January 2013

Steve flew off to Canada where he is working for 5 weeks.

Birthdays
Our eldest grandaughter and our youngest daughter both celebrated their 5th birthday this month.
Our daughter in law celebrated her 21st.

                                                      Mollie's 5th Birthday

Presents

Birthday pancakes for breakfast

Daddy sent the "best balloon ever"

The delivery box made a great hidey hole

And a hutch for new friend fluffy the bunny

Birthday cake made by Nanny

It Snowed

We made the most of cold days inside by doing jigsaws and playing board games.
We also went to a board games social with our home ed group.

All finished

Being a seagull

Cooking
I've been trying to do cooking with the children about once a week, Mollie and Jacob prefer baking
whilst Charlie prefers to make meals.
We made Lemon Meringue pie, banana bread and flapjacks, Charlie made a lovely onion soup.

Pirates...

cooking...

flapjacks

Our computer broke down.
Charlie spent 3 days trying to fix it before he declared that he thinks it needs a new hard drive.

2013 - New Year, New Start!

Well, my plan over the weekend is just to get the house basically clean and organised so that we can all access the things we need to, when we need to. We've all been ill with a horrible flu and sickness bug over christmas and new year so everything has been neglected. We've all lacked inspiration and  get up and go lately and I'm hoping to get the family thinking about the things they really enjoy doing, so that 2013 is a more productive and fulfilling year for us all, hopefully there will be lots to blog about.

2012 Quick Overview.

2012 was not really our greatest year - largely due to the fact my poor Dad had 2 heart attacks in the space of a week. I had to rush up to Northumberland to help him and my Mum, which involved me driving on the mainland for the first time! I took the train up but drove Dad's car whilst there to get Mum to the hospital in Newcastle each day, they live in a little village about an hour away. I've been driving for about 5 years now but am still a nervous driver and driving on our little Island is a bit different to the rest of the U.K.

Luckily Dad has been recovering well and has stayed fit and healthy since, despite having to deal with an urgent house move recently as they found subsidence in their old house.

Our holiday to Cornwall was lovely, we went in May and stayed in a forest cabin just outside Liskeard. Whilst there we visited Tintagel  http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/tintagel the alleged birthplace of King Arthur, Steve took the boys up to the Castle but I was unable to conquer my fear of heights to make it up the cliff so Mollie and I explored the beach and wonderful caves whilst waiting for Steve and the boys to join us. We spent time exploring in nearby Looe and Polperro. We also went to Porfell Wildlife Park  http://www.porfellanimalland.co.uk/   and The National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth   http://www.national-aquarium.co.uk .

View from our cabin

Charlie and Jake enjoying the hot tub

Tintagel Castle

Caves at Tintagel

Mollie making friends with an owl at Porfell Wildlife Park

Our whole family (11 of us in total including our eldest son, his heavily pregnant wife and their daughter)  travelled to Bromley in August, to celebrate our sister in laws 40th birthday. The party theme was fancy dress T.V/Film Stars. We all had a wonderful time and the children enjoyed the novelty of a stay in a hotel.

Jacob as Captain Jack Sparrow

 We had a delightful new addition to our family in October - our second beautiful Grandaughter Ava May arrived on October 17th weighing 8lb 8 oz, looking a lot like her Daddy - our eldest son Matt, who I can't believe will be 23 in July this year, where has the time gone!