As I’m sure it is with everyone, December was a busy month for the FDM family. Yet, I felt like it was one of my happiest for the year. It seems I was hit by the Christmas spirit this year!
At the beginning of the month Lily and I headed down to my parents’ house. My parents and sister were going to a concert and my sister had asked me to babysit my niece. My brother was home as well but we thought it would be nice for the girls to have some time together. They had lots of fun, so much so that we couldn’t get them to sleep until they passed out on the floor in front of the TV.
The next week we were back down there again, but this time WE were going to a concert. A Wiggles concert! The girls are a little young and don’t actually watch a lot of the Wiggles but my niece loves Dorothy. You should hear her say “Doh-oh-tee!” Soooo cute! They were both a little overwhelmed by all of the noise, people and lights but as soon as the show started they were fascinated. Lily just stood and stared until Wags the Dog came on stage and then she got excited, started pointing and saying “woof woof!”. We then kept pointing different things out to her and watched her taking it all in. My niece seemed to love it but was more interested in playing with us and actually fell asleep towards the end. However, she got very excited when Anthony, the blue Wiggle, came up in to the stands and she ran after him. We thought we were going to lose her. Definite Wiggles groupy.
Overall it was a very fun experience for all of us and I was actually quite impressed with the show; those Wiggles are definitely seasoned performers.
We went to a few parties this month – all of our Mothers Group babies were born between December and Febraury with Lily being the youngest. All for the parties have been low key as it’s their 2nd birthdays but have been a lot of fun. I miss having our Mums Group get together and it’s so great to see the toddlers playing together.
Christmas was a lot of fun this year. Although Lily was still not entirely sure what was going on she knew enough to start getting excited. We put our Christmas tree up mid-December (we hadn’t had a chance to get it any earlier) and Lily LOVED it. We realised that we didn’t have any lights so had to make a quick trip to the shops before decorating the tree. We put a string of lights on the tree and a string on the stairs and Lily would point them out every time we came downstairs. She also pointed at the tree every time someone said “Christmas” or “tree”, including people on TV. I was actually a little sad to pull it down after seeing how much joy it had given her.
We went in to the QVB to see the big Swarovski Crystal Christmas Tree and to have Lily’s photo taken with Santa. Lily is not a fan of Santa and we were a bit worried how she would go. We had to wait a while (after being given a buzzer and asked to come back in an hour, we just walked around the shops) but it wasn’t too bad. The staff were really nice and Lily was fine with waiting and didn’t get upset when she could see Santa. Once it was our turn the staff said to take as long as we needed and I tried moving closer to Santa. Of course, Lily then realised what was going on and started getting upset. The staff (a “fairy ballerina” and a “toy solider”) helped to make Lily happy and I eventually sat beside Santa with Mr Monkey on the other side. The staff did almost everything they could to make her smile but we ended up just going with the photo where her mouth was closed. I think we will be going back there next year as it really was a great experience.
Lily and I went down to my parents’ house almost a week before Christmas as Mr Monkey was working a lot of hours in the lead up and I didn’t feel like staying at home alone. Plus I wanted to help Mum with the preparations. It was a really nice week. Mostly relaxed with a few grocery trips a lot of squabbling between the girls.
We went one night to go and look at the houses decorated with Christmas lights and were very pleasantly surprised at the girls’ reactions. We got out of the car at the first house that was really decorated and the girls just looked on in awe. Once it was time to get back i the car and go to the next house Lily started screaming. She didn’t want to leave! As soon as she realised we were going to see more she calmed down. There was another house where you could walk up the driveway, on to the front verandah and through the front yard. It was an amazing display and the girls loved it. Luckily, Lily was happy to leave and waved goodbye to the lights. We stayed in the car after that and Lily became our self-designated Light Spotter. We’d be driving along and hear a little voice say “Ooooooh!!” and a little hand would point out the window. Every time we’d pull along side a house she would say “wow!” with more wow’s for the more exciting houses. It was so much fun and will definitely become a family Christmas tradition.
Christmas Eve was spent dancing to the carols on TV before we finally got the girls to sleep. Mr Monkey joined us late that night after finishing work and we set up the presents under the tree.
We woke up fairly early on Christmas morning and headed over to my cousin’s house for breakfast. Lily got to open a few presents there before we came back to my parents’ house for the real present opening frenzy. Lily got awfully spoilt this year – a Hoot plush doll, pretend fruit and veggies and a Leapfrog “Scout” dog from Santa and Mummy and Daddy, a toy kitchen from Granny and Poppy, a tea set from Uncle Jarrod, a big box of toy food from Aunty Em & Olivia, a toy dog in a box from Nana Stables, a Leapfrog from Great-Aunty Megan & family, play dough and swimmers from Nana Tess & Poppy Ted, a pretend cutting set and a Royal Doultan set from Great-Aunty Carolyn and Uncle Tudor, an animal barn and camera from Grandma & Grandad, Giggle and Hoot Pjs from Uncle Steve and Aunty Angela, bath toys from Uncle Keith and Aunty Marnie and a bedtime IgglePiggle from Great-Grandma. And that was only the big presents!! I’m going to have to do so much de-cluttering to fit all of this in our house.
I got spoilt too with an amazing Bottega Veneta perfume from Mr Monkey and a voucher to “make myself beautiful” from Lily, lots of clothes and books and an amazing giant tea cup and set of teas from my Secret Santa from Mr Monkey’s family. It’s not hard to feel incredibly lucky and blessed.
Christmas Day was spent at my parents’ house with a big lunch then an afternoon sleep before leftovers for dinner. Boxing Day we drove up to Mr Monkey’s parents’ house where we all enjoyed another big lunch. Seriously one of our best Christmas’ ever.
New Years Eve was spent at our local pub for dinner, with my parents, my sister, my niece, my parents-in-law and Lily and I (Mr Monkey was working). We had a great dinner in really pleasant weather, then came back to our house to watch the 9pm fireworks. Unfortunately Lily fell asleep on the way home (she hadn’t had a nap that day) and slept through it all. After everyone went home Lily stayed asleep in front of the TV and I watched TV and mucked around on the laptop. We didn’t think Mr Monkey would make it home from work before midnight but he made it home with 30 seconds to spare!
In terms of housework I’m fairly happy with the month overall, especially how clean I left the house for the times when we were away. I didn’t do much de-cluttering but I managed to keep fairly on top of the general tidying and cleaning. I also had a big cleaning day when we had a friend coming over for a play date. I was very pleased with how much I managed to get done and how nice the house was and am planning to have more play dates so the house is cleaner more often 
Before Christmas I made sure the house was clean (I think I may have not washed the floors) and we packed everything away once we were home. Before we went camping I made sure the house was clean as well which made it so much easier when we got home.
I’m also very proud of how organised we were for camping. As I mentioned in my other post we only forgot a few (mostly inconsequential) things and I know this was mostly to do with my list and organisation. It also meant that I was a lot more relaxed on our trip then I would’ve been and therefore it was much more enjoyable.
I also created a new printable – Daily To-Do lists. These have been really helpful for me to organise day-by-day and really keep on track of what I have to do. I also bought a family calendar from Kikki-K which allows us to see the whole month at a glance. Between these two new tools I’m feeling much more organised!
So overall, December was a good month. Felt content and happy, and much more happy within myself. A good way to end 2011.
