After the delicious dinner, it was off to Grandma & Grandad's house for a delicious tea, and to open even more presents.
Clearly, the biggest plus to having children is the fact that they get some cool presents for Christmas, and parents get to play with them!
After a fairly reasonably-timed start to Christmas day (well done kids!), we broke open some presents, then headed to church, and after that it was time for a delicious dinner at Nanny & Grumpy's house, with Auntie Jan, Uncle Mike, James, Bethan & Rebekah.
Nanny has had lots of practise at cooking for so many people, and served up some fantastic food.
The only problem is, it's our turn next year! Gulp!
Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya came to Cardiff for Christmas, so it's been great fun partying with them.
The Christmas Eve Masked Ball looks like it was a hit!
We were decorating Christmas tree gingerbread biscuits today, and the children got a bit carried away with the Hundreds & Thousands.
Yes, Will has got them stuck to his runny nose. I think I'll leave these ones for the kids to eat...
Hannah was lucky enough to take part in a children's choir this year, and perform in St. David's Hall. Lots of rehearsals, two full performances, and a very late night, but they all sounded amazing. Just the thing to put you in the mood for Christmas.
If you're looking for Hannah, she's third from the left, in the front row.
Somebody is very, very, very pleased with all of the Lego presents that he had for Christmas!
Too many days of constant partying can quickly tire out a five-year old and a two-year old!
There's only one thing better than Christmas presents - the boxes that the presents come in! Thomas & Will jumped into a perfectly sized box for some adventures.
And were in fits of laughter whenever it fell over!
The food just didn't stop coming! It was back to our house for Christmas tea with Granny and Grandad!
Musical entertainment provided by Hannah 'One Girl Band' Hurley!
Even being 8 months pregnant did not get Auntie Jan out of her turn for cooking Christmas dinner this year! And she did a very good job of it (with the help of Uncle Mike!)
Judging by the face he's making, though, Will may have eaten too many sprouts...
Even though Hannah, Thomas & Will have been in trouble almost every day this year, Father Christmas still was kind enough to visit our house last night!
Thomas was chuffed to bits with his new Star Wars Lego X-Wing Fighter (and Daddy is quite excited, too!)
Hannah is planning to build a lamp from her Magnext kit, to allow her to read in bed.
And Will is going to help Bob the Builder fix it wherenever he possibly can...
Not wanting to do things by halves, Ruth managed to find the biggest Christmas cracker ever, this year! Nanny and Grumpy, Auntie Jan, Uncle Mike, James and Bethan joined us for Christmas dinner, and you can see we needed a lot of help to pull the cracker! We were worried that there was going to be a huge explosion when it popped!
After all the work of pulling the cracker, we had loads of delicious grub to keep us going for the rest of the day!
Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya came to Cardiff just before Christmas to celebrate together. There was lots of games, presents, yummy food and silly photos!
Will, though, still hasn't worked out the difference between crackers that you eat and crackers that you pull!
Tom appeared in his school Christmas concert this year as one of Little Bo Peep's naughty sheep.
Here he is returning back to the pen after being caught and told off!
Try as hard as he might, Will hasn't yet mastered the art of hanging Christmas decorations on the tree!
His technique of simply dropping the bauble onto the branch, just doesn't seem to work. He's very good at pulling the decorations off the tree, though...
Hannah, Thomas and Will must have been on their best behaviour this year, because Father Christmas brought them sackfuls of presents!
Here's Hannah showing off her new Cinderella dress - one side is poor old Cinderella, but turn it inside out and 'Abracadabra', your wish is granted!
Thomas had a superb scooter, complete with flashing lights. He can already do a full lap of the house (inside) in 12.9 seconds!
Will enjoyed the wrapping paper!
Just like the Queen with her two birthdays, we celebrated two Christmases this year! The official one, on the 25th December, was to be spent with Nanny, Grumpy, Auntie Jan, Uncle Mike, James and Bethan, while we also had an early Christmas with Granny, Grandad, Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya on the weekend before.
It was a great excuse to stuff our faces with some nice food!
Hannah and Thomas had their Christmas plays this week, and both did very well!
Hannah's play was all about Christmas cards, and the stories behind the pictures that appear on them. She was dressed as someone from a 'snow-scene', with the well-practised line of "Oh no, not as long ago as that!"
Thomas played the part of a shepherd in his Christmas play, and also had to sing the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty"!
All the hard work and rehearsals paid off, though, as both plays went very smoothly.
