Christmas Holiday - week 3 - Brisbane

Well the 3rd week of our holiday was the week of Christmas. We were now staying in Brisbane with my parents. We visited Unichurch on the Sunday morning, to catch up with friends from church. We then spent the rest of the day with Glen and Kathryn. Ben and Rohan talk about each other most days since we moved, so we thought it was important that they get a good chunk of time to spend together - plus we wanted to spend time with Glen and Kathryn. Joanna and Xavier are also just getting to the ages where they aren't too far apart from each othere developmentally, so they have started playing together a bit (well as much as 16/19 month olds do).
We also spent a morning with our old neighbours from Kenmore - Phil, Dania and Sophia. Just before we left for NZ Ben and Sophia had started playing together fairly often in the afternoons (Sophia is 17 months younger). Again it was great for the kids to be able to play together and for us to be able to chat. And to be able to see Dania's growing belly (we found out she was pregnant again not long before we left for NZ). We also spent a morning with Di and family at New Farm park and the afternoon/evening at Bill and Linda's. So it was a busy few days!
We celebrated Christmas with my Mum and Dad on Christmas Eve - we spent the morning at Rocks Riverside Park down by the river cooling ourselves down with water transported in the kid's beach toys - the kids thought this was great fun! The kids really enjoyed all the presents they received and Joanna started getting the whole concept of present giving/opening.
Christmas Day itself was spent with Peter's family at Peter's parent's place. It was a bit squishy with everyone in the living room at once! It was a good day - just a little tiring with so many kids around... it felt like at least one of them was whinging throughout the day!
We also enjoyed some kid-free 'Boxing day sale' shopping (my parents kindly looked after the kids).