Happy New Year 2017

This morning there was XBox, table tennis, jigsawing, breakfast. For Lunch we made burgers and then filled a bag for an afternoon out.

This afternoon we went sledging at our local farm and golf course. We never go near the main slope anymore being as we are sooooo sociable. We go to other side and create our own piste and runs. This takes a bit of doing but Huffle and the boys just get straight on it. There was plenty of silliness today. Lots of falling and crashing but no-one hit the tree which is at the very bottom of the slope we chose today.

Injuries included a squashed Smallest when Moo fell on top fo him, a bumped Moo nose from when she fell on op of Smallest, a Smallest hurt back when he went over a bump and caught his back on the side of the sledge, everyone with sore legs and bruised bodies. But all in all we were pretty injury free. Although we didn't have the steepest of slopes, the snow was very thick and it was exhausting trudging back up the hill.

At the top of the hill we made a shelter for those wishing to sit and get their breath back. We also took a generous helping of our own hot chocolate, fuelled with with extra melted chocolate chips and marshmallows and accompanied by some lovely English chocolate later. Much fun was had by all.

On the way home we lost a windscreen wiper and we had to stop on the road for Huffle to walk back to find it. I think I need a new one.

Back home, things were dried and hung to dry and we decided the theme of tonight's New Years Eve Party was a Pyjama one. Everyone donned their cosy pj's and we put some air fries on to cook while the boys watched a bit of TV before we went out in the cold and lit some sparklers.

We topped the Trifle Moo made yesterday with Festive New Year Sprinkles and ate it after our hot baguette and fries. Very yummy.

We watched The Grand Tour and Smallest went to bed. Small stayed up until 9:30 but said he could stay up much longer (his eyes said differently). Huffle and I fell asleep briefly before even Smallest went to sleep but we managed to stay up util 11:30pm watching Jools Hollands Hootananny. Moo went to bed just before. We were all very tired.

HAPPY NEW YEAR (balloon emojis).

 

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It's all naansense

It didn't snow too much. Not nearly as much as it was supposed to. Though the drive was in need of clearing again. Huffle went out after breakfast and I helped him with the last part.

The boys played on the Xbox and Moo and I played Skip-Bo.

For lunch Huffle and I went out by ourselves. We went to an Indian Restaurant which was very nice. I had Brie Pakora to start and Chana Marsala with Gralic Naan and Rice. Lovely. Huffle had Butter Chicken and Chicken Samosa with Naan and rice.

On the way home we popped to a supermarket and picked up a few things and then came home.

The boys and Moo had jigsawed, table tennised and played on the Xbox (well I don't think Moo X boxed ).

After the boys and Moo had their tea, we all played Hide and Seek. Very funny.

This evening we all watched Mr Stink.

 

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Clementine Snows

A nice sleep and a wake up to lots of new snow. I don't think it was forecast but we had a good dumping overnight.

We watched TV with the kids when we got up, had breakfast and played Skip-Bo (Moo and I) and X-Box (all boys) and table tennis.

Midday Moo and I took the boys for a haircut. Afterwards and in between they played with the hairdressers kids outside in the snow.

Lunch was in front of The Grand Tour and then we all went out for a walk in the Hamlet.

Lots of silliness, snowballing, falling over and some more snowballing. When we got back we played in the garden. The boys made a snow fort and Moo and I made a snowlady called Clementine. We all had a snowball fight and came in to get warm when it got dark.

The boys played some more on the X-box and then we had dinner and played Skip-Bo which we persuaded Smallest to join in too before bed.

We have more snow forecast this evening of around 20cm!

 

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Dentist Wars

I didn't sleep well last night. Too hot and a sore throat and I panicked and thought I was getting ill again. This kept Huffle awake too. Ooooppps. I'm not ill. Still got an annoying cough but otherwise all is well.

The boys were watching Cars when I came down and we watched with them until breakfast. This morning there was table tennis, x-box and Skip-Bo. Midday we went out to take the boys to their dentist appointment. No cavities, good toothbrushing by both and nothing for them to worry about except to get into the habit of flossing. It took at least an hour and Huffle went off and did some food shopping while Moo and I sat and read magazines and did a crossword. I spoke to the receptionist (who is so much more than that but I don't know what her title is) and told her I did not want to go ahead with my $6k treatment and I don't like the dentist who wants to do the work. She said she could find me a different specialist if I wanted and I asked her to sort out alternative treatment and to see if my normal dentist could do the work as I trusted him. She had a word with him said she would call me later to discuss options. I do like them there, they are very accomodating but I guess at $6k they can afford to be!!!! I made new appointments for the kids for October and we all went on our way.

