Merry Christmas

By the time you read this we'll be on our way to sunny South Africa. I know I am not going to much time for blogging but I will no doubt take hundreds of photos, which hopefully I will process sooner rather than later, along with the photos from our last trip to South Africa (2010/2011). Where did this year go and where was I!?! We're delighted that we are going to see some of you, and we're really going to miss those that we're not going to see. I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the four of us!

Christmas Party at Play School

Daniel's play school had a Christmas Party for the children on Tuesday. As you can imagine there was a buzz of excitement. Along with the usual arts and crafts they had face painting, a magic show and a santa who gave the children a bag of little presents. I think Daniel liked the present most of all but for me the magic show stands out. When the lady asked for a helper, Daniel stuck up his hand shouting me! me! me!, and she picked him. So he got to do some magic and made a real bunny come out of the box!

Christmas Cheer

There are so many cute Christmas gimmicks out there for the kids. Janine and Noa made these really great videos from Santa for Nicholas and Daniel using PNP (just click replay video) . They're a brilliant bribing tool that is for sure. The boys keep asking me if they can watch the videos over and over again!

Pete supports a charity called NSPCC that sent the boys these lovely personalised letters from Santa. They were so excited when they arrived and Nicholas figured out that they were from the man himself. Once again they keep asking me to read them 'just one more time'!


And then there is this my personal favourite from Elf Yourself

Christmas Carols

The boys love music and singing so it seems a no-brainer to max out on carols by candlelight. On Friday night we went to the Barnes Christmas Fair. It had a real villagey feel and even though we aren't entirely local we bumped into people we knew. It was great fun walking from choir to band to groups of friends merrily singing carols while sipping on hot chocolate and mulled wine!

On Saturday we ventured to our favourite part of London. First we soaked up the atmosphere in the German style Christmas market on the South Bank. Then we walked across the river to Trafalgar Square to see the giant tree. The main event of the day was carols in St Martins in the Field. On the way home we enjoyed 'a hundred thousand' fairy lights. A lovely end to a lovely day!

Our final UK carol session will be the Donhead carols on Wednesday night at Sacred Heart - the day before we fly - hopefully we'll catch a couple of sing-a-longs in SA too!

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas

I love this time of the year. There are a lot of reasons: trees, fires, lights, carols, hot chocolate, seasonal food, advent calendars, presents, santa, snow (hopefully) and of course the fact that our annual trip to South Africa is imminent. That's the reason we don't usually have a tree here in London but this year Nicholas pointed out that our house doesn't look very festive without a tree and decorations. We agreed that this is the best time in the boys' lives to have a tree. We decided to get one even though won't be here for Christmas and we'll probably have a tree in Magogong and Wakkies. The boys were very excited about choosing a tree, and believe me it is a complicated business over here. We also had fun digging out our old decorations from years gone by and making our house a bit more festive. It's great sitting next to the blazing fire and flickering candles drinking hot chocolate and listening to carols. One can really get caught up in all this Christmas cheer!

Pub Lunch

Lovely sunday afternoon with friends!

Almost to the day

This was almost the exact age to the day that Nicholas was when Daniel was born. It makes me kind of sad because that was when I felt that Nicholas changed from a baby into a boy which means that soon Danny won't be a baby anymore. I just want time to go slowly so I can have more time to enjoy these precious little guys of mine growing up and to love them even more than I already do!

That was then ...

This is now ...