Electric Shock

With 2010 coming to an end and 2011 close in sight I was in a pretty good mood. This year has been good to us and next year was sure to be just as rewarding then something slips through the letter box. I knew without even opening it what it was, so why did I open it? Perhaps I'm crazy or perhaps I'm desperate to open something since it's been so long since I've received any mail at all! Who knows? The thing is I opened it and there it was. the annual statement for the electric bill! 'Your new monthly payment is £71.00 with effect from 5/01/11' A Happy New Year indeed.. when we first moved here our first monthly installments were £47, later they crept up to £65 and now they want £71?! not just that but my account is £100 in debit?! how the heck did that happen?! Yeah I'm sure the tumble dryer uses quite a bit of electricity but geez! The person on the phone told me if I switch to direct debit I could save £80 a year but no thank you I get into way too much trouble with direct debits, I can never keep track of how much is coming off when and sooner or later the bank is charging me unneccesary £40 fees. Then I noticed the tumble dryer was at the 80 minute mark I opened it up and had a feel, everything was dry! 'WILLIAM!' I've enforced a new rule, the tumble dryer gets set at 40 minutes on high and if theres anything not dry after that time it can get hung up on a radiator or drying rack. What a way to end a perfectly good year, heres hoping 2011 isn't full of annoying little surprises like that!

365 days of activity blogs?

Inspired by this years advent activities I thought it might be a fun idea to make my new years resolution to do something fun with the kids every day and blog about it, My other half pointed out that it was a bad idea because it puts too much pressure on me to do something every day and to write a blog every night and that some days or nights I might not feel up to it, I might want a day of just doing nothing, and I suppose in a sense he could be right, for instance if I was to become unwell I certainly wouldn't be up to it so I've made my new years resolution simply 'Teach Joy to Read' I realize she's still young, she's only 4, so I might not be successful at this. Donald was reading at such a young age but I understand that she is completely different from him so I'm not getting my hopes up but I will do my best anyways!

Now theres the matter of how to spend hogmanay? We were going to take the kids to their cousins to celebrate the new year but their cousins are all unwell so there goes that idea. I thought about asking if anyone would like some first footers because we've literally done nothing for the past few years and I was really looking forward to getting out and doing something but I thought if someone takes us up on it we can't change our mind and tomorrow night I might not be so fond of the idea of getting out so then the idea of sending the kids to bed early and playing scrabble til midnight with the other half came into my head. It's a lame way to spend new year, I was so looking forward to getting out but it's better than listening to kids hyper on shloer running around way past their bedtime!

The real tree experience - would I do it again?

Well today I started taking down the christmas tree. Much earlier than usual, usually we atleast keep it up for the new year but My living room is in such a mess and I figure if I could atleast get that corner back from the christmas tree I'd have somewhere to stick everything! Not to mention, nobody has watered the thing since before christmas and it's literally raining pine needles! I asked the kids to move their toys from under the tree so I could clean up the pine needles and Donald got one stuck in his thumb just under the nail! I got a needle and tried digging it out but he kept screaming saying it hurts so i searched for the tweezers instead, again he kept screaming saying it hurts! I showed him my pinky where I have a bit of lead from a pencil stuck under the skin since the third grade and told him I wouldn't let anyone take it out from my finger and if he doesn't let me get the pine needle out of his it will stay there forever. I started poking at it with the needle again and encouraged him to be brave telling him it was coming out now, Finally I pulled it out with the tweezers and we were all relieved.

This morning I started pulling off all the decorations and packing them away. I thought about whether next year we would get another real tree or go artificial. Artificial trees are practical, they have strong branches all over and the pines don't fall off but they don't smell nice and they look fake and tacky. Not to mention, where to store it. Plus we did have the tree stand now, and at £10 it would be nice to use it more than once. However, with the real tree the Branches on the lower half were quite weak and couldn't support any decorations so the bottom half seemed naked compared to the top, There was that lovely pine smell though, and over all it appeared more christmassy. I'd like to think I would get a real tree again, Only if it was a smaller one (my size maximum) and only if it had good strong branches all over. That's a year away though so we have plenty of time to decide! the best part was going out as a family to find one so yes I do think we would do it again it was a great experience! for now getting it out of my home without making a trail of pine needles will be quite an experience!

