So this is Christmas.....Eve and Day

Our family has always celebrated Christmas together. We all get together, on Christmas eve,  eat a massive Christmas Eve dinner (which we all contribute towards by bringing our favourite dish) and wait to open the gifts. Christmas day we usually get together again to eat the leftover meat and we bring salads along and enjoy a day talking nonsense and lazing by the pool with the people closest to our heart.

This year was extra special for us, it was our first Christmas Eve with our Little boy Camden and possibly the last Christmas eve with my Grandfather Neville. As usual the house was so full of cheer, love and laughter. Laughter and lots of it is always the highlight of any of our family ocassions, especially with my Aunty Neena on top form as always with her funny jokes.

After dinner we all indulged in some sweet treats off the sweet table that my mom and I put together. I know what you are thinking, but of course there were desserts too, what is Christmas Eve dinner without trifle and chocolate mousse!

There is nothing like spending Christmas Eve with family!

Camden went down at around 8pm and we decided to let him open his presents on Christmas day rather. All us adults socialised until it was time to open the gifts!

Wayne and I had said we weren't buying each other gifts but I bought him a sneaky gift and well he had bought me one too. He knows how much I love MAC make-up and how much I have been wanting to get make-up brushes and that is exactly what I got. Lucky girl!

I bought Wayne a PS4 for his Birthday in November and I decided to spoil him for Christmas and get him a game, he of course was over the moon with my choice! Nailed it!

We got some other gifts from family and friends, we were pretty spoilt again and we weren't even expecting it. We are truly blessed with the people in our lives.

After opening the gifts we headed to bed, excited for morning to come so our Little monkey could open his gifts.

Christmas morning, Camden was awake around 6am and we were so excited to get him to his gifts so he could open them. The poor child was still half asleep when I plonked him in between all his gifts, he didn't even know where he was let alone what he needed to do. He looked so overwhelmed and just kept yawning - shame our poor little boy!

Once he was awake he got stuck into his gifts and the look of sheer excitement on his face was priceless and something we will never forget.

....just look at those toes and facial expression!

Let me read my bath book!

What the....

 

So chuffed with his "car"

Christmas morning was just the best with Camden. Once we were done we packed the rest of our bags and headed to the airport. Wayne and I had decided to take Camden to JHB to surprise his Ouma Magel for Christmas.

Dressed in his cute Christmas outfit Camden got a lot of attention at the airport. He is such a little charmer.



Camden loves taking selfies, he pushes the button and gets all excited - hence his blurred hands pictured above.
 

Camden's first flight went extremely well, no tears just moans and that was only when he was tired and wanted to sleep. I lay him in my arms and he slept for most of the flight. He woke up 15min before we landed in OR Tambo Airport. We were so pleased as we were stressing that his ears would hurt.

Wayne's stepdad Jannie came to collect us at the airport, he was so excited to see Camden that it was as if we didn't really exist for the first few minutes lol.

We drove to Wayne's grandparents small holding to celebrate Christmas day with Wayne's family. When arriving, Wayne had to get out of the car to open the gate. All his family was sitting outside on the lawn under the shade and when his mom spotted him she just started screaming and running towards the car. She practically jumped on Wayne to hug him and when she saw Camden, she got a little emotional.

It felt so good inside to know that we had made her Christmas the best one yet! She kept saying, " This is the best Christmas gift anyone has ever given me"

I think all in all we had a pretty special Christmas, one that has left us smiling for days.

Merry Christmas from the Loxton's & one soon to be Loxton

May this Christmas you celebrate God's love with the company of family and friends.

May you always stay blessed in life.

May the peace and prosperity of Christ's birth date, bring peace in your life today and forever in time.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Love the Loxton's (and me)

 

 

 

Christmas sugar cookies

I promised to share the recipe we use to make our sugar cookies. It is such a simple recipe and they taste delish!

