Christmas Time....

The Christmas festivities began early when we went and picked up a tree on the 1st.

 It just about made it still alive come the 25th! 

Grabbed a quick pick which did for our first family Christmas card.....For those who didn't receive one (i grossly underestimated amount needed), here it is....

The kids - so happy and angelic!

Williams first nativity and one of the most joyous, funniest and proudest moments of my mothering life! 

Although help the person who would accidentally call him a Shepherd...

"I'M NOT A SHEPHERD I'M A SUPERHERO!!!!"

(Distorted idea of the nativity but we went with it as it was the only way he'd dress up). 

The Blue Tiger, Batman and the girl taking the Christmas train to see Father Christmas

 Driving through London enjoying the city's lights, 1 a.m, Anthony and I live it up after a Party! ha!

Our traditional Christmas family date in London, was simplified to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park with the German Market, followed by Harrods Toy department. Anna made it her mission to cuddle and kiss every stuffed animal in the place. 

Christmas eve we enjoyed a small get together with friends, a delicious pre Christmas spread hosted by our friends The Milners...And then home for our own Christmas eve preparations. Anthony made a contraption of string and Jingle Bells, but this was just infuriating William "But I cant see him, I cant see him??!!", He was to overwhelmed so we had to start down playing everything instead, bless 'im.
And When the kids where in bed, Anthony got on with the food preparations and I finished off the presents whilst "Its a Wonderful Life" played in the back ground. Christmas was here.

 The chocolate roulade above is only the work of Anthony!! He did amazing on all the Christmas food.

And Here is Christmas Day in Pictures.......

'Train Track, Lego, Sweets'...Williams Christmas list on auto pilot for weeks....The treasure Chest was a hit, especially since it was where he could lock up all his precious chocolate! (He spent the first half of Christmas morning just counting out his sweets!)

Whilst Anna was only interested in one thing...BREAKFAST! 

Don't Come between this girl and her cereal!

Discovering Santa's been, Checking the reindeer ate their oats and carrots.

The Gruffalo and The gruffalos Child were on repeat all over Christmas! I love them probably as much as the kids!

We had Some of Anthony's family over for Christmas dinner, and a friend of ours from church...in all we hosted for 6 adults and 4 under 4 yrs olds!! It wasn't a sit down kinda meal put it that way! ha

Cousins...

A precious moment, and my fave of the day was whilst driving with William to pick up our friend for dinner, he sighed a deep sigh and said "This is a wonderful day, a really really wonderful day".

Like William, I Hope you all had a "really really Wonderful Christmas".

Birthday Girl..

In high pitch prince voice:
"could you be..the most beautiful girl in the world....Its plain to see, you're the reason why God made a girl..."

She turned 1. (24th Oct.). The feelings where bitter sweet. We LOVE this girl and all her chubbiness. She is the most perfect company. She has found her voice and feisty side and its brilliantly funny! She is especially vocal about food. She will reply to your Q's with a clear distinctive nod of the head or shake for a no. She knows what she wants and she will make sure you know it too (the high pitch shriek is my least fave, but I'm glad she's moved on from the 'fake choke' to get my attention)! She has a bit of an evangelical thing going on shouting out "Amen" at any time she wants or thinks a prayer is happenin'.
She's dances dirty, with some good booty action...I swear she could be black.
She talks/flirts with her eyes, she can tell a thousand stories with those slight nuances of the eye brows. She goes crazy for Dogs and Teddy Bears.. and anything which is soft and fleecy in texture, going into a trance when she has it up against her face, it is her drug!

For her birthday, I was minding Jackson and Wilson Burgess, So Linds and Pete could go to meetings regarding their campaign. You have probably seen me post stuff on it on facebook but check it out and support! 

Anyway, so I just decided to throw a last min birthday party and invited a couple of Williams friends....However non could make it in the end and so it was just us! Smart and sassy Wilson made me feel fantastic about that: "I thought it was a party?" But I brought him round with my prizes and party games!

