Advent was full of Christmas parties and preparations ... including time spent by Al working out which fireplace Father Christmas would be able to come down, and what to do about the fact that the dining room fireplace is the biggest but has toy cupboards in front if it. We agreed that on Christmas Eve we would pull the cupboards into the middle of the room to make way for the old man.
We all decorated the tree, which meant it ended up looking quite, um, interesting. I rather tastefully added some red and some gold strings of beads, which clearly inspired Annie because she then found a pile of the costume jewellry Gran gave her recently and added extra strings of beads ... some white, some green, some black ... clearly she got the idea that one hangs beads on this strange tree for some reason. The end result was slightly less designer than I initially had in mind but I didn't have the heart to remove Annie's contribution.
There was also a fair bit of dressing up which both children love. Annie's upset in the snowman costume was because I'd told her it was time to take the suit off, not because I'd made her wear it in the first place! There's a lovely video clip of Al wearing the same suit singing "I'm a little snowman" rather beautifully so if I ever work out how to include video in here I'll stick it in.
And this is Al and Annie getting dressed up ready to go to the New Life Church Christmas service where Al was a shepherd. Annie would have been an angel (what else?!) but had to give up the role as she was a Spotty Dotty and came down with the chicken pox a couple of days before. Actually I wonder how many of the toddlers of our village she shared this with ... we spotted the first spot a few hours after she had been getting on down at the local toddler Christmas party.
Al had a ball being a shepherd and getting chance to shine up on the stage in front of everyone at church. The week before at Messy Praise at our village church there'd been another chance to dress up and do the Nativity. That time Al was a wise man (did we ever doubt it? He's been sharing his wisdom with us since he could first talk) and Annie was a rather cute little sheep.
Lots of anticipation in the run-up to this morning. Not only was it the first trip to the cinema for the little people, but they also had popcorn in their own individual little trays. And on top of that ... it was the Wiggles on the big screen!
plashing about. Of course the other great thing about mushrooms is that they can break them up for the balti without even using a knife. While they are busy doing this I get chance to chop the onions unhindered ...
Annie may not be 2 yet but she really knows her own mind and likes to do things her own way. She is the best at tidying up in our house, and likes to round the shoes up and put them back in the drawers in our hallway. She's a real little mummy to her baby doll collection and likes to feed and cuddle them, as well as change their nappies, using a phenomenal number of wipes. Here she is trying to work out how to put her jeans on all by herself ... 
We've had a busy Christmas with all the Grand-parents down ... Big Nanny, Grandma and Grandad, and Gran (aka My Dear). 
We all decorated the tree, which meant it ended up looking quite, um, interesting. I rather tastefully added some red and some gold strings of beads, which clearly inspired Annie because she then found a pile of the costume jewellry Gran gave her recently and added extra strings of beads ... some white, some green, some black ... clearly she got the idea that one hangs beads on this strange tree for some reason. The end result was slightly less designer than I initially had in mind but I didn't have the heart to remove Annie's contribution.
As part of National Tree Week Al, Annie and Clive took part in Tree O'clock ... a nationwide tree planting event that took place at our local country park. They planted 5 trees in all ... a couple of oaks and none of them can remember what the other 3 are!
We had a lovely day at Southend for the start of half term ... It was lovely and sunny but also cold and windy. Not the sandiest of beaches but the kids had fun collecting things in their new buckets.
