Arty Farty

There;s nothing like a bit of modern art - especially when cousins Chloe and Anya come to visit!

Most of the paint did make it onto the paper, but you can see from the photo of Thomas that he wanted to try out some war paint.

Shake 'n' Vac

Here is the moment caught on camera when Thomas decided to copy Mummy and give us a hand with the cleaning.

A few shakes later, and we have an empty pot of 'Shake and Vac', and a Christmas scene on the (freshly mopped!) kitchen floor!

Time to put a lock on that cupboard...

Christmas Fairy

This photo will haunt Thomas for many a year! Why should girls be the only ones to dress up as Christmas Fairies?

PS - The yellow and red all over his face isn't bruises from where he fell off the top of the Christmas tree, but Hannah was trying out the face paints that she had for Christmas! Everyone in the house looked like that today!

Bob and Babs the Builders

You get to see two presents in one in this photograph!

Thomas and Hannah love sawing, hammering, screwing and drilling anything that moves (including Ebby the Cat if he's not quick enough!) on their new workbench - which they had from Nanny and Grumpy!

But, it's all such hard work that they need to sit down on the chairs (from the table and chair set) that they had from Grandma and Grandad!

Thanks to everyone who sent cards and presents and emails! Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

Christmas in the Hurley House

Thought that you might like a glimpse of what Christmas in the Hurley House is like! If anything, it will stop you from visiting next year!

To start, you have to try on every item of clothing that you get in your Christmas stocking, including swimming goggles!

For Christmas dinner, the contest is to fit as many people as possible around a six-person table, while also filling the table with enough food to last until next winter!

Merry Christmas

Just a quick note to wish everyone who visits this blog a Merry Christmas and a really Happy New Year!

Please come back in 2006 (doesn't time fly?) and see more news and more daft photos of The Hurley's!

Have a great Christmas!

Love Andy, Ruth, Hannah & Thomas

Photos

We've just put a pile of new '2005' photos on our Hurley Home Photo Gallery.

It's hard to believe that one family could be so photogenic!

Hannah the Hairdresser

Hannah took it upon herself to make Mummy's hair look pretty today!

She would have done Daddy's as well, but he hasn't got enough!

Christmas Cake

It's that time of year again in the Hurley Home when Christmas kicks in. It all starts with the mad rush down to Sainsbury's to buy the last packets of raisins and sultanas for the Christmas cake.

Everyone helped (even Daddy did his share of licking out the bowl), and the cake is looking and smelling delicious! The countdown has begun!

Frosty the Snowman

Believe it or not, there was actually enough snow falling in Cardiff today to let Hannah and Thomas build a snowman in the back garden (with a bit of help from Grandad).

They had to pretty much scrape the garden clean to find enough snow to build it, and now that the sun has come out and the snowman is sunbathing, it seems likely that all that will be left in a couple of days time will be two sticks, two stones and a carrot!

PS - What do you call a snowman with a suntan?

Answer - A puddle!

Choctastic

If you thought mud-wallowing was a muddy sport, then you haven't seen Thomas and his cousin James eating chocolate mousse!

Holiday Club

Hannah and Chloe had great fun at the Thornhill Church Holiday Club. Sherriff Shambles and the Pizza Posse provided lots of fun, games, songs and craft.

It was just what these two cow-girls were looking for to keep them out of trouble!

Muddy Fun

Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya came to visit us this week, which was great fun.

Chloe joined Hannah at the Thornhill Church Holiday Club for a couple of days, which deserves a blog entry of it's own, and we made sure that the weather didn't stop us from having a fun time.

We took a trip to Cefn Onn park and made some great hippopotamus impressions as we wallowed and splashed in the mud! That's what mud is for!

It's a miracle!

Despite being snapped in half, knocked to the floor countless times, and a local delicacy for every slug within 3 miles of the house, Hannah's first ever sunflower has finally flowered!

(But we won't talk about the other 20 sunflower seeds that never grew bigger than 5 cm!)

Snug as a bug

Thomas trying out his new pillow and duvet. It makes me feel sleepy just looking at the picture!

Big Day

It was Hannah's first day at 'big nursery' today, at the local school. She charged in as soon as the door was opened, and when asked for a goodbye kiss replied "But I want to play with the water..."

