Saturday, December 25, 2021

Summer School Holidays: Week Two ~ First Family Holiay

Week two of the summer school holidays was an exciting one for our family. For the first time since we have been a family of five, we took a holiday together. We were able to fly north to Brisbane, Queensland, to spend Christmas with my mother-in-law. We were able to spend ten glorious days there and the weather even cooperated and wasn't beastly hot and humid the whole time. To give my readers a bit of perspective, the last time we were up in Queensland, I was 34 weeks pregnant with Monster - who will turn 16 in February! I don't recommend summer in Queensland when you are heavily pregnant. It was a MUCH different experience for me this time around thankfully.

Monkey got some reading time in while we waited to board our plane...

Munchkin stopped observing all the goings on to pause for a photo. He enjoyed watching the ground crew moving around and working on the tarmac. He handled his first flight extremely well, though he wasn't too keen on the take off or the landing.

Monkey and Monster got to sit alone in their row.

Munchkin and I enjoyed a game of Uno Spin on our first full day in Queensland. We arrived at Nana's house at 11pm and it was after 1am when we finally got everyone in bed, so the first day was a bit of a rest day for the boys.

My brother-in-law and his two boys were also able to visit (they arrived the day before us and also left the day before us) so it was a busy household with four adults and five children. My nephews enjoyed some gaming help from their older cousin...

A game of Tellestrations for four of the boys...

Uncle assists Munchkin with a card game on the tablet...

Monster posing for me in front of Nana's house.


I spent some time on Christmas Eve roaming around her yard photographing the beautiful flowers and plants that she has growing everywhere.







Nana's beautiful and HUGE mango tree. It had a MAJOR pruning two years ago and is busy regrowing so it is unlikely to fruit for awhile yet.


I love hydrangas... they are one of my favourite plants/flowers.


More games of Uno... this time the original version...

I spent some time teaching Munchkin how to play Solitaire with a pack of cards. It would have worked better (less slipping and sliding of cards) if he had played on the rug, but he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

A quick Christmas Day photograph of the boys first thing in the morning before we headed off to church with Nana.

Christmas Day group photo...

Nana with all the boys...

Nana with our boys only...

Nana with her sons...

The focus of this Christmas was on being together, not particularly on gift giving, though the boys all received small things and the adults exchanged a couple of small gifts as well. However, the only present photography I bothered with was this photo of Nana unwrapping a beautiful lamp that we gave her.

Christmas lunch and dessert preparations... my BIL sliced the ham while my husband ate all the remaining fruit off the mango pod. He was in charge of the mango cheesecake we had for dessert.


All the boys enjoyed screen time while the adults got everything organised for Christmas lunch.

Our beautiful Christmas lunch table...

Nana found a picture of deviled eggs made to look like chickens so we gave it a try. It wasn't perfect, but it certainly wasn't a fail either.

We enjoyed a delicious cold lunch followed by curry for dinner later that day. Christmas was a wonderful affair and it was such a blessing to spend it with extended family.


Independent reading that Munchkin did before we left for our holiday...

Monster and I finished off his last two chapter book read alouds for the year...




I saved all our favourite Christmas picture books for last and we read them all the day before we left. With our trip, our picture book a day tradition (along with several other Christmas traditions) got a bit mixed up, but we will enjoy them next year.

Finally, we finished reading Pollyanna Grows Up just before we left as well. I plan to have the boys watch the movie sometime over the holidays now and it will be interesting to see what they think of it.