The End of the Festive Season (by sarah)

Today we had our last Christmas visitor, Barbara, so I put out the minced pies and cut up Christmas Cake and we apologised as we seem to have lost her tea towel with Mary's print on it that we were going to give her - so we gave her same homemade jam instead.

She gave Mary some lovely Hello Kitty wellies which is brilliant as it was starting to be a squeeze to get her into the ones she has and the previous bigger set she lost one of whilst we were out shopping one day. Jean got an art casse which she was excited about and Al got cheese which is always a hit with him. I got a pot of tulips which shall be going outside the front door.

Jean also tidied the front garden, litter picking the litter that blows in and sweeping up the leaves - mainly as she is whipping through her worst witch books and wants to earn money to buy the missing ones.

There would be photos of today but unfortunately Jean was taking photos yesterday and dropped it and today it has gone completely screwy 🙁 It was on it's way out anyway which is why I had saved up money to get a good one but I spent it on the TV so that we could use the X-Box, I do not regret this but I do now find myself with out a camera - right at the point where I am trying to launch myself back into things seriously - sigh.

On the other hand I do have a rather serious back log of photos to sort out anyway so maybe this will give me time to do that?

After Al's aunt left we started taking down all the decorations to general chagrin of the kids - Mary was walking about saying 'Oh! No!' whilst Jean was whining that the room was starting to look so bare which we felt too. Somehow Christmas went so fast this year.

It has been a fun one though.

Of course tomorrow I have one of my best friends from school visiting in a sort of post-Christmas/pre-birthday type of way which is going to be ace!

And last night I forgot to go to the pub with one of my local friends which I feel really bad about - It wasn't a good day medically for me but still...

Anyway the good thing about the decorations coming down is that I am in the mood for Spring Cleaning to be honest. We started today with putting hooks up to hang various house type things up, such as sun catchers and wall art butterflies and the broom and duster and carrier bag suasage.

Today also marks the constructed language Lojban's 25th Birthday - this is the language that Alaric has been learning for the past few years and that he has been teaching to Mary. So we have begun work on a little language comic type thing - we came up with the idea ages ago but haven't had the time to act upon it!

Apart from that we made bread in the bread maker and made our own sauce for the chickpea hodge podge we had for dinner - January is already a month of highs and lows but net effect seems to be positive at the moment.

Friends and Homes (by sarah)

Yesterday my friend visited - she is in her seventies, she bought loads of books and pretty trousers for Jeans and a teddy and dolly for Mary and for me purple, pink and white flowers. She reminds me of how proud I am of how I've set things up in this house - here they are at the dinning table.

The pink jacket Jean is wearing is from her too. I love our dinning area 🙂

I have loads of pics of improvements we've made which I really should post at some point. This time last year we were desperately waiting for the mortgage to go through after having negotiated a cheaper price. Alaric and Mary were ill with pnumonia and I was still using the crutches.

Things have changed for us drastically and even though the workshop has leaked and maybe ruined some of Alaric's tools things are still on the up. Over the next week or so he and my dad will make it safe for at least the winter, Monday he sealed some of the gaps in the bathroom and did some general mantinance things.

We have purple carpet on what was bare concret, with a purple setee from my family and purple curtains from my friend (same one who popped round today). We still haven't unpacked everything which is dreadful as we are approaching the 1 yr mark rapidly but at the same time I have just unpacked my Harry Potter lego which was still in the boxes we moved from Essex! They never got unpacked at The Bakery!

Last week we had my friend Becca visiting with her sister and little niece. This was something that wasn't really possible before as there was no were really to put anyone - oh we still had house guests but that had to be willing to sleep on the floor/sofa so was out for anyone with any sort of back problem!

(they bought astronaut icecream with them!)

We had a Baby Bake Off whilst Jean was at school!

I love the fact that people can tell it's our house by the fact there is a purple butterfly on the house and the amazement that I did not put the butterflies and dolphins in the bathroom - they were already there!

Yes we have had to give up the idea of bees (urban bees would upset the neighbours), but plans for chickens are under way. Main limiting factor is money is going to be tight again in the new year 🙁 But we plan to make a list of what and when we are doing certain things to the house and garden at New Year 🙂

We love our house! Everything from the kitchen that lends itself to our epic cooking feats to the Hammond Organ we accidently bought! This was dinner yesterday - Jean wasn't impressed but it was yummy.

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!

Anniversaries :) (by sarah)

This weekend saw my brother and sister-in-laws 1st wedding anniversary (well not actually it was like the weekend before or something but close enough) 🙂 I made cake and things - photos of that will be on here as soon as I can get Al to upload them off his phone!

It was also my mum and dad 34th anniversary on the Sunday so we had some lovely outings 🙂 And I'm looking forward to doing a large 35 cake for next year 😉

We went to the Cathedral and the Beatrix Potter place and cream teas were involved.