Beads, trees and wrapping paper

Its Christmas Eve.

I think that's a :-)

So far the children have been up for 4 hours, we have watched several Christmas 'specials' (postman pat was ok, but rapidly down hill from there, lol) and had an argument over who opened the tub of malteasers I bought DP and DD1 yesterday.

(Which reminds me - why does the tub of mixed white and milk maltesers have less white ones in it than a single bag of white ones, even though the proportions pictured on the tub are 50/50 as is the price of it? If you've yet to buy one of these tubs - Stop!! Buy the smaller one that is just white malteasers and then buy the equal weight in milk choc ones. It will be nearly a pound cheaper and you'll get more white ones which means that when a child raids the pot in the middle of the night there is less likelihood that they will all be gone in the morning. rant over :-)

Oh - and its my dads birthday today so a phone call has been made and he has had 2 renditions of Happy Birthday, along with an 'ahh' from DS (who I swear has been watching Ann from Little Britain, lol) followed by my mind going blank from lack of sleep so I will need to call again later.

On the 'cards' for today - well not shopping, all done, yay! - but lots of stickers (I bought the Raymond Briggs Snowman and Father Christmas books in JLP for half price the other day), with a little painting, some baking (see Reading and Recipe blog right for the recipes) - probably the lavender shortbread today, and maybe a mincemeat slice traybake or similar (that last depends on whether there is any mincemeat or dried fruit in the cupboard because I am *not* going to the shops).

All this of course, is assuming I can prise my children from the television!! I don't know, you keep them busy and away from it for a few days and they treat it like a long lost friend and are incapable of turning it off again!!!!

Ho hum. Merry Christmas and all that.

Goodness, I've found a blog I forgot I had! Hick!!!

Well - time to start again just in time for Christmas.

And talking of Christmas - has anyone else out there had enough of it yet?

Today has been a case in point - DP decided to blitz the house and I was invageled into taking the children out for the day to facilitate this.

After 5 hours I come home to find that there is no where is sit, and the dining table is *full* of all the things that had been spread around the kitchen.

I turn around and take the children out for a further hour. They are not happy about this, given that it is nearly three-thirty in the afternoon and the schoolrun thingy that people do has just started. We attempt to go to Battle for the last hour of the day, only to be unable to park (due to all the people waiting to take their children home) and then we spend the next 15 mins queuing in said car park until a space becomes available and we stop for the next 35 mins to allow the traffic to disperse. We discover a lack of change so end up staying in the car until the traffic has gone, Then I start the engine again and we go home.

There is still no where to sit - and then DP admits that he didn't notice we'd gone out again until 5 minutes before we got home again. Arghh!!!!!!!

Anyway - I unload the children from the car. They go inside. I follow. We wander. DD1 cleans the bedroom!!!!!!

Lots of time passes doing the usual evening things (eating, running to the bathroom, fending the baby from the stairs, etc. etc.) Dp finally shoehorns the girls into bed. And starts the bedtime stories.

And DD2 reads!!! and not to be outdone DD1 decides to read more!!!

I'm now downstairs with a large glass of ginger wine and blogging with the shock of going from one reluctant and barely doing it reader to two doing it rather well in one day!! (well the second doing it as well as a beginner would, but the perfectionist DD1 has obviously decided not to be out done by little sys! Yay!

And there endeth the first Christmas posting.

Tommorrow - well probably a recipe or two whilst I try and formulate what we do and where we do it for the rest of you to see, and try and make something coherent out of a mismatch of info.