the countdown has begun …..

There's been a lot of fun going on.  My son Luca turned 12.  Whaat!  TWELVE - that's nearly a TEENAGER!  How?!   His gaggle of mates have grown so fast this past year, there was no I was having them at home to celebrate.  An afternoon of indoor rocking climbing and boldering kept them busy and wore them out.  Followed by lots of this cake!!

We had a family birthday dinner at our favorite pizza restaurant in Portland - Pizza Scholls - pizza heaven!  Ordered too much.   Ate too much!

We hosted our 3rd annual family Christmas drinks for our neighbors - 21 adults, 16 kids and 1 dog!  Busy, loud, chaotic!  Yep, the lot.  Fun to have everyone over, no babysitters required, and everyone walking home afterwards - thankfully as the Spiced Rum cocktail certainly hit the spot!

I love the house right now.  Christmas decorations sparkling all around the place.  One tree looking fabulous and glittery in silver and lights, the other with every kind of ornament collected over many years, crafted etc - with hardly a green branch in sight!!

I am like an elf, hiding away in the guest bedroom, to be found under roles of wrapping paper, boxes, ribbons and tissue paper!  Everyone knows this room is out of bounds (although if I were them, I'd have been taking sneaky peaks just like I did as a child!).  Shush don't tell.

We took the kiddos to see Walking With Dinosaurs and had a great time.  Ruby couldn't decide if they were real dinosaurs or not!

We've seen our first Chritmas movie - The Penguins of Madagascar - I laughed out loud many times.  Great lines.

We are counting the days until Christmas holidays.  The kids break up on Friday.  Everyone is in need of lazy mornings, no alarms going off at 6am, movie watching, feeling festive and doing little.  The countdown has begun!

H A P P Y   T H U R S D A Y