SUNNY SUNDAY

Run Forest Run

Play Dead

I'm a Leopard - Mwraow

"Trip Trap Trip Trap - Whos that walking over my bridge?" Said the Scary Troll

Today cousin Katie arrived from Australia and we went for a big walk in Sheen Common - its one of those gorgeous sunny crisp cold London winter days. We also walked through the cemetary, enjoyed looking at some really beautiful tomb stones -

and humping the jelly tree..

VWULLA VIOLA

This past weekend, S went with his Dad to a Viola Bonanza. He had a great time, listening to the chinese violinS there are 2 - one has millions of strings the other has 3 strings. There were 5 instruments on display and one really weird bow. He learnt to play D string then D3 then A then D - a new little ditty. Mister Lord of the Rings was there, he created all the music for the movies! So they got to hear 'hobbit' music and 'ork coming' music - when they are in the swamp an Orc comes on a dragon. The lady who was helping Mister Lord of the Rings was working with had a really big harp, it sounded really lovely and peaceful - it sounded like fairies coming down trying to put us to sleep. He played in a concert, they played Twinkle Little Star and May Song - there were also Cellos and Violins. Since then his playing and confidence has really improved and he is making a much more rich and beautiful sound!

CRAFTY BOY

Here are some things that S has made a school. The sword and collar are Kenyan, they have been studying Africa. And the mosiac makes a great hot plate for the middle of our table!

WISHING FOR...

A BRIGHT BLUE SKY AND A BRIGHT ORANGE SUN!!

SCIENCE FUN

We visited the Science Museum this week. Down in the "launch pad" lots of fun fun stuff to explore and learn about - We watched a demo on rockets and heard big load explosions and saw pringle cartons rocket into the ceiling. We also saw a demo on bubbles and saw such a big bubble that a girl could stand in it! saw other bubbles filled with gaseous dry ice bounce and sink to the floor and yet other bubbles full of fart gas rising to the ceiling and then she lit them with a big bang! fun fun FUN!! Then we went to another fun kids area and there were dress up clothes and these 2 with fetishes for dress up at the best of times loved prancing around as a ducky & doggy and following the paw prints around the museum...

UNCA P'S B'DAY

Handsome Uncle Paul celebrated his quarter centry on the 31st December 2005. We played charades and ate lemon cake with a very big candle to blow out!

show me some stripes!

SLIP SLYYYDING

On Boxing Day, we all went Ice Skating in the afternoon - on an outdoor rink in Kew Gardens. What fun! It was dark by 4pm and there were a lot of other revellers. By the end of the session the boys could stand up on their own without their skates slipping out from under them and S could even skate around on his own. Must say skating bent over boys that keep sliding out from under is slightly tiring but it was a very invigorating and fun session! Twinkling lights, sparkling ice - lovely.

THE MAAAIN EVENT

The Big Evening finally arrived, we put out a beer and some carrots. Father Christmas came and left a load of presents (don't tell the kids but we were even going to go into Richmond Park and collect some deer poo from the park- to make it more authentic...) . In the morning we went & picked up Uncle Paul & his girl Sharon from their posh hotel and we all began the joyous opening of gifts. We were all very pleased and surprised at the generosity of Father Christmas this year. The boys in the family got a playstation 2, the little boys got a remote control car each and then they got a load of games and videos. Jeff got some nice new shoes and some socks and he kindly gave us adults a day at a wind tunnel - we get to skydive without jumping out of a plane and not in the sky! Can't wait!! So it was a fun morning and it wasn't long until the Champagne hit those empty stomachs, but we soon filled them up with a delish breakfast before heading off the the Richmond Hill Hotel for a very trad English Christmas dinner. We'd have enough by the 2nd course and there were still 4 courses to go!! uggh. A great day was had by all.

CAROLS AT KEW

We joined a couple of families on a Friday night to sing carols in Kew Gardens. It was a freeezing night and we warmed our hands around steaming mulled wine and filled out tummies with mince pies while heartily singing "joy to the world" & "o'come all ye faithful". The highlight for the children of course was visting Santa in his ice cave!! And then running through the dark mysterious gardens...

WHAT A TREET!

the week after the birthdays we went with some friends out of London to choose our Christmas tree out of a planted forest full of different types of trees. We opted for the Nordman and chose the tallest most well balanced lovliest one we could find. What fun to be running around the trees, playing hide n seek, choosing, deciding, doubting & then sweeping in for the kill. Jeff got down on hands and knees and cut the lovely tree down for our own selfish use - we thanked the creator for the generosity - Before enjoying hot chocolate (with Baileys - yum!) and mince pies. Then we stuffed tree, muddy boots and excited dog into car and drove all the way home, loving the countryside on a low sun winters afternoon. It sure beat stopping at the local carpark for a tree - What a treet!