The boys had fluoride applications so weren't allowed any hot sticky food for two hours which scuppered our plans of dinner before we went to the cinema. Huffle picked up a baguette and we had our normal broken bits of baguettes stuffed with laughing cow by Moo standing in a car park. Baguettes in one pocket and bottle of water in the other with hidden choccies in another before we got to the cinema.

Today we went to see Star Wars Rogue One. It took me nearly the whole of the film to work out where we were timewise in the film as I expected the film to carry on from the one released last year. Silly me. I also fell asleep a couple of times. Not for too long as the sound of the fighting woke me. The film was good but I felt I spent too long wondering when we were going o find out who was the father of the last girl in the film and whether Luke Skywalker was going to appear. When I saw DarthvAder I kind of realised we were in a different time zone altogether. I looked across at Moo part way through and wondered if she had any idea what was going on. Smallest fidgeted through the whole film and Small played with his hoodie strings. Huffle said his eyes were heavy a few times. All in all though, a good film. I now need to watch them in order so I know what's going on though I appreciate this one possibly runs alongside the original first one aaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh. Give me a good superhero film any day!!!!

We went on to the chip shop and had a fish and chip dinner before coming home and hiding from Moo and scaring her just a little bit! More table tennis and a few games of Q-Bitz before Smallest went to bed and Small and Huffle finished off their FIFA game.

 

 

 

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Fight Club and a free toilet roll

Another lie-in. I could get used to this. Pancake breakfast yum yum.

It rained and snowed for most of the day and the drive became very icy.

Our morning was spent watching Stoke City, playing Skip-Bo, playing on the X-box and doing rubicks cubes.

Early afternoon we had a cheesey Beans on toast and some festive yumminess.

This afternoon we played table tennis. Mid afternoon we travelled in the car to a football festival. Smallest was playing two games against two different teams. This took place in a huge dome with four fields and we had to stand behind netting. It was weird how the netting obstructed your view and made your eyes go a bit strange.

Three amigos

Am I taller than Daddy yet?

Smallest had a nosebleed before the first game and Huffle desperately tried to find some tissues. The place was a very clean, no paper place with hand dryers etc and a woman tried to help Huffle. First they had to find a key to open a cupboard and eventually we were handed a toilet roll. Why we couldn't just take some from the toilets I don't know. We sorted it using a freezer pack and a pack of tissues one of the mums had. The first game was against Whitby and we won 12-2. They played really well and the game went without incident. There was a break of about an hour before the next game.

Weird netting

The mums

This time we played Oshawa. Our team were very tired and the game ended at 4-4 though two of their goals were questionable. One didn't go over the line but the ref said it did and the other should have been kicked back to us after an injury but they scored instead. Dubious. Before the game finished, one of our players (renowned for having anger issues) got knocked down and proceeded to kick the opposition several times on purpose. This resulted in him being taken off the pitch (rightly so) but then the parents got involved shouting about how they were going to get their child to kick our children, blah blah blah. Then our angry boy's parents got involved and had to be held back by two other parents. There was lots of shouting, the game was abondoned and there were punches thrown. The police were called and we stayed well away. It was embarrassing. We think the angry boy should be taken out of the team for good. We'll see what happens!

Huffle's photo inside the netting

Moo having a cuddle with babyAngel

It was around 7:45pm when we left and everyone was hungry. We went to a nice Italian restaurant on the way home and had dinner before coming home and putting the kids to bed (past 9pm!).

This evening we watched The Marigikd Hotel on tour. Very interesting.

 

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Small out-Geoffrey's everyone

A lie-in WAHOOOO.

HAPPY BOXING DAY.

The kids were already up and watching cartoons so we watched with them and did a rubicks cube too. After breakfast we watched the Leicester game. Huffle and the boys were expecting the Stoke game on afterwards but it's tomorrow instead.

Moo and I played SkipBo while the boys played on the x-box.

Lunch was had and then we started our new game Agricola. This was complicated and Moo and Smallest teamed up. We have played this on online so that helped. Small won. It took us ages but we like it (thank you Aunt Pear).

Table tennis, x-box, jigsawing and colouring and then we all had a table tennis tournament. Huffle won.

After a leftover dinner we watched We're going on a Bear Hunt followed by the Bake Off.

