Starting the week by writing the Monday Happy List is something I’ve been doing for a while. It’s a chance for me to sit down and reflect on the things that made me happy in the previous week, as well as to record some of our family adventures. It’s a post I always love to sit down and write.

Sunday Happy Things {Week 429}

I love this week between Christmas and New Year. It’s lovely having nothing much to do and feels like a time we can all sit down and relax. We’ve read books, played games, been on lots of dog walks, done jigsaws and planned some adventures for 2023.

We re-visited Haynes Motor Museum. We last visited in 2017 and the kids had just as much fun the second time around. There was a fun trail which kept my daughter busy and my son took photos of everything.

We also visited our favourite local National Trust property, Hughenden Manor, to explore their 12 Days of Christmas trail. Scenes from The 12 Days of Christmas were brought to life in the garden, stable yard and manor and the kids enjoyed running around trying to find them all. The weather was perfect (one of the only days last week!) so it was great to be outdoors and dry.

We spent New Years Eve at home and bought a Play at Home escape room. It was really hard finding one suitable for both of them (age 11 and 12) but we had fun and it kept them busy for about 90 minutes.

I finished two little projects I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. I made the Merry and Bright mini quilt and a festive embroidery hoop which I found in a recent issue of Love Embroidery magazine. I have a few other festive craft projects but I just didn’t have nearly enough time to stitch this year.

At the beginning of the year I challenged myself to read 48 books. I managed 39 books and I’m pretty sure I enjoyed every one of them. I’m going to lower my target number of books to read in 2023 – my goal is to read 35 books as the books I read with my kids are longer than ever and we don’t seem to get through as many as we used to.