24 Tuesday Dec 2013
Posted in 365
We were lucky this morning to go for breakfast with Santa in Windsor. It is the 3rd time we have been and it made for a lovely start to Christmas Eve.
Matt joined us there – we are trying to still do some of the Christmas traditions together so that the children can still spend time with us both at the same time.
18 Wednesday Dec 2013
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In a freak accident it would appear that while doing a trial run in our area, Santa’s attempt to use the Christmas lights as a zip wire from the roof ended in disaster when he seems to have become lodged in our tree at the front of the house!!
Earlier tonight we had a knock on the door to hear Santa was outside on his sleigh. He comes round the streets every year before Christmas to make sure he knows who lives where (he doesnt use the magic sleigh as the reindeer cant cope with two round the world trips so close together – instead he loads his sleigh on a trailer and has it towed around the streets by a car!
We never know when he is coming but luckily we havent missed a year yet since Sx was 3 years old and we first discovered that Santa did this.
25 Tuesday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, children, christmas, chritmas stocking, family, home, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa, tradition, UK
365 Photo a Day
“Merry Christmas”
The rambling part..
We woke the children up at 7.30am (!) to go and open their stockings.
The children all got tiny MP3 players – Gx didnt quite understand how to separate the earphone cable and nearly garroted himself!
Gx was very impressed that Santa’s elves had even managed to wrap tiny pencil sharpeners!
Then we started on the presents under the tree…
Gx got quite a few presents with an arts and crafts theme
We had our traditional breakfast of pain au chocolats which Lx helped Matt make…
Gx had a little sing around the Christmas tree to the Christmas songs we had playing
Then we made our way through the remaining presents…
Sx was so pleased with his mobile phone – and managed to get the words “my mobile” into most conversations that day!
While I was out with Gx the other day – Lx had painted a butterfly box and Dx had helped Matt make some chocolates for me. In the shape of hearts obviously!
We got ready to go up to london with a quick photocall before we went.
Up in London, Matt’s brother’s Andy’s family was there too…to be continued…
11 Tuesday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, children, christmas, family, holiday, home, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa, UK
365 Photo a Day Project Photo
“Santa”
The rambling part…
The two little ones went back to school armed with a pageful of photos of their trip away and stories to tell all their friends of Sparky and Twinkle the elf, the adentures they had had – and of course what Father Christmas REALLY looks like.
Meanwhile I unpacked, washed and did all the other fun stuff that coming home entails! This included getting the children to catch up with their advent calendar trees…
We have a little set of “pockets” which each contain a wooden Christmas tree ornament/toy. The children take it in turns each night when they go to bed to take the next ornament to decorate their individual little trees in their room. They are all in bed so I can’t photograph their trees -but here are the pockets – and some of the ornaments.
It also included getting the children to catch up on practising thir instruments. Sx his clarinet and piano and Gx his keyboard. They are both very keen to have lessons but do need a bit of a nudge to practise -ever!
06 Thursday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, home, lapland, meal, party, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa
365 Photo a Day Project Photo
“His cheeks ached from all the smiling”
The rambling part…
Dx slept all the way back in the coach, and all the way back getting carried by his Daddy. But as we took off his thermal suit he suddenly sprang to life having remembered that he hadn’t opened his present from Santa yes (he had asked him to wait till later). He found some energy from somewhere to open it before he and Lx fell asleep for another couple of hours!
(you can see from his expression how tired he still was!)
When they woke up it was time to get ready for the “Gala Evening” (I just had to take a photo of Dx in his cute thermal “long johns” before he got ready!!)
The Gala dinner was held in a special r0om in the hotel – very dark and rustic looking with Christmas lights, specially decorated tables and a random number of crackers per table 🙂
We had brought some santa hats with us to wear – and the children had a great time joining in the games, doing some colouring and sneaking up to help themselves to sweets from the buffet!
Meanwhile the grown ups relaxed with a glass or two of fizz!
Dx even managed to find a couple more hearts for me to show he loves me – one was a pencil sharpener which came out of a cracker – the other was the little “diamond” on Lx’s dress (“Mummy I love you as much as all the trees in Lapland”)
06 Thursday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, family, finland, holiday, home, husky, lapland, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa, skiing, sled, sleigh, sunset
365 Photo a Day Project Photo
“Homeward Bound”
The rambling part…
so today was the big day. The day we got to meet Santa on his home turf and despite still being incredibly tired – we were all very excited!
The first event of the day…was husky sledding. I wasn’t sure how Dx would be as the huskies start off at quite a pace before settling into their stride – but he was fine (and was even secretly waggling his fingers which the helpers had told him makes the huskies run faster!!)
time then for a little tobogganing…!
and then we heard that we could go on a magical sleigh ride to visit Santa…
(Of course this was the point my new expensive camera decided to fog up – coming inside from the cold. 😦 Luckily we had a point-and-shoot as a back up…)
by this time the children were feeling the cold – so time for a quick defrost indoors with coffee and cookies..
