It's Chriiiistmasss

Hope you have a good one!

Carols of the Bells (< --- youtube)

Make the Yuletide Gay

Did I tell you that I love Christmas? Like a lot.

From tomorrow we are going to be in Tasmania for 2 weeks (we have our grandparents house-sitting while we are away), so this Christmas is very different for us. We have opened a few presents already, but are still having stockings on Christmas morning, and when we get home we will do the other stuff. We didn't make mince pies this year, or host the Annual Axelby Christmas Carols, so it has kind of felt like a very un-traditional Christmas, including missing out on Eggnog. But we are going to do our best in Tassie.

Despite all that, I'm still all Christmased up - in the shopping malls they have Christmas decorations up and music playing, there are people all over the place buying exciting things and that gets me excited.

Michael is loving Christmas too... we are having a little trouble keeping him away from the candy canes on the tree but we're getting there =P Whenever I put him to bed he asks me to sing his favourite Christmas song and recently he has been looking through Christmas recipe books.

Lily has already started guessing (or trying to convince us) what her Christmas presents are and she stays awake rather late at night planning what she will pack in her back-pack, which Mum has already taken care of.

We are driving to Melbourne (8 hr drive, people - let's get excited!) and staying the night before we take the boat to Tassie. For the 2 week holiday we are only able to bring one backpack per person, plus an additional suitcase for the transportable Christmas presents. I have a very certain feeling that the car is going to be a tiny bit squishy....

I gave Jamie and Jordan their Christmas present early, because it would be convenient on the way to Melbourne - it was a new Christmas CD by Relient K. It's my new favourite, and Jamie has convicted me of stealing it - but I haven't really, I just borrow it when I need to... without asking. This is one of the songs off their album: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Today is going to be a bit of a hectic one because we have last minute things to do... I probably won't have much access to Internet in Tassie, but I will try to keep updated =)

Hope you're all having a lovely Holiday!!!!!! =)

Mercyme - God Rest ye Merry Gentelmen

God Rest Ye Merry Gentelmen

(Youtube video clip)

Of Christmas and Decorations

Our Christmas tree.


And Robert's tree, which he decorated himself. After he decorated it he said: "Mum, look at it! It looks like a blind person decorated it!"
And Daniel said: "No, Rob. It looks worse than that!"



Twinkle lights!


And Christmas cookies!



Christmas is so exciting! =)

Yet another Giveaway!!

Alice is hosting another giveaway!!!! go here: Alice's Place

Seriously, it's worth it =P

Christmas Giveaway Reminder!

One more week for for a chance to win one (1) of the Christmas Giveaways!! If you haven't already entered, you may either comment on this post or HERE.

::As seen on previous post::


A blue beaded card, with a blue keychain and double ring, and a green keychain and set of hair pins. ("Ocean Blue Set")

Three sets of earrings, as seen above. ("Earring Set")



And a light blue bead/button card, red and green twisted hair pin with red keychain, and orange keychain with blue and orange hair pin set. ("Sky Blue Set").


Now, here are your instructions:
1). Leave a comment stating which set you want, using the name given.
2). Also in the comment tell me what your favourite Christmas song is.
3). If you have a blog, do a post just leaving a link to my name and saying that I am hosting a giveaway.

Giveaway starts today (Tuesday, 9th) and ends in 2 weeks time (Tuesday 23rd).

GOOD LUCK =)

::Giveaways Galore::

Danielle (HERE) is having a Christmas Giveaway!! Be sure to have a look and write a comment if you want to be entered in the giveaway =)

And, speaking of giveaways, I'll be hosting one shortly - so keep your eyes open!

I Heard the Bells

Christmas Eve

This year Jess, Bek, and I organised a surprise Pass the Parcel, as something fun to do during the day.

In it we had: charades, Spicks 'n' Specks, Bible verses, a Santa hat, a reindeer headband, pictionary, celebrity heads, and at the end of it all there was the main prize: a Christmas DVD.

Michael was crying because we had to turn the music off when a new layer needed to be opened. He loves music :P

(below are a few of the other things we did during the day)

Jamie digging into the eggnog! Eggnog is a traditional Christmas Eve food source in our house :)

The Christmas Eve feast!

Buche De Noel, made for Christmas day.

Michael eating the lollies off Karli's ginger-bread house.

I hope you're all enjoying your holidays and have a very fun and blessed time tomorrow!

Merry Christmas!!

