So, I’ve slacked off on the writing front again. In my defence this time of year is pretty hectic, but I have a spare half hour this morning so I’m just going to do a little post to get the ball back rolling again on the blog front.

The reason it’s been a bit more hectic than usual is thanks to the incessant sickness bugs that still keep being bought into the house- these have ranged from flu bugs to full blown sickness bugs and we currently have a child on the sofa asleep with the 4th different bug in 6 weeks. I’m hoping she sleeps the last of it off ready for her nativity in the morning as she’s been practising ‘Little Donkey’ on repeat for the last couple of weeks (sadly these are the only two words she can remember in the song!) but I’m not holding out much hope with the luck we’ve had- fingers crossed.

Christmas has officially landed in the house and the decorations have been up for a couple of weeks now, with more things being added every few days. It also means there’s usually a Christmas film playing on the TV. One of the favourites this year is actually Home Alone- they love watching both of them, although this has led to Seb calling us all ‘filthy animals!’ It did also lead to an amusing conversation when we asked the kids what they would actually do if they found themselves in Kevin’s situation, the big two both agreed it would be bad and they listed off the friend’s houses they’d go to instead.

Some other little TV related anecdotes include Polly whilst watching Harry Potter stating- “So, in 4 years my letter will come.” And another Polly classic when catching up with this week’s Strictly, they love watching the judge’s scoring and like to predict what number each judge will hold up. This week one of our favourite’s was scoring 10’s across the board and it was just Anton to go, Polly then shouted out- “Come on Anton sneak a little 10 out, they need it!”

She also gave me a laugh on Friday morning when we walked to school, the gritters had been out the night before which she had noticed when she commented- “look it definitely is cold as they’ve been out to lay the breadcrumbs.”

Seb has also given us a few laughs as he’s re-christened a Christmas legend. The other day I asked him which Christmas jumper he wanted to wear and he declared- ‘the Bruno one.’ Completely baffled I turned back to the dinosaur jumper and the Rudolph jumper in front of me trying to work out which one he meant, he then clarified- “the Bruno the red nose reindeer one.” And yes this name seems to have stuck.

Obviously, this time of year means the battle of the Christmas adverts. Our verdict this year is we quite like the racoon one (Lidl) and honestly the Tesco one made both Henry and I actually genuinely smile. It’s a very simple concept and just makes you feel a bit warm and fuzzy without trying to hard.

The change in weather over the last week did prompt Henry to take the kids on a little snow hunt the other day. I was at work and Henry had taken the car to take them to an after school party but then found he had an hour or so to kill before picking me up. So he took them up onto Dartmoor for a play in the snow. The girls had great fun by the looks of it whilst Seb stayed put in the car.

I will try and get another post in before the end of the year but with my track record it’s not looking likely. More fingers crossed!