Christmas is over

I spent this afternoon putting all the Christmas decorations away. It is so nice to decorate the house with festive colours and for sure Christmas is my favourite time of the year. It is very sad to put away all my Santas back in the box...



Now the house looks very simple and empty : (
Oh well the New Year is just around the corner! Bring it on 2012!

Christmas feast

We had some fantastic Christmas feasts with our lovely friends. For Christmas lunch we were invited to this traditional full on Christmas feast!

When we got there the table was beautifully set:



Our Chef friend Cameron cooked the most amazing lunch in the professional kitchen and brought it over.



We had these fresh prawns as our starters:



While we were waiting for the main course someone knocked on the door...
It was Santa! How special!! (the kids must get confused seeing so many different Santas...)



Then time for the main event:





Wooow...



Yes everything looks good alright, it tasted FANTASTIC!!

You wouldn't believe how much I ate. Well let me show you my plate...



Merry Christmas!



Isabel and Jackson:



Oscar:



Lucia:



For dessert of course we had my favourite Christmas treat - Pavlova . I always have room for Pav :)



By the time we left the lunch it was almost dinner time. We had another invite to join Christmas dinner with our neighbours, the Saap family. So we rested our full tummy for a little while and continued on to the next feast!

The Christmas dinner was superb and what made it extra special was that Nicole baked this gorgeous Pavlova for me!



I don't think I have ever eaten so much food in one day in my life... My tummy was about to explode by the time we got home.

I really thought I couldn't eat anything for the next couple of days but guess what? We were at the Empire the next morning for Boxing Day breakfast buffet with our friends and a full on BBQ dinner in the evening. This festiveness is making me grow bigger and bigger...

Christmas morning 2011

Oliver was certainly impressed by half eaten biscuits and an empty milk cup. He was very cautious walking around the lounge just in case Santa was still in the house.

But he stopped walking around as soon as he spotted the pile of presents under the tree and something in his Christmas stocking.



It was quite a job to get the little toy car out of his stocking as he was too excited and the stocking was slightly too small...



And it began:







Wooow this one is big:











Oliver spent the next 4 hours just playing with this new airplane so we had a break from opening more presents which was rather nice.

Our boys are so spoiled, in the end Oliver got a big lego plane set, Cars pajamas, books, NZ coffee cup, zebra dress up, more plane toys, a walking sushi, t-shirts, an annual family pass to the Singapore zoo and more!

Luca had a slightly different approach to his presents:

He needed to smell them first:



Then taste it!





It was a lovely morning all of us together watching the boys play nicely and giggling away.

Santa has been

Little Santas in the park

Our boys are recovering from colds unfortunately, so we took it easy again today. We went for a short bike/buggy ride at Pantai Muara before dinner. We found two happy Santas there!

The bigger little Santa invented this mini mini golf:



The smaller little Santa decide to play who can snatch the santa hat!



Singing "Jingle Bells"



Just so funny!



Thanks to the fresh air both boys are now fast asleep. We almost forgot but Oliver put some milk and biscuits out for Santa and his reindeer (he kept watching his back, he thought they were very near! Bless him!). Tomorrow morning will be very exciting for the boys, or am I the more excited one?

Yes! Daddy is back

Phew! Matthew made it back home last night, almost 1am!
Oliver was a bit confused seeing daddy in the morning but very very happy!

We had a lovely Christmas eve morning with a sudden power cut (only in Brunei) ! We were planning to stay home and relax but it got too hot without our aircons working so had a quick escape to a cafe for Christmas Eve brunch.

Oliver had a special treat, banana pancakes and fresh orange juice:



The cafe had nice Christmas cakes:



So nice to have daddy back!



Luca and daddy:



(I still haven't managed to get all of us in one photo. Hopefully I can do so before Christmas is over. )

The power came back just when we drove in. A dull weather day with a bit of rain here in Brunei but at least the family is all together : )

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Early Christmas dinner

I had a few Japanese friends around for an early Christmas dinner last night. This time it was bring a plate without telling each other what to bring.

No one made the same dish - it turned out to be a quite a feast! We had some roasted chicken and veges, Thai style noodle and seafood salad, couscous salad, minced beef patties, eggplants cooked Japanese style, asparagus and cream cheese rolls, homemade bread and more!



We had great laughs and chatted till late...



Such a relaxing evening. Great warm Christmas feeling : ) Thank you ladies for coming!

Christmas Village

We visited the Empire Hotel the other night to see more Christmas lights. I think Oliver is getting the idea of Christmas and feeling the festiveness by now.

The entrance and the atrium display was not as great as last year I thought but I guess better than nothing.





We went down to the Winter Village. It may be because of the day of the week (not the weekend?) it was very quiet. I recall there were more lights, more people and more food last year that made it nice and festive. A little bit disappointed.



But Oliver was just happy running around and being with L&L.



The kids tried gingerbread cookie decoration.



It was going well until.... can you see what went wrong??



Luca got extra cuddles from Linnea!



Where is Santa?



Presents!!



Unfortunately Matthew is away right now so no family photos taken. But we will be going back with him before Christmas. Hopefully a little bit more festive feeling next time.

Christmas activities

I am so lucky to have so many crafty mummy friends. Oliver was invited to join gingerbread house decorating yesterday afternoon. Very exciting!

Us mummies decided it is better we build the houses and the children will decorate as our kids are still a wee bit too small for complicated structure building like this!



It turned out it stands quite nicely.



Little chefs got to work:







The girls did a girly house: Very cute!





The children did some gingerbread cookie decoration too - smelled and tasted very nice:





It was a very Christmasy lovely afternoon. We loved it!