It's Boxy Woxy Day!

Well boxing day is here! (History of boxing day below*). This is the start of the weird period between Christmas and New Year where no one knows their name or if they are coming or going! It's not Christmas anymore but it's not the start of the New Year. It's that weird time of nothingness! Nothing is happening. You kinda feel like something should be happening and yet aren't too sure what! It's a time for catching up with family except we can't as a nation due to the corona. Some treat it as time for gentleness and calm with self. Lots of reading, walking and crafting/project time. And yet some would still feel like there is only so much walking, watching films and down time one can have! I think there is the weird feeling too added to it that we are going to be returning home to lockdown. So we can't even go shopping like I usually would do with the kids when they are on holidays. Take them to down and go round the shops. Need to measure their feet for new shoes and yet the shops are closed so not sure how we are going to do that! Our current plan is still to travel home tomorrow. There is talk of snow Monday so if there is any vague chance of us getting any I wanna be there for it! Now we will see nothing will come of it lol!

(* For those of you not from the UK and the like Boxing day dates back to Victorian times. Rich people used to box up gifts of things for poor people. Rich people used to give boxes to their servants too as a Christmas gift and give them the day off. And Churches used to hand out gifts in boxes to people who were poor. You can read more here: https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-boxing-day-435060)

I won't update on Christmas day today as I obviously have some pics to share so will do that in a different one. Needless to say it was a quiet but good day. We are at mother-in-laws house who lives alone and she invited around another old lady who also lives alone. She was most happy to be invited with us so she wasn't alone and I think the kids brightened up her day! Christmas isn't really Christmas without kids around! The kids had faaar too many presents and there is still more at home to open as I didn't pack them all!

Right reverse back 2 weekends ... Jessica was having fun with some play make up she had got with a magazine a while ago. She decided to make me up. There isn't lipstick all over my face so she did a good job lol!!! 

I curled up later in the evening with my Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles book and put on my Christmas log fire channel. We had got down the battery operated snow picture too. My camera refused to take a nice picture so it's a bit blurry but you get the idea!

In the evening I snuggled up in bed with my laptop and put on some relaxing carols. Made a good start on wrapping presents too. You can even see my advent candle lit here too :-)

The children decorated their Christmas tree's. This involves baubles not lasting very long as they get knocked off. I put them back on a few times then I give up and just put them back in the Christmas box for the loft! For some reason I only took a picture of Sophie's tree and not Jessica's - Not a great picture mind due to the light. Although there is a possibility I was taking a picture of all that rain on the window instead!!  I then spread myself out in Sophie's room on her bed to wrap some more presents and write cards. I have a folder that I use every year for both making a card list and a present list. And when it is Christmas at our house I also have a job/to-do list in there too that is week by week. This is based on this site: https://christmas.organizedhome.com/printable

Later in the afternoon I pulled out my dog knitting to do some more of his legs. I got sidetracked by Sophie however who wanted to learn finger knitting. This didn't last long before she got fed up though so I relocated downstairs.

I snuggled up under my cosy blanket put on the relaxing channel and knitted 2 back legs for my doggy before tea. 

Sorted some laundry before bedtime. With the worms in the house there is a lot!

At bed time I read some more of my Dwell, Gather, Be book ... For those of you that don't know about this amazingly, calm, read you can look back at this blog post where I did a book review of it. I HIGHLY recommend it! https://rebekahc-talesofahousewife.blogspot.com/2020/11/more-changes-and-some-book-reviews.html. If you just want to look at the book on the likes of Amazon then there is a link here: https://amzn.to/2KF9B0D.  Here are a few pictures to look at from it.

The Cosy Issue is a very Hyyge magazine style book that is from the USA. It is as it says on the cover very Cozy! Little stories, inspirations and talk of nature. I paid ridiculous money and got it for £20 off ebay. That said there isn't a single advert in it and it is like a book so is very readable over and over again. I have pulled it out to read again over this winter. What is really annoying is that I packed a bag to bring up here over Christmas of entertainment - quiz book, reading book, this book and some new beading work. But somehow I forgot to pack it!! ARGH! So annoyed as I wanted to read this gah! 

Right that is it for today. The next update will be heavy laden with pictures from our Santa visit! It will be hard to choose what to post up! 

Might drag the family out for a walkies in a minute down the farm or somewhere as we are right on the edge of the country here. An opportunity for me to take some pictures for you all to post up in a few weeks when I've caught up lol. 

Right! Chin up guys! New year is just around the corner and there is talk of snow! Might miss some snowflakes falling!! If it does - Ha! Hope you managed to find some joy in Christmas even if it was just the food and the trash TV! LOL!! Lots of love to you all and your families. Until next time - Byeee! Xx

We escaped!

 Hi Again!

