Our First Family Christmas - photo update!

Sigh...I feel like I have so much to write about, there are countless moments, stories, memories that I could share with you all. But, because I'm not sure exactly where to start, I've decided to do a snapshot of Our Family Christmas - with a little bit of commentary! : ) We started by heading out to church, to thank God for the joyous occasion. The service reminded us that the greatest gift of all was Jesus. Amen. Luckily, Our Pastor understood that we all had turkeys in the oven and that the kids wanted to show off their pressies! : ) So, the service was only an hour long, instead of the usual 2+ hour service...so straight after, we bounced home to check that my dinner was all going to plan....

Our starter - prawns, salmon mousse, various types of tomatoes and mozzarella! : )

 Our main course: Don't panic the turkey wasn't burnt. We decided to do a jerk turkey to add some extra flavour! It was DELISH complete with the usual sprouts, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, stuffing, yorkshire pudding (mmm) and cranberry sauce...

Me about to tuck into my starter!

My dashing Mr O!

Our dessert: No, it wasn't the cheeseboard but apple crumble. Unfortunately, by this point, Mr O's enthusiasm for taking pictures of food was lost somewhere between chomping a potato and a turkey thigh! So, you can only just make out the crumble on the far right of this photo (in between the biscuit tin and kitchen roll)! : )p I served this with the options of custard, whipped cream or ice-cream. Well actually, Mum and sis served themselves as I had a little too much of my ginger beer/rum/cranberry juice punch and forgot that I was hosting them! oOoops...

 Panto! A few days later, Mum and I took little Miss O to see the pantomine of Sleeping Beauty at our local theatre. We weren't allowed to take pics during the show (booo!) but we did manage this sneaky picture during the interval!

Girls just wanna have fun: Three of my favourite ladies having fun together...

Little Miss O and I sipping a coffee and babyccino before trekking back home from London...

So, that was our Our Family Christmas, our first Christmas as Husband and Wife! Hooray! Sadly, the festive season is over... bleugh! But lucky for us, after Christmas came New Years and luckily for Mr O and I, after New Years came our First Anniversary... more later...

Mrs O
x

Christmas is so nearly here....

...The last few weeks have been 'go go go...rocked it out to Janelle Monae....got stuck in bed with flu and then fun fun fun'....but yes, I managed to finish off thestocking garland for Baby Girl in time for December 1st - hooray and Little Miss O successfully handed over her 'dum dums' to Father Christmas and we've not looked back since. It actually worked! Unfortunately, I've not had time to update my blog until now... Ooops! 

But, since we've been snowed indoors all day, it seemed the perfect time for a quick pre-Christmas update...

So, Little Miss O loves her advent garland - check it out...(needless to say, I'm no photographer and yes, you can see me (and the flash) in the mirror), but I'm proud nonetheless!)

Each day Little Miss O excitedly searches in the stocking to find some chocolate christmassy character or other... I have to admit, I was really disappointed that I couldn't find any 'religious' chocolates anywhere. I mean, let's all remember the reason for the season - Jesus' birth! I mean, it's not as though I am desperate for little children to eat chocolate Jesus' the world over, but if they can make chocolates in the shape of Santa, then surely they can make it in the shape of an angel or a star at least?!' Perhaps, I should have just bought Milky Way magic stars and told her they are the stars that guided the wise men!

Anyway, when preparing her advent garland, I Sat with about 30 chocolates in front of me and I felt that it was all a bit much and so I put a mini box of raisins into the 'day 7' stocking. What a mistake that was,  Baby Girl burst into tears and ran away from the raisins screaming 'that's not a treat'....OOOPS!!! I have never seen her so upset! I felt like such a Scrooge to have thought it would be a good idea to give her a 'healthy' treat in her advent calendar. So we're back to chocolate...she's happy...I'm happy! I am so pleased, however,  that I spent those evenings making the stockings and I'm really looking forward to Baby Girl and hopefully her future siblings enjoying the garland year after year...

To make sure our household does know the reason for the season, we've got lots of nativity story books, a nativity garland and we even acted out the First Christmas story with my lovely nativity figurines .... all I need is a bit if straw and it'll look like the real thing! : )

In other news, Mary had her stage debut. It was her first time speaking in front of people and she delivered her one line to perfect - 'welcome to our Christmas Concert'...I couldn't help but cheer and I think all the other parents felt they should follow suit --- each child got a big cheer following their 'bit'! ahahaha She said the words so loudly and clearly and we were SO proud. Go Little Miss O!

Here's Mary in the middle with her pals Joseph and Santa 'smiling' for their Mummies!

The concert was totally funny, with a one year old 'Rudolph', who stood on one spot wiggling her nappy! And a younger sibling of a cast-member going up to the front to help himself to a mince pie - a prop in the play!! Classic and so so  funny. Who knew being a parent would bring such experiences so early on. We loved it...and then treated Baby Girl to a babyccinno to celebrate her success! : )

The Christmas Concert totally marked the real child-like excitement for Mr O and I, and topped off by Christmas Parties in the evening, we are well and truly feeling the festive feeling! 

The only thing I have to work on and plan is how I'm gonna funk up our Christmas Dinner. Last night, my meal was, let's just say 'uninspiring' - thank goodness the company was good!

I hope everyone else's preparations are going well...

