Christmassy jollifications and other goings on

Despite a mini-heatwave leading up to Christmas, Christmas Eve was cold and blustery with diagonal rain most of the day.  The traditional Kiwi Christmas Day BBQ was under threat.  However, the heatwave reasserted itself in time for the big day and hasn't stopped yet:

Here's a run-through of what we've been up to.  WARNING: contains nudity!
(Yep, Reuben couldn't be bothered getting dressed until lunch time and Harriet sheds her clothes at some point too).

First things first: investigating the Christmas stockings.  Harriet didn't notice hers amid the mass of soft toys in her cot but Tilly helpfully pointed it out and Harriet enthusiastically devoured a bag of chocolate raisins before 6am.



Then, into our room to open presents from us.  Harriet was gratifyingly pleased to get 3 My Little Pony ponies and has taken to brushing their hair with gusto and now makes announcements along the lines of "Princess Gold Lily has Bad Hair" and "Where is my pony comb?".  Mind you, her enthusiasm doesn't stop her singing with equal gusto a cheerful rhyme she's picked up from Reuben and Tilly: "My Little Pony, skinny and bony, stick her in the microwave and watch her burn.  Put her to bed and cut off her head and that's when you know that she's really dead".  Delightful.



Tilly and Reuben's presents were hiding under dust sheets in the garage.  Note the extra large gap between Tilly's top teeth: she'd woken us at 5 something to tell us that her first top tooth had fallen out.  Yay!

(Status update!  The adjoining one fell out this morning and she now looks like this:



Harriet is very impressed with the whole wobbly teeth business and told me the other day that "when I am bigger I'm going to be the Tooth Fairy" which is an impressive career aspiration to have at 2½!)

After Dave got back from work, we moved on to opening the rest of the presents.

Harriet was very taken with her 'zebra tail' (yes, we realise it's more like the tail of a ring-tailed lemur but you try and explain that to her) which can be used both for snuggling
















and shooting any passing baddies:



while Reuben was excited by a mega-super-awesome water pistol



which clearly needed trying out in an epic battle with Dave

Harriet and Tilly were so happy with their new pyjamas that they got an airing too:

Then it was time to fire up the BBQ to cook that Christmas classic "Beer butt chicken"

and get ready to host our lovely friends Caroline and Micha and their children for Christmas dinner























Boxing Day was even hotter, so we just went down to the beach in the afternoon for a swim.

Afterwards, Harriet felt like a snack.  Here she is demonstrating impressive hamster-like qualities with cherries stuffed into both cheeks:

which are not only delicious

but also turn your tongue

an interesting colour!

Tilly and Dave tried to have a rest

though Harriet's massage technique left something to be desired:

We'd planned on finishing the day with fush and chups on the beach.  Disaster!  The chippy was closed.  Fortunately, the pizza restaurant in St Heliers was open so we had takeaway pizza and ice-cream in the beach playground:

On Monday we decided it was high time to take the kayak out for the first trip of the season.

It was Harriet's first trip in the kayak ever and she was happy until it dared to give her a wet bottom.  Never mind - there was plenty of other stuff to do on the beach, like try out the hammock  

and investigate the expanse of gooey mud that appeared when the tide went out

We found several nuggets of clay, so Reuben and I fashioned this snowman, and left him to dry in the sun.  I think this picture captures the paradox of a hot Christmas!