I'm sure that she missed us really.

And Thomas didn't want to go home from there, either...

Tredegar House

We spent the morning walking around Tredegar House grounds, today. Hannah did lots of 'fishing' in the lake, while Thomas did lots of exploring. Mummy and Daddy just enjoyed the peace and quiet.

And then, going for the suave, sophisticated look...

Elton John lookalike...

... although it's his real hair!

Triffids!

We're pretty sure that the sunflower in the picture is man-eating, but Hannah is OK, as she's a girl!

It would be nice to pretend that we'd managed to grow a sunflower that big, but really it's been plant-napped from Auntie Jan, as the one that Hannah was growing had a slight accident...

Luckily, the sellotape is doing the trick, though, so if Hannah's sunflower ever does flower, then we'll post a picture of it on here!

Heath Park

As a prize for managing to go two whole weeks without waking up in the middle of the night and calling for Mummy, Hannah got to choose a "special treat" for herself today.

She could have chosen anything - a new car, a trip to New York, a round-the-world cruise, but she chose big and asked to go to Heath Park to fly her kite!

Even better than that, Uncle Mike, Auntie Jan and James also came, and we had lots of fun in the play park, flying the kite, playing 'pitch-and-putt' (which was more like 'pitch-and-duck' with the standard of golf on show!), and then a visit to the model railway!

And, to cap it all off - Daddy, after managing to survive a whole summer without getting sunburnt, got sizzled and turned into a beetroot! Even though it was cloudy nearly all day!

Happy Birthday, Grandma

It was Grandma's turn to have a birthday today, but we won't let you know how old she was!

(Well, OK - seeing as you asked nicely! Grandma is remarkably close in age to Grumpy!)

Mark & Tracy's Wedding

We went to Andy's cousin Mark's wedding celebration this evening at Cardiff Castle - which is a fantastic place for a wedding reception, if anyone reading this is thinking of getting married!

It was great surroundings, and there was a brilliant soul band playing, too!

Our only regret was that we didn't get invited to the wedding itself. Mark and Tracy got married in St. Lucia in the Caribbean! We'd have been quite happy to fly that far to throw a bit of confetti!

Rest Bay

While Daddy was hard at work, Mummy, Hannah and Thomas headed to Rest Bay with Grandma and Grandad for a spot of sunbathing!

OK - it wasn't really sunbathing weather, but that didn't stop Hannah and Thomas playing in the sea and building sandcastles!

Happy Birthday, Grumpy

Grumpy hit the big '59' today. 1 more year until he's really past it!

We were going to have a barbeque at Uncle Mike & Aunty Jan's, but the weather didn't want to play ball, so we just sat around and stuffed our faces inside, instead!

Crash-Test Dummies

If you're going to have a wheelbarrow race, then you might as well do it properly!

Mohair Centre

Looking to make the most of the last few days of Andy's holidays, we headed for a mystery trip to the "Mohair Centre" in Gloucestershire today. We had no idea what to expect when we got there, as we'd only found it while surfing the 'net, but we were very pleased with what we found.

It's basically a farm, with the usual pigs, sheep, rabbits, ducks, etc., but with plenty of things to do for children - a huge soft play area (where we spent most of our time!), a giant sand pit, tractor rides, even pedal-powered go-karts.

We had lots of fun, on what was an absolutely scorching day!

Chutney Making

Following on from Friday's huge success in collecting plums, Ruth has been hard at work yesterday and today boiling up the plums to make her delicious plum chutney (with lots of help from Hannah!).

The house stinks of vinegar now, but the chutney is looking tasty, so place your orders now! We've still got a pile of plums left if anyone wants them!

Barbeque

It was looking like a warm night so we held a quick barbecue this evening, and invited Nanny & Grumpy and Mike & Jan around.

It was actually only a ploy to get some helpers to come and perform the annual plum-picking extravaganza from the plum trees at the bottom of the garden. Some pruning in recent years led to a bumper crop this year, and we needed all kinds of extra tools and techniques to gather in the plums - including a fishing net for reaching those 'hard-to-get' plums, and a paddling pool to collect them in!