Second night with the new duvet and pillows

You may remember I mentioned on Boxing day we took the kids to see their cousins. I left out that while there we were told that our niece was ill on Christmas day. She was fine on boxing day though, but you know what germs are like, they like to hang around a while. William happened to pick some up and take them home, the day after boxing day (unfortunately the night he returned to work) he was sick as could be, I'll spare you the details. The rest of us were fine though.

 when william went to work and all the kids were asleep I went on argos to see if I could get a cheap kingsize duvet cover since we only had the one that I bought on boxing day. I found one i liked for £8.99 so I reserved it. I snuggled into my brand new fresh clean duvet for the second time.

I awoke at 2:30am surprised that Teo hadnt woke up yet but to the horrendous sound of Joy vomitting all over my bed! Why was she even in my bed?! I was mad! I put her on the couch and asked if she had been sick in her own bed she told me no so I took her word for it since I couldn't be bothered with cleaning more than one bed anyways. I stripped my bed and thought to myself how ironic it was that I had ordered the new duvet cover too late. I got the dirty linen in the washing machine right away and went back to sleep.

So the brand new fresh clean duvet and pillows didn't last very long. In the morning William returned from work and informed me that Joy had been sick in her bed after all. maybe I should have checked it last night despite her insisting she hadn't, I didn't want to disturb Teo though. Fortunately William stripped her bed for me and washed them. He also pointed out that she could use a new duvet. We hope to get Teo a bed and matress in January too  so we'll be spending ALOT of money in the next few weeks but atleast we'll all have lovely new bedding.. well most of us.

boxing day!

Today, Boxing day, is a Sunday, which means we had to go to church. I was really looking forward to it too because the minister told the kids they could all bring something santa brought them so I knew it was going to be fun! Problem was, as yesterday was Christmas the kids were up pretty late. We didn't wake up until 9:30 am! I threw on some clothes straight away, I wore the top the kids made me for christmas!

 After an hour of rushing and screaming we made it to church! Donald brought his nintendo dsi, Joy brought her camera, and Teo brought some pots and pans!

After church Daddy started lunch and the kids started playing with their Toys. Donald built a race car with the workbench Gramma Sharon and Grampa Tim sent for him!

Then Donald and Joy started expanding the Dino Track I built last night

After Lunch we took them to see their cousins so they could see what each other got. On the way home we went to Tesco for milk and I saw they had a king size duvet cover, fitted sheet, and 4 pillowcases set for £22. Williams dad gave us £20 for christmas, most people would split it £10 each but We decided to put £2 towards it and buy the duvet set! we also noticed the silent night duvets were £22 and we did need one, ours was only a double (can you believe we've had a king size bed for over a year and still using a double duvet?!) Okay, it's christmas spoil ourselves! why not? we grabbed the duvet! then i saw silent night 2 pack pillows for £10 each! I grabbed 2 packs (4 pillows). Once you add it altogether it's pretty expensive but we had been putting it off for so long and we needed to treat ourselves.

As soon as I got home I stripped my bed, binned the old duvet and pillows and On with the new!

So beautiful, but it wasn't long until Teo found out and climbed in!

Time to eat some leftover turkey to finish off a Brilliant boxing day!

My Christmas Wish Came True!

I was up until 3am building toys and wrapping presents I had the living room set up perfectly, Donalds presents on the couch, Joys on the chair, and Teo with his own special corner.

When I went to bed I couldn't get to sleep try as I might. at one point I must have fallen asleep because I woke at 6am and decided to not bother going back to sleep. William got up with me too. I walked around the house, made some tea, made a bit of noise to entice the kids to wake up but they wouldn't. Eventually I gave up waiting for them and William and I started opening our presents. I gave him a coupon book with the following coupons:
1.Control the remote for a day
2. Cup of Tea
3. 50 point head start at scrabble
4. Foot rub (if feet are clean)
5. Massage
Might not seem like much but he appreciated it!

Joy was the first to wake up and she got tore into her presents right away! Then Teo came in and went straight for his kitchen!

Teo started the 'breakfast' and Joy bounded into Donald's room bouncing up and down declaring that santa had been and he had to come open presents.