Well we are away for Christmas in a bubble visiting mother in law who lives alone up north. The whole decision was very traumatic for me. I swinging wildly on the fence between wanting to go and not wanting to go. I wanted to go for a break from the norm, to see her at Christmas when she lives alone, and for some small amount of Christmas day normality. However I was also massively aware of the new coronavirus variant that is causing mayhem on the country! I had a massive feeling after the weekend briefing that we should not go and therefore I said no. I then swung 2 days later to feeling too guilty to not go. Hubby was looking forward to it and tbh I didn't really want to leave an old lady alone at Christmas either. Although she does have a friend coming on the day who also has no family so wouldn't have been completely alone (another reason I thought that we didn't really need to come). But any way guilt got the better of me and we are here! Thankfully apart from the girls going to school and swimming lessons and Daniel going food shopping there are no other incomes for corona to get a hold on us so we should be ok for her! I still don't know though if we have made the right decision - especially with todays briefing that back home we are going to be a tier 4 from boxing day! Tbh I could see that coming though with part of Hampshire in level 4 already. We got here last night and went food shopping an hour or so after arriving got all the Christmas stuff and hopefully all the food we will need whilst here (We plan to leave on Sunday). So that should be us with no further need to leave the house until we drive home! 

We managed to pack the car very well with no additional bags out of the boot except for the kids car bags of toys and the food bag for lunch and snacks plus my rucksack (In the olden days I used to have a handbag!!). We packed Sophie's suitcase full of Christmas presents for the kids and Jessica's case was used for both the kids clothing so that helped. We only plan on being here for 5 days and leaving Sunday so that helps a lot. The new tier 4 comes into force on Saturday so hopefully they will let us back in LOL!

I'm going to try and update a bit. Reversing to 2 weekends ago ... 

Here's Sophie showing me something on the switch. Photoed in quite possibly the filthiest mirror around! All mums are now nodding their heads at this lol! 

Once I had dealt with the worms (we had our last meds on Friday yippee!) I made Jessica's bed up all ready for Christmas. Here's the worm washing in the bath - moutainous! If that is even a word ... If not I've just made it up lol

Sophie made a pretend ipad with Roblox on it lol!

Here she is playing with a dolls house that my dad got for Jess for her birthday. Seems Sophie plays with it more than Jess though! Funny how kids do that ...

I tried to take a picture of all the birds up the garden feeding but tbh it's pretty rubbish!! They half look like leaves LOL! 

I managed to sell a couple of brand new kids games that I had in a Christmas bag and never got round to giving the kids. And the Minecraft I accidently brought twice! So that's a spare £25 in the bank :-D

The elf brought 2 gifts for the kids of mini elves for their Christmas trees. They were most unimpressed by them mind! And another night the elf set up a Shoe Choo Train which the kids decided to try and sit on for a free ride.

Right that will do for a mini update! I'll attempt for another one over the next couple of days. I do need to tell you all about our santa visit at some point too! Sleep well all or morning as it will most likely be as usual! Take Care out there all!! And look up in case you see any snow flakes over the next few days - Yea right! Ha! Byeeee! X

The interview of Jessica!

So sorry for the lack of comms and radio silence over the past week! It has been some what manic!

Dealing with the worms and many mountains of laundry, then Sophie had her flu vaccination on Tuesday. Then the past 2 days she has reacted to it and had a high temperature and yesterday aching limbs and a headache. Shame she got to miss the last day of term and Christmas fun today :-(

I have also been trying to start packing for going away for Christmas. Got Sophie's suitcase out Tuesday and started filling it with presents on Wednesday and put more in yesterday. The plan is for both girls to share Jessica's suitcase - not that she likes this plan mind! And then all the kids presents can go in Sophie's case. I have spent most evenings wrapping and have made my way through everyones that is for out going the house - so my parents and sister and have wrapped the kids stuff. Need to do hubby's tomorrow. Also plan to get my case out to start packing tomorrow and empty a big box on the landing to return to my dad and do some more of the kids packing. Sophie's clothes, smellies (except thermometer as in use) and toys for the car are now done. And i've done Jessica's clothes (need more socks though all I can find is odd ones!) and smellies done today. Will sort her a car bag tomorrow. And speaking of Jessica ... This post is mostly about her and her interview! Sooo without further a-do!

These are the questions that were given to me to ask her. I will write the question and then the answer after it.

1) What do you like most about your mommy

A) That she gives me lots of chocolate (???!!! Do I?!)

2) When you think back to one of your favourite memories of us all as a family what is it? Can you retell what happened and why you liked it. 

A) When we went to a waterpark with a massive slide - On holiday (Majorca! The famous one we got hand foot and mouth at I reckon!)

3) Mummy or chips? 

A) Mummy

4) Daddy or chips?

A) Daddy

5) If your lamby (teddy) could talk what would he say?

