Christmas morning

Happy Christmas everyone! Here's a few photos from our Christmas morning.

Babysitting cousin Henry

On Christmas Eve morning, we babysat for Matt & Erin while they finished their Christmas shopping. Don't think this was any hardship, it meant we got lots of time with cousin Henry, aka Hank. He arriced just before nap time, so we put him down, but he was rather reluctant to sleep. Patrice advised us that M&E normally leave him for ~7 mins to see if he will drop off, and he did. When we went back to check on him though, we found he had sat himself up, then dozed off sitting...
After nap time, it was dinner time. Hank was very keen for the loose cherios he gets as finger-food, but less so for the jar of sweet potato puree. Chrissy found it neccesary to distract him with the lid from his cherios.
Henry pulled some wonderful faces during lunch, especially when David pulled paces back at him.
Ruth wanted to help with feeding.
And so did David. Rather than steer the spoon though, David wanted to pop cherios straight into Henry's mouth!

Shhhhh...... Daddy's sleeping!

I founf this photo on the camera this morning - Chrissy took it last night after I fell asleep on the sofa at about 6 p.m. I vaguely remember David asking if he could give me a hug ("Yes, of course."), but not being used as a sofa....

Godmother Amy Day

Our first full day in the US was Godmother Amy Day for Ruth. We had arrived on the 19th, and Amy and Larry were flying out for Christmas with their relatives late on the 20th. Amy picked Ruth up late morning, and took her out for the day. They got haircuts, and went to their favourite Ice-cream Parlour afterwards. When they got back, Amy brought out some Christmas presents. Ruth opened them right away, with Amy.

Ruth got a book, "Big Words for Small People", and a lovely black and gold dress, very similar to one Amy had given her as a 2-year old.




After that it was time for Amy & Larry to go, with hugs and "Merry Christmas"s all round.

Daddy, what's that car?

In the middle of November we went into Keswick for the market, and to take Chrissy's laptop in for repairs. While browsing the market we noticed a rather unusual car was on display.
David and Ruth were most impressed, especially David, although I'm not sure if they really understood who Batman is...

The (English) Christmas Tree

Since we knew we would be away for Christmas, we only did a little bit of decorating this year - a small tree to help get the Christmas mood started.

We will Fly, we are flying, we have Flu...

It's happened to me often enough that I think Flu should be the official past tense of Fly....
It started Saterday night, left me bed-ridden all Sunday, and is now starting to wear off. I wonder how I would have faired if I hadn't had a flu vaccine back in November.

Chrissy has done a great job of taking care of me the last 30 hours or so. Thankyou love!

Over the Seas and Far Away

Christmas in America this year - We're here in one piece, and the children were great with all the travelling. The travel plan looked something like this:

Friday 19th December
00:00 Get in car for airport
03:00 Arrive at airport carpark & catch bus
03:30 Arrive at airport
04:00 Check in
06:10 Take off for Amsterdam
08:00 Arrive in Amsterdam
12:20 (13:20 Eurotime)Take off for America
21:15 (17:00 US time) Land at Dulles
22:40 (18:40 US time) Meet Peter & Patrice in Arrivals Hall
23:00 (19:00 US time) Leave Airport
24:00 (20:00 US time) Arrive at the house

By this time the kids were so worn out that they didn't even wake up when we got them out of the car, and we were soon all in bed.

Handprints in the Concrete

At the back end of October we had the insurance contractor come out to fix the cracked drain pipes under the house and at the back where they connect to the main sewer in the alley. I was in bed ill most of the time, but after the new concrete had been poured at the back of the house, Chrissytook the kids out and they all made handprints and signed their names.


I was most impressed when I noticed, and a little bit disappointed not to have been able to join them. Fortunatley for me, the concrete was just wet enough....
The thing sticking up is not actually part of the plumbing. This piece of concrete, and the sewer pipe under it, were broken by the council rubbish collection truck drving over it each week when they come to collect the rubbish. When we told the contractors about that, they decided to use a left-over piece of pipe, filled with concrete, as an improvised bollard to prevent a repeat breakage.

[editted for spelling]

All Done (30th October 2008)

Well, as you can see, the house painting is finished. Now we just have to get the insides sorted out

18th October 2008

Ruth was up very early on this particular morning, so we asked her to play quitely in her room or in the hallway until it was a proper time for getting up. Ruth decided that if everyone else was going to stay in bed, she would too, but not in her bedroom....
When I came out, I found that she had built herself a new bed in the hallway, complete with line of soft toys, and a tea set ready for breakfast.