Carols by Candlelight

We have been counting down the days till Carols by Candlelight... the kids have been giddy with excitement and we have been practising our carols with a Christmas CD in the car... every road trip.... over and over and over!! My Dad flew into town today and so off we all went, yummy picnic in tow, to the Carols. It was a gorgeous sunny evening for meeting up with a bunch of other friends - we overlapped our picnic blankets like a gigantic patchwork quilt and settled in for an evening of fun, food and music! Although I had just had a massive, exhausting day I was happy to be 'out and about' for such a sweet community event.

We were having a lovely time, enjoying dinner and the kids dancing and so on, however I noticed that in the midst of having patches of fun and laughter, the kids were alternating the fun with being uncharacteristically whiny, emotional and just a little miserable. I was getting a teensy bit frustrated, starting to think things like 'Ugh, why did we bother doing this?!' and wondering why they kept being so out of sorts when they were sooo excited about this event. Then when I was cuddling with Lily, who kept wanting to lie down on me, I noticed she was totally burning up with a fever.

Oops.

Poor things!! And yes, I felt dreadful (and silly) for not realising and connecting the dots earlier! **blush** So with a slightly more compassionate attitude, we snuggled with the kids and sang a few more carols together as the sun went down, then headed home to put two weary children to bed.

Postscript: Lily seemed worse off than Eli, but they both came home, crashed asleep and slept till 9.30am the next morning! They seemed to bounce back fine the next day so I think it was a fairly mild (thankfully) passing virus or something. Ironically, they spoke so excitedly  about the Carols and recounted every detail with glee, seemingly unaware of how out of sorts they had been! 

A funny way of showing me even when family activities don't go 'to plan' or as smoothly as we the parents might hope, the sweet moments still linger as precious and fun memories in the hearts of our children whilst the bad bits seem to fade away as irrelevant to the memory bank of family bonding... a little helpful motivation to persevere with creating family fun even if it ain't always sunshine and roses!

A boogie with Edmund and Zoe

Always time for a cuddle...

Santa Eli enjoys the 'squeeze Daddy's nose' game once more

Lily checking out Santa's arrival on stage

Eli super impressed with his cool child-friendly candle
(they were giving them out free at the event and suffice to say, extremely popular with the kids!)

Can't get enough of those candle-lit chubby cheeks!

Poor feverish baby girl, fast asleep in the car but still clutching her candle!