Happy Sunday friends!  I hope you’re all enjoying your weekends and you haven’t been hit too hard by the cold snap we’re having in the UK.  I saw that there was snow in the north...potential for a white Christmas maybe?

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Last week we had such a Christmassy weekend and I loved it!  We put up the Christmas tree with Aiden snuggled and cosy in his baby wrap.  Afterwards, I starting wrapping some of the gifts that we had bought in the recycled Nordic wrapping paper that I’d picked up whilst watching Home Alone 2 and drinking a Nutella hot chocolate.   I’ve always wanted try this gift wrap theme and think it turned out pretty well!  

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Marshmallows are my favourite part of a festive hot chocolate!

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Before all of that, I had baked some cinnamon rolls to start our festive day of activities.  I’ve seen these a lot over on Christina’s blog and always wanted to give them a go.   Since we were out of apricot jam I topped them with some maple syrup and left out the usual icing as we find that a bit too sweet.  I’m considering making these on Christmas morning for breakfast because they were so delicious.  We went to a lovely church service after eating these and then a family walk, before getting home to put up our tree. 

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Little Aiden got in on the festive action too at his Christmas themed winter wonderland baby sensory class.  There were more babies there this week and he enjoyed looking around at them all and taking everything in, he’s such a nosey baby and so inquisitive.  The class included lots of Christmas songs, bubbles, twinkling lights and tummy time and even paper snow!  I’m really looking forward to taking him to some more different classes in the new year, especially the Waterbabies swimming classes we spotted recently.  Of course, AJ took his mama out for our usual coffee date where I had a chai latte whilst flicking through the latest JoJo catalogue, everything is so cute in that store! 

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Down to the last bits and pieces in the fridge as we waited for our grocery shop to be delivered I used up what we had leftover to make this smashing salad: green lentils, chestnuts, roasted kabocha squash, spring onions and feta cheese.

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When the grocery shop finally did arrive it brought with it these wonderful American goodies! I have to say that I’m really impressed with Tesco at the moment, Alfie even bought me the dark chocolate version of Reese’s peanut butter cups yesterday when he popped out for some ingredients. 

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I’ve loved sweet mince pie filling porridge this week and had it a few times.  This was plain porridge oats topped with chestnuts, coconut and the mince pie filling and as lovely as our wreath was is as a photography prop it’s finally made it to the front door. 

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I hadn’t made scrambled eggs in ages but fancied some this week with some chopped tomatoes, avocado and ketchup.  

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Another fantastic salad featuring feta cheese with mixed salad leaves, a giant cous cous salad (shop bought!) and steamed broccoli.  This salad was basically made up of leftover bits and pieces, but surprisingly it tasted fab. 

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So it’s been a pretty festive week for us.  We even went for a lovely walk around the village (my main form of exercise) delivering Christmas cards to our friends which was really nice.  I feel so privileged to live in such a stunning part of the world!

Have you put your Christmas tree up yet?  Do you like to go for a particular theme when choosing your gift wrap?