Hopes for 2012

Wow what a great start to a New Year. I started the year in the company of family and friends who were visiting from Egypt. My mum hosted a dinner party and my husband provided our very own fireworks display. Everyone enjoyed themselves, even little K who managed to stay up till 11pm before crashing on the couch with his bottle of milk, falling asleep right after.

Like every year, I was coaxed into making my list of resolutions by one of my childhood friends. I would have given up on new year resolutions years ago if it weren't for her, it's something she's never let go of, and that's a really good thing. While duly compiling the list for her (and me!) I remembered to look back at how many of last year's resolutions had been fulfilled and I was very pleased to find that I had achieved them all but 1! So thanks to her, I had a record of what my intentions were last year and it spurred me into doing the same again.

I guess this is the bit where I should bare all and share these with you but they are kind of personal to me, so what I will do is disclose 2011 but not 2012. 

Funnily enough, none of my resolutions included this blog, and perhaps it should have been seeing as I've managed to neglect it terribly over the holiday season. Then again, who could have kept it up with the planning, organising and chaos that the holidays entail! The reason I started it was to replace my manual paper diary, and now I want to keep it up so that it can be read by my children when they are grown up.  

I've started to do things that I've always wanted to do and now I want to keep the momentum going.

This week I heard a phrase from each of my children that I never imagined I would ever hear:
R: "Mummy, come on, bring me my food I'm starving!" 
K: "I love  Barbie!" 


Yes, I am very much hoping that 2012 will be a year of big changes.

My first Christmas as hostess

Rather than traditional turkey I cooked a leg of spring lamb with potato wedges and carrots, more like a Sunday roast! But it was my first time for either so I thought, why not combine the two?

 Ingredients!!

 Roasted aubergine dip

 Before....

 Stockings

 R's gifts, K refused to have his photographed!

 Joint gifts

 Watching Christmas family films!!

 After

 Dessert spread. In our excitement, I forgot to take a photo of the actual Christmas lunch spread!

Boxing Day, R woke me up with just as much enthusiasm as Christmas Day itself proclaiming ''mummy! we need a big cardboard box to throw our junk in!' That got me out of bed because I love having a clear out!

Loving Christmas!