Our new house; i really do love it and i’m very content here for the time being too.
Cycling – off out in a minute
Losing 1 1/2 stone
Fran’s reading.
Maddy’s drawing.
Our marriage being as strong, if not stronger, than ever.
Still bfing Josie.
BM growth (some profit would now be nice!)
New friends and closer friendships with older friends.
People who have come to stay because they knew i couldn’t go away from home.
Lucy.
Children who play well.
Realising just how good Home Ed is for Maddy.
Ella being born and getting to know Rowan better.
having space to put people up.
Not renting.
More friends in town.
Fimo.

Not all bad then

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | CAR leader orders house burning

Well THIS knocks any arguments about the spirit of Christmas into a cocked hat!!!!

I’ve just pressed submit on the VAT registration
OMG.

At some point on Saturday, Max and i briefly considered moving Xmas Day forward by 24 hours so we didn’t have to put up with anymore over-excitement I actually can’t even remember what happened for most of it; i think i did odds and sods of shopping and we all wrote Christmas cards (or in my case MADE Christmas cards which i’ll be posting tomorrow!) oh yes and Fran and Maddy allowed me to demonstrate my control of my control freakery. They did cards for everyone on our development and went out to deliver them on their own and i was very proud of myself because i didn’t so much as check on them from the window the whole time they were gone. Actually, on a serious note, i was really pleased with them; they were really sensible about it but also decided not to go along the road right at the back, where they’ve never been and where they would have been well out of sight of the house because it made them feel worried. Nice to know they are aware of their own comfort zones

Grandad and Auntie L came over, bringing presents which turned out to be the start of an impressive Playmobil hoard and i finished the TRB secret santa present rather hastily when they offered to convey it to their doorstep for me. Did mean i didn’t get all the details in i’d planned but i was pleased with it and can’t wait to have time to do some real life modelling next year. Might even give selling a go again. L was watching and got an urge for a go, so i furnished her with some Fimo as an extra present and i’m hoping she’ll enjoy it and make some beads for BM.

Christmas Eve is normally one filled with rituals, visits to a Grotto, visit to Church and visits to relatives. Thanks to the children deciding to take 4 hours to do a 15 minute room tidy, they missed out on the Grotto, Max’s Gran isn’t up to visitors so we only saw half his family (but did have fun with Baby-Flower and a couple of rocking horses, one of which came home with us) and somehow i didn’t feel up to going to church to sing about babies born at Christmas time, even if i could have brought myself to go in there anyway, so we gave that a miss and just hunkered down as a family, watched Peter and the Wolf and spent time together. I, as i always do, lost our copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas which i had in my grasp till lunchtime, so we missed that. Felt a bit rotten, but ended up tucking them all up with a story about Meredith and The Christmas Tree Fairy. Always feels odd reading a book with my name in it, doesn’t happen often. There is a Charlotte Bingham one about a couple called Max and Meredith, which was even odder!

Kids finally decided they were brave enough to have stockings in their rooms, so they did that and we finally got some peace.

Christmas Day started about 7.30 i think, with the best stocked stockings EVER.

Ostheimer Fairytale people (Nicky, my emails bounced that i sent to you, sorry!), DS games, dvds, homemade dolly nappies, Animal Crossing playsets (oh, i WANT these for ME!)

hair accessories

bracelets and necklaces and Santa very thoughtfully provided a stringbag for each child too, to keep their haul in

Downstairs for the first of 3 sit down meals, festive breakfast with crackers!

and then Santa presents from under the tree; some Playmobil farm stuff!

All the girls have been beside themselves with desperation for Lilydolls for weeks so rather than make the anxiety stretch out, we pulled them from behind the curtain and dished them out.

Cue total delighted hysteria!

That occupied them for absolutely ages; in the meantime i got some lovely beads from Chutney Beads

and a book called My Big Idea which is a set of case studies of 30 people who set up thier own business and made successes of them. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy Oh and i got DS: Age of Empires too, a mug painted by Fran and a bag Max got the essential slippers, socks, mug and model racing car We’d already set up our dvd/hard drive thingy and we love it!

For the first time ever, the kids weren’t aching to find the next present, so it was quite a while before we took them upstairs to the main pressie from each of us which was a set of Lilydoll extra for Fran…

Maddy got her guitar…

Amelie got a Castle Northgate upgrade as she adores the TRU one from last year but it is incredibly flimsy and the Wonderworld one is just fabulous. She adores it

And Josie got the Wonderworld Barney Farm

Really well received set of presents and even if i did totally over indulge them, the combination of events that meant each of those presents were available considerably took the sting out of the financial tale In fact, aside from Game and Amzon, all the presents this year came from places i feel good to have traded with

Afternoon zonk to Curse of the Were-rabbit. Judging by Max’s chuckles, it was good

And a particularly lovely afternoon lolling about downstairs with Josie and then various others playing farms. i barely saw Fran, so immersed in Lilydoll land was she.

And then just before bed, we made the big twos day with their ipod and speakers and they rapturously bequeathed their cd player to the little ones

We’ve spent Boxing Day with my parents, nana, sister and brother and nieces and F-BIL. I’ve cuddled Ella lots, bonded with Rowan and they’ve all had loads more lovely presents which i’ve not had time to inspect aside from the Playmobil zoo which is awesome but is bringing all my OCD tendencies out because my brother appears to have insisted on adding polar bears and siberian tigers to a pets corner set and there aren’t enough fences to separate them all which is giving me anxiety attacks!!!!!! I’m going to have to order some

Bizarrely, i’ve come home to a busyish day of orders, so i’m going to have to work tomorrow!!!!!

My resolution for this year was to be a little more merry and a little more Merry; didn’t really work.

Ah well. All i want from Santa this year is to never have another year as hard as this one. Surely i don’t have to be too careful with that wish?

Anyway, i may not have been very merry (though the Baileys is helping) but i can still use the word so….

MERRY Christmas!