AFTER - Alex with his new haircut - ta da! 

BEFORE - Alex about to get his first haircut 

Such a slacker. I know. Just seems like nothing to say, except it's darn cold out there right now. Anyone living in Norway or Minnesota will laugh at me, of course, but when it comes to weather, it's all relative anyway. Makes the trip to and from school a little faster, though - even the kids hurry when it's cold & windy. A nice change!

Back to school and back to the normal busy day to day life. Plus my mother is visiting at the moment - came in on Thursday morning. I'm sure that will make the time fly. Today we went to the Farnham Maltings Fabric Sale - they have it every January, and you can often get some really good bargains - fabric for £2 and £3 a metre, which is a great price for quilting fabric. I managed to find backings for several projects in the works, as well as some fabric for a border and several things I just liked - you can do that when it's only £3/metre - when something is £8/metre, you have to be a lot more selective. One of the reasons why quilters in the US have it easier than here in the UK...

Here's my little cutie - this was taken while he was on a little ride - like a carousel for very small kids, with cars they can sit in, but the individual things don't move, just the main platform. Anyway, he loves cars, so he was very happy. Only a month until he's TWO - where does the time go? 

Not much happening here - it's the end of the holiday, almost. Today is a bank holiday (for New Year's), but tomorrow is back to work for Geoff. The kids have one more day, as although tomorrow is technically the first day back to school, their particular school has an INSET day (teacher training), so the kids aren't actually back until Wednesday. It won't be quite as frantic a week as normal, as most of their other activities don't start up again until next week. It's been lovely being able to sleep in (we are blessed with kids who sleep late - Alex is the early riser, normally (around 7.30) but as he's had a cold for the past few weeks, he's sleeping later), but I won't be entirely sorry to have the kids back in school - they just need the constant stimulus or they go ballistic.

Happy New Year!

My house is back to normal (i.e. no Christmas decorations) - spent the day taking them down & then having a good clean. Really feels light and airy now, which is not really something you can say about my house most of the time - it's tidy, but we have a lot of stuff, so light and airy doesn't really describe it.

We all had a lovely lie in this morning - until after 9.30, which is amazing. This is due to most of us being up to see the New Year in, of course. Olivia was the only one to miss out, as she fell asleep on the sofa around 11pm, I think. Alex, however, was awake. Although he'd gone to bed at a normal time, he has a really bad cold, and spent a lot of time half sleeping/half grumbling & coughing a LOT. Eventually, he coughed so much he made himself sick, poor chap. However, as I said to Geoff, if he's going to be sick late at night (it was about 11.30) and then want to be awake for an hour or more, he sure picked the right night to do it - probably the only night we'd all be awake anyway. So he saw the new year in. And Sarah, of course, is a night owl, so she's bound to be awake if we let her.

So, we had a nice family New Year's Eve - watched Spiderman 2 on DVD (Christmas present) and then Jools Holland (music programme) on telly - very civilised, and although drinking was done, it wasn't the hangover inducing type, which put us much more in the mood to spend the day clearing the house. Wednesday, the kids are back to school - calloo, callay!