When we could feel our faces and our fingers again – we went outside to try the skiing and the snowmobiling
Lx was so determined to go full speed at the snowmobiling (attached to a tree by a rope so that they could only circle it) that she took her mitten off to be able to squeeze the controls better. She regretted it at the end of the ride as her poor hand was frozen!
Remember I said they could only go in circles? Dx decided to go one better and decided to create his own paths within the gouged out circle from the hundreds of riders before him! Getting closer and closer to hitting the tree the helper quickly stopped him and put him back on track!
then we had some lunch before going on a reindeer ride…
which took us to an ice bar in an igloo…
where we were able to buy massively overpriced baileys and schnapps!
We watched a show with a couple of naughty elves – who then happily posed for some photos afterwards with our own naughty elves…!
time to head home and the sun was setting already at 2.30pm! Poor Dx fell asleep almost before we pulled away from Santa’s wonderland and slept as Matt carried him back to the hotel..
to be continued… 🙂
05 Wednesday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, childhood, children, christmas, cold, family, finland, holiday, home, ice, lapland, photoaday, photography, plane, postaday, santa, UK, winter
365 Photo a Day Project Photo
“Beautiful when they are sleeping”
The rambling part…
The day began at 2.49am. I never knew days could begin then. I thought there was a bit of a black hole until 6am and then the day started – if it had to.
(Well it really began even earlier as neither Matt nor I trusted the two alarms and had been dozing fitfully since 1.00am – but at least we didn’t have to function in any way) We woke both the children who were surprisingly good about getting up so early (could the adventure they were setting off on have had anything to do with it?!)
Off to the airport for a big breakfast to keep us going till dinner in our hotel that night…
A 4 hour flight (pulled by 4 of Santa’s reindeer) with sleeping, snacking and gameboys interspersed with Dx saying “I’m waiting. I’m waiting. I’m waiting to get there…”
There were also a few games and Christmas songs to keep the children amused (not grumpy Dx but the other children!!) One was passing a toilet roll back through the plane from one end to the other without breaking it.
Eventually though – we were there and it was traditionally snowy enough to look just like they imagined – and cold enough for us to be glad we packed extra jumpers and hats in the hand luggage (we landed in temperatures of minus 26)
Dx was a bit worried as at Gatwick he had been selected for a “random security check” and we told him it was because when he went through the metal detector (aka the “naughty/nice detector 😉 ) it wasn’t completely sure about him so they had to check! Having moaned all the way over on the flight he was afraid if there was another check in Lapland – he would fail and be sent home!!
In the airport some of Santa’s elves caused mayhem in baggage reclaim – pulling hats over people’s eyes, pretending to run off with luggage and climbing onto the luggage trolleys to give each other rides.
Eventually we set off to the coach for our transfer with a quick hello to our first reindeer and its Sami owner on the way.
The children were barely functioning by this point and it was pure excitement that stopped them falling asleep on the way.
We were kitted out with our thermal suits, boots, mittens and thick socks and then we quickly left our cases in our room and set off to the toboggan slope.
We managed to get there before the crowds and both children got their first go at tobogganing I am not sure Dx was too impressed but Lx enjoyed it. 30 minutes later you could barely get down the slope for the numbers of people walking up he middle and we headed back to our room for a nap while Matt enjoyed internet access in the hotel bar.
Early dinner (bread and jam for Lx – and a few chips! Dx was SO unimpressed with dinner I don’t think he ate anything) …
and back along the snowy streets to go early to bed…
PS one thing we had forgotten from when we were here before was the “magic” in the air. When you catch sight of the air in the streetlights, it catches on the glitter sparkling there – the children were very impressed that there is so much magic there you can actually SEE it!
04 Tuesday Dec 2012
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2012, 365, childhood, children, family, holiday, home, lapland, photoaday, photography, postaday, santa, UK
365 Photo a Day Project Photo
**************************************
the rambling part…
So this is getting posted more than a little late as we have been away. On Tuesday afternoon we packed, wrote lists and generally prepared for Matt’s parents to take over looking after the two biggest terrors…and for us to take the little two to Lapland to visit Santa.
I had put more effort into the two we were leaving behind up until we left the house. So much to do in order to prepare for their clubs, the outfits they would need, the school dinners they would need change for to save trouble making packed lunches and cleaning lunchboxes, the cloths to drop off at other people’s houses so they didn’t have to remember to take them in to school for drama and football, the lists of phone numbers, the people to tell… I had barely even packed for us!
Eventually all instructions were handed over, Grandad was on his first “taxi run” of the week taking Gx to football – and we set off to spend the night in a Travelodge near the airport.
The children were thrilled with the hotel room…
especially as it had a view of the airport at night and all the planes arriving and leaving…
The children were so excited I wondered how we were going to get them to sleep…
Lx had a quick chat on the phone to her grandparents (she would love a mobile phone for Christmas – but it’s not going to happen!!)…
Eventually we got two excited children (and two excited adults) to bed for an all too short night’s sleep…