The Night Before Christmas

I know I posted this same song last year, but I couldn't help posting it again. It is one of my favourite Christmas songs! I hope you all have a very merry Christmas :)

A Time to Share

Mum did a 'survey' yesterday asking all of us children what we thought Christmas really meant. She has already done a blog post on it, so go here if you care to view it. Some of the answers are funny, others serious. Let me know what you thought of it :)

Today the three girls are out (Uni, work and shopping) and at the moment we are watching the Albert Finney "A Christmas Carol." The only version the younger children have ever watched is "A Muppet's Christmas Carol" and when Mum told them that today we were to watch the former, Daniel asked are they puppets? We tried to explain that they were normal people and it was a musical etc. Well, we started watching it and when the scene came up where Scrooge's nephew visits him in his office and Bob Cratchit is introduced, Rob exclaimed, in a rather surprised voice, "Why isn't he a frog?"

I can tell you now, that cracked us up!

Do you have a favourite version of that movie?

We have also been listening every night to the unabridged and dramatised version of ACC on CD, read by Dennis Olsen, which we hired from the library. It is almost identical to the new Jim Carrey film, so we girls have enjoyed listening to it and laughing when we remember the parts from the movie :)

On Friday we will be hiring out some Christmas movies. We love a Charlie Brown Christmas and various others. Though a few weeks ago we hired out one that we don't love. It is a very unusual (to say the least) Christmas movie called "Meet Me in St. Louis." Starring Judy Garland as the main girl, it certainly gave her a bad name in our family! We have only ever seen her in The Wizard of Oz, and she was sweet in that.

St. Louis was the town in which she and her family lived. They held Christmas carols, made snowmen, went to Christmas Eve dances and tried to get married before they grew one day older. That was what made it such a terrible movie; mind you, there was one song that Judy Garland sang that was very pretty: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." So on the whole, I don't recommend that movie.

Do you have a favourite Christmas movie?

We bought a new CD recently done by Casting Crowns called "Peace on Earth." It is a beautiful CD, if you like Casting Crowns, not every one does in our family! As far back as I can remember we have bought a new Christmas CD every year. Last year it was Josh Groban's "Noel" which we also like very much :)

Do you have a favourite Christmas CD?

Yesterday I made mince pies, and we are looking forward to eating them! Mum made the mincemeat a few weeks ago, and we bought the pastry, so you might say I put them together but didn't make them :P Instead of doing only star-shaped lids I also tried candy canes, bells, and those designs that you see on shop bought pies; the only ones that looked semi-normal were the stars and pies crosses.

What do you like making every Christmas?

Hmmm, I don't think there is anything else to share here, but keep your eyes open for more posts. I have quite a few up my sleeve! But tell me, what have you been up to this month?

Merry Christmas!!

P.S. I'm very sorry that this is all bunched up; I tried to space out them into paragraphs, but it isn't working :(

Here comes a Christmas Tree...

... Along with the festivity! Yesterday we four girls and Amy went to see "A Christmas Carol" 3D and when we got home, after dropping Amy off at her house, we found, to our relief, that the Christmas tree had been set up. The decorating is the best part! Karli and Jess did it and Lily and Daniel put the candy canes on with Mum.

Every year our little boys put the candy on as far up as they can reach; we've never failed to get a picture of it!

We had an Amy Grant Christmas CD playing meanwhile.




The decorated area... I took these photos last night but this morning we made alterations, adding more stockings on the other side of the chimney piece, more teddies in the stockings, a basket of candy canes on top of the box, tinsel inside the fireplace (we can only do that because it's Summer), putting the advent calendar up, and placing the presents from our Grandparents under the tree. We have just finished re-arranging furniture, to make more room for the tree's glamour. I'll get another picture and put it on Twitter (which, by the way, you can see off the side of my blog now).


Michael in a Santa hat. He looks like a pixy the way his ears stick out :P

I couldn't help but to share this photo of Karli, Jess, and Amy in their 3D glasses... very funny!

When Christmas Comes To Town

Magical Christmas

Here is one of the prettiest Christmas cards we received this year (or should I say last year?)
It is just beautiful, captivating in its simplicity. I do hope you are able to see the beauty of it in these poor shots.

'Tis the Season to be Jolly and Joyous...

Fa La La...

Our 2008 Christmas was very successful!
Every Sunday we did an advent, (and we were supposed to do it on Christmas Eve, but forgot), we watched Christmas movies, which you can see on Mum's blog, we prepared and planned the presents and food, had events and received lots of cards!





The food was miraculous!

Popping the crackers.

Enjoying the three seater swing.

Dad giving the demonstration for the motor-bike.

Lily was very excited about receiving Lucy, her umbrella.

Michael having a turn of Lily's goofy glasses.

She called herself 'Mary the Shepherd'.

Lily and Michael.

I hope that you all enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did!