New Chairs.

Hello! Hope that you are are well and are ready for Christmas next week! We are going to be busy this week but thankfully most of our shopping is done, only the food left!

We have had a fairly quiet weekend which has been nice! Yesterday I went to collect our new chairs in the morning and so we now have lovely new wooden chairs that are very comfortable! In the afternoon we went to the Quest Christmas Party which was great fun, especially the gift exchange! We all took a gift of something that we had enjoyed and then exchanged it for another one. The children participated too and ended up with something that they liked.

The adults exchanged gifts but could also 'steal' gifts from each other if we wished. Naomi was fascinated by the stealing and was very persuasive in getting Tim and I to 'steal' something from the group, much to her delight! It was a lot of fun!

Today we went to church this morning and then came home afterwards. Silas was shattered as he had a late night last night but after waking up after a short nap in the car, he refused to go back to sleep again. Somehow he managed to keep going this afternoon and then I put him to bed early and he went straight to sleep. Hopefully tomorrow he will have a better nap.

This afternoon we went out for a walk to see the Christmas lights with Tim and went a different way so that we could see some others. Silas really loves it and makes lots of happy noises when we walk around. The girls enjoy it too and comment loudly on the ones that they like or dislike! I only hope the owners don't hear!

Silas was a pickle yesterday as he got hold of Naomi's chocolate advent calendar and managed to get a door open. Tim came down the stairs to find him grinning with a mouthful of chocolate! Luckily it was only one bit but it will teach me to make sure he has his own calendar next year!!

I thought I would give you an insight into our bedtimes with Silas. It starts with me running the bath and setting off the bubble machine which Silas likes and makes lots of 'ooh' noises to. Then, if I have forgotten to remove the ladder from Naomi's bed, I have to usually rescue him from half way up the ladder only to then have him remove clothing from Esther's drawer or for him to be putting back the clothes that she is laying out for the morning.

Then I will go and start to undress him, which is hard work as he is so wriggly but eventually I will get him undressed. By this time he is usually out the bedroom door and heading into the office to play the drums. So I go and retrieve him and put him into the bath. Then he takes great delight in making mummy soaked by either emptying out the water that is left in his wind-up duck over me or, tonight's trick, throwing the sodden flannel over me! Once I have finally got him washed, I get him out and take him into the bedroom and manage to distract him long enough to get  his nappy on. Once his nappy is on though he is up and moving around and so I usually try and stand him up to apply the aveeno cream. Often though, like tonight, he escapes and I grab him by the leg to get him to sit still long enough to do each arm, leg etc.

Once he is finally creamed up, he is out the door with me chasing him to put his vest and babygro on and sometimes like tonight, he is down the stairs giggling before I can catch up with him if I have been clearing things away for example.

Finally, he is ready for bed and i take him downstairs for the nightly stories and refusing to drink the milk routine, but eventually he gets into bed, has his grobag and noise machine on and two dummies and then he is pretty much out for the night! He is probably shattered after the evenings entertainment - I know I am!

Well, that is it for now and I will probably not write on Wednesday as I will have things to do but I will write on Sunday! Until then, bye for now!