29 Dec, last Sunday of the year

The morning was spent decluttering my home. I'd already packed a bag of clothes before and today, with the kids out of my way, I cleared out useless/broken toys and put aside two big bags of toys still in good condition that I wish to donate at the Salvation Army. It felt so good to declutter!
Family lunch at Mom's. Epic, as always with too much food. It was a lovely afternoon of gluttony, laughter and sitting around in the kitchen with lots of noise, voices out-talking one another and I know why my family is so close - because we all treasure one another so.

We made our way to Grandma's house; and this is just a funny pic, just because. 

We needed to rush down today because this little baker was all ready to take on the world with her baking skills. Well, not really baking but she did a pretty good job of cutting out cookie moulds from the cutters. We had teddy bears and stars in two sizes. 

After the baking session, I offloaded the kids to the playground with their grandaunt and aunts and I went for a run which was soooo good for my mind and my body; much needed after all the pigging out the past two weeks and the alone-time where I has nothing on my mind at all but my breathing and pushing my body to keep going. 

There was a family Christmas party at the aunt's (who is also the neighbour of Grandma) and we had some fun toggling between both homes and the kids had a field-day stuffing their mouths with goodies and lots of food. 

Then Kate sneakily took a sip of wine (which resembled Ribena in its colouring) and this (notice the patches and if you look closer you can see hives) is the result of her naughty antic! Really gave me a fright and I needed to do an SOS call to the husband who was at a dinner of his own. We made her drown lots and lots of water to flush the drink out of her and I applied some lavendar on her that's meant to help with the hives. This little one is now fast asleep and I think this may be a pretty good lesson to her on why she needs to ask for permission before consuming anything! I'm glad she's better though, as being a parent, we know that it's painful to watch our child in any form of discomfort and we always wish them to be well and happy. 

So some months back, I was talking to a friend who works as a writer for a local magazine. I ended up contributing my story to the magazine and this evening, my neighbour texted me to say that she saw us in the magazine! So there we are, our family in print #justforkicks