Dreaming of a White Christmas?

Well, no need for dreaming this year, cause we've well and truly got a White Christmas. Though it might not actually snow on the 25th, we've got enough of the white stuff lying around to get the idea.

So Merry Christmas to all our family, friends and fellow bloggers, who still take the time to read our ever more slowly updated posts. Hope you enjoy these pics of us playing about in the recent snow...


Snow!!!


Making the snowman... some more productive than others.


Proud snowman makers. We were going to call him Frosty (which is the tradition at our place), but once we added the "See Yoo Jemmy" hat from Scotland, we changed our minds and called him Jimmy.


Jimmy's starting to lose his hair in the cold.


Lucy wasn't exactly thrilled with her makeshift sledge.


Luckily the girls down the street lent us theirs, and it was smiles all round.


Freezee Keezee


Chilly ducks on the canal


The canal is a good place for photos when its snowing - not so good for long boats, though.


See what we mean?



Our designated snow driver on the school run.


And here's Lucy all done up for her Nativity play - her class represented Spain.

And for your listening pleasure... Caiti's class song from the school Nativity play...


And finally, a quick Merry Christmas from Class 3B.

Snow

You may have heard that we had a bit of snow in the UK around Christmas/New Year time. Well, it's true - the whole country was covered and some places were snowed in for days. In Woodham we were snowed in for 3 days to be exact - assuming "snowed in" translates to school being closed. Getting a big dump of snow is jolly good fun: apart from the snowmen, sledging and snowball fights, there's the thrill of clearing your driveway with an old shovel and the excitement of driving to Tesco's on the slippery roads - scary but fun.

A few people in Aus have been worried it was too cold for us, but to be honest we didn't really felt it much at all - with the notable exceptions of (1) Lucy burying herself in the snow and discovering that it gets into your clothes and melts and (2) Keezee heading off to work in Perth, Scotland (where he was for a few weeks at the time) and noticing the car thermometer read -12. Anyway, enough of all that - as you'd expect we got the camera out and took a few pics.

But for starters, here's a quick vid of the general shenanigans round our way:



Of course there's the mandatory snowman to make...


... but keep an eye on the carrot.


Turned out quite well in the end don't you think?... just kidding!


A snow chair for relaxing.


Out the front of a nice house - not ours alas!



Waiting for the postie.


Caiti managed to sweet-talk her way into borrowing the neighbour's sledge...


... and then get them to drag her round the street all afternoon...


... last seen disappearing into the sunset.

..... And a Happy New 'Ear

Today's blog title is thanks to Caitlin, taken from her recent rousing renditions of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".

So a happy new 'ear to everyone. We hope 2010 is good to you all.

These occasions give us an excuse to post photos from the "unclassifiable" folder, or in other words, let you see a few of the things we've been up to here and there in Blighty. Hope you enjoy.


First day at school. Caiti looked pretty excited (before leaving home at least).


But she didn't seem so cheerful once we arrived at school itself and took a couple of family shots....


.....if looks could kill - is she trying to tell us something here?


Here we are at Winkworth Arboretum. We've been here before in early spring, but it's also a spectacular place to visit in autumn when the trees turn very colourful.




Lots of reds and yellows.


The vista from the hill.


Ready for trick or treating on Halloween.
In our old street the local urchins used to knock on the door all evening, but we were wondering why we didn't have any visitors at our new place. After we ventured out into the street ourselves, it soon became apparent that you need to have a pumpkin (preferably hollowed out with a candle) on your doorstep if you're offering "sweeties" for trick or treaters. We'll try and remember that for next time.


A spot of baking


Less talking more mixing


Yummo!



Lucy at Tonbridge Castle, in Tonbridge (funnily enough), which is in Kent. A nice town, but a bit of a drive to be honest.


OK, everyone say "cheese"


Tonbridge shops can be very Tudor


Tonbridge Pizza Express - Jo loves Pizza Express. She took the photo.


And here's the gang at Lucy's 7th birthday party. We had an afternoon tea with a few friends.
Note it's dark outside at 4.30pm - you gotta love winter.

Merry Xmas - it won't be white, but it was close!

Merry Christmas everyone. We hope you're all having a happy and festive day - we know we will be. To kick us off for our Christmas edition, we thought we'd share some of the usual antics going on at ours in the lead up to the big day.


Given the girls didn't manage to get out of their 'jamies, this photo was deemed unfit for the yearly family Christmas Card (which we forgot to send again this year). But nevertheless, they did do a good job with their hand-made Christmas Hats.


The tree


For the School Nativity Play this year, Lucy got the role of Camel No. 1 - and yes, it was her usual Oscar winning stuff.


And of course it was Caiti's first Nativity Play, where she was part of the Twinkly Star chorus. From all reports her singing voice is not only superb, but she rules the mic like Shirley Bassey.

Well, it doesn't look like it will be a White Christmas this year in Woodham, although we have had a few nice blankets of snow over the last week or two - but unfortunately it's all melted away over the last couple of days. Not to worry cause we managed to take dozens of photos (as we do) to capture all the excitement.


Snow at school - it doesn't get any better than this!


Actually the only thing better is when school gets cancelled because of the snow - no luck this time.



Yep, it's all smiles for snow at school.



Actually standing around smiling does start to get a bit chilly after a while.


Snow at home - it doesn't get any better than this.


There's only one thing for it: snowball fight.


Don't ever turn your back during a snowball fight.


Keezee has been working in Scotland, and enjoying the snow up there (mainly from the airport window, whilst waiting hours for his flight....) so his snow man building skills could not be utilised on this occasion. Not to worry, the girls had a go all on their own and didn't do a bad job really [cough, cough].


Carrot nose eater: caught in the act (again).

So that's it from us - love to all and we hope you enjoyed the pics and have a wonderful Christmas Day.