A) I'm not him so I dunno!

6) If you drew anything that came to your head, what would you be drawing right now?

A) A picture of a person (She does love drawing people actually - usually pretty ladies in pretty dresses!

7) What do you think you're going to dream about tonight?

A) Pizza and waking up on Christmas day and getting 10 thousand robux and screaming my head off

8) What sounds do you like?

A) My favourite song - Legends never die https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fOBgosDo7s

9) You're outside for a whole day: what would you do? 

A) In summer have my i-pad lying on a mat playing roblox

10) Describe a great day. What are you doing that makes it special?

A) Have a play date with one of my friends. Playing with my friends makes it special.

So there you are! Next it will be Sophie's turn at the interview! I wanted to get a post out to you guys about the end of a couple of weeks back. But just didn't get round to it so will try to over the weekend! This is kids going to bed at a decent time (11pm tonight for Sophie!! :-o), not being ill, and everything else going smoothly permitting! If I go radio silence again it's gone a bit mad! Next week should be quieter once we arrive at our destination so I should have more time for catch up's then too!

So that's it for tonight. Have a good sleep or good morning for you early birds!!    :-D Keep looking up! Lot's of pretty Christmas lights to see around at the moment! Do you have any up? Do send me some pictures I so love pretty pretties!! 

Lots of love to all X

Santa's Beeeeen!! And his minion ... and some unwanted visitors!

Yes the old man himself has been! Santa that is - nothing to do with me husband ;-)

He also brought his little minion along to have a nosey on the kids daily. You know that little elf thing. The thing that parents think will be fun until they run out of ideas of what to do daily!!ARGH!

I have been a horrific bore this year. So far he has just randomly appeared in the tree and one night was found reading to the kids doll under said tree ...

   

Another night he was found showcasing himself inside one of Jessica's lol doll cases. That was a pain to do and he had to be sellotaped in. Quite how she didn't notice i've no idea!

Friday was santa visiting the street on his sleigh time. We said there's a surprise and Sophie was full of wonder at what it was and Jessica said I know santa is here. So she is used to the annual tradition now then! She didn't even want to get dressed or go out for it. She had seen it before - Or more my ipad is more important than having fun off it ...!! Any way we managed to drag them out in the end. A big help was our neighbour also coming out to see santa. He is older than us and has no kids so your never to old for santa! Our kids adore him so getting them out was easy. Even easier once the kids laid eyes on their school friends all milling around the sleigh too! There was some vague attempt at social distancing but it's that thing where if you aren't close you can't really see but if your too close your in the thick of it. I ended up having to get closer to the pack at times to see where my kids were in the dark! We also did what you aren't meant to do and follow santas sleigh around out road to the end. They were trying to abate the gatherings for social distancing but not may actually listened to this! As he goes along he sends out some foam that is floating in the air like snow. It really is quite realistic and does give a good snowy christmasy atmosphere. I must say I was more into this and enjoyed it than I did the buying of the tree so that's one step closer! It was nice to see the neighbours and have a natter at least! 

Btw not sure if your aware but I think if you click on any of my photos they should come up larger/full sized? 

At bed time Jessica was complaining of being itchy down below - upon inspection (the things us parents do!!) it transpired that we have yet another dose of the worms - pinworms - threadworms whatever you call them! This is the second time this year as we had over lockdown in summer too! Always a horrible moment to see these wiggly things looking right back at ya! Although that's not as scary as the oncoming deeeeep cleaning that needs to come after!! Thankfully Daniel was in Sainsburies at the time so I rang him to go to the pharmacy for some Ovex. The magic medicine you take once then it kills them off. Or basically it starves them so they can't absorb sugars and just die within a few days. During this time you are meant to have super high hygiene of cleaning the whole house, changing all the bedding, towels and flannels and daily bottom washes! The eggs live 2 weeks out side the body so the deep clean is to get rid of the eggs and thus stop them going back into the body and making more worms! This is when I tend to go into panic mode and change all bedding daily for the first week or so and then as time goes on gradually taper off to every other day, every 3 etc etc. We then end with a second dose - that apparently is optional - of the medicine after 2 weeks just in case any eggs have gone in.! Gross aye! Well ... I hope you weren't eating anything! Maybe I should have given you a tmi warning pre-writing that ha! Sorry! This was all last Friday and we are one week on so I am going to do a last shower up and clean up by Monday and then I have to stop as we need to start packing ahead of going away for christmas. I can't have any more laundry hanging around awaiting a wash as I do now. 3 X beddings and lots of towels, bat mats, pj's etc etc. It won't all get done prior to going away due to lack of space to dry it. Yes we do need a tumble dryer! If only we had space for one ...! So it can stay in the bath and it will be attacked once again after christmas when we are home. Not nice but realistic. I've not touched any normal laundry this week so now that is behind! Need to catch up on that so we have clothes to pack in cases. Here are a couple of pages of my cleaning schedule. I have this is my filofax saffino folder that I can just carry around the house with me. It has some wipe clean acetate type sheets in it that I can scribble on and wipe off. 

