Christmas shopping pizza lunch

My lovelies

Jumping in muddy puddles!

So after all the rain, this afternoon when it finally stopped, I we decided we definitely needed to get out and indulge in some fresh air puddle jumping.

And the kids LOVED it of course!

 Until William fell head first into a muddy puddle.

Seriously, I know he looks very distraught, but it was REALLY hard not to laugh - even for Emma.

There were brown puddles at their feet as we took their boots and clothes off when we got home but after a warm bath they were happily playing lego in their pajamas, the cold and dirt completely forgotten.

Apero (chips) by the pool

Food glorious food

Just skimming over the last couple of posts here and realized that after having announced the holidays in one pic it was over by the next. 

So what did we actually do over the past two weeks here with the kids?

Christmas and palm trees - what a change from Christmas in Vienna!

We did a lot of drawing and crafts, made some Christmas drawings and cards, some bicycling, lots of going to parks (indoor and outdoor), we read and played and got dressed up in party skirts and shoes.

William at kindergarden 

   

William wearing his new helmet on our street (they have nearly finished - the srteet lampsare due up in January)

William at the  park having fun on the sea-saw 

On the food front we tried some lovely new recipes of which the festive and super easy Wibbly Wobbly Clementine Jelly (by Jamie Oliver) and the no less yummy but more refined pear and rosemary crostini on white as snow goat's cheese. Mmmm.
Emma, despite her absolutely maddening impossibly picky attitude to food (But I don't like that Mummy! as soon as she hears we are not having pasta or rice) thankfully liked both. Phew! (more on that perhaps in another post)

We went to the kids first Christmas shows (Emma wanted to be Mrs Claus but ended up quite happy to be an elf), we reassured that Santa did not need snow to come to our home, wrapped presents,  watched Santa videos and opened presents  - Emma opened one before we were all around the tree and then cried and pouted with disappointment for it was not what she had asked from Santa. Luckily we had that one too but it got us off to a rather emotional start on Christmas day.

Emma watching her personalized Santa video before breakfast

My yellow car arrived!

 

Steph bought some new cool eye-glasses

We had some horrifically junk-foodish crêpes

We went to a man-made lake

and saw some reindeer and bambi!  

We attended a Greek Orthodox Christening and after party (I was Godmother to the very cute and chubby baby D. who made it very clear she did not like being dunked in blessed water one bit, but who was over it within a couple of hours whereas both her mother and I needed a stiff drink!)  and I enjoyed a nice girly afternoon bubbly the day before with baby her Mummy and auntie A. 

Baby D. in Mums arms at Salumaio

We had a yummy home-made Christmas lunch (noix de veau with pancetta, lemon and milk, mashed potatoes and green beans) which we all enjoyed except Emma (what child does not like mashed potatoes???); a lovely Christmas tea with friends (Italian style with Panettone and desert wine) and a day-after Christmas lunch (Greek time, meaning we were famished when we sat down to eat at nearly 3pm!!) but it was worth the wait. 

For New Year's Eve we had a lovely catered dinner at neighbour's house and the kids were all very well behaved despite going to bed much later than usual. 

We even managed to have early lunch with the kids at a typical Greek taverna with lots of lovely meze; aubergine cream and tzatziki, zucchini balls, mint meatballs and roasted peppers  and yoghurt with honey for desert. Delicious and garlicky. William absolutely loved it (eating the aubergine cream with a spoon and licking it off the bread) and even Emma had to concede that the tzatziki and meatballs were delicious. (Phew! again!!)

We happily managed to avoid too much hectic shopping and survived the crazy Athens traffic despite 2 Mercedes crashing into our cars in three days! 

So I guess for the most part it was about a lot of food and festivities, creativity (in the kitchen and with the kids), gifts and entertaining and sharing.  Hope your was fun too!

Oh and  Happy New Year!!!

Emma and Will

William sleeping in his pram: froggie style



Emma and Will after breakfast - Emma is driving the train ;-)