Jodi's World: The Xmas Advent Adventures 2011 Day 10

Hello world,

On the 10th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

Wrap up some presents

This is a bit boring so I haven't taken any photos but I do love to wrap presents! Mine are pretty simple this year tho which is a bit sad, I might have to get some extra paper to jazz them up a bit when I head to the shops next. Stay tuned for a pic of them all under the tree!

On the 11th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

Buy a gift for the wishing tree

I think this one is such an important tradition and want to keep it up every year! I want Piper to grow knowing the joy of giving at xmas, especially giving when she doesn't get to see the joy that gift has brought to someone. Obviously at 9mo she is way too young to understand this yet but we still have a gift ready for her to place under the giving tree on her first Xmas.

On the 12th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

See the Xmas lights!!!

Now apparently (according to my husband and my brother) this one is all about me BUT in my defence, Piper will love the pretty lights too, its all about the magic of Christmas!!! I decided it'd be best if we had dinner at my folks place and then went to see the lights from there as we'd already be out and have to get in the car and Piper would be awake later than she is at home. So I put her down for a later afternoon nap thinking she might cooperate and therefore not be too exhausted for the lights but co-operation was not her middle name this day (and rightly so, the middle name I chose for her is far nicer than co-operation!) so no sleep was had and after her first spaghetti dinner she was pretty tired when we started.


See, clearly tired! (But how adorable is her new 2fussie nappy peaking out from behind her seatbelt buckle!) And thats Julia (can you see her name tag) being dangled upside down in the bottom corned of the pic!

And here is a blurry picture of some very pretty lights which
I must admit, I appreciated far more than Piper did!
Any tips of getting pics of Xmas lights that aren't blurry??

I did manage one or two not blurry ones - but they are a bit
boring! This was far prettier in person :)

And my Little Pie is clearly not all that interested by the lights.
She actually looks a bit scared in this photo! She was so tired!
Bad Mummy dragging her around to look at lights!!!

But the xmas lights (blurry or not!) are always so pretty!

Tuckered out and ready to go home to bed!

Note: we only drove around 2 streets of lights do I didn't
torture my poor tired girl too much! When it became clear
she wasn't noticing the lights out her window cos she was
just too tried we took her home to bed <3

On the 13th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

Do a xmas craft

We (I) decided to try out an easy crafting clay recipe I found here
so we could make our very own version of this gorgeous ornament.
The clay was super easy to make and very cheap - and made heaps!

As the 'clay' dries its been cracking all over the place and its now
3 days later and its still not dry through!!!! I may have to use the clay
to try and make another ornament and roll it thiner to see if
that works?

I've cut out a xmas tree, 2 little stars and a couple of bigger stars
(for Pie to paintwhen they dry) and I have about 3/4s of the clay
left. Its wrapped up, I'm not sure how long it will last for but don't
know what else to do with it!

Cracks and all its a brilliant craft to do with kids BUT you'll have to be careful during the cooking phase :)

On the 14th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

Make some Christmas Cookies! BUT I was so inspired by The Zoo Train that I made mini xmas puds instead!!!

Take a store bought fruit cake and smash it to pieces!!!
This was oddly so much fun but I used a spoon rather than
my hands to do it!

Melt dark chocolate bits and mix them with the cake crumbs.
I used cadbury and I think the pack was only 250g - my results
werent nearly as chocolately looking as the Zoo Train ones
so I will try a bigger bag of nestle ones next time around :)

Ta-da! Mini Xmas puddings, made by me - a 29yr old woman
with the kitchen to herself and a sleeping baby BUT mine were
clearly no where near as good as the ones those Zoo Train kidlets
made! I also used mini m&ms cos I don't like glace cherries.

On the 15th day of Xmas my advent said to me:

Go to the beach and have fish and chips!

All dressed up and waiting for Daddy to get home!

Unfortunately a few things stood in the way of todays advent BUT in an attempt to be a glass half full Mum we made the best of our situation! Hubby had to go to work this morning so I did some washing but it quickly became clear the weather wasn't going to play its part! So I decided I'd have to go hang out all the clothes at my Mums and pick them up tomorrow BUT when Kev came home he told me he had to work tonight (booo :( Piper's been missing him so much, she isn't used to not having her Dad home all the time and although Kev finally getting some work is a huge blessing to our family our girl (and my hubby!) are finding the time apart very hard to cope with!) which meant we need to get his uniform that I'd washed, thinking we had til Friday night before it was needed, dry and we wouldn't be going to the beach (to sit in the rain!)

I quickly came up with a plan - we would take our clothes to the laundromat to dry them and have fish and chips at the fish and chip place near it. Atleast then we'd get to have lunch together and spend some time together while the clothes dried!
So I sent bubby and hubby (who finished at 11pm last night and started at 6am this morning!) off for a nap while I did a few things and when they woke up we headed to the fish and chip shop!