Saturday 25 December 2010

Done and dusted for another year...


A truly lovely day. Two delighted little girls with more presents than they knew what to do with. Top present awards go to the Walkie Talkie from Papous to Phoebe, running shoes from Granny to Paul, The Cinderella Dress from us to Clara and for me... it has to be the wonderfully gorgeous surprise necklace that my wonderful husband bought me, it is truly lovely (although alas I can't wear it yet as the chain is just a little too short for me!). An honourable mention has to go to the lovely Mahri-Claire and Greg who had send a picture (or two) off to a sketch artist. I just love it and can't wait to frame it and put it on the wall (Ikea here I come tomorrow!) for all to see!

We had a lovely lunch of 5 spiced duck with asparagus and dauphinoise potatoes (before you look shocked the girls had sausages... sigh). And have had a nice relaxing day all in. Seeing friends tomorrow so we are looking forward to that.

I hope Father Christmas bought you all you desired and deserved and that you sleep well and satisfied tonight.

Friday 24 December 2010

Christmas starts here...


Two very excited little girls! Letters burnt to send to Father Christmas, Stockings hung by fire place, mince pies made and by the fire with carrots and Ginger Wine. Santa Trap will be set up before we go to bed as we would hate for Father Christmas to burn himself on it with the fire currently on! The Christmas fairies even managed to leave a gold trail of fairy dust to their new pyjamas that they cleverly dropped off whilst they were in the bath!

Blinking Caffeine!

Oops. I am poorly so I requested Diet Coke... my nemesis! Consequently it is 00:15am and I am still awake. Still I have used the time decently to change over the laundry, clear up the cat poo in the bathroom (well it beats the rug so I am not complaining too loudly, I suppose she is thinking she is human... bless her!), sort out the living room and dining room and swept the kitchen (around the slug that seems to have got in... eww!).  All the time listening to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on my new iphone dock (sorry Mum, I couldn't wait so bought it with some vouchers... the rest are saved until after Christmas!).

Anyway, a catch up! The new CF card reader FINALLY arrived and I was able to upload everything to my computer... huzzah! So, in order of occurance... I believe it was Phoebe's birthday first.

She had her birthday party, despite the snow, on the Saturday. I rented a local hall and a bouncy castle for Madam and her buddies to play with. The bouncy castle was HUUUUUUGE, so huge in fact that it wasn't long and a few Daddies had joined in the fun. I believe Granny also had a go... I stayed off using the excuse that I had odd socks on! Much fun was had with magic tricks and balloon animals provided by Aunty Isy's new chap Leif (although he himself heard the call of Arsenal so sent Isy across London with 3 binbags full of balloon animals!). I had made Phoebe a paddock cake with schliech animals and a duck pond!


I was rather chuffed with it if I do say so myself!

What was next? Oh yes the actual birthday, poor Phoebe had to wait ALL day to open her presents as we have to be at school so early. Still she had a good day and was delighted with her birthday sticker and the fact that her class mates sang Happy Birthday to her. When she got back we had a little tea party with Granny and Grande where she got to open her gift from them. A Playmobil Pony Ranch that she has been longing for since she spotted it in a toy shop! We bought her Toy Story Lego that she loves too. She also got a Furry Friends playset from Paul's parents and a Sylvannian Family Stable from Papous and Yia Yia.

Then we had Clara's school concert. Her last at our beloved Pre School... I am quite sad about that as we do love it so much! She did us proud and sang beautifully! She was a little star struck meeting Father Christmas but very grateful for the present!


Then we had Phoebe's school concert that afternoon. We weren't allowed to take pictures or video so alas I cannot show you my girl in her snowflake outfit. What I didn't know what that she wasn't JUST a snowflake... she was a featured snowflake! Snowflake number 5 to be precise. This glorified role involved being in the front row to dance round and round whilst singing "6 Little Snowflakes" from Whoopsy Daisy Angel! She did it brilliantly and was the only snowflake to spin continually throughout the song... Mum and I were convinced she was going to either fall over or throw up but she, thankfully, proved us wrong!

As for the renovations. In the spirit of JFDI I decided the time had come to tackle the paint stripping in the living room. We need to decorate (desperately so!) in there but the layers are so thick on the wood work that another layer of paint would look ridiculous! Hence having to remove it all! I tried chemicals but the layers are too gross for it to work effectively enough! Eventually I bought a heat gun... oh it is my new bestest friend! Although I would like it noted that varnishing may seem like a good idea when later residents try to remove it, it turns to what can only be described as tar! Bleurgh! Still we have made good headway:


It has all now been primed and the doors to the cupboard are awaiting the return from the dipping place. I won't be naming them as they are not in my good books currently! Of course I still have the skirting boards (would it be wrong to only strip the bits we can see?) and the window to do... flick back a few posts for the blind shop and that is the window I have to strip... it is going to be a job and a half! I have also been eyeing up the front door but I think that can wait until nicer weather!