Mrs O

x

Mr and Mrs O's First Christmas

Around this time last year, we were preparing for our wedding...family members were landing left right and centre at Heathrow and Gatwick...and this country experienced the worst snow in a long while. Eeek! We live hundreds of miles away from our immediate family, so we planned to travel down on 24th December. Little did we know that Mother Nature had different plans. We were snowed under and could not leave the area, so around 12pm on 24th December, Mr O made an executive decision 'we were staying put!'. So, immediately Little Miss O and I went on a hunt for a turkey (!)....

'Excuse me, where are your turkeys?'
'hahahahaha, you want to buy a turkey on Christmas eve?! hahahaha'
'This is not a joke, I am getting married in a week, I am stranded away from my family who have all flown into the country for the occasion. All I need is a turkey!'
'awwww [looking embarrassed], well you can get a frozen turkey in the freezer section'
'I don't want a FROZEN turkey, they take 2 days to defrost! Tomorrow is Christmas Day!'
'Sorry love, I can't help you!'

: (

I was SO disappointed...obviously, there are no turkeys on Christmas eve BUT I wished that the shop would have reserved one especially for me, just in case...

So, we spent Christmas just Little Miss O, Mr O, Mr O's cousin and I. They all fell asleep whilst I cooked dinner and it was completely different from the Christmas that the rest of our families were having in London! I love hearing the story of how my cousins tried to convince older members of our family that Beyonce was in fact Beyonce - just with different hair and different clothes! ahahaha

So, this year, I am all set for Christmas...I am being a bit like Monica Gellar-Bing and will be trying to outdo/undo last year's Christmas!

We will be hosting 'Mr and Mrs O's First Christmas'. I am making a VERY big deal about it...about Jesus' birth, about the going to church (all of us together), about eating together and sharing gifts and having fun TOGETHER. I cannot wait!!!

Now I just have to finish off this advent calendar for baby girl, so that we can start counting down the days!

Bring on Christmas Day....

Mrs O
x

Christmas is coming...Mummy and Daddy are getting crafty...

Christmas for me is a time for love and a time for family; a time for giving and a time for sharing; a time for joy and a time for laughter and peace. 

I have always loved Christmas and just about everything that comes with it these days -  the special church service, the feast, the family, the gifts(!). Both Mr O and I have really fond childhood memories of Christmas time and we're keen to create warm memories for Baby Girl too. 

One thing that I always remember is the gorgeous advent calendar lovingly handmade by my elder sister during her textiles GSCE. It was over a metre long and had 24 Christmas themed pouches... there were Christmas tree pouches, present pouches, snowman pouches and the 24th of December was a Father Christmas pouch, if I remember correctly. Our parents filled each pouch with random confectionery and myself and my younger siblings took it in turns to retrieve the contents each morning and share them out. We loved our advent calendar!

Christmas is fast approaching and Little Miss O is constantly asking about her role as Mary in her nursery nativity play, talking about 'Baby Jesus' and questioning the whereabouts of 'Father Christmas'. So, Mr O and I feel that this year an extra special advent calendar is in order...

That's right, we have taken it upon ourselves to make (!) our gorgeous mini-we an advent calendar. Our brief is 'classic but cute, gender neutral, pouch style, advent calendar garland, with nativity not just 'Christmas' theme'.... 

Depending on the quality of the finished product and how it fares this year, we're hoping to use it year after year! Now, we're still in the making stage of our little creation but here are some of the advent calendars that have inspired us...

Source: philipsfab5

 Source: liltulip

Source: JennMatthews

 Source: pickles

Source: making the world cuter

Now, we can't promise that our 'version' will be as hot as these lovelies, BUT we still look forward to seeing Little Miss O's face when she sees her bespoke advent calendar garland next Wednesday morning...bring on the festive fun!

Do you remember having an advent calendar? Or is it just me?! ? : )

Mrs O

x

Little Miss O's stage debut!!!

Winter is 100% my favourite season. I can almost smell it coming in the crisp autumn air...

As though I wasn't already excited enough about Christmas being right around the corner... but I've just gotten even more excited!!!

Little Miss O has been chosen to be Mary in her first EVER Nativity Play. woooooo hoooooo! Now, don't get me wrong, I would have been excited if she were a shepherd, a star, even if she were cattle, I'd have been excited! But, Little Miss O is going to be Mary - MARY! I was so proud, I couldn't contain it and made up a song on the spot:

'go Mary, go Mary, go... go Mary, go Mary, go'.

Little Miss O joined in and it was an instant cause for celebration. I'm not sure the nursery has ever seen anything like it! You see, I was NEVER chosen to be Mary, and even though I never wanted to be the centre-stage, I always knew that was the role given to the best actress in the class. That Little Miss O has been given this role at such a young age, fills me with joy!

Being me, I asked the nursery why they had chosen Little Miss O...? I mean, let's face it, she doesn't look like the Mary in the Nativity Book we bought last Christmas. They said it was because she's the most confident - in the entire nursery - even more so than the 4 year olds! To top it all off, when Little Miss O and I were talking about her stage debut, she said that she wanted to wear her hair in 'afro-style'. I can;t help but think that purchasing Mary Hoffman's Amazing Grace was one of the best buys of the year so far!

We are so so blessed to have a daughter who oozes confidence (you should see her wiggle) and actually wants to wear her hair as it grows out of her head! I know plenty of grown folk that couldn't say the same and this makes us feel like we're doing something right - hooray...!

This is a joyous time in our household, we're looking forward to our first Christmas as Husband and Wife, our First Anniversary and now we've got Little Miss O's stage debut to look forward to as well.

Bring on December!

Mrs O
x