Christmas...a 4 year olds view.

Here are some of Isobel's Christmas pictures taken with her new camera.







We've had a busy week, trying to get back to normal. We took the kids bowling and to see Madagascar 2, and it's Ryan's birthday tomorrow. Not that he gets to do anything special, it has to be the second worst day to be born, after Christmas day. I think he's going paintballing with a friend at the end of the month as a birthday treat, and of course he's had his main present from us already, his laptop, so it's always a bit of an anticlimax. We are off to a New Years Eve party at a friends tomorrow night, so at least he gets some kind of celebration.

Over for another year

We had a wonderful day. Probably one of the best ever actually, we all really enjoyed it. Ate too much food and spent too much money, but it's once a year so what the hell. But I am going to inject this blog post with a little bit of negativity before I get on to the good stuff. I need a rant!

On Christmas Eve Ryan called his Mum because she has basically stopped calling him, as was predicted when they started speaking again back in April. Our phone bills shows that Ryan is spending £15 a month calling her, which she never reciprocates. That has to stop as she contributes no maintenance money at all to this house. Why should I go to work to pay that phone bill? The money she promised him every month? He now gets the odd tenner if he calls her and begs for it. Which is still more than he's had for the last three years, but still, why promise the poor lad something you can't stick to? Anyway, she hasn't called him for about 10 weeks. So he calls her up and she's driving back to her house, so he asks her to call him back, and she agrees. An hour passes, no call. Ryan gets the hump and takes himself off up to bed. Almost 48 hours have now passed and she still hasn't bothered. I guess she won't be winning mother of the year award.

My other annoyance is a bit petty really(I think?), and quite tough to convey with the written word, but it has annoyed me nonetheless. Taylor's Dad married his girlfriend of over ten years at the end of November. She still hasn't really got the hang of the whole "My partner has a child with another woman" thing. She is a nice enough woman, I have never had a problem with her and we get on fine, even in the beginning, but she has a problem with poor Taylor. She tries, but fails really. But being a stepparent is tough, I should know, so we forgive her. It is her Mum that I'm annoyed with really. At the wedding she walked up to Taylor and said "I'm your grandmother now". After ten years of her daughter struggling to play step mum to Taylor, now she can be his grandmother because they got married? Sorry love, you are ten years too late. Why has the wedding ring changed anything? Is Taylor suddenly more important in their little extended family because of the wedding? She should've been looking out for him all along. Anyway, she even bought him a present yesterday. In completely the wrong size. To me it feels like she has resigned herself to the role of 'Granny' after ten years of ignoring it. Am I being completely irrational? Is my view of this family lark skewed because my family have been so fantastic at taking Ryan under their wing? They all treat him like he is really mine, and always have. My Nan adored him, and my Mum and Uncle and Dad and stepmum all buy him gifts and send him cards. Pete's Mum and Dad too have always been great with Taylor. I guess I just don't understand it. *shrugs*

Back to the festivities, I didn't get much sleep Christmas Eve, so was completely knackered on the big day! The baby was dancing on my bladder at 4am so I got up and let Santa into the house(in other words sneaked their sacks into their bedrooms!). Goodness, that part stresses me out. Getting caught is my worst nightmare. I'm the same with the whole tooth fairy, coin under the pillow business. Then, I was up again at 5am to put the turkey on. I kept tossing and turning thinking about that damn turkey, then the kids woke up at 7.30am.


I was a naughty mama though, and hardly took any pictures. I was too busy. Isobel got a digital camera though, so I'll put her pictures up tomorrow. Here are the kids in the morning opening their sacks from Santa.







The dinner was brilliant, Pete's friend really enjoyed himself, and even better I got to have a snooze on the sofa for 20 minutes at about 4pm, which I NEVER do on Christmas day. When I woke up my Mum & Uncle had started cooking the evening buffet for me. I quite like being fat and pregnant and garnering sympathy. We all had a really lovely day. I usually get a bit of an anti-climatic feeling once it's all over, but didn't get that this year. It was just really good fun.

Merry Christmas

Well, it's finally almost here. This week has been really hard. I still feel fluey, started to feel better for a few days and now it's come back, so I have no energy to organise anything. We shopped all day yesterday so my back is pretty much useless today, and I still have so much to do.

I have Sam & Harvey coming over this morning, then my Dad & Pauline over this afternoon, then my Mum arrives this evening(though she'll be a help rather than just visiting). I still have to make bread and pigs in blankets at some point, and my housework list is still huge. I am not enjoying being this pregnant at Christmas. I was 20 weeks pregnant on Christmas day with Isobel and that was bad enough. Being 28 weeks this time is too much, thank goodness I'm not right at the end, it would be McDonald's for Christmas dinner!

We have an extra mouth to feed this year, a friend and work colleague of Pete's will be joining us. He's French, and his ex wife and child are back home and he is all alone here. I couldn't bear the thought of him sitting alone in his bedsit, so we are having him here. I like having guests over the holiday period, makes it seem more festive. I had to rush out yesterday and buy him a token gift, didn't want him sitting there during the mayhem that is the present opening without anything to unwrap.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all, I hope you have a good one.

Flu

Well, Pete has the Flu, I have the lightweight version, and the kids are all just coughing and spluttering.

It's been a lazy week here, it's been lovely actually. I've done no coursework at all, naughty me, and we've been more or less bedridden. It's Pete's birthday today(happy birthday honey!), and we haven't even been able to celebrate that. He had a football team night out on Saturday to the Comedy Club that he had to miss, and we were going to have a meal out tonight which has fallen by the wayside too.

I've started planning the garden for next year, last year was a disaster-mainly due to the cat destroying all my seedlings with her rampant toileting habits. I'm buying a small poly tunnel to grow in, to try and keep her at bay, and hopefully extend my growing season. We are all out of homegrown grub now, so it would be nice to still have winter cabbages and stuff out there next year. It should make gardening with a small baby easier too, especially if the weather is bad. He can come out there with me. I'm 27 weeks pregnant now, still meandering along enjoying myself. I've got the usual complaints that I get, bad hips, terrible heartburn, but nothing that would ever stop me from loving every minute of it. Thirteen weeks to go.

We are almost ready for Christmas, only Ryan's big pressie and our grown up ones to buy now. Everything else is under the tree, getting inspected and rattled by the children regularly. I can't wait! I suppose I'd better start planning the food shopping lists, as we only have about 9 days to go.

December

I love Christmas. I think it's the preparation rather than the actual day itself. It's always a bit of an anticlimax at the end of a hard days cooking and tidying. I love the decorating, the planning and buying of presents, the food preparation, wrapping gifts...it's all good fun.

I had a complete nightmare trying to get my essay done on time, the cutoff was November 20th, and I was so behind with my reading that I couldn't answer the question. I was also really ill with sinusitis. I asked for an extension, and my tutor never even bothered to reply to my emails until two days after the cut off date! I ended up staying up late and writing it, and got it in on time anyway, so politely told her to poke her extension. I got my mark back and got 75%, so I'm dead happy with that as I thought I'd done really badly. I got 100% on an online test on graph reading too. I have until 5th January until my next one is due to catch up, so lots of studying to do over the holidays. I only have 6 days left in work until we shutdown, I can't wait.