Delightful December

I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with how much updating needed to be done but I've decided to just do it. So here goes... some of our December happenings.

These 3 girls like to have a bit of a snuggle sometimes, here they all are in Eliza's bed. (She since got a nice new duvet cover thanks to Auntie Bexie's christmas gift so doesn't have my brothers 20 year old duvet cover on her bed anymore!)

We've seen sights like this alot more frequently around our home than we used to... They love their polly pockets!
This was Eliza meeting Father Christmas at her pre-school. When asked what she would like for Christmas she said a scarf! How random, I'm quite sure the vast collection of scarves we have is ample but funnily enough my brother and sis-in-law bought her one in the post-christmas sales! She is wearing her santa dress underneath her favourite pre-school dress-up.
I went out with Ben for his work Christmas dinner (thank you again Helen for babysitting!) and got there just in time for the games and quiz Ben had organised. For those of you who don't know, I'm pretty competitive. Needless to say the teams I was in won both the game and the quiz, even better (albeit pretty small) was the cash prize! Come to think of it Ben still needs to hand my prize over :-) The meal was very mediocre but hey, I didn't cook it so that gives it a few extra points!

We had our friends the Doss' over to make cookie christmas trees. I have taught piano to Clare since Esther was a few months old. She took her grade 2 before Christmas and passed with a good mark - a nice Christmas present for all her hard work! So anyway, we made the cookies and stuck them together with icing and decorated them. I hadn't made them before but should have made double the amount of cookies for each tree and they ended up a bit squat! I'd also use a different type of biscuit too, maybe shortbread or something as it's thicker. The girls enjoyed it and they tasted good, none was left 24 hours later... We already agreed to do it again next year but at their house!
Eliza, Clare and Alice with their tree, Eliza was actually only in a cardigan and underwear having tipped a load of soapy water all over her and the floor just before our friends arrived...she's a funny girl.
Bronwen and Esther with the messy kitchen in the background. Esther also spilt a bowl of warm soapy water all over herself on the floor but she managed get herself fully clothed for the occassion.
I always think it's a shame that we only really decorate downstairs and it just so happened that we had a little 3ft tree hanging around so got it out for the girls room. We had made some salt dough decorations (it was a long process - started in November, painted and glittered 2 weeks later after they had finally hardened and 2 weeks later we managed to put the ribbon through. We still have a handful left in the Utility room whose holes were too small for the ribbon...need to do something about that.) that we hung on the tree and they decided to decorate with their soft toys. I thought it was pretty cute.
Back in September I joined the local Huntingdonshire Philharmonic Orchestra. I'd been in it for 1 concert back in 2005 but then I was pregnant, teaching early morning seminary and working full-time so I gave it up. For some reason this summer I was itching to play the voilin again so got in touch and they welcomed me back with a seat at the back of the first voilins. They did a concert in November but for various reasons I wasn't going to play in that one but then in December we did 2 concerts on the same day, firstly a children's concert. We performed the Torreador's Song from Carmen and then Paddington Bear's First Concert which was basically the orchestra playing and a narrator telling the story. It was a lot of fun. Ben and his dad brought Esther and Eliza to watch accompanied by the required bears. Alice had a heavy cold and a temperature (I was glad it was the weekend before Christmas because at least she would be over the worst when Christmas arrived!) so she stayed home with Ben's mum (the in-law's had come to visit for the day) who was also feeling under the weather. At the end our conductor asked if any children would like a go at conducting, I think he thought maybe 1 or 2 but in the end there were probably 25 kids (including Eliza and my piano student Clare) up there wanting a go. We replayed the last section which was the Paddington Theme song whilst they conducted and the audience sand along. They girls enjoyed it and I LOVED it.
We had an hour and 45 mins break before we started an evening concert. We played the same 2 pieces in the first half and then some Cantata (Bach)and In Terra Paz (Finzi) and some Christmas carols with the Huntingdonshire Philharmonic Choir. It was such a buzz, I'd forgotten how much I love perfoming in an orchestra. As I was driving myself home I was just so thankul, I think when I arrived home Ben was wondering what the heck was up with me but I was just happy, happy, happy! 3 more concerts before the summer break, the last one being in Ely cathedral - so exciting! I loved the girls being able to come and see what I enjoy and what I can do.

