movie traditions.....

we have a tradition in our family that we go to the

cinema on Christmas Eve together....

we have been doing this since the children were quite young

and it's something we really look forward to.....

choosing the movie is a serious business in this house

as we have to all agree.....

the last two years we have been to see the Hobbit movies and

we knew that we were going to opt for the third movie this year....

the problem was that the release date for the Hobbit movie in 

Oz was Boxing day....... seriously??

after a bit of a chat together we decided that we would have to

postpone our Christmas eve ritual for a few days

and so on December 27th we made a date, pre-booked our tickets,

filled my bag with goodies to eat and drink and made our way to 

the super-screen at the local cinema to watch this.....

here is our slightly-dark-but-excited-to-be-finally-seeing-the-hobbit selfie.....

and just so that we felt completely indulgent this Christmas season,

 three days later we went to the Moonlight Cinema in King's Park 

to see an advance screening of The Imitation Game.....

this was our first trip to an outdoor cinema and we took our

picnic rug, insect repellent and lots of snacks.....

it was a fab movie and although Evie was not particularly looking

forward to seeing it she actually came away having really enjoyed it.....

here's a little screen shot from the beginning of the movie.....

it actually makes the screen look rather small, but it was actually HUGE.....

it was lovely to be under the sky watching this movie.....

looking up I could see the moon and stars and the trees 

swaying gently in the breeze that we had that evening.....

it was definitely an evening to remember.....

day twenty-four......

oh, how quickly this time of advent zips along.....

I can't believe we are at Christmas Eve already......

this is the day when we traditionally take a family trip to the cinema.....

the choice was an easy one this year...... 

The Hobbit part 2.....

we went to see the first part of The Hobbit last 

Christmas Eve so it was a no brainer really that 

this year would be the turn of the second instalment......

{and next year?...... well you can guess what the top choice will be can't you?}

I know there are some who think this second film in the 

series is not quite as good as the first, 

but we all thoroughly enjoyed it.....

{we also enjoyed the copious amounts of crisps,

chocolate and fizzy pop which appeared from

my vast carpet bag......}

we did break with tradition a bit this year though....

we normally come home after our cinema trip and have a 

'pick'n'mix' party tea with a chocolate fondue 

however this year we had a family vote and decided 

that we would have a meal out instead......

it was absolutely lovely and a joy to spend time

with these most special of people.....

and now, to sleep, as Christmas morning is fast approaching....

day sixteen.......

tree decorating day......

BIG tradition in our house.....

it has to be accompanied by the 

Christmas Crooners playing on the CD player

whilst I take lots of photos and get amazed 

at how much the children have grown in a year.....

now it not only looks a lot like Christmas

but it smells a lot like Christmas too....

{now the cats are going ballistic knocking decorations off the 

tree and in the process knocking lots of needles onto the  floor......

ah, the joys of a real Christmas tree........}

day fifteen.......

carols by candlelight at church.......

love this time of year when we get to sing

some absolutely cracking songs and remember the

significance of why we celebrate.....

next week, the nativity.....

complete with newborn baby ruby.....

day six.......

bedtime stories by candlelight.....

lovely, cozy, snuggly story times

by the light of the candles around the room....

day five......

handmade Christmas angels.....

this one was made by: my mum {the knitted dress}....

the angel herself {my super sister}....

the crown {that would be my contribution}....

I have quite a few angels that come out at Christmas

but this is one of the only handmade ones

and holds a special place in my heart......

day four......

this wall hanging was made by my lovely sister

and it makes a great accompaniment to go along with

the book I shared yesterday....

each day a story from the book is read and then a 

little symbol is placed on the wall hanging.....

so far we have the sun and moon, 

a fruit and noah's ark.....

before we had this wall hanging the children

drew their own little pictures of the story we had read

and then hung the pictures on a little Christmas tree..... 

I still have the pictures they drew when they were 4 and 6.....

they are just. so. cute.

day three......

books......

we have our favourites and at this

time of year it is a joy to revisit some of them......

this book by one of our favourite authors comes out 

every year and we read it like an advent calendar..... 

one story per day.....

day two......

I love getting the decorations out on the last day of

november and, once the children have gone to bed, 

spending time going through them and decorating

the living areas.....

lots of memories.....

lots of smiles.....

lots of traditions.....

and usually a little bit of Christmas music playing in

the background just to make it all that bit more festive.....

this is one of my favourite keepsakes.....

a fold out book

{which a friend taught me how to make}

and in it are photos and descriptions of some 

of our family Christmas traditions -

there are even two little notes in tiny envelopes to 

father christmas written by the children when they

were really small...... too cute......

so today I have opened and enjoyed 

browsing this book......

and it has made me smile to remember so many

of the things that I love about our family traditions

at this time of year.....

celebrating advent through instagram.....

