December Festivating

December is a big month in this house, with a birthday, our anniversary and of course Christmas.  It can be a bit much, but really it's so wonderful to have so much to celebrate!


Dallin's family party at home on his actual birthday involved a cake homemade with love by yours truly from scratch.  So it wasn't beautiful and I learned a whole lot about making cakes, but I will say one thing: it was one of the best tasting cakes I've ever eaten!  (And I can't resist but noting how I loath my dining room lighting.  No amount of white balance adjustment is any match for this rubbish lighting!)


Hopefully you can tell what I attempted to create, an iPod touch, which was the prelude to the much hoped for, much wished for gift of the year, possibly the decade.  If I had 10p for every mention of this device in our house the last year, I'd be a cagillionaire!


The many faces of awe and excitement when he finally held the precious device in his own hands!


Day two of teenage birthday celebrations included dinner and a movie with friends.  Dallin has made some wonderful friends this year at school.  They are the nicest kids, and I couldn't be happier with his friendship with these boys.  They all had a really fun night talking shop (anything and everything Apple product), eating pizza and going to see the Hobbit.


Today was the third annual firm family Christmas party.  It's a lovely, but strange thing, as spouses are never even invited to the formal Christmas parties here.  Ever.  How wrong it is that my husband dons a penguin suit just once a year and I can't even be there to see it!  Anyway, I digress.  The relatively new party put on for the children each year is a lovely gesture.  I took the kids into town for a day of fun before meeting Scott at the office for the party.


At Waterloo tube station


First we head to spend some time browsing this mammoth Apple Store on Regents Street.  This was on Dallin's Christmas break must-do list.


He was all smiles, which let me get a few great shots of the new grill on Dallin's teeth.  Yep, Dallin has braces!  They went on yesterday!  They should have gone on over a year ago, but we had to wait for the last two baby teeth he was sporting to finally drop.  He isn't so sure about my timing for his new mouth gear (5 days before Christmas), but I'm already pretty glad that I chose this pre-Christmas time slot so we all have the break to ease into it.  So far he's handling it great!


Apple Store Regents Street


Carnaby Street





Remarkable street entertainment at Covent Garden








Trevon dropping in his donation to the performers.


I can't get over how grown up my boy is looking these days.





Covent Garden





Teen on the train


Funny observations of Dallin en route home. He was either fully engaged with his new device, or totally checking out his new smile in the window reflection.