We also went to a cookie decorating party where our friend had baked 15 dozen cookies in preparation - talk about superwoman! It was nice to spend some time with friends and their kids that you don't get to hand out with enough. I'm sure the girls cookies had more icing/sprinkles on than there was cookie!

When the girls finally finished for Christmas I was thrilled.We had lots of plans for the week before Christmas. Ben was going to take time off, it was going to be great. Then Ben came down with what the doctors thought may be the shingles. So he dosed himself up with Co-Q 10, Vitamin C and echinacha and he had a blessing. 2 days later the rash and pain had gone and he was up and about as usual. We were so glad he was fighting fit by christmas, shingles + Christmas = no fun.

Christmas seemed to really start when the first of our guests arrived in the Wednesday and the rest of them arrived on Christmas eve eve. It was the start of a great Christmas.

Star in the making

Wednesday 8th December 2010 was declared the 'best night of my life' by Esther. She was Mary in her school play. The play was about santa going on strike and each year did a different bit of the play ending with the nativity. She was really pleased to be Mary even if Joseph did pick his nose! (I stole this picture from my friends blog since we had been to the Monday afternoon dress rehersal as pre-school children weren't allowed to the evening performance and we had forgotten our camera.) Esther loved the evening so much because she got to play in the school while she was waiting to go on. It must have been fun because she was bouncing off the ceiling when I picked her up.I was a bit mad though as I had asked if there were any spare tickets and was told none were available but my friend told me there had been rows of unoccupied seats at the back. Annoying.

Eliza was an angel in her pre-school concert but guess what, I didn't take my camera to that either....

Christmas 2009

It's just occured to me that I haven't put anything about Christmas on here! Unfortunately when I think about Christmas I think about everyone being not very well! The girls and I were sick just before Christmas, Ben was sick just after and my dad, brother, sister and Esther were all sick New Year's Eve. Poor Esther got it twice in less than 2 weeks! In amongst all that yuckiness we had some good times though!

It was our first christmas at home this year. It was nice being able to do things on our own schedule instead of having to wait for everyone else to get out of bed! We had Christmas dinner with friends on Christmas Eve which was great - especially the leftovers which meant I didn't have to cook everything on Christmas Day! It was an Anglo-American affair - I've never had Christmas dinner with deviled eggs before - so amongst other things we took along some crackers - the pulling type not the cream type! The kids enjoyed it as did we.

Christmas morning was not an eary start, probably came down stairs at about 7 - 7.30, checked if Father Christmas and the reindeer had eaten their treats (they had), then I had taped ribbon over the living room door which the kids had to cut so we could get in - another sign Father Christmas had been and didn't want to kids sneaking in without the parents.

Eliza of course liked to play with each gift as she opened them so she ended up having 'help' from her sister-

Esther had been asking for a Snow White dress for quite a while and luckily I found one in her size in the charity shop for £2! She was super pleased about it but her favourite toy was a Dora the Explorer bath toy she had had her eye on for a while.Here is Esther learning some new moves with her new ballet DVD:

After our pancake breakfast we got ready and went to the park in the snow which we still had - it was pretty cold but good to get out of the house:

We watched some movies and had some food but other than that it was a pretty quiet day. I think we'll stay home again next year but we want some family or friends to come over - we like the company!

We went up to my parents on the Sunday after Christmas with my brothers and sister already there. Ben's parents came too. Ben got sick unfortunately. The next day Adam's then fiancee Alexa came over from Germany so it was nice to spend some time getting to know her a bit better since we had only met her once before. The trip was cut short for us when more people started getting 'the lurgy' so we decided to get the heck out of dodge on New Year's Day and came back home to our iceberg of a house. It took all day to thaw it out! Note to self: when going away in the winter just leave the heating on normal settings or you'll regret it!

So there was have it, our Christmas in a nutshell!

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.

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...

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??

Christmas 2009

For the last few years my parents have wanted pictures of the kids to make into their christmas cards to send to people. They usually add a scripture to the front. 2 years ago was Esther dressed as an angel looking at a baby in a manger, last year was the 2 girls looking at a nativity scene (Eliza was actually chewing on one of the sheep) and this is this years attempt - Esther as Mary, Eliza as the Angel Gabriel! It was a nightmare to take and I still can't believe we got a half decent one, Eliza did not want to be in a picture at all and just kept shouting 'no, no, no!' She really knows what she wants that one. I never get round to sending Christmas cards so please accept this as my Christmas Greetings! Now to get the decorations up...