The festive period, for us, is VERY busy with celebrations because not only do we have Christmas but we have two birthdays as well! Florence was born on New Year’s Eve and Jonny celebrates his on the second of January so we don’t stop the partying till after then!

Florence had her brilliant ‘I Can Cook’ party with all her friends a few days before Christmas which I wrote about here and even if she’d only enjoyed it half as much as she did it would have been a mighty success!

Florence loved her birthday party with her friends!

Then the next day we drove up to Norwich, car packed to the brim, and came to stay with my Mum for the whole festive period! We’ve been having so much fun! Our little elves who had come to stay somehow managed to make the journey to Norwich too and on Christmas Eve gave us one final surprise for our #25Sleeps project with Mothercare by hanging out in the bathroom with some night before Christmas treats!

Christmas Eve, one sleep to go and Tasha and Lily the elves brought us Mothercare Pjyamas, a Snow Dog and a couple of the delightful Toy Box toys! 

Ready for bed in new Christmas jammies and all that was left to do was lay out the mince pie, sherry and carrot for Father Christmas and his reindeer and leave our stocking for him to fill!

Christmas jammied up and ready for Father Christmas!

Christmas with children is truly magical and even just thinking back to it makes me smile. Of course with children everything is unpredictable and at midnight Jimmy started being sick with a tummy bug that lasted nearly a week! Still, despite the bug he had a good time and thankfully could enjoy things in between bouts… We had a lovely day but you’ll notice in the video that Jimmy’s Christmas jammies didn’t make it to Christmas morning – poorly little boy!

And then it was the big birthday count down! Florence long ago decided the itinerary for her day and Pizza Express was to be followed by bowling and finished off with a McDonalds! Everyone else might be celebrating New Year’s Eve but the 31st is all about the birthday girl for us and her wish was our command! Before our yummy pizza lunch she was lucky enough to have Granny, Papa, her auntie and cousin come around and we sang happy birthday and enjoyed cake pops! We had an excellent day!

Florence’s birthday was a full on day of fun!

When the children fell exhausted into bed it was time to crack open a beer and see the new year in from the comfort of the living room and just before midnight at twenty to the hour I got Jonny to take my annual picture with Florence the minute she was born!

This was 23.40, 31/12/2013, exactly four years to the minute that Florence was born!

We had one day, New Year’s Day in between birthdays and then it was Daddy’s turn! We went to the farm and enjoyed some time as a family before I took Jonny out for a drink and curry in the evening!

Farm fun on Daddy’s birthday!

And then that was it… Celebrations over! Daddy went back to work on Saturday and we stayed for the weekend with my Mum but today is back to reality for us too! I’m sad all the celebrations are over for a while but I’ll admit it will be good to start my healthy eating plan! I’ve eaten WAY too many nibbles this season!

So just one more thing to say then, Happy New Year and I hope it’s filled with fun and laughter!