account to follow, just crazy busy doing the last Christmas bits. It was amazing!
Amelia is writing her name in capitals everywhere! In her own little way.... she learned capital A and M while back, and she also knows E and L, she comes out with pictures from nursery with AMLA and ALMA and AMLAE on. It is usually a capital A at the beginning and end with a different combination nin the middle each time. She brought me a postit the other day with "AMLAE and ELLE written on it, so pleased with herself! (I am keeping the postit!) I was so surprised, as I have never taught her Ellies name. She loves writing. She wrote "PAPA" on Alfredos gift, it looks so cute. They are doing lots of lovely stuff in their nursery now for Christmas. We had the Christmas singalong on Monday. When I went in with Ellie, Ellie got to excited when she saw Amelia, and gave her one of her little hugs, she puts her hands on her shoulders and stands up and inhales her cheek. Amelia was really pleased but acted all coy, and kept saying with a massive grin "Get off Ellie! Your hands are too cold!" Yesterday wasBook Day (which was also dress up day) where they all brought a favourite story and had a readathon and at the end they got their bookstart treasure chest. One of the stories in it was Each Peach Pear Plum, which she almost brought as her story, but in the end opted for Charlie and Lola , "I will not Ever Never Eat a Tomato" (That was the first kids book I ever bought. I was pregnant with Amelia and I was with Esther in WHSmith and I said "I need to start my English book collection" and she recommended me that one, I also got The Very Hungry Caterpillar that day) Today they have their Christmas Party. Amelia has a little friend called Gracie who she loves so much. We walk home together every day, they have various places where they stop and do exactly the same thing eveyr day. Run up the restaurant steps, stop by the trees outside the pub and pick up branches and drag them, hang on the railings and spot ducks (and feed them if we remember bread) Run down the steps onto the green, run in a circle and out the other side. The rest of the way they just chase each other and laugh. It is really cute and I am so pleased as at the beginning she seemed like a little lost soul. Lets face it, everyone just wants their kids to have friends! Gracies Mum is having a baby on the 4th of Jan, so that will give them an immense source of interest no doubt. Breakfast time.
I feel Absolutely Terrible (not about not writing, just physically) but will just get something down. Looking forward to Christmas so much. Last night Amelia and Ellie started playing hide and seek totally spontaneously, Amelia hid and Ellie went crawling after her shrieking with delight (no other phrase describes it so aptly) and when she found her there was hilarity on both sides. So cute to see them interacting more and more.Thats allfolks. Fever, aches, pains and a crying wee bairn.
sheesh, better get something down on the screen (up on the screen would be more correct I guess) just so thi doesnto get on top of me. Saturday was family fun day! Amelia and Alfredo went to the cinema in the morning and I did the shopping with Ellie, then we went to her school Christmas fair where Amelia had her face painted, made a badge, we went rnd evry stall with our pennies supporting this and that, badge making, guess where the pirates treasure is, guess thi, guess hat, we bought the most amazing brownies I have ever eaten, and then we urried off for the last half of the Christmas party at church, she arrived just i time for the party tea, followed by Pass the Parcel and Father Christmas, quite good timing! Every other key on this keyboard is sticking and I cannot be bothered to go back and correct it so excuse the spelling. 2 weeks till Christmas, who is excited???? I am! I will be cooking my first Christmas Roast this year. I feel proper grown up.
