Chocolate!

I'd like to say that I did not let them eat the whole egg in one sitting, but what's the point of having Easter Eggs if you can't have your usual entire weekly chocolate intake before lunchtime on Easter Sunday!













Whenever she was given an egg, Zoe would walk round clutching the box saying 'chocolate' over and over again, so it's safe to say that she knows what an egg is made of!
























And here we have the aftermath - thank goodness for Vanish :-)

Easter Egg-stravaganza!

I thought I'd update you on our egg-citing Easter, and various creative things Ben and Zoe have been up to, including Ben's egg-cellent entry for the Easter Egg competition at school.

This is Ben's entry for the decorated egg competition. I had to fill in a form to say that it was the work of the person named on the form - can you believe that?! Although he worked under close supervision and with a little assistance with the trickier bits - finding the end of the selotape, peeling the sticky backing paper off the eyes - he did it himself and was very proud of the end result. He didn't win a prize, but I saw the other entries and can honestly (!) say that the judges must've been visually impaired or bribed!












Zoe made a sheep mask at one of her playgroups, which she loved wearing, although Ian and I both thought it looked a bit sinister!




















She looks extremely cute here though!

World Book Day

Thursday 4th March was World Book Day, so Ben was allowed to go to school dressed as a character from their favourite book. Originally, Ben wanted to go as Farmer Boggis from Fantastic Mr Fox, but he soon decided that he didn't want to be a fat farmer who smells and shoots foxes! So, thanks to Asda, we found a Mr Happy costume and he took one of his large collection of Mr Men books. Below, as you can see, whatever Ben does, Zoe has to do as well! Her favourite phrase at the moment is 'Zoe do it!'. Hmmm.

Knitting needle roll & yet more snow!

I really do hope that these are the last snowy photos that I post for quite some time (unless I win the lottery and can afford a holiday to Canada!). But Ben is always pleased to see it snow, and I don't mind quite so much when it snows on a Sunday. These pictures are from 21st February. I think Zoe likes the getting ready bit - putting on her hat, gloves, coat and wellies - almost as much as she likes stomping up and down in the snow.

Ben, as you can see, likes to run around like a mad thing and throw snowballs at people! Still, as long as he's happy, I'm happy.

Not at all weather-related! For those of you that don't know, there are some websites that sell patchwork fabric in themed or colour matched packs. I found this one on the internet and couldn't resist its loveliness. I am going to make myself a knitting needle roll, along the lines of this one here if you want to know what I'm talking about - http://lupinbunny.blogspot.com/2007/02/needle-roll-tutorial.html I will let you know how I get on, so watch this space (but don't hold your breath!).

Big Snow in January

These pictures were taken when we had a lot of snow and very cold temperatures at the start of January. The icicles were hanging from the front of our house, and were about a foot long! I was very nervous about walking anywhere underneath them!























Ben in his igloo that he helped Ian to build.

Zoe moving snow

Christmas Day 2009

Here are a few of my favourite photos from Christmas Day. I'm not going to inflict you with pictures of me in my pyjamas at 7 am, you'll be glad to hear! Above is Ben and Zoe being their usual selves!


















And here we have them behaving for the camera for once!
























The traditional Christmas family photo.



















Ben showing off one of his many presents!

Zoe and her pushchair. She loves her pushchair - woe betide anyone who tries to touch it!

Snowy Christmas Eve!

When it snowed on Christmas Eve, I decided I wasn't going to risk life & limb getting Ben and Zoe over to the childminder's, so we had a lovely day in the snow instead! This was the first time Zoe had really seen snow, and she seemed rather impressed with it!









Then Ian came home from work and helped us to make a snowman. He's rather impressive, don't you think? (the snowman, not Ian!)

Ben's Fifth Birthday

Ben is now at the stage where he will quite happily help me with baking and more importantly, has the patience to stay till the end, when he gets to eat the cake mix from the bowl :-D Here he is helping me to make the chocolate fairy cakes for his birthday party.



The Stegosaurus cake - a feat of cake engineering if ever there was one!



















Dinosaur themed party food! (and the aforementioned chocolate fairy cakes)

And the birthday boy doing the honours with his cake.

And, needless to say, Zoe had a good time too - mmmmm, chocolate!

Ben's first day at School

In September, Ben started school. Here he is looking extremely smart in his school uniform! He has settled in pretty well - he seems to enjoy it, and his teacher is lovely too.

I have been chastised by my mother for not updating this for ages, so here are some of my favourite photos from last year. We went to Whitby for a day in September. As you can see, the weather was lovely and Ben and Zoe had a marvellous day. Plus these photos are just the thing on a freezing cold February day!

I found this again when putting some photo editing software on the computer at the weekend, and thought I'd put it on here, because it makes me laugh. And before you report me to social services, the can wasn't open. ;-)