The Morning After

After the late night last night Theo didn't want to get up.  The problem with a family hotel room is that we're all in the same room so as soon as one is up, everyone is up.  This is how Louis solved the problem of Theo not waking up.  He climbed in his bed lol.  Theo does look a little puzzled to see him there.

More Photos

Theo playing whilst we wait for lunch in Old Orleans.  We'd just been to Cineworld to watch Madagascar 2, trying to keep the boys occupied before we go to Bapous after lunch.

Theo and Uncle Michael showing off Theos new Bakugan

Bapous relinquishing his right to blow out the candle on his birthday cake

And finally, Aunty Helen, Natalia, Christian (with Sienna the baby staff), Rianna, ??, Joseph (I think) and Theo

My Big Fat Greek Birthday (Party)

This is the reason we came to London this week, my Father-In-Law's 73rd birthday.  

The thing I've learned from these get togethers is that, 1st you fuel the kids up with sweets and chocolates all day then watch them bounce around the house all night.  This was about 10.30pm in the middle of a game of musical statues, both Theo and Louis still bouncing off the walls so the staying still part was definitely hard work for them and unsurprisingly Theo got a tad upset when he was out.  Still, he soon recovered and joined in again.  Poor Teddy was a casualty of the evening and came home with a groin injury after a tug of war between the various cousins,  Mummy will be performing bear surgery later on this week.

All the relatives arrived for the party from about 8pm.  Furniture was rearranged and tables brought in from the garden to seat everyone at the table for the seemingly endless flow of food, most of which was new to me so just had to be sampled.  I tell you, if we ever stay there longer than a day or two I'm going to come away the size of a house.  I think once everyone had arrived there were about a dozen children between the ages of 1 and 8 and about 20 adults.  

We called it a night somewhere round about midnight.  Louis was unconscious on the sofa, Theo was just dozing  and Adam was nicely pickled.  Somehow we managed to loose one of Louis shoes between the house and the hotel, oops.

More photos to follow, this one is my 1 for my photo a day project (I think my challenge is going to be narrowing it down to 1 photo per day lol)

NB if the post dates are confusing you, I am not telling to future, I adjusted the dates so the photo for the day appears on the correct date

Hoteyal

Todays photo is a picture of our hotel room at Premier Travel Inn Enfield (wohoo).  I took a couple of photos before this one and Adam held a pillow up infront of his face to avoid being in the pictures.  Louis is just copying him, honestly.

Among my many photos of the hotel today there are one or two shots of the door.  For some strange reason Adam thinks I'm insane.  I wonder why that is??

Wildmut

Those of you out there with little Ben 10 afficianados will no doubt know exactly who this is.  Those of you without, you are missing out on a world of quality entertainment!  This, is the one and only Wildmut.  He is on of the 10 aliens that said 'Ben' can transform into.  This particular model is also a very irritating motion sensor alarm thingy that growls at you every time you walk past it, if it has it's mouth open.  Theo likes to hang him off the handle of the living room door and Louis likes to stand infront of him, waving, making him growl.  It's such a lovely noise.  Not!

Wildmut is todays photo because, to be honest, today we did very little apart from stay in and play with toys (Adam did go out to get his Dad's birthday present but we were not invited).  When I asked Theo what I should take a photo of today, this was the suggestion.  So here he is ladies and gentlemen, Wildmut the motion detector.

After after eights for under twos

Louis trying to shake melted After Eight mint off his fingers

Boxing Day Ministrations

Mummy decided to have a lie in today so, rather than wake me up, Louis applied his own nappy cream.

He came into the bedroom looking really pleased with himself and saying 'cream' and 'lips' so I just had to grab my camera phone.

Christmas Day 2

OK so I couldn't narrow down the photo selection at all.  Here are a few more from the day

Theo and Louis investigating the contents of a gift bag.

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Theo reading the tags and giving out the presents.  He was so excited I ended up surrounded in everybodys presents because he was dishing them out faster than they could be opened. 

Finally, something I'm allowed to bash

Louis 'reading' his (upside down) Night Garden book

After dinner at Lisa's we all had a play on Liam's new Wii.  Here Lisa and I are playing tennis.   I won, yay.

Christmas Day

Now Christmas has got to be one of the hardest days for picking just 1 photo but here it is.  Of the multitude of photos and video footage we took today, this is my favourite.  Theo opening the present that Santa gave him when he came to school.

Note the new pyjamas too.  Apparently Santa made an early stop on Christmas Eve and dropped off a new pair of pyjamas each for the boys so they wouldn't have to get dressed before they opened their pressies.  You can tell just how considerate Santa is by the fact the Louis pyjamas (and Theo's to a lesser extent) have plenty of growing room in them :D

Nigella Chocolate Fudge Cake

Theo has been nattering to make a chocolate cake for a while now.  Ever since he made one with Adam for my birthday infact.  So that's what we did this morning whilst Louis was at nursery.

Todays photo is the page from the Nigella cookbook.  You can see I've written in it, changed the measurements from metric to imperial (I've only got imperial weights for our kitchen scales at the moment).

The cake was very nice, we've tried some already.  I made a 2nd one to take to Lisa's tomorrow when we go for Christmas dinner.