They opened all their presents (except Teo, he took all day to get through his pile) and went to check their stockings. Inside their stocking they found a message from santa telling them he had hid a present for them and giving them clues to follow to find it. Donalds clues sent him into the kitchen cupboards, into his desk drawer, and finally into the hoover cupboard where he found his gift

Joys clues sent her in the christmas tree, in the mailbox, and finally the tv where she found hers

When Donald was 3 He would declare 'It's just what I always wanted' after opening every single gift, and after the last few years of his ungratefulness I was really wishing he would tell me 'It's just what I always wanted!' and I got my wish. Most gifts he opened, even if it wasn't something he asked for, he told me it was just what he wanted! I was so happy! this has been the best christmas in a long time and I needed it! My gifts were A snuggie, 3 pairs of earrings, and a shake weight from William, A long sleeve top made by the children, and A dreamcatcher, A calander, A nodding Pig, and 2 little Pig figurines from Tracy. Plus William and I got a box of roses to share off his dad.

After christmas dinner we lit some candles on the Happy Birthday Jesus cake and sang happy birthday to Jesus.

That's really what christmas is all about, so it's the most important part of Christmas day for me.

The cake was really tasty. Now we're all just relaxing and playing with Toys!

I wish I could tell you everything the kids got but they got so much it's too hard to list them off the top of my head! all I can say is their christmas wishes came true and so did mine!

Christmas Eve!

WHAT A DAY! Let's start at the beginning when it was calm and peaceful. Teo had opened the final box on our train and revealed our final activity:

Read The night before Christmas and Open a present before bed.

Both activities could wait til bedtime, and they had to because we had so much to do! William and I had to get presents for each other, we had to deliver some cards last minute, we had to buy bread and milk, I was hoping to bake cookies for santa and we had the church christingle service at 6!

I won't rant on about how stressful today has been, the best bits were delivering a card to my friend Laura who until I ran into in the town a while ago I hadn't seen in years! and the Church christingle service. We never got the cookies baked. When we got home from church we realized we had to get the kids bathed, and clean the living room, and the million things to do all seemed too much so we let them decorate some store bought shortbread for santa instead. Even with cutting out baking cookies they were still awake after 9pm!

We did manage to complete our final activity, how could anyone forget about opening a present? Joy and Donald tore into theirs! Joy got this duvet cover

'It's just what I wanted!' Joy declared. I remember when Donald used to say that about everything.
Donald got This duvet

I started teasing saying, 'Donalds disappointed, it's not the one he wanted'. and he said 'it is!' I said 'you didnt say it's what you wanted' he said 'but i was thinking it' bless him.

We started changing their bedding and Teo climbed into Joys immediately.

But there was plenty of room for Joy too!

While we were changing Donalds bedding Teo finally got around to opening his present!

He got a pair of pjamas!

There was only one thing left to do and Finally they could sleep and santa would come!

The night before Christmas, I don't need to explain what it's about It's a classic, everyones heard of it and if you haven't, google it! This was yet another gift my friend Krystal sent the kids one year! I tucked Donald in and read it to him first then lights out. Then it was into Joys room to read it to her and Teo.


Now Shhh Santa's coming.

23 down only one to go!

Today Joy opened the box for the last time. only one more box to open. Todays fun activity was to make Merry Mice for our neighbours. this was a tricky one because it turned out Joy and Teo were a bit too young to do much at all.

I traced around the template daddy made last night and let Donald cut it out

He found this quite difficult though so we swapped roles. Donald traced the templates for me.

I cut out the pieces he traced. I had to make 2 slits in the middle though and at one point I wasn't careful enough and slit my finger. I am glad it was me and not any of the children. Scissors are dangerous!

I showed Joy how to slot the ears into the body and let her help with that.

I also let her stick on some eyes and a pom pom nose.

We decided to make 2 per neighbour so we needed 10 in total. I thought Donald would like to assemble one so let him give it a go as well.

While Donald and I created the final Mice Daddy, Joy and Teo took some of the finished ones to our neighbours. Some of our neighbours were not home though so Donald will help to deliver those tomorrow.

There was some extra felt, eyes, pom poms and Candy Canes so we made some more for the kids to keep. Donald loves his!

Our neighbours were delighted with the special presents we made them, even our downstairs neighbour who always complains about us being too noisy appreciated the merry mice!

Thats 23 advent activities completed and only one to go!

22nd Day of Advent and we want some figgy pudding!

Today was Donalds last turn to open the box, aww. it's terribly sad in a way but on the other hand Joy gets one more turn, Teo gets one more turn and it's christmas! hooray! Today Donald read out the activity in his last box:

Sing Christmas Carols!

