is this rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, i hear you ask. no, its liv, with what happens when you put ice cream on your nose!

this girl can pose for England, but she always has to put her nose in the air to do it!

liv and i went on a mother-daughter date today. it was her choice of restaurant, and she wanted KFC 'so we don't take too long'. charming. still, we had a good time, and i learnt some new things. olivia loves school and her class there. she wants everyone to come to her birthday party. when i asked her about church, she went all quiet.

'do you like your new class at church?' i ask. she shakes her head.

'how about your teacher?' another shake.

now i'm worried. are the boys teasing her? is she intimidated? whats going on?

'so whats wrong?' i ask gently

'i have to learn things' she says sadly.

then she can't understand why i laugh and laugh. sorry teacher jess, she doesn't like your class cos you actually teach her!

we played while we ate and talked. towards the end, while she sitting there with ice cream on her nose, i look at her and wonder if she will ever understand just how great she is and how much i love her. so i try to tell her.

'hey, i love you' i say.

'i love you too ladybird' she says. i'm touched.

'i love you more, butterfly' i say.

'i love you most...(casting around for a word)..dinosuarus' she says.

enough said!

so having seen the lovely jess's take on our day out in matlock bath (see britishcowgirl) last week, i thought i should add my own. its not as funny as hers though, partly because my camera ran out of battery, and partly because i have been there enough times that i simply look past some of the best stuff. i was laughing at jess at the time for taking so many photos of random stuff, but now i see she has her own unique view of the world! however, it was me who discovered the best name of a soldier on a war memorial ever - see if you can find better! perhaps we could start an international hunt for the best name, with all four people that read this. suggestions please....

today we really started our journey to becoming foster carers. we met with a woman from the fostering team at social services. she seemed really nice. she asked lots of questions and made lots of notes. she tried to be honest about what fostering the age group we are looking at is really like. she told us to worst case scenarios, and some best case. it was a bit eye-opening, especially as she talked us through some of the common reactions that birth children have when foster children come onto the scene. apparently copying bad behaviour is not uncommon. i would be lying if i said that i'm not worried about some of the potential things that could happen. but i still feel quite positive about how we could help someone.
it was also quite strange to have to quantify how you are able to look after a child. 'what skills and abilities do you have to enable you to foster?' we had to think of words to describe how we parent, which is actually more difficult than it sounds. there will be a lot more of that to come too. we have long forms to fill in, which require evidence foreach point. it looks a bit daunting, and will take up to six months before we get final approval and are given a placement. keep your fingers crossed for me xxx

while i'm on a roll, here are a few more photos from the last few days! on saturday, we went to castleton, in the peak district, where some of the scenes from the Princess Bride were filmed. we saw the 'as you wish' hill and the entrance to the fire swamp. it was VERY cold and tyler was not having much fun until he managed to persuade daddy to give him a ride. we had a great day.

i have finally downloaded all my photos from the last month, so as promised, here they are. apologies that the video is all sideways, i cannot seem to change that. still they are quite funny.

note to self - video straight on next time!

here is james playing hula, peter and dad had a go too, but it took katrina to show how it should be done.

the hula was great unscheduled entertainment for our traditional family christmas dinner. after the floor show, we had a lovely dinner, followed by a slightly untraditional nativity. note the very funky shepherds, and mary with chocolate round her mouth!

olivia started school full time today. i can't believe that i have a child old enough to be at school! she was very excited and has counted down the sleeps since christmas. she's so excited that she nodded and grinned happily when i told her that this was it - school every day for the next fourteen years! thankfully, she doesn't understand what that means. it sounds like a very long time even to me, and i've done it.
we had a great christmas. the rigby family dinner was very entertaining. the kids (and james) put on a nativity, which was funny and almost factually accurate. i will add evidence later of all the festivities.
happy new year all :o)