Feather your Nest Friday, 28th December, 2018.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
I don't even know where to start so I will just jump in and start anywhere!
We had a lovely Christmas.  It had been go go go right up until Christmas Eve.  In some ways I did not do everything I would normally do but here we are in the farmhouse and we had a great big droopy real tree that touched the ceiling.   We cut branches from a tree in the driveway and put them in a big metal bin.  I loved it!

I had fairy lights across the deck and they looked like stars.   This all added to our already amazing night sky which I still cannot fathom as it is so different to in the city!   I often stand outside  at night and just take it all in.

My biggest wishes for Christmas were that the girls would come to stay over and have a wonderful day.  And they did!  Christmas day was one of the big kids playing with the little kids and the adults making sandcastles in the sandpit for Scarlett to smash up.

Most years we have bubbles. This year we had ribbon twirling wands.  Stuff like this always helps the afternoon.

The girls arrived with red dresses and big red hair bows. 😊  

It was too busy to take many photos but I love this one.   It shows Mum's sago plum pudding coming to the table and Mum looking pleased in the background.  

It kind of captured some of the day. 

Some of the ways we saved money, built up our home, enjoyed Christmas included:

I planted chillies and also swiss chard and capsicums that Mum gave me.

Chloe gave us a bag of layers pellets for the chickens and Mum gave us a bag of wheat.  We are way ahead with chook food!

Luke's Mum send me lemons and rhubarb from her garden.

Chloe gave us a spare Queen sized bed.  With this I set up a guest room nicely.  I already had all the linen I would need.  It looks lovely.  So now all my rooms have furniture.

I made a tray of coconut ice.  Some was given away as gifts.  I decorated it with dried rosebuds I had saved.

I made a big potato salad, a baked ham and my Nan's tomato, onion and zucchini bake which she always made to go with roast meat.   I did spares and a gluten free one...

It is topped with little squares of bread then grated cheese and baked.  It is one of those simple delicious things.   Nan knew how to make the roast meat go further!

I washed a heap of windows.

My sister in law gave me a food saver vacuum sealer.  This will be a great addition to my pantry.

Andy gave me a Spotlight voucher to stock up on craft supplies which I will do in the sales.

Mum sent us home from Christmas with beautiful roast turkey.   I guessed how much we could use in a couple of days and saved that.  The rest I sliced into slices and froze in two person portions.  When the weather cools I will just do a tray of roast veggies, warm up the turkey and pour over gravy.  It is kind of an instant roast dinner.  I have done this many times.   I got three meals to put away this way.

Chloe gave us an album of her wedding and a framed collection of photos.  She made albums up for her Grandparents also.

We lived on left over turkey, ham, potato salad, tomato bake etc for several days.  It was lovely to have a  break and delicious.

Andy went yabbying with Luke and his Dad.  They got a lot of yabbies and had a great time.  The Blue Wrens were so tame he took photos for me with his phone...

I want to go and have a picnic in this spot so I can get some photos myself!

My niece gave me a notebook she had made especially for me...

So I am planning 2019 blog posts in this!  So lovely!

Kaye gave me a beautiful sign for my pantry door!  I love it!!

Even the writing is correct since I always have fig preserves, fresh honey, fresh eggs... everything on this sign is correct! 

At the end of Christmas Day Lucy and the girls followed us in their car home to our farmhouse.  At one point I hopped out to open a gate and Lucy drove through with us then I shut it.  Scarlett was saying "cow, cow!"  and they both had wide open eyes and mouths open as they were seeing cows, sheep, deer and a kangaroo.  

When we got to our place the girls ran through the house so excited!  

I showed them the bedroom and the canopy beds.  They LOVED them.  There was much jumping around and choosing beds.   

Later we went out and looked at the stars and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.   They were so excited I thought neither would ever sleep! 

Yesterday and today have been hot.  I have umbrellas up over my veggie garden and old net curtains draped over my roses.  So far so good.  The heat drives you inside... so I am starting on some crafts and quite things indoors during the day.  This is good it is time to start making things again!

Now I have out my new planner for 2019!   These days before the New Year are my favourite days of the whole year.  Time to consider the year that has been.  I do kind of a year long Feather your Nest Friday.  It is amazing what we forget!  As it all comes back to me I am in awe of the year we had.
Next I start to make plans and some goals for the new year.  Also plans for the blog.
With moving and all we had to do I had to reduce the blog to once a week.  But mostly I always had three posts a week with a theme.  We had The Christmas Challenge, The World within our Walls, Pantries and Preparedness,  the Friday post and so on.   In the next few days I will write a New Year post and what the themes will be for 2019.  I am excited about that!

I hope you had a good Christmas and can enjoy a few quieter days now.
How did you build up your home, get ahead or save last week?   It would have been the busiest week of the year for many of us!

Have a lovely weekend!   We are heading south to the farmhouse Lucy and her family are moving to. We are taking Mum with us and making a kind of picnic of it.  The girls are down there as they are working on the house.  I will make a cake to take with us.   And with some luck there will still be figs on the fig tree!

xxx