RATTYS

Os got a meg n a mog for his 5th b'day. He's always been a boy who has his hands stuffed full with toys, often soft cuddly ones. So he decided that he wanted a mouse - since he saw a movie with one where the boy threw it against the wall and it splattered...I was hesitant - he has been known to throw the odd tanty. And we agreed that we'd get rats, since they are more friendly (read, they don't run away) they are intelligent and they are the only rodents that actually bond to humans. We chose 2 little black hooded girls and they are very sweet!

BUTTERFLIES AND BUSY BOYS

O's Party with his friends was shared with a couple girls from his class, the party was held at the London Butterfly House and it was delightful being in there with so many children, fluttering butterflies and the awe of it all. lots of fun was had!

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY BOY

for o & j's b'day we had some friends around Sunday afternoon, had a really nice time.

Noisiest Birthday Boy in the Park

For the month of December the boys have a brilliant Advent Calandar quilt made by their fabulous G'ma, for every day there is a little house that holds a little gift inside. On the 4th there is just one gift for the birthday boy. What mother would buy their own child a VOICE DISTORTER!!?! So on this day we took our Christie for a run in Richmond Park and our Birthday boy took his very very loud voice changer - its 9am there are alot of park users excercising and there is this little boy wandering along making big big noises through this little device. Very funny!

FIREMAN OS

Little O's class went for a school trip to the local fire station. We drive past it everyday on our way home and there isn't a day now that he doesn't loudly remind us of his recent visit!

Cub Scout Weekend

Did you know that part of the Cub Scout Uniform is a hanky? - just in case he has a bloody nose!?! So, tonight before going to Cubs we had to frantically look for a hanky - to no avail - I hope he still gets full points for his team on the uniform inspection!

The weekend away camping was very exciting - only a few days before he had been allowed to move up from being a Beaver to becoming a Cub of the Comanchees. This was his first weekend away without his family and lets just say he didn't seem to notice! He was full of the confidence of a fresh 8 year old. Brilliant!

BIRTHDAY BOY

3 weeks ago S celebrated his birthday with a rock climbing party, shared with his friend. They had along about 12 of their friends for an afternoon of hanging around the walls in west london.

he reached the top, his first real adrenaline rush - he's not so sure if he liked it...!

Plenty of butterflies in tummies as they were challenged to something new.

Then on the day of his birthday he got a motorbike!

and we went for a family dinner to pizza hut and to the games room for some healthy competition on the air hockey table! fun! We also met some friends for a Sunday Lunch at the pub with a chocolate cake to smile about!

Guy Fawkes Night 2005

Friday night we joined loads of our friends at a local school for a fireworks display. We had fun running around in the dark, eating hotdogs and watching the display. Saturday night we had Mum and Dads friends over and we climbed on the roof to watch fireworks, we lit our own mini bonfire and we had fun watching our £10 box of fireworks go up in sparks. Most fun was had playing with the hundreds of sparklers - making pretty patterns and trying to burn down our hedge.

As you do...

These two boys decided it would be a good idea to go for a walk in the park in the dark wearing tinted swimming goggles...

Found: BOA CONSTRICTOR!

4 weeks ago we bought a 3month old Boa Constrictor. 2 weeks later we lost it. 2 weeks after that we found it, sitting on top of the wooden train track!! What a surprise for Daddy, since we all thought Bruce had slithered out the window and was gone for good. We are very happy to have him back in his vivarium, watching him move from log, to branch to bonsai, feeding him baby mice and excercising him through our fingers.

Africa at the British Museum

Today Samuel went to the British Museum with his class and I went on my first "excursion" since I was at school. What fun! We stayed in the three basement rooms showing beautiful african artifacts. Samuel had to draw 2 things that he saw in each room, they especially liked drawing a tree of life made out of gun parts, very symbolic. We MUST go to the British Museum more!!

Halloooweeen

These young pirates joined a few young witches, a skeleton and other scary things to collect sweets from the neighbours. They were very happy to have collected the mostest sweets EVER.

