just another morning here

More from yesterday
Sorry, didn’t get round to doing this last night! We had a lovely time at Pennywell. All the children got dressed up and took part in a short nativity play, with real donkeys and lambs, in the barn which was beautifully decorated and lit. Here are my two angels, my little shepherd (with his sheepdog!), and our three with Abbie’s friend Billy who came with us. They were in fits of giggles because Billy’s King hat kept falling down over his eyes!!

After the nativity we went over to the cafe for refreshments and to see Santa in his grotto.

It was all very lovely, and the children really enjoyed it. A couple of other HE families met us there which was nice too. On the way home we finished off the birthday with tea at McDonalds. I’m definitely sticking to birthday treats instead of parties from now on, it was so much nicer, much less stressful!

I went out during the evening but apparently Abbie & Joe had a bit of trouble going to sleep because Charlie had woken up (as hamsters do!) and was running madly round in his wheel, making a huge racket. Oh well, I guess they’ll get used to it! He seems to have settled into his new home well, we might try a short cuddle when he wakes up this evening – apparently it’s important to handle hamsters often … hope he’s friendly and doesn’t get scared by the children!!

Meet the newest member of our family! Charlie was chosen by Abigail this morning in the pet shop, he’s an albino hamster and she is very chuffed to finally have a pet of her very own!


>Here she is with Charlie in his new home.

We’ve had a lovely morning … presents, slowly getting up, then a massive hot chocolate & marshmallows in Costa before hitting the pet shop. Abbie’s done really well with games, books, a mosaic set, and lots of hamster paraphernalia. She’s wearing a new outfit from Grandma, and the rest of the family is currently watching her birthday Lion King DVD – with new song, hurrah!

This was yesterday teatime with Grandma & Grandpa …

… and this is an update for Grandad & Nanna Lorraine, to show you that we finished the banner you gave us!

More to follow later after the nativity at Pennywell!

Okay, firstly, this one comes all the way from the Louvre in Paris … our friends took the pic of these Mummies in the Ancient Egypt section for us so it’s only polite to blog it (!!). Thank you, Adamses )

Today we’ve seen some other friends, we took them to Pennywell (last trip of the Season Ticket!) for the halloween activities there. Only they called it Jollyween, and the idea was to make your pumpkin look jolly … Anna wasn’t so keen on this idea and wanted hers to look scary … anyway, here they are scraping and carving the pumpkins:

don’t ask me why Anna has this bandana on her head – very random!

/>And I couldn’t resist adding this photo in as well, we like the pets.

Not much to write, but it’s been a lovely sunny few days so we’ve been out enjoying the summer. Yesterday morning we embarked on an art project using lots of different materials which Anna and I went into town to buy, first thing in the morning. Then in the afternoon we went to the park and met up with some long lost friends who used to live just down the road from us … we both moved to Scotland at the same time but they stayed for a couple of years more than us before moving back at the weekend. Anna was really pleased to see her friend again.

Later we had Girl’s Brigade and a long hot evening – the children aren’t sleeping in the evenings at the moment, so I’m instigating siestas all round after lunch instead, that way no-one gets too grumpy!

Today we’ve been down to Pennywell again, although it was very busy and very hot, so not as nice as usual. We stayed for lunch, but Joe had gone blotchy on his face and arms so we decided to come home earlier rather than later. It looks suspiciously like a sun-induced rash, so we’ll try to keep him out of the sun for a while. I have been very careful with their skin and use a high factor suncream, but it’s perfectly possible that he’s inherited his father’s sun-hating skin.

Since we’ve been home, we’ve thrown together some muffin mix and said muffins are in the oven as I write, while the children are watching cbeebies.

This afternoon we have a dentist’s appointment, then another hot evening ahead of us … I think we’ll have a storytape evening as today we received a freebie from the Winnie the Pooh magazine series, a little tape player. It’s pretty rubbish but will do the job for a while, and Joe & Abbie won’t feel so left out in their room now that they have a tape player too. And, now that I have the full set of freebies I think I’ll cancel the Nature Trail magazine subscription … it was nice, but not that good!