 

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The four hour turkey

The kids came running in at 7:30am, saying "he's been". Smallest got in bed with us and had a cuddle and a warm and Small lay on top of the bed and snuggled. They went up to wake Moo up and we all went downstairs where they handed us our stockings and one by one, starting with Small, we proceeded to open them.

Plenty of chocolate, some interesting Santa presents and then we made a start on breakfast. Croissants, and freshly made coffee and orange juice with a present to open at the table.

The boys then divided all the presents into piles for each person. We moved the sofas so it opened up the room a lot so we could see all presents being opened. Yesterday the boys asked for the majority of their presents to be hidden and so they ran around today looking for them all, though we had to help them find them too! Both of them, this year, opened their presents as quickly as they could. You just never know, from one year to the next, how they will be. Last year Smallest opened each present and played with it before moving on to the next, today they both just opened everything and then sat and looked at what they had.

Their main presents this year, for doing so well at school, was an X-Box for Small and Huffle to share and a Tablet for Smallest. They were both extremely surprised with these presents. There was no way either of them expected them. Small and Huffle disappeared downstairs to set up the X-box and play and Smallest sat and played on his new tablet (much faster and bigger than his old one).

Some of our presents and piles

I checked with Huffle how long his turkey took and we realised it was four hours. We weren't too worried and put it in the oven. Moo and I sorted out the rest of the dinner, slowly, as we did have four hours. Two hours in and we were hungry. Three hours in and we were starving so we upped the oven temperature, stuck foil over the turkey and managed to shave off half an hour. Dinner was lovely. Smallest and Huffle had their turkey. Small had a cheese and onion tart and Moo and I had a roasted veg tart. Lovely.

Our Christmas crackers this year, had musical whistles in and music sheets to make lovely sounds. However, we haven't pulled all the crackers yet so we haven't been able to make the music. Maybe tomorrow.

After dinner, after clearing up was done, Huffle called Grandma and Grandad.

Later there was table tennis, Top Trumps, table top games of baseball, basketball, solitaire and cricket. Juggling, rubicks cubing, colouring, dot to dotting, domino building, reading and checking of presents.

We have had a lovely day. Tiring but lovely and we finished it off with a Festive Great British Bake Off.

 

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Christmas Eve'ry

The start of our day commenced with Polar Express which we stopped in order to help Small get our scrambled egg breakfast ready. What a good chef he is.

After breakfast we started decorating. Small decorated the Gingerbread House (never has it been so eloborate in its finery). Smallest and Moo made fondant things which included a penguin, snowman, bird/aeroplane, Santa and a sheep/dog or sheepdog. I made Icing and helped when needed and Huffle fetched and carried.

The result was fabulous................

While we cleared everything away, all the boys played table tennis and on the Wii.

We spent the rest of the day watching the end of Polar Express, eating, drinking, playing Alhambra, solving Rubik's cubes, hiding presents for tomorrow and opening our one Christmas Eve present.

Smallest got a jigsaw which we started straight away. It was very complicated but we managed to get the edges done. Small got a wash bag full of man products. I got some Thorntons chocolates, Huffle got a belt and Moo got a veggie spiraller. Good start.

Huffle and Smallest had a roast pork hot baguette and the rest of us had a Brie or Brie and Beet Chutney baguette. YUM yum. We also made a Warm Ameretto Pudding which wasn't quite right but very nice and alcoholic, though we made a non-alcoholic one for the kids.

More table tennis, more TV, all the vegetables are prepared for tomorrow, some reading by the boys on their own and finally bedtime.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE. HOPE YOU HAVE A FABULOUS TIME.

 

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Love Actually is all around

I had THE best night's sleep last night. So good in fact that when I woke up at 8am I panicked as I had told Moo last night that I didn't need her to get up to see to the boys, I would be up in time. It's the first time in ages that I could have stayed in bed and carried on sleeping. BOOOO. It didn't really matter because Moo was already up anyway.

We sent the boys off packing for their last day at school, had our breakfast and left Huffle working while we went and did an early morning food shop. It was a good plan because we had done the first major shop before 10:30am. We posted a letter for Huffle and went to get some festive cheer. We went to Italy, South Africa and Canada for our wine and beer and then continued on to another supermarket for a couple of things we couldn't get from the first.

Next stop was a hot drink and a share of a slice of Lemon and Cranberry Loaf. We sat quietly chatting at a table and were suddenly joined by a load of high school kids who were far too noisy and we had to move to another table at the front of the cafe.