Ingredients:

1 Cup of butter softened
1 Cup of granulated white sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/2 tspn of almond extract
1 egg
2 tspns baking powder
3 cups of all purpose flour

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
2. In the bowl of your mixer cream butter and sugar until smooth
3. Beat in the extracts and the egg
4. In a separate bowl combine the flour and the baking powder and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes to stiff for your mixer, turn out the dough onto the countertop surface, wet your hands and continue kneading the dough by hand.

5. DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide the dough into workable batches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut with a cookie cutter.

6  Place on a baking sheet and bake on 180 for 6-8 minutes

7. Allow to cool on the baking rack until they are hard enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

8. Decorate as you wish and enjoy!

'Tis the season to be jolly

There is nothing quite like the smell of freshly baked cookies in the morning, especially around Christmas time...

The weeks leading up to Christmas have been full of TO DO's, I have tried to stick to my weekly to do list but somehow time always manages to get away from me and before I know it the week is over and we are one step closer to Christmas!

As a family we have always put our tree up on the 16th of December. I have asked my mother what the significance of the 16th of December was and she said she couldn't tell me they have always done it that way and it was passed down from my great grandmother. Who knows?! I wanted to put our tree up on the 1st of December already but truth is I never got around to doing it until a week ago but now it is up in all its gold and silver glory and it looks FABulous!

All the gifts are wrapped and under the tree. When the tree is up and the gifts are wrapped, THAT is when it starts to feel like Christmas to me.

Excuse the quality of the photo, I take all my pictures with my phone camera.

My mom and I have been busy baking up a storm for our sweet treat table at Christmas eve dinner. Our family has always celebrated Christmas eve. We all get together at my parents place and have a massive dinner, followed by trifle and my grans famous chocolate mousse. As kids we all waited patiently for Santa to deliver the presents in person when the clock struck 12 and then the opening madness with tearing of paper would begin.

I have so many fond memories of all of our Christmas' together as a family. Of course when you get older and you realise that Santa in fact doesn't exist, the excitement of receiving and opening the gifts fades but spending quality family time becomes more important. This year everyone is so excited that there is a young child in the family again who doesn't understand much or that Santa doesn't exist, so we can start having Santa come over to the house to hand out the gifts again like we used to back in the day.Camden is only 5 months old so we will be bringing the Santa aspect back as of next year.

This Christmas is going to be extremely special as it is our first Christmas with Camden and possibly the last Christmas we get to share with my grandfather who is terribly ill with liver cancer. I am going to soak up as much of this Christmas as I can!

We decided to not put Camden in your traditional Christmas outfit this year due to the fact that here in SA you just can't find cute kiddie Christmas outfits but he is still going to look so dashing in his cute little outfit that we have put together and I cannot wait for Christmas day so I can dress him in his little red shorts and suspenders that my mom made along with his reindeer ears.

Ok so back to the baking.

A tradition in our family was that my Great Grandfather Marshall would make everyone a fruit cake for Christmas, I sure loved his fruit cake. Since his passing, we haven't really had anyone to carry on this tradition and I have always wanted to make and decorate a fruit cake, so I made my first reindeer topper, it looks more like a teddy but it will do as my first attempt. We covered the fruit cake in fondant and placed the reindeer on top. This cake is the main feature on our sweet treat table.

I think Grandpa M would be proud!

We have baked some sugar cookies, rolled out some fondant and cut out shapes using the same cookie cutter as we used for the cookies and we then decorated them to match our gold and silver Christmas theme. I really enjoyed making these and they look so awesome on our table.

You can find the recipe here.

Lastly we baked some of my mom's signature vanilla cupcakes with caramel butter icing and added the toppers to them that my mom worked on until all hours of the morning.

We always try to go the extra mile to decorate the Christmas table for Christmas Eve dinner. I think we have done a pretty good job again this year. I cannot wait to share photo's of our sweet treat table.

Now to finish cooking, set the table and wait for the family to arrive!

Merry Christmas to all.

Enjoy every moment you get to spend with your family over this festive season, time is so short.

And just like that, He is 5 Months Old ~ Camden Kingsley Loxton

A whole 5 months already!

