family

lamby has recently turned in to a bit of a dandy. here she is wearing her bandana.

we were invited out for a meal today after church and the kids band practice. we had a really good time and the food was fantastic ! a nice sunday lunch (chicken variety) followed by a fantastic chocolate pudding. yummerama.

If you are around 2 years old, there is nothing better than scoffing loads of chocolate, smearing the remains over your face and then running around the room as quickly as you can (accompanied by Casiotone cheese)

jane made £4 at the toy sale today by selling our things. unfortunately I simultaneously and independtly blew it on a video of The Flumps. There’s something about repacked TV from childhood years which taps in to people’s brains. The fact it was for sale in a charity shop made it even more appealing.
i was esther’s age when this program appeared on British TV and I remember watching the World Premier of it. I think they did a feature on it on the live magazine program before it (Pebble Mill i think).

The amazing thing was that when i watched it through with esther later in the day it was as good as i remembered it !

kezia used to have something she called her ‘baby’. It was in fact a little police car. since then she’s found a proper dolly to love which is her new baby.
i sold my soul and took the easy option of a lunch in McDonalds in Maidenhead today. kezia had her baby with her and made sure it got some chips:

she also gave it a drink:

i looked after the kids this morning as jane was doing commerce at the preschool toy sale. esther decided she wanted to go to Maidenhead and Kezia was happy to go along with the plan.
here are a couple of photos of the day. kezia with her finnish hat on (left) and both the girls spontaneously saluting the camera for no reason (right)

we saw a steam train whizzing through maidenhead station when we were there. it came and went too fast to a photo unfortunately. but it was good (imagine it)

afternoon tea and cakes is a very British thing to do. today we were joined by out friend Liz who joined us for a late tiffin.

here are esther and kezia in reading museum doing some study.

kezia became very attached to a stuffed badger and she was quite upset when we had to leave.

i’m working from home today. i heard a lot of clonking in the room next to my office so i popped my head round the door and saw this scene of chaos.
esther had been sent under the bed and was extracting everything she could find. jane was happily receiving it, whilst kezia was spreading it around the room. i think they are sorting stuff out for the playgroup toy sale.

i have retreated back to the safety, quiet and (relative) tidyness of my office

here is kezia ‘smiling’ i think she’s not quite worked out what the words means yet. it was a good expression so i took the photo anyway !

you’ll be glad to know i’ve kept up my tradition of disrupting church services today …

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much excitement as esther managed to cycle her first without stabilisers. hoorah. she’s very pleased with herself, and so she should be

esther and I spent a happy hour video conferencing to each other around the house. esther had the wireless laptop and wandered round the house.
we were just getting bored when her best friend, catherine, logged on at her house, so they video conferenced each other instead.
it was fascinating watching two 4 year olds talk and video to each other over the Internet. It’s always funny when 4 year olds have a conversation anyway as they don’t do small talk – conversating over the Internet was even more funny.

today we went with lunch at our lovely friends ian and carolyn’s house. good food and lots of good fun.
we went to the local park. here is kezia and ian:

and here is esther and carolyn:

the afternoon ended with a disco. (i learnt some tips for next time i have an office disco)

i supervised esther and kezia in their crafting this morning. they found much fun in attaching bits of cellotape to their faces. after a few minutes they both looked like they were made of wax and were melting.

it reminded me of the last time i saw such nonsense

here is a drawing by esther of herself, catherine and kezia

this afternoon we went for a walk in Bradgate Park which is where i learnt to ride my bike when i was little. we took esther’s bike so she could keep the family tradition and learn to ride there too. she got on very well.

kezia can say the word ‘pick’ and is currently exploring the variety of sounds you can extract from a guitar. she’s gone for the sitar playing style, which adds a nice ethnic feel to her playing. she’s also chosen a non-standard tuning so her chords sound more interesting.

jane, esther and kezia got stuck in a lift in whsmiths in reading today. do you see the strange coincidence here:
* whsmith is a stationary store so it’s no surprise the lift didn’t move
* whsmith sells books which are good for reading. and our local town is called reading.
it’s amazing they even got permission to install a lift with the odds so stacked against them.
the girls were stuck in the lift on their own for around 10 minutes during which time they could communicate by shouting to people in the rest of the shop. it was a power cut apparently which resets the lift, which is a nice idea.
the girls were rewarded for their good behaviour by the shop keepers by the traditional rewards of coke, crisps and chocolate (the three C’s). i bet blaine-in-a-box will get the same reward when he is released.

here are all the pairs of shoes jane bought for kezia and esther today.

here is something over 24 hours old now. i came home yesterday to find much cookery going on in the house. there was a fine culinary smell coming from culinary areas. kezia was wearing her bestest apron and generally “eating” everything.
pity i’m on my special diet this fortnight, else i could have eaten the ‘sandies’ that they made (no i don’t know what sandies are either).

and just for you non-vegetarians out there, here is what we had for tea this evening. a massive blob of sanity enhancing british beef.