After dealing with all of the above on the Friday night - and getting the kids down - I settled down for an evening on the sofa with some yummy candles! Much needed chill time! I don't need to update on the weekend as it was just taken up with cleaning and nothing much else! Sunday I pulled out all the christmas presents and started sorting what was for who. But that's all that got done!

Right i'm off to beddybies! Sleep well and good morning to those reading this in the morning! Keep your eyes up to the skies. You too might see santa! Stay Safe all! Xx

And we have a tweee!!

Well it's been a week since my last update. Things have gone mad! Quite, quite mad!

Monday saw 2 kids starting the day by refusing to get dressed. They even took to making a tent in the living room, pulling in their bedding and refusing to come out! Well I got them out in the end but not without drama and us being inevitably late ...!

Tuesday morning I was awoken by Sophie at 5:30am with a tummy ache. Oh no not again I thought! Expecting more sick I prepped her bed with towels and gave her a hot water bottle as requested. She still wasn't settled so I made a nest on her bedroom floor in an old cot mattress we have with and a bean bag. She eventually dropped off to sleep - without sick - at 715am. Literally as my alarm was going to go off. I reset it for another 20 mins later and finally got 20 minutes sleep from after the 530 wake up! Got up and got Jess off to school. When I got back Sophie woke up at 9am. Still no sick so I camped her on the sofa and within an hour she was asking for food. Within another hour she was bottom burping and then seemed fine after for the rest of the day! So must have been trapped windies! We were going to get our christmas tree that evening so decided to cancel this plan as she had been off school all day. She went back to school ok on Wednesday so we went off tree buying that evening.

Wednesday also saw the elf on the damn shelf come out. I hate making up ideas but last year they were really into it. So he is sellotaped into one of Jessica's lol doll containers lol

I really struggled to get in the mood and even after we got home I left them to it and got on with house stuff/school prep. We went to Brambridge garden centre. We got there to the same din as last year with the christmas carol singing penguins. They were half interesting the first year but just annoyed me this year. Maybe because I just feel out of sorts and not into this christmas malarky this year. Nonetheless I took a photo for you any way. For those of you in this neck of the woods you will realise I did this on the way out LOL. It annoyed me slightly less on the way out than on the way in LOL. Maybe I was slightly more in the mood.

The christmas section was slightly less than usual and with less people it had less of a festive feel about it. Perfectly nice and quiet for covid mind! Everyone chose some ball balls or baubles baubles lol for the christmas tree. We have a small tradition of buying a small something new every year. 

I saw these very cute looking twig lights. So tempted but the size of them put me off so I resisted. Only just though! I could also have a go at making something like this one day. I always have these ideas and save photos of things I could make but never get round to it. I can't wait until the kids get older but at the same time I feel guilty for wishing these days of little people away! 

 

Look at these cute christmas trees made of twigs. Again I could just make these ... Haha big ideas! 

I took a mindful moment next to this little waterfall just to calm a little and take time "out". Jess loved it too and wanted to buy it lol But not at that price! That's what the waterfall on the pond outside is for ;-)

I totally fell in love with these little wooden, glittery houses for sale. Reminded me of handmade stuff we saw when we were at christmas markets in Germany! 

I also saw this cute little display. Always good for little eyes to look at. Moving stair lift, hot air balloon going round,little lights and a train going round. I didn't take a picture but on the reverse side there was a little choir singing too.

Once we had looked around we went out to choose a tree. We opted for a smaller 5-6ft as we wouldn't be here this year and a different type. It was a bit rough around the edges but did the job! 

We had arrived around 430 so by the time we got home it was getting on 6ish so we ordered pizza hut whilst we faffed with boxes to find decorations to put on said tree. Pizza came quite quickly in the end so decorating got done after. We had all given up by then so let the kids loose with the decs with a plan to "adult" the tree at a later date! It was getting late too so I went up to deal with kid school prep etc. 

This is Sophie who wanted to cut open the tree.

Hubby lopped the bottom inch off ready to pop up and then Jess took to spraying it!

The putting of the star on the top was quite eventful! It just wasn't happening ...

Here is the finished article after it had been childed! 

Thursday saw the elf on the shelf appear again easy one. He is reading to a doll from the elf book lol!

Right that will do for this entry! I will do another one covering Friday and the weekend as both as equally eventful! It would just be too much for this one post. Hope you are all well. Sorry for the delay on post but we got there in the end! Keep smiling and looking for the skies! We might see snow ha! Well the North and East did didn't it! No such luck for us Southerners though like! Keep safe all. Xx