Visiting

2years 64days

I do love Christmas Eve. In some ways, I love Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day. I love the excitement, the anticipation, the visiting, giving over of gifts. Today has been like that. It's been a day of friends, family and special times.

We started pretty early - we left at 7.20. We had a very lovely breakfast and couple of hours with my sister and her children. Katie was extremely excited. She got to open a present and was very excited by her new Christmas cardi coat. She ran around lots, she played lots and she had a great time playing in their bedrooms, running round at high speed.

We then drove over to visit Vic, Jasmine and Jaden. Katie was so excited to see them, and immediately wanted to dance with Jasmine. She had such a lovely time playing dolls, playng on cbeebies website, playing with bags and pretties. We had a very lovely lunch, thankyou victoria, and the children then spent ages playing at the piano. Katie kept telling Jaden what to play. He put the demo on and they were so enjoying "playing" to it. So much fun, the children all had a great time, the mummies loved having a natter.

Our next visit was to Robert, Jack and Philip - friends that I have babysat/childminded since before Jack and Philip were born. They are now all bigger than me, for the first time. They live on a wonderful small holding, so Katie had a fabulous afternoon exploring animal enclosures and barns. She saw ducks, pigs, sheep, cats, chickens (who stole bread from her hand!) a dog, a fish, she had a brilliant time. Katie also laughed like crazy at a singing toy chicken that last year made her cry!

Tonight we're at Granny and Grandads, our cousins, aunt uncle etc have all come round for our Christmas Eve gathering. It's not quite 6pm, and Katie is falling asleep in her Grandad's arms, its very adorable and a really lovely end to a very special day with very special friends and family.