A Birthday with Boys (Hope this is not a pattern for future b.days).

 They went to town decorating cakes for her though. Yes I'm sure you are shocked/disappointed to find out her birthday cake (above),was not my handy work...check these beasts out:

 She Loved 'em!

Beware...Following is an outlet of my Anna Obsession....but she darn well deserves all the attention....

This wonky toothy grin cracks me up every time.

Serious about food.

Im am totally addicted.

Harvestival, Halloween and Bonfire night/s....

St peters Sq put in a traditional harvest festival, music, kids scarecrow parade, cakes, jams, hog roasts....ye old traditional fair games....A little bit of fun to fill a Saturday afternoon with W!

The weekend before Halloween we went to one of my friends 30th Halloween party...this is turning out to be a year of 30ths...which is really quite fun! 

My dad had a bag full of all things "pirate" that i raided....and we came out looking like this:

Rrrrrrrrr!

 Anthony totally over-reacted to some eyeliner....you'd have thought i was applying it with a needle!

I was not on top of the Halloween costume thing at all this year...William said he wanted to be a Super Hero so last min we D.I Yd that for us all....well Anthony and I put in a lame attempt at least. I love d.i.y Halloween....isn't that what it was when we where kids? These days it feels like it all manufactured costumes people opt for instead...Which are tempting and cute, but i think you loose some of the fun and 'true meaning of halloween'.. haha lets get back to old school! Talking of which here are my kids wearing their underwear on the outside!

We took them trick or treating up in the infamous St Johns wood, meeting up with friends there. Id heard it was a trick or treating hot spot up there, but nothing prepared me for what I experienced that night! It was like Halloween on ACID!! Houses decked from tip to toe, with webs, skulls, spiders...All kinds of freaky characters meeting our kids at the door with bucket loads of treats...and then the hoards and hoards of kids who clearly come form all over (like we did) to Halloween it there. It was actually mental! I loved it! There is a big American community there which i think contributes to the festive spirit/s!

 So above is Ewan Mcgregors house, we never saw him, but you can just make out 'Super Will' at the door, Check out Anthony's lame costume i stuck on him against some serious fancy dressers!

And we did Fireworks at Ravenscourt park at the weekend....

                   Follwed by a Bonfire night themed promo night at Jamie Olivers restaurant.

Me & Jamie could have become the best friends we've always been destined to be this night, but my kids were having non of it! as usual..So there goes holidaying it up with our best buddies The Olivers;)

And now its time for the pumpkins to go and Christmas to roll on in!!

MoRe DaTe NiGhTs LiKe ThEsE pLeAsE.

Back in June, for my birthday, Anthony gifted me with Tickets for one of our fave stand ups at the moment. Kevin Bridges, He's a dry, straight talking Glaswegian if you haven't heard of him.  We were so glad to finally be going to watch comedy at the Apollo on our door step after talking about it for years. So we walked down the river to the Apollo. It was such a brilliant date night. We laughed all the way through, thoroughly enjoying it. I forgot how much more you laugh when you are watching it live. It really is a different experience to watching on TV. My stomach felt like it had done a Jillian DVD. 

Afterwards we had a drink on the river before heading home. We need to make more effort to do comedy dates....definitely amongst my fave so far. 

I Love my Thames back garden!

Trying not to be an obvious "tourist", felt odd in my own neighbourhood. But you can just about make out 'Kevin Bridges' and 'Apollo'

In the Summer time when the weather is fine-rain, heavy showers, thunder, light drizzle and the occasional sunny patch.

Leaving the house in shorts and t-shirts, with jumpers, rain coats, pram covers, and umbrellas at the ready got tiring. 

When William asked on a sunny day if we could make a chocolate cake? I made the mistake of telling him we only did things like that when it rains...what a fool!

We did take full advantage of every single sunny day that came our way.

     

We took a few trips to Brighton as Christine and some business down there. Ice Creams,  Candy Floss, Train rides, Donkeys and fish and chips. 

                   

A cold vacated splash pad...looks so sad. So didn't reach its full potential this summer.

