family

pizza made by esther. we were all so proud.

we went out for a special family treat to a restaurant this evening to bring an end to the holidays.
here is kezia drinking some coke (or ‘coat’ as she calls it). the other photo is of esther and me. i’m trying to look as excited as i can, but esther isn’t convinced. luckily she’s seen me do this expression before and it no longer scares her.

top tip for UK restaurant fans – if you are going to eat at a beefeater restaurant and you have kids (under 14 i think) you can get 20% off with a free saver card thing they do. but you have to register first. so pop in a few days before and fill in the form. that way you can use the saver-card on your visit (instead of having to wait until the next visit)

we had a great game of dark hide and seek this evening. after our guests had gone, we took it in turns to play hide and seek in the living room. the added fun part was that we turned off all the lights making the room completely dark.
we started off with the finders using a torch (always fun with kids), but then when that got too easy and our eyes got used to the dark we played it completely dark.
esther and kezia (and jane and I) loved it. a highly recommended game for anyone with a dark house (with or without kids)

(artistic representation of our living room with the lights off – i am hiding under the table by the bean bag)

it’s not been easy for jane having her husband at home for nearly two weeks.
looking after a 1 year old and a 4 year old is easy compared to a 31 year old. this truth is revealed in her weary looks.

brother edd took us to the i took these photos at the milestones museum in basingstoke. it was very good.
here is kezia with her ‘sheety’

they had a christmas grotto there, but because it’s after christmas it was santa-less. it was the ideal opportunity to pretend to be him for next year. unfortunately kezia was asleep. but brother edd enjoyed it

having failed to get to windsor park on monday, we did it today instead. last time we went it was lovely and sunny. today it was very cold.
esther has got the hang of starting and stopping which makes cycling more independent.
when we arrived at windsor park esther said “does this all belong to the queen?”
“yes”
“and can we go in there ?”
“yes, that’s why we’re here”
“that’s very kind of her”
and so it is.
so, if you are reading this and are the Queen of England, then “thankyou” from esther.

here is kezia and a christmas tree decorated in security tape outside a park ranger’s office

here is my mum and jane in conversation on new year’s eve.

today’s been cold (but not wet) so we went for a family bike ride. kezia went in the seat on the back of my bike and esther went on the tag-a-long connected to jane’s bike.

yeah for exercise & fun.

we had high hopes for today. we were going to walk around Windsor Great Park whilst Esther cycled and it was going to be great.
unfortunately it chucked it down with rain instead so we stayed in all morning. here is jane’s reaction:

in the afternoon we braved the drizzle to go to Dinton Pastures, our local nature reserve, where esther was able to cycle through muddy puddles chased by jane.

kezia and i trundled along after with the pushchair giving a nice rear view of the proceedings

we went to see some friends today we haven’t seen for a number of years. we both have children that the others have never seen and those we did know as little babies are now approaching teenage years.
it was their daughter’s birthday and jane told esther it was her 9th birthday party. “oh”, said Esther, “but how old is she ?”
here is esther and kezia on a wooden rocking horse. note how kezia is standing on a beeny horse. i’m sure this is signifcant, but don’t know why.

we had a lovely time round some friends house this morning. they have children (two boys) the same age as our girls.
esther and adam loved playing on adam’s junior scaletric as the two fathers looked on, quietly itching to have a go themselves.
instead we were assigned roles of mechanics and car-replacers. a demanding job when the cars are driven by two 4 year olds who don’t understand about slowing down for corners

here is kezia in her new coat, and later with an inflatable santa

here is esther in her new princess dress. the head dangling thing is from a birthday party and was a prize she won in the musical statues competition.

today we went to see my mum in her ‘office’. she works for a company which sells Christmas decorations and they are busy setting up their showroom for Christmas 2004 which kicks off right at the beginning of January 2004 for those in the trade.
It’s great going to her showroom – esther and kezia love it. it’s decorated floor to ceiling in every type of decoration imaginable (and some not so imaginable).
here is esther helping my mum put out some decorations:

and here is esther, mum and kezia (kezia has her eye on some cakes to the left of the photo):

esther’s wise words: “this table is as big as a table when it’s been made”

jane went riding this morning so i took the girls to henley

we had a good time, especially in the play park. we also went round the Henley Rowing Museum with jeremy paxman who was there with his kids at the same time as us (it’s a small museum and kezia kept running up and pressing buttons on the interactive displays that he was looking at)

liz asked esther if she could remember the first time she rode her bike without stabilisers.
esther said “yes, because i am very memorable”.
here is esther eating her dessert of ice cream, clotted cream and custard:

summary of the day:

Read More »a busy sunday

here is more wisdom from Brother Edd:
“i would download the whole world if i could”.
makes you think.

another very wet day. church this morning was excellent. the rest of the day was spent eating bacon, sleeping, crafting and playing dominos (traditional style and toppling).
esther and jane went for a very cold very wet walk and i stayed home with kezia who decided to put on a little puppet show for me

her story was a little confused. it only had three characters – a Wise Man and Mary from the nativity set, and (special guest star) teddy bear from the Three Bears playing the part of Jesus. Or was it Wise Man and Mary playing the part of the other two bears ? All very interesting (and extremely amusing to watch)