Eliza turns 4

This week our Eliza turned 4 and had her first ever birthday party. On her first birthday we were all sick except her, on her second birthday I was about ready to pop with Alice and on her 3rd birthday we were all sick again, except her. This year Alice was sick on Eliza's birthday (but only because she gagged on a paintbrush she was chewing on, yuk). Yes, there seems to be a theme here, lets hope it's run itself out now.

Eliza decided she would like a Minnie Mouse birthday party (when she lost her Elephant on holiday last year she replaced her with a Minnie Mouse toy which now goes everywhere with her). She was so excited about the party and so thankful about everything. So here she is blowing out the candles on her Minnie Mouse cake:

It was your traditional pass-the-parcel kind of party, here they all are with their party food:
Minnie Mouse cupcakes
Her Minnie Mouse cake. I would like to say I made the cake but I asked my fabulously talented cake decorating friend Mallory to help me out and I basically watched the master at work! So I can't take any credit for the cake which Eliza LOVED! Thanks Mallory.
After the party Bex took Eliza to Build-a-Bear for her birthday treat, Rebekah said Eliza went in, chose a bear, chose some clothes and was good to go. Eliza is nothing if not decisive. She makes her mind up in 2 seconds flat and sticks with it. She know what she wants and what she doesn't want and once she's made up her mind thats it. She has become really affectionate recently, she kisses and cuddles a lot more than she used to, she likes the same book read to her everynight for 3 weeks and she loves to play with polly pockets and her new lego friends (birthday presents). She's our independent, random, spirited wild child.

Cold snap

We all know that the best way to keep warm is to layer up. In this freezing weather Eliza has taken this advice to heart.Yes, that's Eliza wearing 5 dress and 6 skirts. Today she was wearing only 4 dresses but 8 skirts. gets awkward when she needs the bathroom...


There's a girl with style.

Christmas 2011

So I was going to write about our Christmas and I can't really begin without the drama at the beginning of the Christmas week. Ben had been so busy that he'd planned on basically taking practically the whole week off work before Christmas so we could do some fun things together. He went into work on Monday having woken up with a pain in his back round the right kidney area. We thought it was just a flare up of his injury (that incapacitated him for a good few weeks back in September when he fell down the stairs, yes, I forgot to blog about that too - the osteopath worked wonders as did some acupuncture which is hilarious as Ben has been known to faint at the sight of a needle!) but he said it felt different. He came home from work looking rough and went straight to bed with a hot water bottle and some ibuprofen gel rubbed in. A couple of hours later he had a bright red rash covering the area so he decided to go to the on-call doctor at the hospital. They thought it might be shingles given the rash and extreme pain. We were gutted, there went our fun holiday plans.... But he had a blessing that very night, took handfuls of co q10, echinachia and vitamin c and within a few days was much much better. Christmas could still go ahead!

Mum and dad arrived on the Wednesday night, Bex and Joel and Jess on Friday. Christmas eve was spent hanging out around the house, preparing for our Christmas Eve dinner and eating said glorious dinner. We had a little Christmas service, threw out the reindeer food, left out the goodies for Father Christmas and hung the stockings.

On Christmas morning, Alice surprisingly was up first according to Grandpa who was sleeping in her room (we had people all over the place!) at 5am saying 'Christmas' (on Boxing Day she woke up saying 'more presents'!) but fortunately he got her back to sleep, Esther was up at 7 and everyone else got up at 8 just in time to open stockings before leaving for church. I had to go early as I was playing/singing in the service (not at the same time!). Afterwards it was home to waffles (thanks Bex and Jess) and the mountains of presents! It's so handy having a sister that is a fab photographer (thanks Bex for the photos):

I love this one mostly because of Eliza!
Joel and Jess above, cheesy mum and dad below:
Caught sneaking more smarties, I'm pretty sure she'd eaten them all before the day was through!
Who is that handsome man?!
Esther in her cherished Christmas dress!
Butter would not melt. Love the double hairband look.
Who doesn't love Mulan?!
Uh oh, Alice discovered her chocolate too...
Esther's new barbie, she likes playing with barbies and she likes playing schools so what could be better than a school girl barbie?!
There were lots of walks, plenty of games, movies and general fab family time. I also read the Hunger Game series starting on Boxing Day and finishing on New Year's Eve. Let's just say I loved them. Bex left on the Tuesday to head over the Oslo, Mum, Dad, Joel and Jess left on the Friday after Christmas and literally 2 minutes later Ben's parents turned up! It was pretty good since Esther doesn't do well with goodbyes - she didn't have long to cry! New years eve was fairly quiet, we went bowling and Ben's mum won! They treated us to lunch and had our 2nd annual NYE games party with the kids and no we didn't let them stay up - they were in bed easily by 8. We stayed up to watch London's fireworks at midnight which was spectacular as usual. Welcome 2012, I think you are going to be a great year!