David and Lindsey Down Under: Sydney’s First Christmas and NYE

Meeting Santa

Christmas was really wonderful for us this year. Although Sydney is too young to understand any of it, we had fun starting some traditions together. Mimi had sent ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas which we used to read every year when I was a kid. I really enjoyed reading it to her this year. She seemed to be interested in the book as well which was an unexpected surprise. Being only 11 weeks old we can’t expect much in terms of her attention span. ;)

It took all day to open our gifts - again due to the attention span of our little Sydney Bug. Santa was very good to all of us this year. David got some pants and shorts since all his swimming has caused him to lose inches, I got a spa gift certificate from Sydney and David (YES!!!) and Sydney got a bunch of toys, books and clothes, along with a college fund savings account. Mimi sent her a baby spoon in our silver pattern! We were very fortunate this year. We’re so grateful for all that we have.

David, Linds, Sydney, Pete, Jo, & Samuel

Jo, Pete and Samuel (5 weeks old) came over for Christmas lunch. We had our traditional beef wellington and crab legs. It was delicious if I do say so myself! There was SO much food, though. We had enough crab left over to make a full pasta dish the next night!

NYE was pretty chill this year (as you can imagine with a newborn!) we enjoyed the sunshine a bit that weekend and went down to the beach with Sydney (well, the shade in the grass over looking the beach, technically ;)). The night of NYE we had dinner at home and took Sydney down to the 9pm Manly fireworks. She woke up with all the commotion but handled it very well! She didn’t seem bothered by the fireworks at all and the crowd kept her interest. I was really impressed with her ability to take it all in, actually. After the fireworks were over, we came back home to tuck everyone in for bed. I ended up being the only one awake at midnight and watched the Sydney Harbour fireworks on TV while thinking about how blessed I am for what we’ve experienced during 2011.