OK, so I know it’s actually the 2nd of January but publishing these Me & Mine posts at least a few days into the new month (or not at all last month) seems to have become a bit of a habit this year.

I couldn’t let 2019 finish though without publishing our last family picture of the year, and my now traditional 12 month collage. I first did it in 2014 and have done it every year since. Barry and I had a lovely time last night looking back at all the previous years and seeing if we could remember where all the pictures were taken – I love having them all in one post to look back on.

I did slip up a bit this year, with no post at all in November. We just didn’t really do very much and never got round to taking a family picture. I’m going to make up for it by adding two pictures to this post, and a cheated a bit in the collage by adding two photos from October.

December was very busy with Christmas things for the boys at school – they had four performances of their nativity, which was brilliant. You can see some pictures of them in their starring roles as Wise Man Number 1, and Sheep, in this post.

We also had a Christmas Fair which I helped to organise with the PTA, a Christmas party, and a whole school trip to the panto. I was gutted to miss the panto – I was supposed to be going to help but forgot the date and accidentally booked to see the new Star Wars film with Barry on the same day. Toby and Gabe enjoyed it though and I’m sure there’ll be chance for me to go another year though.

Because the boys were doing so much Christmassy stuff with school we didn’t do very much else. The weekend before Christmas though we did go to Dunham Massey National Trust for the Christmas light trail. It was really good (if expensive) and we all had a lovely evening. We were going to try and squeeze us all into a selfie when someone else kindly offered to take the picture for us.

We had a rather chilled out Christmas with family. Everyone got lots of lovely presents and we all enjoyed plenty of food and drink, just as Christmas should be. Most of the festive food has been eaten now, except for all the chocolate – I think we’ve probably got enough to last us until Easter!

We didn’t really do anything for New Year this year – we went for a walk with my mum and dad on New Year’s Eve, and then played a few board games in the evening after Toby and Gabe were in bed. I don’t know if we’re a bit mean but they just went to bed at their normal time – they didn’t ask to stay up, and we never really do anything anyway. So until they start wanting to stay up I think we’ll keep making the most of a quiet night!

Our second picture was taken on our walk. We went to the same place two years ago and had a photo on one of the benches too so I though it would be nice to have another one in the same place.

This is the one from two years ago – Gabe is still wearing the same coat, and so am I for that matter!

2019 was a pretty good year for us all in all – nothing very exciting or dramatic happened apart from Gabe starting school, nobody had any significant birthdays, mostly we just had a normal kind of year and I am thankful for that.

So here’s our year in pictures – I hope 2020 takes us on some more adventures and continue our good run of health and happiness…

And so my sixth year of taking Me & Mine family portraits every month comes to an end. You can see all the rest of the posts here and I’ll be back at the end of this month for the start of year seven!