We’ve done Not Very Much this week, some shopping in town, a lot of lazing around (definitely turned into a teenager house as we’ve only managed to be up by 10am on the one day I had a friend coming over!), eating, playing games, but it’s all been good.

Anyway, realised that I’d forgotten to blog this vid while it was still in season, but better late than never, a montage of the kids’ Christmas music this year, only the choir stuff unfortunately missing.

So the only debate for tonight is: twenty-ten or two thousand and ten? I’m using both at the moment! Whichever it is, I hope your celebrations tonight are fun and that the year ahead is filled with good things, challenges, excitement, and geocaches

Actually didn’t spend all of NYD playing AC (that would be too much even for me) but instead at Steve’s parents. Had a very pleasant day, ate far too much, and exchanged gifts. They gave me a lovely signed, framed Simon Drew print, and got us all tickets for the panto tonight, cool.

I must confess that although we had intended to camp, we ended up in a static caravan after all – only because Steve sold our Alpina (with the towbar on it) on the weekend before Christmas and it turned out to be just as easy to upgrade to a static as to sort out another tow car! Still, it was nice to have that little bit more space for the holiday, let’s not mention how disappointed we all were to see the Alpina go!

Our first full day dawned bright and sunny, perfect for a Winter Walk

Afterwards we went our separate ways, and our family ended up in Newport’s Pizza Express for lunch, which was really nice, we like Pizza Express.

Later we hit the shops for a little bit of sales shopping; Anna bought herself a lovely 2 part top set, and Steve found a jacket he liked. Then we headed back for a quick swim before tea.

New Year’s Eve saw us almost doing a number of things … we hung around the caravan and went swimming in the morning, then went out and almost walked along to the Needles (but then didn’t due to general lack of enthusiasm), almost visited the Isle of Wight Pearl Centre (then didn’t due to it having closed half an hour before we got there), and then finally ended up at the cinema which was good for us but not so good for the others who’d already seen Enchanted and didn’t fancy Bee Movie.

On New Year’s Day we swam in the morning again, or some of us did at least! Then we went out for lunch together which was great, and followed that with a walk on the beach and the inevitable wasting of 2ps in the arcade on the pier afterwards.

All in all a lovely few days

We had a great time actually, a fair bit of girly screaming and overexcitement but not too much – some games, food, and at midnight some raucous dancing to Jools’ Hootenanny. Think they finally went to sleep sometime after 2am although I’m not sure as that’s when I went to sleep!

Thankfully no-one got up too early – the big girls were first at 8am but they came down and played Wii for a while with the door closed, meaning that the younger girls didn’t wake until nearer 9, and Josiah was up sometime after that, even though he went to bed at 9pm the night before! Breakfast was special cereals (ie all the ones they’re not usually allowed to have!), chocolate crepes and waffles with maple syrup

Happy 2007, folks

This afternoon I’ve taken the Christmas tree down, it was drying out and annoying me generally. Wanted to do it before film night last night but didn’t quite manage it. It’ll be hanging around for ages though – the council are collecting them but not for a couple of weeks – it would help if I knew which recycling schedule week we’re on but I’ve really lost track! So I’ve been hoovering and sorting out, which always feels good. My cake-a-month friend has popped round for a visit which has been lovely, and the piano teacher is here with the girls.

I’m so pleased that we found her, she has now been here for half an hour longer than she should have been, just mucking around with Anna on the piano. It’s lovely – I do it a bit with the girls but it’s really nice that Laura makes the time for them as well – they are really learning to enjoy music all round, not just go through the mechanics of learning to play. Something I count as important She’s taught the girls some improvisation thingummy as well, and they love fiddling around with it together. Obviously she does all the scales and pieces etc. as well; I’ve paid for Anna’s Grade One exam entrance today, so that’s definite for March sometime!

Have played lots of games today – Junior Articulate, which the kids had for Christmas (pretty much the same as the adult version, just slightly easier things on the cards and a shorter board). Joe and I have been playing Mindbender (Woolies version of Mastermind) this afternoon too.

We’re being boring this evening and not doing anything in particular to celebrate, as per usual, I’m very bah humbug about New Year’s Eve! But Happy New Year all round

Apart from that, we’ve had a nice New Year’s Day, I cooked roast beef for dinner which was fantastic (even though I do say so myself – a roast dinner here is a rarity so it’s worth mentioning), we’ve taken bikes out to the park, played playstation some more, and we all enjoyed watching Carrie’s War together, which will have been vaguely educational I’m sure.

Anna also shared one of her Christmas games with us, ‘Categorically Speaking’, from WHS, where you had to pick letters and categories, then write down things in each category that began with the letter. Anna lost badly but still enjoyed playing the game, and actually did very well to get the points she did!

Anyway leave a comment if you can see this, it’ll make me feel better )

This morning we had a full house – the children had friends round watching DVDs upstairs (Indiana Jones again), while we had other friends round downstairs. Josiah enjoyed having Ethan to play, and we especially had fun with the eye toy … took a pic for those of you who haven’t seen one – you can spot the little camera just in front of the tv, and if you look carefully in the photo you can see Joe and his friend in the picture on the screen. It’s such fun!

This afternoon we all went bowling, we needed to get out of the house and do something, and this fitted the bill nicely! I think it’s the first time Joe’s really taken part (he and I were a team, because my finger wasn’t up to it – I dropped a mug earlier because it just gave up!) and he really enjoyed it.

This evening we’re being boring and sitting at home to see the New Year in. We watched ‘Anna and the King’ earlier – great film, daft time of day to show it – and now we’re playing Broken Sword 3on the PS2 with our friends, we have a long history of enjoying adventure/strategy games together – long nights at Bible College were spent in front of the PC playing Monkey Island and Broken Sword so it’s a bit nostalgic for us, too! Plenty of wine here, too ;o)

Happy New Year to one and all … xx. Have to go now, I’m being told off for being an antisocial blogger!