We tried the Thrifty Shop next looking for stocking stuffers and a tree for Smallest. We didn't get either and came away empty handed. Two more shops got us some stocking fillers and then we came home for lunch of hot soup and bread before Moo did some washing and I put the shopping away.

This afternoon we went into overdrive again and made Royal Icing for the gingerbread house. We fused the building together with no props, no egg cups, and nothing broke or fell down. We are just too good at this now! MrsRoyal called round mid-gingerbread-build with a gift she had made of CrabApple Jelly and gingerbread tree decorations for the kids.

I marzipanned the Christmas Cake and then Moo made more Icing and we iced the cake too. All that is left is the Chocolate Log which we will do tomorrow. The boys now have to finish decorating the house and cake.

Moo and I cleaned the kitchen and had a quick game of Skip-Bo in time for the kids getting home with cards and gifts and being very excitedly silly.

Huffle and I made dinner and afterwards everyone played table tennis.

This evening all the boys went out to play football with Smallest's team and Moo and I had some festive cheer whilst watching Love Actually.

 

 

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Santas little helpers

I slept until 4am when Smallest had a coughing bout which woke the house up (except for PrincessMoo who sleeps in the upper turret).

Both boys had to be woken this morning and neither had any time for playing on their tablets before school. They both took their teachers gifts despit the fact that Small was acting like a 'teenager' not wanting to hand things out like his Mummy asked him to.

Huffle worked in the basement after clearing the drive of snow (as soon as he came in it snowed again and left a drive full of snow again).

Moo and I spent all morning wrapping presents. It took forever (3 hours I think). Those boys, big and small, are very spoiled this year.

Huffle came up and had lunch with us and then Moo and I got into frenzy baking mode again and made a batch of mince pies and jam tarts. There was no messing, pastry made, rolled out, cut-out, chucked into pans, filled with mincemeat and jam and in the oven. Not the prettiest tarts we've ever made but nicely functional. Everything was cleaned and put away before the kids came home and Moo and I were washed and ready to go out.

Early evening we all went to pick up our Orthotics. Huffle drove and we got there just in time. We had to sit around and wait for them to be finished but the boys played hide and seek with Moo (in the tiniest of places). We sorted out the Paperwork, tried them out, had enhancements and went off for dinner.

Dinner was nice if not a little noisy as we sat in a room with party goers. We came home, Huffle finished off some work and the rest of us sat and played.

Smallest is much better. Still taking his medicine and still coughing. I am feeling much better. One more day of my medicine and no more of my drowsy stuff EVER. Yuk!

Ahhhh human again. Make-up and washed hair. It's me!

 

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Bakers dozen

Once again I took my drowsy medicine before bed, but this time in plenty of time to stop it keeping me awake. However it did keep me awake and I had to get up and read from 1am to 2:30am. So annoying. I coughed through the night again too. Sorry Huffle. I did feel much better today though.

Smallest got up this morning saying, in his squeaky little voice, that he was well enough to go to school. He looked better but I wasn't convinced. Still, he stayed there all day and seemed happy enough when he got home.

Small went on a trip to the Royal Ontario Museum today. He said it was good but not as good as the science Centre. Not enough interactive stuff to do.

Moo and I had baked a big batch of shortbread and flapjack all before we had our breakfast. Then we got on with gingerbread. Now we have a deconstructed house as well as plenty of baked goods for teachers gifts. We spent the rest of the morning packaging up the gifts in cellophane and raffia and jars. Smallest now has a tin full of flapjack for his pot luck party tomorrow and the boys have all their gifts for their teachers.

Moo and I treated ourselves to some quality relaxing by watching 2 episodes of Last Tango in Halifax before Moo cleared away the debris of the kitchen.

This afternoon, Moo and I ventured into the garden for a walk. The snow was so deep it went over the top of our boots and into them. Moo walked ahead and made footprint holes for me and I stepped into them to make it easier to walk. We wandered down the garden, into the forested bit at at the bottom and turned around and came back in our own footsteps. It was tough going and our feet were quite wet.

We had a couple of games of SkipBo before the kids came home and made dinner. After dinner Moo and the kids played table tennis and Huffle and I sorted presents and wrapped. Moo and Huffle made beds after Moo had done all the washing earlier. The boys wrote their Christmas cards to go with their gifts and put them in bags ready for taking tomorrow.

This evening we all watched Planet Earth. So interesting.

 

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