I decided this morning that I wanted to

take a photo every day during december so I could

record all the different traditions and celebrations 

we love during this beautiful season......

and I decided to use instagram to do it......

not the best quality of photos I'm afraid but

a fun and easy way for me to 'take note' and

remind myself of all I love about this 

favourite holiday of mine.....

day one......

the advent calendar....

in our house we have had a few different 

advent calendars over the years.....

sticker ones, lego ones, playmobil ones, colouring in ones.....

the above one though, has been with us every year since the 

kids were very little and they both still look forward to

revealing a new character to add to the story each day.....

it was a king today......

looking lonely there by himself on the little road

but he will soon be joined by a plethora of others......

Easter Sunday........

if you didn't already know, we love traditions in our house......

Christmas has its own set of traditions

with the writing of letters.......

the decoration of the advent wall hanging......

the reading of a special book.......

the decking of the house.......

Easter too has its own traditions, including the easter egg hunt......

this year the children were spoilt and actually got to have two egg hunts on easter day......

one was a very early morning {before we set off for church} hunt at our house......

man, I wish we had thought of how many stairs we had to go 

up and down before we decided to do an 'anywhere-in-the-house' hunt.....

we went up and then down....

up, up and then down......

up again and back down.....

{it did mean that i could justify eating a few chocolate eggs myself as i am sure i

had worn off quite a few calories with all the 'upping' and 'downing' that i did....}

the second was one they have been looking forward to for a long time now......

one of unky-neil's-famous-super-duper-garden-easter-egg-hunts.......

off they went with imogen, each carrying something to put their booty in.......

{the little blue bucket isaac is carrying has been his 'easter-egg-hunt' egg holding
vessel since he was about 5 or 6 and he uses it every easter for 'the hunt'...... 

evie has a little pink bucket but she forgot to take it to auntie dottie's house and
was actually quite devastated at not having it with her....... 

she had to make do with a wicker basket this time round instead.......

imogen took her paddington bear bag with her, complete with two mobile phones

a salt and pepper shaker and a few other bits and bobs which are necessary when a

nearly two year old goes on an egg hunting walk.....}

it was so lovely to watch them pootle off and it reminded me of when

my two were little and their cousins would hold their hands

and lead them round the garden to find the hidden eggs......

precious memories.....

now it was my childrens turn to lead the youngest member

of our family out for the fun and frivolity that is 'the easter egg hunt'......

unky neil's egg hunts are always devilishly hard and the kids

had to ask for a little help on a couple of occasions but they

did find all the eggs in the end and came back with a nice 

little stash to add to their already bulging sweet bags.......

then, of course, comes the eating of the eggs.......

imogen was very excited to be handed a chocolate egg

to eat all to herself......

nom, nom, nom......

and then, oh happy day, there was a second one to enjoy.......

definitely worthy of a hand clap........

yummy......

a new past-time.....

what a lovely Christmas we have had here in the

Crawford-Poxon/Carter house......

we shared traditions.....

we shared gifts.....

we shared laughter.....

we shared love.....

we shared time.....

and we had the most lovely of days.....

however, when Boxing day dawned we felt the

need to take a walk and so I suggested we try

our hand at geocaching....

I discovered geocaching a couple of years ago but,

as we didn't own a GPS while we lived in Australia,

we never tried it out....

however, my brother-in-law has a walking GPS

which we thought would work a treat, so off

we set.......

we all set out on foot..... even the littlest

got to join in...... and she was so very happy

about that.....

we walked and chatted and turned-up-stuff
and snuck into Nana and Grandad's garden on the way
to get a drink from the water tap {as I had forgotten
to take a water bottle with me for refreshment.....}
and two and a half miles later we unearthed our
first ever geocache.....

here it is, our first 'cache find'.....

evie got to choose a little gift from

the stash we found and we replaced it with a

couple of other little trinkets....

we wrote our names and a little message

in the log book and hid the box back where

we found it for the next geocachers to find....

evie decided that the best way to travel home would be

on someone elses back...... there's no flies on her that's

for sure......

the scenery, and the company, were lovely

and we decided that we were hooked....

so when Tuesday dawned we decided to have another

go and promptly found a geocache a short drive away

over Exmoor near a small town called Exford.....

we started the walk to the cache from the local

graveyard......

nothing like taking your nearest and dearest to

a graveyard for an afternoon stroll.......

and a little bit of gravestone rubbing.....

this was the lovely little country church where we started......

so very British don't you think.......

there were stiles to be negotiated......

here is imogen checking out the way through

for those with very short legs!

and here is evie showing everyone that her ankle is well and truly 

healed up and she is, once again, able to do lots of running and jumping
over muddy puddles.........

when Imogen stopped to investigate one of the muddy

puddles, we all stopped too and watched her.....

isn't it lovely how the smallest one commands so

much attention...... we spend ages just watching her......

and after a lovely stroll through the countryside and a bit of

a treasure hunt the kids found the cache.....

