christmas tree

our first christmas after we got married i bought decorations for our house, planning that the following year i would buy decorations in one more colour and so on each year until i could have any colour combination i wanted. well five years on and we are still on the original white and gold cos i can't find another i like as much! this is our tree for this year, which sadly is not real. this is the first time we have had a fake tree, and while i am quite sad about that, i still think it looks ok. it will look much better after santa has been and there are presents under it.......

how to get a mohican

this week we discovered how to get the perfect mohican and it involved a vacuum cleaner....

my beautiful kids

so we had some fun with the camera today and here are some of the results.

i got woken up by adam at 2.30 this morning asking if i wanted the goodnews or the bad news first. well the good news is that he's off work until next thursday. the bad news is that he has broken his thumb and we have to fit in a hospital appointment on a really busy day. poor adz, its hurting him a lot, but on a completely selfish note, its a great injury to have. minimum damage, maximum impact. he can't work cos he can't grip anything or use his hand properly, but he's fine and we get to spend some time together. love it!!!
tomorrow is our primary christmas party, and after that we are nearly done with the stressful stuff. can't wait to relax!!!!!!

so i was right, today has been a good day. i thought my heart would burst with pride as i watched liv at her christmas concert. she did really well, sang her heart out and knew all the words. it was adorable to watch all the little ones (liv is in the oldest group, she's not quite five yet) doing their bit. i love it, what a highlight of christmas.
this afternoon i did the card class. i did end up spending more time helping others than doing my own, but it was fun and i enjoyed myself immensely. tomorrow i have managed to get myself an invite to the sure start volunteer christmas party. we are going off by coach, having dancing lessons, yummy lunch and santa! so that should be fun too. of course, on saturday i am running the primary christmas party, so round all the fun stuff i am trying to fit in things like buying and preparing all the food, getting games ready, setting up the santas grotto etc. i think the party will be fun, but preparing for it is not, esecially when it comes only six days after the presentation. thankfully, after that it is mostly over for a while and i can turn my attention to finishing hand made presents, wrapping all the stupidly large boxes that the kids presents are in, writing christmas cards, the carol concert i'm singing in etc etc. still, after today i am feeling considerably more festive and ready for all the chaos of the next three weeks!

the primary presentation is over!!! thank goodness. i think it went alright too. the kids did really well, although they still were not watching me when i was trying to get them stood up all co-ordinated so they looked like a ragtag band. but thats it now until next year, except for the christmas party on saturday, leadership next tuesday, the nativity on the 21st......
liv is in her school christmas concert on thursday, which i am greatly looking forward to. she is a star. she knows all the songs that everyone is singing and i think i do too, she has sung them that much. i can't wait to just sit back and enjoy the performance, playing proud mum.
thursday afternoon i have signed up to do a card making class at sure start, which sounds great except that somewhere along the line i have managed to get myself into running said class. the advantage of that is that i get to do my favourite pastime - craft shopping - with someone else's money! i'm actually quite looking forward to that too, so thursday should be a good day.
i'm finding it hard to feel christmassy this year. even though we had snow this morning, its felling more and more every year as though its just hard work. there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything that needs doing. i'm trying hard to feel the spirit of the real reason for the season. maybe we should cancel the commercial annoyance that christmas has become so we can return to celebrating the birth of our Saviour and Redeemer.