Friday, December 08, 2006

What have we been up to?

It's been quite a while since I posted normal family news stuff here on the blog so I thought I'd do a very quick catch up post. Here are 3 photos from the last 2 weeks. I was ill with a nasty cold, which turned into a bad chesty cough. Just about managed to get through the days but crawled into bed as soon as Steve got in from work every night. That lasted almost a week so not much got done. Although Steve finally finished painting the hall, stairs and landing!!! Woo hoo (no less than 18 walls of varying sizes and heights!!!)


I had to take a pic of these animals. I came downstairs on one of the mornings that I was feeling ill and this was the sight in our living room. Steve had been playing with Luke, with Sam's old animals that he collected when he was little. They had arranged them in such a good order, dinosaurs in the middle, animals around the outside, with the humans guarding them all along the perimeter. Luke has taken to playing with these animals a lot, and often arranges them in different group variations.



I took great enjoyment taking this photo of Steve. After a full day of working, running errands, popping in and out of various places of business, he came home, looked in the bathroom mirror and exclaimed "Who let me go out looking like this?" His hair was wild. I laughed myself silly and he agreed to pose for the blog.





One day last week we took a family trip to the cinema to see Flushed Away. We very rarely go as a family because of the cost (£20! - and that was with cheap sweets from the corner shop, not expensive cinema treats) The film was very good. Luke laughed so much every time the singing slugs came on - I thought they were a nice touch to the film, very entertaining. I could watch that film twice, which is saying something for a kids film.


On the education front, Sam has been doing well at his new High School. He gets his end of term exam results back soon, so that will be a sign of how he's doing. He had some results back already, but when he gets his report it will also show the class average for each exam result. He scored no less than 98% on his geography exam! I don't know what the class average was yet though.



Jude has been quietly working away at home. She was quite neglected while I was ill and just plodded on with the work she had been doing all term. I really need to sit down and look at her maths work to make sure she fully understands it. Today she is starting a lap book project. She hasn't quite decided what to do yet. Last night she went on a Brownies trip to see Santa and came home with lots of goodies and stories to tell (from all accounts Santa flashed at the congregation of young Brownie girls, when he stood up and his trousers fell to his ankles!!!)

Luke is getting more and more excited about Christmas as every second passes. He has started waking at the crack of dawn in order to retrieve the next chocolate from his advent calendar. Not a good idea. We should have been opening them at bedtime, to get him to bed earlier. Hes' asking me every day when we will be putting the tree and decorations up. I'm holding off for as long as possible as he will drive me insane once it's up, with constant questions of "is it Christmas yet?" People here in Northern Ireland do put their decorations up very early. I think the general trend here is to put them up on 1st December, or round abouts, but I have seen many houses in Belfast decorated from as early as 1st November. In the south of England when I was a lass I'm sure we didn't put them up until nearer Christmas. When the schools broke up, about a week before the big day we'd put up the decorations, and they stayed up for about 12 days (the 12 days of Christmas, right?) I'm sure I'll get comments from people in England saying they have them up for longer, but I'm sure that's how it was at home. A full month or more seems such a long time to have the house decorated. Oh well.

I'm sure there is loads of other news but I can't spend any more time on the blog... things to do.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're right about the Christmas decorations Hazel. When I was a lad, we had one tree and two pieces of tinsel between all the houses in our street. The only source of heating in those days was the candle and we used to share it round each house for an hour at a time.
We didn't have much in those days but at least Santa could keep his trousers up.

Anonymous said...

Pleased that Sam, Jude and Luke are all doing well and that you are feeling better. We will not make any comment on Steve's hair!!! Love from Jill and John

Anonymous said...

i wondered why my shop was not busy that day and why everyone run out the shop screaming !!

Anonymous said...

When I was a kid, our decs went up on Christmas eve and came down on the 5th January (my little sisters birthday).

In our house, they are not going up until the kids break up from school on the 19th and will be down before they go back (its going to be hard enough sending them back without sending them back with decs still up!). There are houses on my street that have been decorated for weeks already though!!

Lin xx (south West England!!) ;-)

Tammy said...

Well, here in the USA, we have thanksgiving the last thursday of November, so traditionaly the Christmas season starts the next day, or sometime that weekend. I put my lights up outside that weekend. And some indoor decos too. But, I am waiting until the 16th to put up the tree. I like to keep it up until at least New Years Day, so I can't put it up too early, or it will dry out too fast. My aunt got hers thanksgiving night a few years ago, and had to put the tree out on the curb xmas night, it was so dry, lol!

Love that hair Steve!! You could start a new trend, lol!! Glad that you are all doing well.