I remember peeking over the bassinet at Camden when he was just a few weeks old wishing he would stay that small forever, but I can honestly say each month keeps getting more fun with this little guy and I hope that it carries on this way for years to come, or at least until it is no longer cool enough for me to drop him off at school and he asks to get dropped off around the corner- I hope that day never comes!

My Lil baby is starting to turn into my Lil boy. It scares me that everything is happening so fast. I cannot believe that next month he is a whole half a year old and that is not something I am sure I am going to be able to accept. Six months left to organise his first birthday...he he he are you kidding me, I started that when he was a few weeks old!

Even though at times during this month it felt as though we had four seasons in one day, I have one word which will put all you parents out there in the picture ~ TEETHING! Oh dear teething!

To be honest, I am not sure at times if we have been battling with sleep regression or if it is just his teeth that have been bothering him non stop. We have had a month of struggling with naps and waking up constantly during the night and I pray that this soon subsides. Besides that, it has been another good month.

A month full of giggles, expressions and plenty of improvement, especially in the vocal department! He has definitely made a giant leap into tiny boy (or as I would like to think of him still - baby) with BIG personality who actually does things instead of just laying there looking cute.

There isn't a day that goes by that this Lil boy doesn't make us laugh until our bellies hurt, he has become such a little character. The more you laugh at him the more he will do what it is he is doing that is making you laugh and then he laughs with you.

How Big?: Last month we missed his check-up due to some mix up on their behalf so we went around 4 and a half months. He was weighing in at 8.4kg ( closer to 9kg on his 5 month Birthday), I can definitely feel those 8.4kg when lifting him in his car seat to put him in the car, how I have not lost this baby weight is a mystery. He is measuring 67cm

Clothing Size: He is wearing 6-12 month clothing mostly. I seem to be having a problem with his clothing as he is thin but tall. I find that most of the leggings fit him in length but I am having to take all his leggings or shorts in as they float around his waist - Like father, like son!

Eating: His entire eating schedule has changed since going for his check-up at the clinic. He is now on 3 solid meals per day and drinking 4 bottles of formula, which means he has gone from 6 bottles a day to 5 bottles and now to 4, with some water in between.  It is the cutest thing to feed him his solids, he absolutely loves his food and eats like such a big boy already. With every spoon you get a mmmhhh mhhhh out of him and you cannot feed him fast enough, boy if you take too long to get the next spoon in his mouth you will know about it

• 5/6am, he gets a bottle
• 9am we feed him fruit
• 10am a bottle
• 1pm we feed him veggies
• 2pm a bottle
• 5/6pm, he has cereal
• 7/8pm he has his last bottle
• In between naps we give him sips of water
  

Sleep: THIS has definitely changed from last month to now, thank you teething! Everything was going so well and then it all changed. I have to laugh at myself for thinking that at 2 months when the drool set into overdrive that he must have been teething....WRONG, now he is teething! He is still a happy baby when he wakes up and gives you that gorgeous little smile full of gums with his head cocked to one side but getting him to nap during the day or sleep through the night is an impossible task.

Sometimes when he is scream crying from being overtired, I just feel like letting out a scream cry too - it is exhausting. I think battling with your child to get him to sleep has got to be one of the most stressful things out.

On a good day, he wakes up at 5/6am and has his bottle and goes to nap around 7:30am for about 45min. He naps again around 11 for about 45min to an hour. He takes another nap around 3 or 4 and then sometimes is sleeping around 7:30pm.

So we have improved a bit from last month, we no longer have to wake him for his 10pm feed. He is last fed around 6/7pm and only gets fed again around 5/6am.

 

That just woken up look...wait for it...two seconds later
- full of smiles.

  

Movement: Rocking on all fours is the thing to do it seems this month, hasn't yet mastered the art of crawling but he will get there soon enough.

He is still rolling around like crazy, we are not able to leave him on our bed or on his changing mat unattended anymore.

He is able to walk in a walking ring - he crab walks in it though.

