Christmas catch up

Christmas 2008 seems so long ago. We spent the morning at home opening presents together and explaining to Oliver that he couldn't open the presents for his cousins! We got Oli a running bike, but his first reaction was not exactly positive! (He has since discovered it's not too bad to ride, but is a bit "wobbly"). The kids got us some presents too - Andrew got a nice bottle of Pinot Noir and I got an entry into the Black Stump Adventure Ride (yes, it was rigged!).

Later in the morning we headed around to Nan and Grandad's place in Hamilton for Christmas lunch and more present opening. The kids were both very lucky and got heaps of cool toys, books, and clothes. Andrew and I got given a voucher for a cruise on the Waipa Delta - pretty cool considering they are shutting down soon, so it's our last chance to take a cruise.

Christmas lunch was an amazing feast - far too much for us to eat. And it was followed by pudding, of course! We ate, chatted, played, drank, and snacked until about 2pm when Oli announced that we were going home. That was our cue. He usually has an afternoon sleep at 1pm, so this was his indicator to us that he had had enough. We hastily packed up and drove home to put Oli to bed.

Ella managed to have a little sleep (about an hour) in the portacot at Nan and Grandad's, but she also needed a big sleep in the afternoon.

Some of the family joined us in the evening for a swim in the spa pool and Christmas lunch leftovers for dinner... although it seemed like I was the only one that was hungry. And then we had more pudding.

We had a quiet few days after Christmas, browsing through the shops and checking out the sales. We bought a new DVD player to replace our old one that would frequently spasm and seize up. We're not quite ready to take the leap to HD, we are waiting for the technology to catch up with our aspirations for a single box (HDD/DVD recorder, digital receiver, and analogue receiver all-in-one) without costing as much as a small country.

Ella got sick with a loud dry cough, that would keep her (and us) awake at night. She ended up quite tired and in need of extra feeds. It also put her off her food a little bit, which was not so good because we had only just started solids. I visited the doctors several times, but each time it was confirmed as being "a virus", and "not in her lungs", and her ears "all clear", so there was nothing we could do. We could only give her a dose of Pamol before bed at night, which seemed to help - possibly due to tiring her out with crying when being force-fed the Pamol by syringing it into her mouth. Not nice.

We caught up with the Brown's and Storey's the weekend before Christmas, with a lunch and more present opening. Again, our kids were super lucky and got lots of cool stuff to play with. The Storey's were in Marokopa for Christmas and we decided a trip down there will all of us Parsons in one room together with a sick baby would not be a good idea. Maybe next year when Ella will be one and a half?

New Year's Eve was pretty uneventful. We were in bed at the usual time, as a 6 month old baby knows no difference and will wake up in the middle of the night for a feed regardless of what day of the year it is.

I'll save the New Year's events for another post to come very shortly. We hope you all had great Christmas and New Years celebrations.