And Now You can Sponsor Our Noveling Madness (by sarah)

As the whole family is taken part in this and I am actually aiming for a nutty 90, 000 words in one month and have actually broken the 20 K mark today which means I've written more than 20, 000 words in a week, we thought we would put a page where people can sponsor us. The money is for the charity that organising the NaNoWriMo event every November but they do far more than keeping the servers and the likes going for insane writers like us. They put in a lot of work for classrooms and libraries and community efforts both on a local and global scale.

So it is there and waiting 🙂 No pressure.

Bonfire Night 2012 (by sarah)

Bonfire Night saw m and Jean cooking away - we attempted ice box cookies but it went a bit wrong - Jean ever resourcefull decided to turn them into bone sliver biscuit slivers.

We made some spooky chocolates as well with white chocolate 🙂

Not to mention a Fire Works Night cake 🙂 complete with an icing Guy Fawkes on top 🙂

Once all the cooking was done we popped out the decorations I'd gotten for Halloween which then sort of hadn't happened for us as we were at Cubs!

Jean toasting a marshmallow! A giant marshmallow! Baby scoffing a non-toasted marshmallow 🙂 And a tray of giant marshmallows - we still can not believe the size of these things!

I love my purple spider mug add in the glass eyeball stick that my friend Ulrike gave us and it is perfect for spooky drinks 🙂

Of course Jean's glowing screaming skull straw is pretty ace too 🙂

We had snacks 🙂 Little jelly ghosts, chocolate covered witch biscuits and chilli spider web pretzels.

Then we had indoor fireworks! (it was pretty miserable outside which is why we were not out at a display as planned plus there had been a good fireworks display at Legoland anyway!).

We did do one of them outside though as it was a fountain 🙂

After the in door fireworks we lit a fire lantern 🙂

After the outside stuff we had toffee and chocolate apples 🙂

The cats who should have been hiding from the fireworks - followed us out into the garden to see what all the fuss was about and seemed completely unworried about the fireworks. This being our first fireworks night in a built up area with them we were concerned but it was all fine in the end 🙂

If you want to see bigger versions of the photos just click on them 🙂

NaNoWriMo – the family thing :) (by sarah)

Everyone in the household is now involved in NaNoWriMo - Jean's story is amazing - I don't think she'll beat last years word count but that is fine and I've slowed her down slightly as she is producing the most articulate story and drawing pictures to boot!

Her story is based on the picture on the front of her note book! Mary of course could not be left out and so is scribbling in a little cat note book that I originally got for Alaric!

Alaric has been to his first write-in in Bristol at the Water Shed and is chuffed about his 2000 words plus. I have my first write in tomorrow (as in actual and not me and the girls and pumpkin soup.

We normally get a vat of jelly beans to see me through October and Novembers writing challenges and then through Christmas and a fair way into the new year but instead there was a Jelly Bean mug! The sort with a silicon lid that helps me not tip it all over myself and the laptop. It is purple comes with a few jelly beans and of course a new mug for my foul hot beverages is traditional for my writing madness.

There is also a little lego mascot ready to help me write. I've only managed 4000 words so far but am hoping to drastically up this at the write in - to stick to my self imposed word target I need to be averaging 3000 words a day!

Lego Land part 2 (by sarah)

More Halloween Spookies

More pictures of bits and bobs I found around the park!

We went in to see a 4D film though we did sit in the dry seats which was slightly cheating! We had to wear the 3D glasses for it and though I thought it was a bit juddery the girls loved it - they tried to grab the mug of hot drink as it swung past us! There were wind effects and foam snow falling from the ceiling and a wall of fire which made them squeak! Maurice ended up storing all our glasses on his head as we queued.

We then went to the shop! Where we found a giant lego Ninja which Jean loved so much she got a little keyring version 🙂

We spent quiet alot of time in the shops!

Jean found a Buzz Light Year to hug too 🙂

We then went for hot chocolates to warm up before the fireworks!

We'd bought Jean a light wand which proved entertaining for everyone though I did take it off of Mary as it packed a punch if you stopped it and she was sticking her fingers in it to see what would happen!

We then went outside for the fireworks and discovered that even though we had asked at the beginning and told up by the shop was a good spot it was not and the good area was closed off 🙁 But it was still fantastic!

The girls found themselves a good spot between the notice board and the fence so that all those annoying adults weren't in front of them - it was raining at this point and they had my old camp blanket which had belonged to my grandmother, wrapped around them!

We then went back for some dinner - LEGO FRIES!

Mary and Harry Shaking hands 🙂

More LEGO fries!

Alaric had bought a Darf Vada lego man torch which he was very excited about 🙂

Annabelle helped Mary with her drink and then it was time to go!

There will be more photos and a video at some point 🙂

LEGO Land Part 1 (by sarah)

As I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing already we went to Lego land at the weekend with Alaric's cousin Maurice and his kids Harry and Annabelle. I can not say how much I enjoyed it though it was slightly too cold for me and the queuing situation ment we didn't do alot of stuff. I have to confess that though lego land was my idea I didn't realise it was a theme park! I thought it was just lots and lots of models of things and room full of lego to play on - so I was pleasently surprised especially as we got a firework display and a 4D movie as well.

There are a lot of photos which I will probably split over several posts.

As we drew near there were lego people moving lego letters into place and Jean and Daddy and Me were puzzling over them when we saw that they make a giant WELCOME! Excitement grew especially when we found that the parking lot was marked out by giant lego letters!

I then got a little over excited at all the lego models that were Halloween themed and Jeany had to come and get me before I got completely seperated from the rest of the group.

We all grouped in the obvious place - by the dino lego clock! This had Jeany most interested 🙂

The weather wasn't brilliant but I still thought the views were pretty impressive 🙂

We then went into the Star Wars exhibit - but I will cover that in another post! As will Land of The Vikings, Minni World and Dino Safari 🙂

The kids wanted to go on a water ride which had dragons all over it. (I videoed them actually going past.)

Mary got frussy about not getting to join in or being allowed out of her pram so Alaric devised a method called - rope.

And then we went into the Maze! I think Alaric was more excited about this than anybody else though Harry solved it the fastest even if it did get him told off for running off 🙂

Each of the kids had to put their heads in the wholes for photos - this isn't lots of the same pic honest!

We wanted to go in and see the Egyptian stuff but there was a 75 minute wait! So we moved on to LEGO City in search of food. Of which we found pizza!

Lego City where the kids get diggy!

Though they had to queue for ages!

I kept finding lots of extra little things to photograph as we went.

Including the hotel were we all agreed we wanted to stay and had a long involved conversation about weather or not the beds and curtains would be made of lego!

Then there was an attempt at Atlantis but the que was too long, we did however brave the que for Dino Safari ( photos of which will be in another post along with most of the ones from Lego City!) We also watched a pirate play with the most amazing stunt actors - those are real people falling off the tower!

There is a lot more to come!