december

december 24

aly, toby, zoe and flynn on their way to bed with their pillowcases ready for santa

all ready for christmas and for sascha's 40th. i still haven't seen too much of england, but sascha, aly and toby had a one night stop over in london. they stayed just opposite where sascha and i had met at the old bluewave offices on edgeware road. they took a double decker bus tour on the day they arrived and then, since they were all awake at 5.30am the next day, walked down edgeware road/oxford street and waited for selfridges to open at 9am then hamleys at 10am. they walked through piccadily circus and then headed for heathrow so we could all finally meet up.

aly has been bridesmaid dress shopping in chester, been to chester zoo with daniel and sara, elfed while she stayed at auntie di's house and elfed over at grammy and grandad's house. meanwhile, the rest of us have been christmas shopping and helping take care of flynn [when we haven't had coughs or colds - so about half the time we've been here!].

i did get the chance to meet up with my long lost friend, clare revill, and meet her lovely daughter evie. we met at the lady lever art gallery and figured out that it had been over 20 years since we saw one another [gasp!]

whilst lost in warrington earlier this week we had a lovely pub lunch. zoe was mesmerized by the slot machines surrounding her. toby's fish was as big as his head and aly was quite puzzled by her breakfast. she's not used to breakfast with beans, chips, giant wobbly undercooked bacon, giant sausages and very yolky eggs [weird - no one asked her how she would like her eggs cooked!]

anyway, i'm very excited about christmas with my family for the first time in 3 years and delighted my sister has moved 'up north' to a house big enough for us all to fit nicely in. merry christmas everyone!

december 11

i'm back to blogging with one hand whilst holding a baby in the other [i started blogging just after toby was born 11 years ago and that's why my blog has never had any uppercase letters in it!]. i can't really tell you about anywhere i've been or anything i've done because these bonus 2 weeks were purely to get to know my new nephew and help out kellie and mike with him. the jet lag has been awful but quite handy for night feeds! i did have the chance to meet up with the rest of the family on sunday but really zoe has seen much more of them than i have since she's been staying with mum and dad while i've been at kellie's.

flynn's a lovely little guy. he's now 6lb 6ozs at 6 weeks and doing great. i feel privileged getting to spend this time with him. it can be handy not having a job at times!

december 1

i still can't get used to watching clouds float past the living room window. i had no idea what a high elevation we were at during the summer. it was only once autumn hit that the clues were there! this morning a huge cloud stopped and hovered over the pond for the longest time. it looked very spooky

hmmm.. just realised my new year's resolution was to sort out a new website. maybe i should stop blaming sascha for aly's procrastination tendencies! one month of 2012 left and it's looking like a bit of a busy month. maybe i'll have to carry over to next year!

speaking of aly, she had a wonderful report card. her report cards are never bad and her teachers always love her but this one was full of A's (except for a B in art of all things!). it's so nice to see her thriving at middle school - and a new school at that :)

so tomorrow, zoe and i travel to the uk. i'm thinking i should have been bulking zoe up for this trip. she may be almost 4 but she only weighs the same as the average one year old and i kind of need her to pull at least her own bodyweight around at least 1 or 2 of the 4 airports we will have the pleasure of visiting on our 24hr door-to-door journey! all those darned christmas/birthday presents. you'd think i could have just ordered everything there wouldn't you?

our christmas cards arrived yesterday so i've been frantically writing and mailing them. it's just as well, since i've never know sascha to spontaneously write a card in his life. i've filled the freezer with meals and written a list of dinner options on the fridge door. i've assigned toby to making school lunches and aly to helping grampy make dinner every night. i've written a white board chart of what each child needs to pack when they follow us over. they're actually really good at packing, but sascha's going to have his hands full in the run up to christmas, so there's a good chance someone could arrive in the uk without underwear! i've cancelled the local paper. written notes to schools about absences. organized notarized permission letters from sascha to me and me to sascha to travel with children without one another [always annoying to have to do], i've sorted a mail-hold service while we're away... but i still have that nagging feeling that i've forgotten something essential. it's very handy that sasch will still be here if i have though.

right, better go weigh the cases and see how far zoe can pull hers!

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