Baby Thomas' first Christmas

What an incredible first Christmas for Thomas, absolutely surrounded by friends and family, showered with lovely presents (especially by his mum), so here are just a very few (of the millions of) pictures we took (to share some of the magic with you) -

Getting some of the presents ready, which involved ceramic paint, Thomas' foot, a lot of very tickly brushes and many, many smudged footprints...

A visit to Christmas Tree Land at Priory Farm in Nutfield, despite the fact that we already had our (still alive) tree from last year (now about twice the size) back in from the garden...(rather a good investment)!


Thomas *loved* the decorations, suddenly the boring old living room was alive with exciting new electrically powered/choking objects to try and hit and place in his mouth...

Being good at Christingle (while watching out for cocktail sticks and accidental headbutts)...

Trying out his Christmas hat... ;)

Wrapped up warm in the car seat...

Stocking full on Christmas morning...



...and gifts under the tree aplenty!

Even more impressive when all the wrapping was off... ;)

Loads more pictures here (including lots of family ones, which some of you have been asking for)... ;)

Happy New Year everyone!

8 days to go...

...and our household is getting very, very excited about Christmas...Thomas loves the Christmas tree, Mummy has discovered "Christmas 24" that shows back to back Christmas movies, and Daddy is (periodically) enjoying port and stilton (in preparation) and consuming numerous cooking shows...We managed to get to the Christingle service in Oxted, then sang our socks off in the Belfry Carol concert and have even opened the Quality Street (despite being a little poorly)...yum!

So, 8 days to go...Santa has almost finished wrapping pressies, but I think some elves may still need to do their shopping!! ;o)

Welcome 2008!

Hurrah! A *brand* new year to play with! How often does that happen? ;)

This next one has some pretty amazing things *already* lined up for it too...not least my *wedding*...*gasp*...and honeymoon, not sure if I mentioned it before, but we are going to Mexico (home of the chilli) and I am quite inexpressibly excited about both...and if that's just the *start* of the year, who knows what the rest of it will hold...! I'm already playing "My Spanish Coach" on my DS in preparation...(level 6 right now)...not, with it's proximity to the USA, I am anticipating *really* needing it, but anyway... ;)

Christmas was as wonderful as I had hoped, starting just after leaving the office with a nice trip on the DLR -

- that's Docklands Light Railway (for the non-Londoners), which slightly unsettlingly totters along it's elevated rails sans driver (one step up from Homer Simpson I suppose, but hmmm...) -

- anyway, passing the lovely docklands views, I arrived at Bank (it actually goes straight into the underground at this point), I rather stupidly decided to do some extra shopping in Oxford Street (which was complete Bedlam) -

- and Carnaby Street which was also crazy, but staggeringly wonderful in aspect -

- bedecked, as it was, in Empire-State-Building-sized paper chains (completely shaming Oxford and Regent's streets)...had a pretty dismal journey home too getting stuck at Redhill bus station for about an hour clutching my gifts, gritting my teeth and frowning at strangers playing rave from their mobiles (in a most unchristmassy fashion) -

- but made it home and totally collapsed...had a very happy Birthday, as already documented, Christmas eve saw us go to Tandridge Church where I snuck off a couple of shots of the preparation (as we arrived about 30 minutes too early) -



- which was (despite the wait) really lovely...which set the mood for the rest of Christmas, it's been an excellent break, and loads of fun, despite Flyingpops *and* Nanjan being a little poorly, but they seem to have both got over it now (just in time to go back to work)! Hehe... ;)

Anyway, a most heart-felt HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL, and I raise my New Years Day glass to many, many more for you, and yours... :)

Christmas 2006 update!

Sorry, been getting really behind with all this, Oblivion (the game) seems to have become my new life! ;) Anyway, back to Christmas eve quickly, after zooming around in Colin (who was being very badly behaved and not starting when we wanted him to) dropping off the last few pressies (mostly in and around Dorking) we went to see the Christingle service at St Martins church -

- then back to Flyingpops' folks house for double duck dinner -

- (which was delicious) and then a few drinks (only one more sleep to go!)...the morning arrived with a bump almost before I knew it and we tore open our stockings and drank hot tea in bed, then downstairs before the hour of eight to open all the rest of the gifts (pics for those involved on flickr), then back into Colin for the drive to my folks for lunch where preperations were already well advanced -

- for a feast of roast goose with all the trimmings -

- followed by Christmas pudding, then on to the *second* haul of presents of the day!

- Full and happy we settled down to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening watching TV, DVDs, listening to gramaphone records -

- and then at about half eleven we all piled out to Colin, put the stereo on far too loud with all the subs pumping and managed to break the back seat...hehe...great day! ;)

We slept over at my folks on Christmas day night, then the next morning helped little Alexander (who can now say "No" and "Ta") to open his presents, then drove to Flyingpops' grandpops' place for some cold cuts, drinks -

- and to watch little Emily open *her* presents (and baby Oliver dribble disinterestedly at his), play "pass the parcel" and then finally back home for some well deserved rest (but not before drifting off at Flyingpops' folks when I collapsed into the chair), kids can be such hard work...! ;)

So yesterday we popped down to Worthing with Colin to drop off the last Christmas pressie -

- (after spending most of the morning trying to get him started, and failing miserably, first time he *really* hadn't wanted to start), finally called the AA out and the guy adjusted the tick over (up a bit) discovered that the distributor cap had somehow been installed back to front(!), the battery was half the power required to start our size of engine and one of the HT leads wasn't connected to the spark plug...He said it was frankly amazing poor Colin ever managed to start at all! He showed us a trick with the leasure battery where we could jump start him without another car and set us on our way, and with all the cylinders now firing, and not all firing back to front you can imagine that the engine now sounds rather a *lot* better... ;)

We bought some industrial jump leads and a 96 Heavy duty battery to replace the 44 that was in there, but Colin is staying at home for New Years as we really don't have time to re-wire him now...

Today, we are setting off for Cornwall (5-ish day break, see how it goes), back to Hedley Wood for their New Year celebration, almost certainly no Internet access, so this may well be the last you hear from me until 2007! :(

If so, HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!! :)