We braved the cold today in order to head outside and plant some daffodil bulbs which we'd been given for Christmas (thanks Auntie Mavis & Uncle John!) It was a full-team effort, with holes being dug everywhere!
All the bulbs were planted safely, but we may have been a bit late to enjoy them this Spring. Hopefully they'll stay nice and warm until 2010, though!
We also found a few new 'pets' while we were planting!
Not wanting to do things by halves, Ruth managed to find the biggest Christmas cracker ever, this year! Nanny and Grumpy, Auntie Jan, Uncle Mike, James and Bethan joined us for Christmas dinner, and you can see we needed a lot of help to pull the cracker! We were worried that there was going to be a huge explosion when it popped!
After all the work of pulling the cracker, we had loads of delicious grub to keep us going for the rest of the day!
Uncle Tim, Auntie Abby, Chloe and Anya came to Cardiff just before Christmas to celebrate together. There was lots of games, presents, yummy food and silly photos!
Will, though, still hasn't worked out the difference between crackers that you eat and crackers that you pull!
Tom appeared in his school Christmas concert this year as one of Little Bo Peep's naughty sheep.
Here he is returning back to the pen after being caught and told off!
It wasn't just Santa that Hannah and Thomas were waiting for this year. We were waiting for a new sofa to be delivered in December, and had already scrapped our old sofa to make room, so we had a week or so of sitting around on deck chairs in the house. It was like being at the beach!
As Hannah and Thomas discovered, if you have to sit on deck chairs, then you may as well make them as comfortable as possible!
Try as hard as he might, Will hasn't yet mastered the art of hanging Christmas decorations on the tree!
His technique of simply dropping the bauble onto the branch, just doesn't seem to work. He's very good at pulling the decorations off the tree, though...
Grandma and Grandad gave us a fantastic present this month, by offering to have Hannah, Thomas and Will to stay for a weekend, while Ruth and I went away for some much needed peace and quiet!
We didn't need to be asked twice, so we jumped in the car and headed off to a beautiful little cottage near Hereford. And, we spent pretty much the whole weekend stuffing our faces with food that we didn't have to share with the kids - nice chocolates, delicious biscuits, chinese takeaway...!
We did get some exercise, though, in the form of a freezing cold walk along part of Hay Bluff. The views were terrific...
...but it looks like Ruth is feeling the cold!
We ended our walk with a drive into Abergavenny to find a warm coffee-shop, with more delicious cakes!
The cottage where we stayed had some beautiful views, too!
Don't feel too sorry for the children, though. They had a fantastic time at Grandma's, and even had pancakes for breakfast on one of the days!
We've been decorating the front room this week, while Hannah and Thomas have been in school, so that they don't try and 'help'! Unfortunately, Will isn't in school yet, and he was pleased to give us his advice and show us how it was done!
For some strange reason, known only to them, Hannah, Thomas and Will have taken to drinking their morning milk on seats looking out of the patio doors into the garden!
Perhaps they're dreaming of a Summer, when they might actually get a chance to play in the garden...
