I tried to post this yesterday but for some reason, it wasn't going anywhere...

Well, today's the last day of the half term holiday, so it's back to school on Monday, hoorah. Of course, there are two parties to get through before then - there's a birthday party for someone in Olivia's class tomorrow at Horton Park Farm, which is nice as I can take the other kids and we can just hang around at the farm while Olivia goes to the party. Then there's the Marina Avenue Halloween Party (in the Pavilion in our local park) on Sunday, which should be fun - we decided to get together and have a street party, except not in the street. I'm sure the kids will all have fun, which is the idea, after all.

Went to Kew Gardens today to look at "collections" - part of Sarah's collector badge for Brownies. And also because they have a good display of pumpkins and other autumnal fruits and veg there at the moment. It was nice because as it was sort of rainy (though it never actually rained much) it was quite empty despite being half term. The girls had a great day and barely argued at all, which is pretty good compared to how things usually are at the moment. (We're having a big spate of sibling rivalry or something at the moment - another reason to look forward to school being back in session...) And we found tons of autumnal bits and pieces to use in our autumn decoration we are going to make. Should be fun.

Well, half term holiday is nearly over, and we've survived, more or less. Last night was the infamous sleepover (Thalia, here) which we've been promising the girls since the summer - it just never seemed to work in the summer for one reason or another. Anyway, it went fairly well, and I think they were both asleep by about 11pm. Which for Sarah isn't THAT late, but Thalia goes to sleep very early (read "normal 7-yr-old bedtime") so it must have been a bit of a shock for her system. Tommorrow, unless the weather is dire, I think we're off to Kew to have a look at their pumpkin collection/display and whatnot. We were going to go up to a museum up in town but I think the kids are just too tired to cope. Not to mention, Mummy.

This isn't from the party, but just from yesterday when she was being silly - her hair is in lots of small braid under the wig - I kinda like the look in a sort of Cyndi Lauper way... 

Well, survived the birthday party - actually it went very well. There were 20 kids there, of whom several were siblings - the nice things about this place - it's one of those indoor climbing thingies - is that it's fairly small, so when you do a party there, you get the whole thing for an hour, just for your party, so no extra kids. Makes it easier to keep track of them, and also, if you've got little kids who are nervous with older, bigger kids they don't know, it's not a problem. Haven't opened the pressies yet - lots of pink wrapping paper, and I happen to know at least one of them contains makeup, so I'm sure she'll love that! And now, time for a large gin...

There's probably a new techie type word for people like me - people who start a blog and promise to update it faithfully but then lag farther and farther behind as life gets in the way... But frankly, I'm not young and hip enough these days to know what it is...

Tomorrow is Olivia's birthday, so I'm off to party with a milliondy-seven 4 and 5 year olds at Sutton Arena (a Leisure Centre) - there's one of those indoor climbing adventure playground thingies, which they get to run around for an hour, then we get an area to have food & stuff in, and then, hoorah, they all go home. Should be fun, in a noisy, chaotic kind of way. Next year she's not having lots of people (I think there are about 22 of them), but this year is her year to have a "big party", so I'm stuck with it. At least there's no school the next day (half term holiday next week), so she'll have time to recover. Can't believe she's 5 already!

Got my absentee ballot today for the US Presidential election. Not that it's likely to be a real problem in Maryland, but I do want to stand up and be counted this time. I'm not going to be able to sleep the night of the election, I'm sure, waiting for the results to come in. Sigh.

Nearly finished painting the computer room - probably won't be able to do any work this weekend, but maybe Monday or Tuesday afternoon I'll finish and then I'll be able to get some of my life back.

Haven't posted in ages, I know. Mostly this is due to laziness, but also to painting the computer room, so all the furniture was piled in the middle of the room & the computer wasn't even plugged in... More on that later - must dash out to see Sarah enrolled as a Brownie!

So, what's new? Sarah's party went well, thoroughly enjoyed by both girls and me - which was nice. Olivia's party will be more work, but hopefully that will be fun, too.

I finished painting the kitchen ceiling (2nd coat) and hope today to move on to the dining room - which will only need one coat, thank goodness, as it's just over paint, rather than new plaster. I may not be able to get to it, though, as Olivia is home today - she's fine now, but had one of those lovely throwing up viruses in the middle of the night (why is it always 2 in the morning?), so she's home from school.

Geoff had to take the morning off work, because this was Alex's yearly ultrasound to check on his dud kidney (I couldn't take Olivia even if she wasn't ill) - which appears not to be such a dud after all, as apparently it has grown since last year. It's still a lot smaller than the left one, which is normal, but it did grow, and it grew nearly as much as the left, so the proportional sizes are still similar, which is excellent news. We've got an appointment with the consultant paediatrician next week to go over the results, but I'm guessing they may send us for another DMSA scan to check functionality - before it was at 50 per cent of normal function (i.e. 25 per cent of overall function) - and if it has grown, it may still be contributing similar amounts of functionality. It's good news, though, because if it's growing, even if it's small and oddly formed, there's much less chance they'd want to remove it, and what I'd like to avoid (obviously) is surgery. Alex hated the ultrasound though - fussed the whole way through - but you can't really expect a toddler to do well with these things. Poor chap.