilda begged) some $3 watercolour sets with a few Christmassy type pics in them and we've been working on them.  Despite really not wanting to buy them, the colours are actually really vibrant for kids watercolour sets so we've been having lots of fun with them.

One girl takes this very seriously, the other one not so much.. I'll let you figure out which (they have such different personalities!).