I had a message from a friend of mine who said I "blog a lot", which was great, as I always feel I'm not writing enough, so if at least one person in the world thinks I'm doing ok, I can feel less guilty about all those days I can't think of anything to write, or can't find the time. And as he has a blog himself, and is a computer dude, he knows what he's talking about. Thanks, Richard. :)

Today is a domestic day. Aside from catching up on emails, I'm making jam (plum, my favourite so far), making cakes for a sale at the school (banana chocolate chip - that will solve the problem of the black bananas as well), making bread (bread machine, so that's easy, just measure the ingredients and push a couple of buttons), and, if Alex sleeps well today, maybe even doing some sewing. You'd think I was Harriet Homemaker or something, so just to reinforce the fact that this is not the 1950s and I'm not really that type of girl, my background music today is a playlist mainly consisting of Clash & Joe Strummer songs, with some misc punk & ska stuff thrown in. Wouldn't want to let the side down...

Busy weekend, between stuff and gorgeous weather, so again, not much time online. In fact, I didn't even turn on the computer yesterday, which is a really change for me. I have to at least LOOK at my email, usually, even if I can't respond to it because I'm holding a baby at the time...

Sarah and Olivia went to Thalia's birthday party on Saturday - held in the school hall, it was a proper "disco party" complete with a DJ. They seem to have loved it. And luckily, Olivia is now old enough that I don't always have to stay at these things. I went over a little early so I could say I'd been and not risk mortally offending Thalia - a mortally offended 6 year old is not something one wants to deal with.

Yesterday we had some friends around, some of whom we haven't seen in ages, partly due to their living in Hertfordshire and us halfway around the M25 from there, and partly due to both of us having exceptionally busy years in the past few years, including Nigel's dad dying a couple of years ago. We had a lovely time - again, the weather was fantastic - and after gorging ourselves silly at lunch, we went for a lovely long walk around the neighbourhood - the park (packed with people for a change), cemetery & over to the kids' school. By about 6pm I was ready to crash, as Alex had had a sleepless night, with colic or similar, so I'd be awake more or less since 4am. I think it's the first time in years (barring when I had the flu) that I've been in bed at 9pm!

This has been the most gorgeous week - really lovely weather, warm and sunny, and due to last through until Monday. Part of the reason I've not been online much lately. That and the usual stuff.

This week's excitement came in the form of a visit to Olivia's nursery class. They are doing a unit on babies - learning about all kinds of babies, animal and human, and as part of the human baby unit, they asked if someone with a baby could volunteer to come into the class and show the children the baby being bathed. So, as we are in possession of such a creature, we volunteered & yesterday Alex had a bath in front of Olivia's entire class. He usually enjoys being bathed, but this time, of course, he fussed the whole time. Figures! I still think the kids enjoyed watching the bath, though, so that's ok.

Well, I guess the work paid off, though, as Sarah won 2nd place with her costume (they divided the kids into 3 age ranges - she won among the littles), which is great. She has to take it back into school today for a Show and Tell Assembly this afternoon, which I'm going to attend, with camera & (hopefully) sleeping baby. The joys of parenthood! Actually, Green Lane (the school) is very good about their assemblies, keeping them quite informal and friendly and not too boring, or at least, that's been our experience so far. The school she used to attend was a little less casual about these things, which was a bit of a pain.

We spent the best part of the afternoon today getting costumes ready for the fancy dress parade tomorrow. Sarah is successfully outfitted as a fisherman, with two lovely handmade fishies, and a hat and jacket adorned with "fishing flies" I made of coloured feathers and mini Xmas bulbs (for floats). I'll try to take a photo or two, as the description doesn't really do them justice. I think it works quite well.

Olivia is going to be an Indian (as in Native American), as in 10 Little Indians. Luckily, she already had a Pocahontas (sp?) dress, so we just had to make a headdress. Add a few "war paint" stripes and, voila, sorted.

Well. All the guests are gone, and the house is relatively empty. Not quite back to normal yet, but soon will be, I guess. Only it will be a different normal, of course, as we only had 2 kids before. :)

The next challenge in my exciting daily life will be the Fancy Dress Parade for Maths Week next week. The kids are allowed to go to school in costume - any character from a song, nursery rhyme, story, etc, providing there's a number connection. Not sure what Olivia is going to do, but we think Sarah will be a fisherman, from the song "1-2-3-4-5" (for those without children it goes like this:

1, 2, 3-4-5
Once I caught a fish alive
6, 7, 8-9-10
Then I let it go again
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on my right.)

Truly exciting.

Geoff's just taken the girls out to see a play at our local children's theatre (we are fortunate in living near one of the few proper children's theatres in the country - this is one entirely devoted to children's productions, and has stuff for both the little ones and the older ones. Everything we've seen there has been excellent) - and anyway, it's very quiet in the house all of a sudden. Alex is even sort of asleep, which also contributes to the quietness. I doubt that will last for long, though, so I'm having a quick computer session while he's still happy to be rocked by Grandma.

Monday school starts back again - we've been in half term here - hooray! It's astonishing just how obnoxious two lovely small girls can get if they feel they aren't being adequately entertained. And their standards of how much attention should be paid to them are somewhat different to other, more adult standards, sometimes. Like when said adult has a feeding baby attached to her and therefore can't actually come look at whatever it is they've built using the empty wine delivery case and all the quilts in the house...