Of course we also had Yule inbetween the last post and this. It was wonderful... we went into London to the Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and took the girls to their first Circus. They loved it and were completely entranced by the acts they had on! I would like it noted that Winter Wonderland would be loads more fun in the summer because when we came out it was cold and raining... and of course Phoebe insisted on going on rides! Ah well! When we got home we lit our Yule Log and decorated the Christmas Tree. The downside was I decided to make it a bit of a tradition to wish on the Yule Log, alas the girls both wished for a Barbie Mermaid so muggins here spend the evening driving around looking for said items for them! Thank all I hold holy for Tesco! It was a lovely day, here is our gorgeous smoldering Yule Log:


It is now 00:51, the battery on my iphone has died and the cat is looking at me as if I am mad. So I am going to pootle off to bed and stare at the ceiling for a bit and hopefully, maybe possibly nod off!

TTFN
x

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Bloody snow...

I have so much to write about and loads of pictures to go with it but my new card reader (bloody pins bent in the other one so it has been binned!) is somewhere between me and Amazon. GAH!

Since my last post we have had:

Phoebe's 5th Birthday Party
Phoebe's 5th Birthday
Clara's School Concert
Phoebe's School Concert
I have done some major renovations to the living room (well major for me!)

So loads and loads have been happening and I am stuck because I haven't got a CF Card reader. GARGH!

Thursday 2 December 2010

Bunnies and snow.

It is so cold out there at the moment I felt sorry for the rabbits being in the hutch and chilly so I went to the petshop nearby and bought the non to cheap microwavable pad for them. When it was warm I took it out and both bunnies shot to the door to be let out. I thought what the hell and let them out to play a little bit. They went loopy exploring the newly white and cold garden. Lots of running around and bouncing, very cute! I also discovered they come when they are called now as when I did they both pelted across the garden towards me. This meant I was able to get some cool shots of them!



Kit and Little Brown Cat were being far more sensible and each camped out at a (different of course) radiator for the day. Happy beasties all around!

Wednesday 1 December 2010

I do not like snow.

It snowed yesterday. When I woke up it was about half an inch and I thought it wasn't that bad and it would be business as usual.

Oh how wrong I was.

By the time I dropped Clara off to school at 9.30 it was more like 2 inches but it let up for a bit. By the time I got her at 12.30 it was about 3 inches and traffic was so slow it took me 20 minute to drive around the corner to get her. It then took me another 30 minutes to get to Mum who was camping out from the snow in House of Fraser. Just before I got Mum I had a call from a school mum to say the "school is closing" text went out. Arse. Another 30 minutes later we went to get Phoebe. Then we made a big mistake... in fact scrub that HUGE mistake. Because the traffic was so clogged going back to the house and Mum, Clara and I were hungry (it was approaching 2pm by this point) we travelled down to a pizza place about 3 miles away (ha, about... I googled it... 3.2 miles away to be exact). In that time we had big fat flakey snow, blizzardy snow and it was just getting thicker and thicker and thicker. So, come just after 3pm (and having neatly missed Clara's ballet open day, I have yet to see her dance... sob) we got back in the car hoping that traffic would have eased up a little. Ha. Ha. Ha.

4.5 HOURS later we finally pulled up outside our front door. In that time Phoebe and Mum dove out of the car and into a gym we happened to be passing so Phoebe could use the loo, Mum pushed the car twice (with help) as we got stuck, Mum dove out of the car to try and get an Iphone cable and Phoebe managed a 45 minute nap! Oh and we saw several abandoned cars and some spectacularly bad driving (I was thanking my lucky stars I have driving in snow experience from when we go skiing!).

Today has been a snowday. Paul couldn't get to work, Phoebe's school was shut (finally on the text system with the correct number) and if Clara's was open I didn't care as I wasn't going to attempt walking her up there. Paul did the Daddy Duty of snow play inbetween working and I even managed to sneak into town to return some boots. Not a total bust but I am hoping the snow eases up / goes away by Saturday as I don't want Phoebe's party to be banjaxxed by the rotten stuff.

I shall leave you with a pic of the 3 snow bunnies:



(the real bunnies are hiding in their bedroom and are very very unimpressed by the cold white stuff).