Having finally deciphered my nokia pc cuite I managed to upload some photos (hooray for me!) I even have a comment on Flickr (hooray for hannah!) Today Alfredo left the car saying he wouldnt need it till 2, but not to touch it in case, as sometimes he needed it suddenly and unexpectedly. yeah right! For once I have the car, and I make a quick run to Tesco. The rest of the morning was spent hanging out at home doing not very much to be honest. I decided to leave early for nursery as I am normally charging Amelia up the road and I always say to myself "Must leave early so she can stop and look at every little thing if she wants to and drag her feet if she wants to!" So for once I left early, very early. Just as I turn out of prenton place, her little friend Kane appears. Kane has a red skin head, freckles, and the smiliest naughtiest face you can imagine. His cousin was walking him and she said "I have set out really early because his mum told me he takes ages to walk" So Kane and Amelia start chasing each other and basically run all the way to nursery and me and Kanes cousin were there about 15 minutes early. After I dropped Amelia at nursery I came home. I have not been home during nursery time for ages, I am either running to costco, hobbycraft, bank, library, tesco, wilkinson, town, town town....normally in the rain rain rain...I was so looking forward to a couple of hours at home, check my email, potter a little, perhaps fry a little chicken for wraps tomorrow, play with ellie, put on some carols, and just generally relax. This I did. I have a cold again, I am indignant. I just had one. I eat five a day, normally seven or eight, drink 2 litres of water, buy organic when I can, etc etc and I have my second banging headcold in a month. we are all going through kleenex at the rate of knots. so in summary, having re read this entry, a humdrum day to be sure!
Amelia said this morning. " Mummy.....you know when you were little....well how did you turn back to YOU again?"
(while poking herself in the eye) Daddy? When I do this.....there are two YOUs!
While embracing Ellie, who for once is not crying, because for once she is not being strangled "She LIKES me!" (kiss)
Ellie, who all I said about her the other day was that her fringe was longer is so adorable. She still only has two little teeth, andshe is often grinning. She stands all by herself for quite a long time until she realises that she is doing so, and grabs onto something quick or falls on the floor and begins to lollop about with her lame puppy crawl, she still drags one leg behind her mst of the time. Obviously she is always trying to eat everything. I found a red crayon in her nappy the other day. Worringly, it was almost intact and rather large, dont ask me how it got down her little throat! She loves to eat almost everything, but if she is not convinced by something she will promptly take it out and thow it down in disgust unlike Amelia who would persist through till the bitter end while pulling a face all the while. The other day Amelia and I were sharing a pomegranate and Ellie was clamouring and I thought, I wonder if the seeds are a little hard? well, I will give her one to try. Well, indeed, the protest was LOUD and heartfelt as she waited for more. That is her favourite right now. Today she whipped her hand into the chocolate biscuits at fhe so fast that no one noticed. I took a phto of the chocolate biscuit with two tiny bite marks on eachside. cute.She sleeps from 6.30pm to 630am and sometimes she even does so uninterrupted...precious girls.
I am really busy right now organising A Night in Bethlehem for the two wards. It is turning out to be a really exciting project that everyone is getting into, despite people seeming a bit dubious t first. The foyer (good old mormon word) will have a stone wall backdrop and a roman soldier having people sign a census and distributing gold coins to everyone. The gold coins are for the market place to buy your supper. First we have activities of which very fw are authentic to the time but who cares...We have bead threading, candle making (with beeswax nd mouldable wax, no melting needed) pottery (air drying clay) plus pottery painting, a big Bethlehem nativity "mura" to be (hopefully) painted by everyone, a little from everyone, gingerbread angel/shepherd decorating, paperfolding, Hebrew calligraphy, and we also have a table with some tangram puzzles laid out. Also a Gifs of Th Magi table where people an collect a small organza bag (green with gold tie, 5quid for 100 on ebay) with 3 nugets in of "gold" (a gold stone)frankincense and myrrh rein (the latter are not in inverted commas because it is in actua fact, THE GENUINE ARTICLE (ebay. pretty cheap) We wil also have street performers musicians, a juggler and a magician, follwed by food. soup andbread on onestall, cheese and fruitson anothr, cold meats and quiches, cakes, ad "wine" (ribena and fizzy) after which e have a little reading arond the manger and then thewise men give out woodn toys for the kids. It is so enjoyable to organise and quite nerve racking that it wont come good on the night. watch this space. x