Milestones: 

I don't feel it has been a major month for developments for Camden but he has gotten stronger each day and can hold his toys a lot firmer than before. He is also reaching out to grab things, so if he wants something he reaches out to get it, not like before when he wanted a toy but wasn't able to coordinate to actually get what he wanted. The other day when I was eating, I swear he put his hand out as if he was asking for some ~ so funny!

• Has started showing major empathy towards other children, if they cry then he gets upset, his lower lip starts to quiver and then he starts crying.
• Moans when mommy and daddy leave the room or if we venture out of sight.
• In week 18 he got his first blister/sore on his baby toe from jumping in his jumperoo. I had to cut up a small plaster just to fit it on his baby toe - shame.
• Extremely vocal of late and he definitely has said the word mama a few more times than just once, especially when he cries and I
  
  am not the only one who has heard it. First time was in week 18
• He has perfected rolling over from week 18
• Rolled from his back onto his tummy in week 19.
• Eating three solid meals per day from week 19
• Holding his own spoon but can't quite get it into his mouth from week 20
• Getting up onto all fours is a breeze for this little guy. It is amazing to see his development from one month to the next.
• Week 21 - He is able to walk in a walking ring. My gran has bought him one as a Christmas gift and he had to "test drive" it in the shop. Was so funny to watch him having a go.
• At the mere age of 5 months we have had to sadly take a few toys away, especially his bath ducks and rattle as he has some sort of love hate relationship with those toys. I think it is due to his gums being sore and when he chews on them it must be so satisfying or frustrating that he cannot get the toy in his mouth properly - it  just gets way out of hand and he starts screaming and then eventually it all ends in tears and an hysterical baby that takes forever to calm down.

• Sucks and chews on his toes constantly. If you try change his nappy his feet automatically go up to his mouth. When you sit him up he folds over double just to get his foot in his mouth. Obsessed much - I never knew toes could taste that good LOL
• Uses Wayne as a jungle gym. Climbs all over him just to get to Wayne's nose so he can chew on it - weird child.
• Teething for sure! His bottom gum is so swollen and you can feel the knobs from the teeth under his gums - poor thing is in agony most of the day.
• Chewing on fruit in his Nuby nibbler, so disgusting to have to clean that thing when he is done.
• Discovered his "boy bits" in week 21 and hangs onto it when he is in the bath

Overall he is just a happy chappy with loads of expression, constantly smiling and giggling, also staring lol - need to try teach him that staring at people is rude.

Excitement this month:Getting ready for our boys first Christmas. Putting the Christmas tree up. Wrapping all the gifts, baking Christmas cookies...the list is endless!

'Tis the season to be jolly!
 Mommy this month:
I have started to realise that this baby weight thing is obviously going to be some massive battle I have to fight as no matter what the weight just won't budge and I am still as fat as a house - I feel fatter than when I was pregnant AND I can no longer use the excuse, "I just had a baby".

There are days I feel like giving up but I still push through. I ran my first 5km trail run and my first 10km road race, I finished -  that is all that matters to me - it was tough, my knees are still killing me. YAY to me!

I start with a fitness coach in January and I am so looking forward to having structure in my life. Yes I have structure but answering to someone at the end of the day is just far more appealing to me. The dietician I go to once every 4 weeks and losing 2kg's every four weeks and then gaining a kilo is just not helping me and she isn't able to assist me with training. I need more than someone telling me my hormones are still out of sync and this is why I am battling to lose the weight - this isn't a good enough excuse for me.
So, this coach works off an app that I have to download onto my phone, my weekly exercise routines and goals, my weekly meal plans are all loaded onto my profile and he tracks my progress - so no skipping a workout for me otherwise coach will know and it won't be pretty. Once a week we have Skype sessions, sort of like a counselling session. It may not sound exciting to a lot of people but it appeals to me...BRING ON JANUARY - operation wedding dress needs to commence!

Physically:

My knees still ache and I walk like an old person but I reckon it has something to do with the extra weight I am carrying around too - this too shall pass!

Emotionally: I am great!