Did I mention that I didn't realise how much it was going to rise so when we took the first one out of the oven we had to peel half of it off the grill element.  Oops lol.  Still, it's a sandwhich cake so that was only half the cake and it needed trimming so it would sit together nicely anyway.  Just as well.

A Photo A Day

A few people I know are having a go at this project this year.  It does exactly what it says on the tin, hehe.

The idea is that you take at least 1 photo everyday.  People are doing this for various reasons from attempting to improve their photography to documenting a big (or not so big) year.  I think I'm doing a bit of both.

What you do with the photo is entirely up to you.  I'm going to start by posting them here and see if anything else comes to mind during the year.  If nothing else it should improve the frequency of my blog posting (and maybe bore you lot to sleep lol)

So here's my first photo.  Why wait 'til January 1st?.

My first ever pair of Dr Marten boots (1940 5400 black, fine haircell leather 14 hole) arrived today.  Adam thinks I'm turning into a hippy student or a lesbian.  I just think they're good boots.  They take a bit of lacing up though.  That'll be fun in a morning when we're rushing to get ready for school.

Theo tried them on when they arrived.  When I told him about the steel toe caps he started wandering around the house, well more like staggering around the house with two lead weights on his feet lol, looking for something he could drop on his toes.

Relative Relations

About 6 months ago my older sister Sheila and I had a falling out.  Not to go into details but needless to say that until recently we haven't spoken to each other.

Well anyway, cut a long story short (and prevent any further fallings out), our cousin had a birthday party to which we were both invited and from there conversation kinda happened.  Things are not perfect but they are certainly improving.

Just incase a big family get together at Christmas was a bit too much so soon, we decided to all meet at Farnley Working Mens club for a bit of an early Christmas to exchange gifts etc.  I took  a couple of boxes of mince pies, a tin of chocolates and a box of crackers and we pretty much made an evening of it.  We decided before hand the we were going to let the kids open their presents there so we could see.

This is a picture of Theo wearing the Spiderman3 mask that Toby got from Aunty Lisa.  Do you like his snazzy shirt and tie?  I had my first ever shopping trip to Next this week and found this.  Not only is it a shirt and tue just like Daddy wears, but it has cuff links too, just like Daddys.  Someone was very pleased to be wearing this out, he likes to be smart :D  (and I like Next! Why have I never shopped there before?)

This is a picture of Theo in the PowerRangers outfit that Aunty Lisa bought him

and here is a photo of Louis with Theo's Power Ranger mask on.

Lets see, what else was there?  Theo got a creative box set from Aunty Sheila with lots of different crafty things to do.  He's already tried the glitter one :D

Louis got a Kid Knex Penguin from Aunty Lisa and a Bath toy set from Aunty Sheila.  He played with them in the club but he hasn't had chance to play with them in the bath yet.  The will come, he loves playing in the bath :D

Another Quick Update

Theo went to a school friend's birthday party at one of the local playgym's.  There was a face painter there and initially Theo was just going to get an eye patch to go with his pirate outfit.  However, he saw Seth with a Batman face so he changed his mind :D

Adam and the boys decorating the Christmas tree.

This is Theo's school nativity play.  If you look carefully you can see Theo near the middle, he's a brown donkey.  He did really well if I do say so myself.  Only a little fidgeting and nose picking (bleurgh).

This is my latest masterpiece.  A denim / flannel rag quilt I made as a Christmas gift for my niece Tayler-Marie.  The squares are 6" so you can see it's about 4' x 6'6".  If you look carefully about 1/3 or the way down and 1/3 of the way up there are pockets in the denim patches.  I'm really pleased with this.  Next job is to make one for her sister :D

The last picture of this entry (for some reason I can only put 5 pictures in each entry) is my sleeping beauty.  Look at all those gorgeous curls.

More to come later but right now it's late so I'm off to bed.

Night all

Karen

xx

Advent

For some unknown reason, this year I decided I would make the boys advent calendars.  The decision in itself not a bad thing, except when it keeps moving down your to do list until a week before the end of November you realise you haven't even started yet.  Aargh.

So here they are, almost finished (notice the final seam at the top of each calendar that needs finishing) but in use never the less, the boys aren't enjoying them any less because of a little exposed wadding.  :D

I'll finish the seams once they're finished with and maybe even do a little quilting around Santa.

October and November

We went to Durham to visit Adam's Nan in the middle of November.  This is Theo and Adam playing with her wheelchair!  Good job she was nice and comfy sat on her bed at the time.

We had a great time seeing Nan and it was especially nice as Morgan, Alec and the kids came up too so we went for dinner with the after.  Had a good old natter and a catch up.  I even got have a cuddle of my newest niece, Amy-Louise, awwww.

Theo and Louis all dressed up for the Hallowe'en party at Tiddleypeeps (and trick or treating the following night)

On the recommendation of my friend Ali, I took the boys to Sundown Adventureland and here's the evidence.

Theo playing in the pirate ship,

Louis outside one of the houses in Storybook Village

and both of the boys emerging from one story houses, looks like Hansel and Gretel but I could be wrong.

It's a great place to go with them.  Probably better on a warmer day but still, we had fun.  It is designed for younger families.  There are a few short train rides but apart from that all of the attractions are interactive displays.  Lots of things for little hands to touch and feel and do.  We'll definitely be going back, but maybe on a warmer day lol