Sleep overs with the Kenny cousins. SOOO exciting for William i thought he'd never crash....so glad he has poor josh to follow round and annoy... "JOSH,.. JOSH.. JOSH".

Sophia and William happily playing at the beach for hours whilst
 we sunbathed!

Safari park for  my Birthday Day Out. We went with Shelley and Dan Jones and their two cute kids. Me and Shelley share the same birthday, so I say 'we went with", but what I really mean is "we gate crashed their day out and invited ourselves along!' Either Way I love the Jones' and have so much respect for them and all they do for others.

Virginia Waters 

Love this, looking for rabbits.

"I painted Anna, look...." oh that kind of Anna painting.

Fishing on the river on lazy sunny afternoons. I REALLY LOVE living on this stretch of the river. 

Flying his kite down on Livepool pier head. 

Crabbing, he caught loads With Uncle Jons expert Help!

Warning: proud parent toilet training shout out!

He did it super quick with no fuss and almost none of my fears where realised......oh bar the time I'm shopping for dresses. I'm in a quiet changing room in warehouse, pretty chiffon dress on..and I SMELL something. I do that shouting whisper "William are you doing a poo? HOLD IT IN!!" 

He shouts (at least it felt like that) back in delight "yes mama I'm doin a poo, I'm doin a poooooooo".

I  cover his mouth with my hand "SHUSHHHH, WILLIAM, shut uuuuppp" luckily he'd eaten crap so it was of a more solid consistency - easy to clean up.

About his business in Hyde Park! 

Some times he liked his privacy........

And some times he added his own personal style to it!

So as inspired by my friend, I'm going to share my own celeb stalking story, here it is in all its geekery...

So Our Friends "The Kelly's" shared some ticks for Hampton court food festival with us. The food was amazing and Kelly Girl and I enjoyed "loosing" the Boys and kids and trying all the food.

Whilst sampling some food I recognise Levi Roots. I probably would not usually recognise a guy famous for making sauce but we were at a food festival so in the context my brain put two and two together.

 I shared my discovery with Kelly. And that went something like this.

Me; hey that's Levi Roots

Kelly: who?

Me: The Reggae Reggae Sauce man!

Kelly: oh yer....

By this point he had walked past us and was well on his way hastily down the Isle of food stalls.

Kelly: Go after him!

Me: What? No!

Then Kelly quite assertively commanded "Yes come on go after him...Go on Run, catch him."

So I ran after him? Kelly Lagging behind and getting stuck behind people as she had Anna in the pram.

I catch up to him and look back to see where Kelly is, she's trying to catch up and shouts, 'go on stop him, get a photo'!

So then in an outta breath super scouse accent I shout, 'Hey Levi'. He Turns. 'can we get a photo?'

He hesitates, clearly in a rush to be somewhere, probably doing a show in one of the demo tents.

Levi: "erm , no, I don't really have time" (ooh cringe).

At this point Kelly has caught up and is behind me, hearing his response she says (and this is the funniest part of all)

"oh please, we are BIG  fans"

In my head I'm thinking "what? big fans? big fans? he makes sauces? I mean Iv bought a couple of his sauces but I'm not sure that qualifies me with such a pressured title? we must look like proper saddos'.

However with such big claims, he relents and allows us "one" photo "quickly".

Thats right, us big Levi fans managed to tick him off. He was clearly annoyed and musta known we where calling his bluff.

Anyway, here is that photo that I abandoned my child, chased through a crowd, trodden over, and shoved people out the way to get. 

Levi Roots, A happy photo bomber and his two maniac, BIG FANS!

After this photo, Kelly and I both turned to each other, cracked up laughing "big fans" and huffed about how rude he was, because we were not inappropriate at all.

Ha, Thanks Kelly for the laughs. Cant wait to camp out with you to make sure we get to the front of his next food demo, you do the banners, I'll print the T-shirts...Oh and make sure you bring your autograph book this time, I'm still sad we missed that opportunity.