Here I am again updating a bit. Today is the grand Christmas decorating day, complete with christmas music and treats. We are really excited. We now have a car again, it is a little run around compared to an Astra I guess but it is so great to have a car again. I walk so much and I love walking but there are some places you cannot walk! We got a pretty bad payoff from insurance, so we decided to buy this, and then hopefully, when we sell and then buy, , we can get another.depending on where we live and how much we get for our house, it will be "another one instead of" or "another one as well as". Though things are not looking too hopeful there still! However within the budget we had I am really pleased with this car. It belonged to a lady and after a few years she sold it to her Dad who pottered around the village in it, servicing it regularly, and using it very little and keeping it in his garage at night. Now he feels too nervous to drive so he has sold it. Not that it is perfect, as all cars when they got on in age need attention but it is a nice scenario from which to buy a second hand car. The girls are so delightful, I love them so much! Ellies hair is almost down to her eyebrows and little curls are starting behind her ears. Just looks jimpy now, but you can see it could turn into curls. Amelia is such a big girl, nursery seems to accelerate their growing up! She said to me "Mummy, I am nearly four (showing the fingers) and I am so big and when I stand on the chair I''m REALLY tall and thats why I am nearly four" The "Thats why" and "thats because" that she uses in the most illogical (to me) way sometimes is so cute. Also, the other day, I said "lets sew you a Mary costume for the Bethlehem party" and she says in dismay (thinking to herself, what will we sew it with? I havent seen Mum has sewing stuff) "But you haven't got......(What was that thing called?) ......a PRICKLY STICK!" A few days later she said she would much prefer to go to Bethlehe in a Cindarella dress. I was really pleased as under the tree she has a reversible raggedy/princess cindarella dress from Mum. Words cannot express how much she is going to love it as anything to do with princesses and fairies is her great love right now. Poor thing at church has no girlfriends until a few weeks ago (now there is a little girl age 6 called rebeca who she loves) I hear her saying to Ben "And do you KNOW Ben, Cindarella has a blue dress?" and Ben replies "I dont CARE!" So nursery has been lovely for her and now she has a little girlfriend Gracie who lives by us so we walk home together every day. Aprt from Gracie she seems to play with all the (reportedly) naughty boys like Kane, Anthony Safina, Jude Wheelan (the latter two always named with surname) and Harry. Will update more soon. Happy first day of advent yall!
just to let you know we are off to spain tomorrow at 6am for a couple of days on a ryanair 1p deal. update this weekend
For those who did not know, we were making a little overnight trip to the Temple on Friday night, in a traffic jam on the M6 and rammed into the back of someone.Being a traffic jam, everyone was really close, but also means we were going really slowly, so no harm done...to us, or the other people, anyway which is the most important thing. Having said that, OUCH, big fat excess to pay. The radiator was sashed up it being right at the front and it was smoking so we got a tow. Ellie (apart froman intial wail when the crash woke her up) seemed to enoy being out of her carseat, Amelia was so woebegone, and the wailing was quite....constant? from "I want to go to the Teeeeee-mple, I MISS the Teeeem-ple" to "I want to go HOME" and "I want my own bed, are we going to sleep in a DIFFERENT bed, I dont WANT a different bed!" (my sentiments exactly, I was thinking) Anyway she calmed down when we drove in the tow truck and she discovered it was quite an adventure after all. 2 gingerbread men and 5 malted milks for tea? who could be happier? we were even home and the girls fast asleep in bed by 8. I guess it had felt later because of the dark evenings. I am pretty gutted baout the car, and now we have to get a taxi to the airport, and back, but, I keep seeing the image of Ellie being thrown forward and then being pulled back by her seat belt and hearing Amelia scream when we hit (a combination of the shock of the big noise and she bit the inside of her cheek, she was lamenting her cheek for a good while!) and thinking how it could have been serious and it wasnt and who wants more out of life than your family safe????
