Monday 27 January 2014

Catch up time!

I've done my normal thing of forgetting to post for ages, but am determined to keep this blog going, so here's a little run-down of things we've been up to since Olly's birthday!

The first major event really was Halloween.  Being a mainly pagan household we also celebrate Samhain (Summer's End), but with the children being so little at the moment we concentrate on the more mainstream aspects of this holiday.  So there were decorations throughout, including some huge burnt orange silk flowers I found at Boyes which were beautiful stuck in a vase with some bare sticks and little spiders hung off them!  The children dressed up - two skeletons and a little ladybird fairy (you may recognise a pirate dress from the party, this was its original intended use!), we played apple bobbing and chocolate buttons in the flour as well, and of course, we carved pumpkins!


I may have helped slightly with the carving, but Harry drew his own design and Olly picked his from some we found on the net.

The next day, we decided to get outside to feel the turn of the seasons and to make it a bit more fun for the boys, we went to Hall Hill Farm.  There wasn't a lot going on, but the boys made a scarecrow from old clothes and straw, and they both got their face painted as pumpkins.


It was the first time Harry has been brave enough to get his face painted, so it was a surprise when he asked to get it done too!

Following on from this was Wacky Hair Day at school.  Both my boys have rather long hair, and I wasn't able to find any spray on hair colours for them this time, so these were our wacky attempts!



I thought they were great, but was told that Olly looked like a girl!

We've had some cold days outside...


And some snuggly ones inside...



And then it was Christmas!  We put up our decorations on the 1st December, and the tree a couple of weeks later to spread the fun!  We left the Christmas cd on constantly in the car (much to the dismay of my other half who is a scrooge until about 4pm on Christmas Eve!).  We had a grownup party for people from work and friends which just happened to coincide with the solstice on the 21st.  And of course, there was lots of making!  The boys made all their cards to give out (we are still finding glitter now!), and we made some tree decorations for our playroom tree.

Here's Harry painting the salt dough decorations...


We made our first forays into sewing helped greatly by Grandma...



And I made Christmassy cupcakes for gifts for teachers...



In the midst of all the build up to Christmas, a certain baby girl achieved a special milestone which I was lucky enough to catch on camera - doesn't she look pleased with herself?


Christmas Eve was lovely as usual.  It was just us.  The boys had a bath and came down to find that the elves had delivered an early present for them; nice fleecy pyjamas, slippers and dressing gowns.  There was even a pretty new babygro for Hannah.  They got dressed and we had pizza in the living room while watching Arthur Christmas.  I was sceptical at first, but it was actually a lovely film.  Off to bed then, putting out mince pie, carrot and baileys for Santa and Rudolph first, and then hanging the stockings.  They took a while to settle, but Santa had been surprisingly organised this year and all the presents were wrapped.  Eventually there was quiet upstairs and he was able to deliver...



Morning was chaos, dinner lovely, made nicer by the fact I wasn't cooking, and the evening was chilled.  A perfect Christmas for my little girl's first one!




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