Happy Campers

This week was half term holidays, on Wednesday I took the boys camping in the New Forest with 3 other mums and their kids (total 8 kids). Thursday we went for a walk in a pretty part of the forest, where we oooohed and aaaaahed at the prettiness of Autumn and the fabulous mushrooms. We came across a Posse of Pigs, very cute and not at all big and scary like Australian wild pigs (the two Aussie mums didn't know this and were alarmed, warning everyone to keep away!) The pigs are allowed into the forest in Autumn to eat the acorns so the horses don't eat too many and get sore tummies, we also saw deer. The kids LOVED it all. They spent alot of time back at camp being by far the loudest most active kids around and rode their bikes like maniacs. We BBQ'd for breakfast lunch and dinner and ate our fair share of meat... All this activity did not wear them out.
Friday we donned our "wet shoes" and started a walk that took us through marsh, up a big hill of dying Heather, along Moors through a pine forest, down the ridge to a Ford, where the kids semi-stripped and got sprayed by the cars driving through the water, they also petted the baby donkey, wipped the horses to stop them eating our picnic lunch, swung from the swing and had a thoroughly good time. We dryed them off - well tried to, crossed the the road and viola! A Sand Pit - a massive sand dune in the middle of nowhere. So, wet clothes and sand go really nicely together - they rolled all the way down this huge dune, played and rolled and played some more. Christie (our dog) also had ALOT of fun running down the big hill, tumbling, bouncing, playing and rolling and playing. Then all tired, we were about half way...we followed the ridge past red with white spot mushrooms, pink, brown, bright yellow, orange, purple, black brown and beige mushrooms buy the shed load - I have never seen SO many mushrooms and toadstools as I did this weekend. Then we went down from the ridge and back to the river and found a Faerie Dell !!!! I had also NEVER seen a real faerie dell, there were all these teeny tiny little houses everywhere, with little knick nacks, those faeires had gone to a real effort and there were LOADS of them!! it was amazing. O claims he saw a real faerie, but I'm not so sure since they are really really shy. Anyway, the kids decided that this gorgeous little part of the river was the place to get out of control with the splishing and splashing and they just jumped right on in, fully clothed. Luckily this is the warmest end of October I've ever known... a few of us nearly lost our boots in the bog too! All VERY exciting, especially with pants down trying to do a wee...So then we walked back along the edge of the lane to our camp "Red Shoot". These children had just walked a staggering 10 miles!!! Thats like 16km!!!!!! So I have awarded O The Little Trooper Award (attached). I was so so impressed by how well he did, he was out the front with Christie and I the whole time - being the little trooper! Well, you would've thought they'd sit down for a rest, but nup, straight onto the bikes and doing massive skids towards our camp. In fact, in the morning they were skidding on the wet grass, and I was in the kombi, tidying up when BAAANG. I though "what the *%£! was that, must have been hit by a rolling car". Nope, it was my Samuel skidding out of control - brakes not working - straight into the van!?! Being the big strong brave boy that he is, he was OK, thank goodness.
So today, we pottered and packed up camp. Then I took the boys to a Reptiles and Raptors park. We saw the Reptile show and can I just say that I am A LITTLE BIT glad that S lost the Boa Constrictor that we bought a couple of weeks ago...those things get frikken massive! He loved the reptile park tho and thought he wanted a Bird Eating Tarantula instead of a sneaky escape artist snake - no chance. We have decided that Chameleons are less likely to escape and are pretty cool too...
So we rolled into our street singing "you are my sunshine" at the top of our lungs, with a heaving, muddy, wet, smelling of wood smoke van full of camping stuff and J was out partying with his friends - thanks Peff! ;) Its prolly a good thing he was out, because I went on a cleaning rampage and its all washed and packed for our next adventure!

Crunching and Lunching

We've been back at school now for 5 weeks! Its flown - O has started reception class and is finishing at 12pm. This means that I only get to work 1.5hours per day- not complaining! It is busy being a lovely crunching Autumn right now and because I finish early it means O & I have special lunches everyday - often with his little friends over. Recently we met for a picnic in Kew Gardens. The children were collecting conkers, throwing leaves and taking rude photos of each other...


Conkers are the big brown shiny chestnuts that children collect. A month ago I witnessed the rape of a Horse Chestnut tree in the park that had conkers that were not yet dropping and the impatient children had sticks and were beating the poor tree to knock the conkers down. The tree was left with torn branches and no leaves, let alone conkers! Now the conkers have all fallen and the children are happily playing with them - this is where they drill a hole, thread string through and then hit each others conkers and the last conker in one peice is the winner.

See the pics of O & his girlfriends enjoying the Autumn!