Oh sure anyone can sing Christmas Carols, infact, We've been doing it all week in the house! but this time we would be doing it for friends and/or family! and hopefully we would get some figgy pudding, cause we wont stop until we get some!

Our first door was my grans, except she wouldn't come to the door so we went in.

We sang Jingle Bells, which If you read my blog yesterday you will know we practiced plenty!

My gran explained to the kids that in her day when she sang carols she got money for it and gave them each a pound, they beamed and thanked their great grandma. William was shocked, he thought carol singing was some crazy american thing that would look silly over here but turns out he was wrong! I was hoping for figgy pudding but Just to see William proved wrong was reward enough for me! Teo on the other hand just wanted a cuddle from his Great Grandma.

We travelled on to our next victim I mean friend. Our next song was 'We wish you a merry christmas'

Now bring us some figgy pudding Now bring us some figgy pudding Now bring us some figgy pudding and bring some out here!

No figgy pudding.

Onward we travelled. We sang our hearts out and were giving up hope of every getting some figgy pudding 'Deck the halls with boughs of holly fa la la la la la la la la' we practiced in the car as we travelled. We wanted to sing for Williams aunt but she wasn't home. we ended up at Williams dads where we finally got some

Cherry cake. Oh well, might as well enjoy it!

We earned it!

Day 21!

As I write this the kids are doing the second half of todays advent activity 'watch winnie the pooh a very merry pooh year dvd'.

 I will join them once I finish writing this, hopefully there will be some popcorn left!

We already completed the first half of our advent activity and I guess we were a bit noisy because ms Heckles downstairs started banging up at us that is why I decided to start the second half now.

The first part of todays advent was to make Symbols of Christmas Bells. I asked them 'when you hear the word christmas, what do you think of? these are our symbols.' the answers came pouring out 'toys' 'sweets' 'presents' We all thought hard about what our christmas symbols would be and once we knew we got started drawing them on paper.

Donald drew his himself, but Joy told me what she wanted and I drew them for her. Teo just got what I gave him because the only words he can say 'Ball' 'Hiya' 'eye' and 'Hooray' aren't very chrismassy.

I put the bell into Joys Cup and let her paint it while I drew her symbols.

Donald noticed that she had painted what looked like a t-rex skeleton on her cup!

impressive!

She glued on her symbols while Donald had just started painting his bell

Her christmas symbols, which she chose herself were A present, A candy cane, Santa, and a Snowflake.

Teo didn't want to be left out so he grabbed the glue stick!

The symbols I did for him were a candle, an angel, a star and a stocking.

Donald made his bell entirely by himself! His symbols were Reindeer, present, snowflake, and christmas tree.

My symbols were A christmas tree, a present, a candy cane, and the cross.

once they were all made...

We jingled all our bells and sang!

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way!
Bells on bob-tail ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight!

Jingle Bells Jingle Bells
Jingle all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh!
Jingle Bells Jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh!

20th of December! oh my goodness!

Today started off on the wrong foot. I woke at about 10:30 am and Donald came into my bedroom to say 'momma you've been asleep all morning and haven't woken up once!' we all had breakfast and as soon as Joy finished, she wasn't waiting for anyone else to finish, she opened the train to reveal todays activity!

Watch Winnie the Pooh seasons of giving dvd and string popcorn!

I set up their chairs in Donalds room in front of the TV and set up the DVD then I went to make the popcorn and decided I better thread the needles first. While I was doing that Teo was crying. I was furious, I couldn't leave them alone for a minute without them upsetting Teo. I told them that I wasn't going to make the popcorn. Eventually they appologized and I gave Joy the needles to hold while I got the popcorn made. I told her just to hold them not to play with them but could she do that one simple thing? Nope. Into another rage I threatened we wouldn't do todays activity and that we would clean the house instead. Eventually I calmed down and rethreaded the needles. I gave them each a needle and thread, and a bowl of popcorn and pushed play. quickly before the DVD started I showed them how to thread the popcorn and they got started.

I sat in Donalds bed and started mine.

Teo kept trying to eat all of Joys popcorn

But eventually we finished the popcorn chains and all that was left to do was hang them on the tree!

They look beautiful!

I just hope that nobody eats them so they can stay there!