Family Christmas pic 2021

 

LtoR; Josh, Coco the dog, Mandy, Karla, Simon & Brad. 

If you scroll through the posts of our family website, you'll see that every Christmas morning we sit down in front of the tree for a family portrait.  The difference this year is that we are in our new house and there is a new member of the family - Coco the dog. 

We moved into the new house back in late March, and a common topic of conversation since then has been about where the Christmas tree might go.  We found a spot between Mandy's display cabinets, but we had to push the couches out of the way so we could all sit in front for the photo.  Maybe we'll find a better spot for the Christmas tree next year.

Coco is a Miniature Dachshund (Sausage Dog) who joined our family back in September as an eight week old puppy.  Now we can't imagine not having her running around the house. 

We bought a house!

Well after too many long years of renting, we've finally been able to purchase our own house.  

The circumstances are a bit sad, it was Simon's cancer diagnosis that meant we could make a life insurance claim to get the finance over the line, but at the end of the day we now have our own home. 

There is plenty of room in the new place, big bedrooms (there's even a "spare" bedroom), a big backyard and room to park all the cars.  We even have a fireplace to get cozy in-front of on those cold nights. 

Simon put together a YouTube video of our moving week and will probably do a house tour video once we've settled in.  Check out the moving video below.  

Christmas morning 2020

Our annual Christmas morning family photo - 2020

Our Christmas morning family photo is looking a little different this year.  Thanks to his chemotherapy, Simon has lost all his hair and is now a baldy.  

Thankfully, though, we are all still together.  Josh turns 21 next week, but is still living at home, so the family is all here Christmas morning for our traditional family portrait.

Lockdown Family Photos

What do you do on a weekend during COVID-19 Stage-4 Lockdown when you're not supposed to leave home?  Yesterday we decided to have some fun taking family photos.  

There was another reason for getting some new family memories, apart from being stuck at home with nothing to do because of Corona Virus.  Despite six months of chemotherapy last year, Simon's Pancreatic Cancer has returned and he needs to start a different chemo programme.  This new treatment will make him lose his hair, so we wanted to get some photos before he becomes a baldy.

L to R:  Joshua, Bradley, Simon, Mandy & Karla

We also made a video of the fun we had taking our latest family photos, 
you can watch it on YouTube here... https://youtu.be/kF4osIdGz2Q 

Made by Mandy

So this family blog as been around for more than 10 years, and Simon has had his personal blog for some time too.  Now Mandy has her own website, dedicated mostly to her resin art, with some other creative stuff planned for the future.

Check out Mandy's brand new website at madebymandy.art 

Screen-shot of Mandy's new website

Christmas Morning 2019

2019 has been a huge year for our family, as I have fought (and hopefully beaten) pancreatic cancer.  With all of that behind us, before you know it, Christmas morning is upon us. 

Since 2010, we've had a tradition of taking a family photo in-front of the tree on Christmas morning, before any presents are opened.  With our eldest son, Josh, almost 20 years old, I'm not sure how many more Christmas mornings the five of us will be all together for a family portrait.  After such a stressful year, I'm so glad we were all at home this Christmas to continue our family tradition.

Embarrassing the kids

We recently spent some time going through some old home movie footage of the kids as they were growing up, and put it together for a video on YouTube titled "Embarrassing my Kids".  The title probably gives you an idea of what to expect, but thankfully the kids are good sports and had a good laugh at themselves when showed the finished product.

It's not a short video, but take a look, I think you'll get a laugh out of it as well.