we had a lot of fun looking through the log book, 

enjoying other peoples' comments and then

isaac got to choose a piece of  'treasure' to take home and

we left a new piece of treasure in its place....

there was time spent nearby enjoying the stream.....

isaac made dams to change the flow of the water......

something he does whenever he comes across running water......

and much fun was had by all.......

imogen even fell headlong into the water but it didn't

seem to phase her, she just picked herself up and 

carried on with squelchy wellies and wet pants......

if you haven't tried geocaching before, give it a go......

it is such a fun way to get out-and-about

with family and/or friends, or just on your own if you like,

and it's such fun finding treasure at the end......

this activity is a keeper for us, that's for sure.....

oh, how I love her.....

and what fun it is to share birthdays with

this beautiful daughter.....

she hit double digits today.....

10 whole years.....

wow......

special days always begin with present

unwrapping and card opening in our bed
{though not before 6am we pleaded.....}

then move swiftly on to cake presenting

and admiring with lots of

'oooooohhhhhing' and 'aaaaaaahhhhhing'.....

these are a couple of the little traditions

that our children cherish and have come to

look forward to over the years......

this years' request was a red velvet cake
in a heart shape, with red icing on top,
silver balls all round and
'happy birthday' written on top......

so not too prescriptive then......

another of our traditions is that the person whose
birthday it is gets

to choose all their favourite food
FOR THE WHOLE DAY....

evie had given this much thought and when we
went to the supermarket to buy the 'birthday food'
she proclaimed that she wanted a 'nudie smoothy'
{miss manners don't you know}

and a sweet granola cereal.......

rather healthy choice I thought.....
better than iced doughnuts or
coco pops.....

the cake, of course, had to accompany breakfast eating too.......

followed by a ceremonial

'blowing-out-of-the-candles'......

{actually there were two or three such

'blowing-out-of-the-candle'
times during the day,
after all it is only once a year

that you get to blow out the candles on 

your birthday cake.....}

the 'birthday bunting' made its

debut appearance this year..... 

I really enjoyed making this and practicing
my 'free machine stitiching' -

{note there are no 'up close shots' for the
very reason that this is one of my first attempts
at said 'free machine stitiching' and was
rather 'free-er' than I would have wished
for on numerous occasions.......}

evie, however, thought it was 'fantastic'......

then at morning tea time 

{evie had chosen lemon slice as her 

morning tea treat}

she was able to use our 

'special' plate for the first time.....

I made this plate after seeing a number of similar ones 

and thinking how lovely it would be for the person 

whose special day it was to be able to use a special plate
which declared their specialness......

evie loved it and reminded me that we will need 

to make sure we use it for daddy's birthday on Monday......

and finally, when daddy came home from work, 

 we all went out and accompanied evie for her 

'ear piercing extravaganza'.....

this is a day that she has looked forward to

for at least 3 years and when it came down to it 

she was both excited and nervous.......

she said it 

'hurt more than she imagined it would' 

but she still looks very pleased that she will
now be able to wear all the beautiful earings
she has been admiring.....

happy birthday my beautiful princess.....

you are my sunshine.......

deck the halls......

we had a lot of fun decorating the house a few days ago.....

Unky Neil picked up a Christmas tree on his way home 

from work and then brought in about a million {I exaggerate not}

boxes of Christmas decorations.....

the kids had so much fun putting this here and that there

 and asking about the stories behind the decs......

the tree is just a little one that sits in the window and sparkles 

and looks all beautiful twinkling away merrily......

even the fireplace got a little bit of sparkly treatment.....

oh, it is feeling rather festive..... 

I've been playing Christmas carols to get me in the swing of things 

and there's more snow forecast for later this week.....

I say, crack out the sledges and lets get serious......

Phase one......

here's a picture of phase one in the secret plans and clever tricks....


a little sofa for the corner in the school/craft room.....

In our house in Bristol we had a little sofa in the corner of the kitchen/diner/school room and it was where the kids always used to snuggle up to read while I got on with other things.

And I've missed it..... the kids have missed it too.... missed having a special little reading 'nook' to which they could retreat and get lost in a good book while still feeling part of what was going on in the heart of our home.

So last weekend we acquired a little sofa and within minutes it was claimed and made 'theirs'....

They pulled through one of the quilts from the front room (nothing like snuggling under a quilt on a chilly day to read) and took a couple of cushions off the chairs just to make it all a bit more comfy and squishy.

I have plans for a new quilt and cushion covers to brighten it up ...... but wait, that's getting into phase two of my plans!!

Anyway, it's not just the kids that are enjoying the new space..... I tell you, leave the computer alone for 2 minutes and the cat will be enjoying the warmth!!


Oh, and our postcard has arrived at its destination in Germany (that was quick) so we should get one fairly soon..... I need to go out postcard buying so that we can send some more......