Christmas Day | Presents & Family

On Christmas Day I took a lot less pictures, but it went like this –

Firstly, I woke up at 7am. Unfortunately nobody else did, and being the only child I couldn't force everyone up. So I waited around until about 8:30am, when I got up, got dressed and went into the loungeroom to read for a while before everyone else awoke.

At about 9:30, everyone else had woken up and my Grandad's wife was cooking breakfast. We had a potato tortilla (similar to this) with bacon, and homemade tomato sauce and 'strawberry thickshakes' consisting of about a kilo of frozen strawberries from their farm, blended with a dash of milk.

The breakfast was absolutely delicious, however the 6 year old within me was itching to open presents ASAP.

At about 10:30 we began to open the presents (a whole 3 and a half hours since I'd woken, torture I tell you). Everyone got pretty rad presents, and I was so happy about what I'd gotten.

L-R - 1st Row Peter Alexander knickers, Peter Alexander sleepwear playsuit, Doctor Who t-shirt
2nd Row Lush products: three pack of FUN; Magic Bubble Wand; So White bath ballistic; Sunny Side bubble bar; Happiness pigment; Snow Fairy shower gel; $50 Lush gift card,
$30 iTunes card, Cadbury Favourites

It was such a lovely morning and breakfast!

Afterwards we headed home, where I got changed and did my makeup, and then to my Grandma's for lunch. At about 5pm Mum and I returned to our home where we opened the rest of the presents (which I unfortunately didn't take a picture of), watched Love Actually, ate a few Christmas cookies, and didn't eat dinner.

I didn't actually take any pictures after the morning, so that's all I have, but suffice to say it was a very lovely Christmas!

Definitely looking forward to next year, 362 days to go!

xx

Indy

Wearing: Rimmel Kate Moss shade 22 and an incredible tacky Christmas t-shirt (not pictured)

Christmas Eve | OOTD & The Most Delicious Dinner

As I write this, is it currently 11:30 pm on the 25th December, 2013 (AEDT). Christmas day is half an hour away from finishing, but there's still festive spirit left to enjoy.

I thought I'd do a two-part series of the Christmas celebrations, with this post (Christmas Eve) and also including one on Christmas, although admittedly there are slightly less photos of that day.

I may also include a post about my favourite gifts (and how lucky I've been this year!)

Without further adieu, here is Christmas Eve...

*    *    *

As we have done for the last couple of Chrismases, Christmas Eve was spent at my Grandad's farm, about 20-30 minutes drive from my house.

Following an optometrist appointment  – a little bit of grim stigmastism-filled reality during this festive season (lessened slightly by the cute English chap we talked to) – we grabbed our bags, bacon and bonbons and headed out to the farm.

On the way out, we listened to Michael Bublé's Christmas album (all time favourite) and began to get in the spirit of things.

To the farm, I wore a green (although in retrospect, blue) shirt and a velvet maroon skirt.

To add a little festive spirit, I did a take on the current 'floral headbands' trend, and pinned a piece of tinsel into my hair. Tacky, but fun!

And of course, I had to wear Christmas earrings. I bought these ones way back in July from a little store in the city and I love them!

We arrived at the farm to cheese and nibblies, including homemade caramel and bacon popcorn and a Christmas tree taken from the neighbouring farm (with permission). 

Just after dessert, there was a beautiful sunset too, with the most extraordinary colours. The next couple of photos have no filters/enhancements whatsoever. The sky was literally this colour. Amazing.

The food was also absolutely amazing, my Grandad's wife Anne is an incredible cook and every year she treats us to the most delicious food. We had three courses and then coffee and Mars Bar slice (supplied by my Uncle). 

Salmon and asparagus slice with a gluten-free pastry (so crumbly and delicious)

Slow-roasted lamb with pumpkin, broccoli and potato. Tender and to-die-for. 

Flourless hazelnut-chocolate cake with quadruple cream, freshly picked blackberries, vanilla bean ice-cream, blackberry sauce and a blueberry liqueur. I think that says it all. 

So that's that. Christmas Eve was decadent and delicious, with a really beautiful sunset and only the best festive music. It was such a lovely evening! 

Christmas post coming soon :) 

Happy holidays everyone! 

xx

Formal!

Since my schooling system is a little bit special, I get three 'formals'. One in year 6, when everybody first tries their hand at makeup, trying to look nice, and - "Do I dare to wear them?"- high heels (which, as a side note, I did not wear in year 6. Très comfortable). Then we also get one in year 10, to celebrate the end of our mandatory school attendance (afterwards we can potentially leave school and join the work force/an apprenticeship) and in my case, the leaving of our 'high school.' And of course, the final one at the end of year 12, to celebrate the finishing of school altogether.

I'm 16, and on Friday 6th December I had my last day of high school. I've got two more years of college to go before I l finish school, but it's a milestone nonetheless.

On Thursday 5th December, I had my school's formal. We had it at a very fancy hotel, and everyone got really dressed up and arrived in fancy cars and ate a fancy dinner at fancy tables and got fancy professional photos done and it was all very classy.

The lead up to formal has been a long time coming - some girls at school have had a countdown on their phone all year telling them how many days until formal.

There were many stresses about makeup bookings, hair bookings, dates, afterparties, shoes, changing minds about dresses, arrivals, bags, jewellery, bras, pimples, bruises ... the list goes on. But on the night, everything and everyone looked perfect. It all pulled together, and we had an amazing night.

Here are a few happy snaps of the night.

My lovely date putting on my corsage

so pretty

The only shot of my hair! Sorry about blur!

favourite girls, so beautiful

Patrick looking dashing

 my midi ring, which i love

our arrival in a classic car, in yellow!!!!! 

At the table

Entrée

Dessert (forgot to get dinner, oops!)

selfies at the table

It was such a great night, two years until the next one!

xo

Floriade

Every year, my city holds a flower festival in the Spring. It's free, and runs for about a month. I think it's been going for like 25 years or something, and last year when the Queen visited, she came to the festival too.

It's so pretty, and all the flowers in bloom just make it such a happy place to be. There's a ferris wheel too, so you can see all the flowers from high above. I'm slightly terrified of ferris wheels (not the height, just a fear of falling), so I always use it as an excuse to try and overcome that.

It's also a major magnet for anyone with a camera - it's just so fun to capture the colour and beauty.

I wanted to share some of the snaps I got when I visited, the weather wasn't the most amazing, but you can definitely get the idea of how beautiful a place it is.

Oh, they also have a thing each year where you can paint a gnome and have it displayed in Gnome Knolls, some schools do it all together and some organisations too, but you can just enter it by yourself as well. I love seeing all the creative gnomes people paint, and I took pictures of some of my favourites!