Next year check my list

The kids gave me an early Christmas present of the stomach bug. Nice.... it wasn't on my Christmas list, maybe I'll have to be more specific with them next year! Luckily I got my food shopping done on Monday so we have food in the house and even more lucky was that Ben was able to go into work late so I could stay in bed and he looked after the kids for me. By the afternoon I was feeling a lot better so could face making the kids a snack and Ben made dinner for them when he got home. I hoping Ben can escape this bug - all my fingers and toes crossed! That would just not be fun for Christmas!
Well, I'm glad to say I'm feeling alot better and look forward to getting out of the house and into some fresh air tomorrow!

We've been pretty lucky with sickness so far this winter. Last week Esther and Eliza got coughs and colds and last night they both got some kind of tummy bug. They were taking it turns to be sick every 45min-1hour through the night -nice. I'd been out babysitting so Ben took the brunt of it at the beginning. I thought I'd better start on the washing straight away so put a washload on at 1am and another at 4. We all managed to get some sleep between 6 and 7.30 and Ben took the kids down so I could keep sleeping until 9.45. Eliza is crashed out on the sofaand Esther is watching the rest of Bedknobs and Broomsticks that we started watching in the night. Here's hoping its a 12 or 24 hour bug and that they don't share it with their parents!!! Hope everyone will be better for Christmas!

2 cutie pies

Picture of Esther and Eliza taken at her pre-school christmas concert!

Let it snow!!!

Yay it snowed today! Esther woke up with no temperature so I decided to take her off to the playgroup party. We had to take Ben to work, usually a 25 min round trip, today an hour and 20 minutes!!! The roads were not great especially the track from Woodwalton village to the farm - so icy and skiddy, scary! Well after eventually dropping Esther off at preschool I had an hour at home before going back to pre-school to get Esther and see Father Christmas visit the children. I never understand how the children don't twig on that he looks different every time he sees them! When we got home the kids were desperate to play out in the snow so I let them in the back garden for 10 minutes! I kinda like snow but I really, really don't like being cold! We did the things we needed to do then I got them back in for lunch. Here is our fab, albeit small, snowman - daddy is the best one for building a mega snowman so if there is any snow left tomorrow then I'm sure he'll be out there showing up our mini one! Esther attempting to bounce on the snow covered trampoline:

The obligitory snow angel.

It's funny how even though we only get snow for a few days a year the kids remember exactly what you should do to have fun in the snow!

Domestic Godess

We spent the day baking goodies for Esther's pre-school teachers today - the house smelt divine! I don't often bake because I have no self control and tend to eat whatever is around so I just don't do it. We made double choc chip cookies and the most divine brownies and then I packaged them up into a fancy bag I made ready to take to the teacher tomorrow. At bedtime we could not find Eliza's elephant that she sleeps with and has all the time - after about an hour of looking (Ben was out so I was getting stressed and the kids were running wild) I found him stuffed into a craft drawer, handy place to put your favourite toy. When I eventually got the kids into bed I think Esther may have had a temperature! Hopefully I was wrong and she'll be alright tomorrow otherwise she'll have to miss her pre-school christmas party and I'll have to eat all the goodies after all.

Tidying up

We were tidying away in the living room and Esther was attempting to put the Barbie house away into the small space it lives in behind the toy box. So I offered to help because the Barbie house is quite heavy and the space quite small but I was swiftly put in my place when Esther told me 'I'm handling it!' I don't think she's ever used that line of me before and it's certainly not something I say, I wonder where she got it from! She put it away fine - woo hoo for independence!

We need a new camera!!

It was Esther's preschool Christmas concert this morning. The all dress up and sing 5 or 6 Christmas songs for parents and the whole of the school! I can imagine it must be a bit scary for some of the littel kids - luckily Esther wasn't phased and sang all the songs really well. She is the 3rd angel in from the right. She didn't want to wear a halo apparently. 'Mary' got stagefright and its a good job the baby Jesus was a doll as she clutched onto it so tightly!! My pictures are rubbish - our camera is rapidly going down hill. After the performance there were mince pies (yuk) and drinks for the parents and the children had their pictures taken. I put Eliza in with Esther and the photo is so cute which kind of makes up for having to pay £5 for it - oh well, all money for the playgroup funds! Of course Eliza got dressed up after the performance and the 2 girls played really nicely together so I couldn't resist some pictures.

Lunch out and laptops

Today was Ben's work christmas lunch but what was even better was that he hasd been given the whole day off! We dropped the kids of at a friends house at 11 and jetted off to the Old Bridge Hotel in Godmanchester. It was posh posh posh inside, or at least I thought so when compared to the last place I went out to dinner - Frankie and Benny's!! They gave all the women a Willow Tree angel each - nice for not having to do anything! Ben did an icebreaker which was actually quite fun and then there was a quiz - we came 2nd and won £7 each! Woo hoo! I'm going to try not to spend it all at once... ha ha ha! Then onto the best part - the food!! It was delicious! I would recommend it to anyone for a great meal out. Maybe I'll make Ben take me there again since we missed out on my birthday meal. One of the other reasons the day was so great was that we were child free - I don't think we have been out for that long together with adult company in years. Crazy. The girls were having a great time too and almost looked sad to come home when we picked them up at 3.
Since Eliza had only had a 25minute nap in the morning as opposed to her 1 1/2 nap she usually has after lunch, we put the kids to bed early so we could play with.....our new laptop!! We only ordered it yesterday. It's nice to have a laptop to call our own again! Now all we have to do is somehow get all our pictures off the busted one...

Breakfast princess

Over the weekend we had a lovely visit from Ben's parents and brother and his girlfriend and our nephew Thomas. Grandma Marie brought along all the christmas presents and they are all stashed neatly in my bedroom tempting me to open them all everytime I go in!! Along with the presents came a huge box of..... dressing up clothes!!! Like we need more!!! We now have 4 or 5 more princessy dresses, a Lilo outfit (as in Lilo and Stitch), Princess Jasmine outfit and handbags to coordinate with any occassion imaginable!!! Needless to say the girls love it. Thomas loved the purple fairy dress and looked every each the cute fairy boy much to his dads dismay! I wish I had a picture for future bribary but unfortunately not!
So at every opportunity Esther has been sporting a new dress up outfit. Yesterday morning it was a lovely white princess dress with a hooped skirt. So she tells me she is a princess (she likes to get into character) and I ask her to say the prayer on our breakfast. First line 'Thank you for this day' then 'Please bless me because I am a Princess' and then blesses everyone and completely forgets the food. It made me laugh.

Christmas Decorating 2009

We put up our christmas decorations last night for family home evening and I discovered I had bought a little santa suit to fit Eliza this year. She was very pleased with it to say the least and looked adorable (even if I do say so myself....). Obviously you can't decorate a tree in your normal everyday clothes so Esther dressed up as a princess ballerina.

Eliza's face cracks me up in this one - a snowman with legs is very confusing I suppose!

I had forgotten what a mamoth task getting all the decorations out for christmas is. First you have to find somewhere else to put the things that usually go where the christmas tree and other decorations go, then you have to find where you have stashed all the different decorations, put them all up then put away their boxes. The good thing was that I was feeling ruthless so found a bin bags worth of stuff to take to the charity shop!

I feels really christmassy now and am going to take the time to enjoy all the great christmas things that happen before Christmas comes itself. Who doesn't love Christmas??