While It's Still January....

... here are some piccies of some of the Christmas festivities in the Davies household! Timmy was one of 3 year 1 children chosen to have a 'going on the stage' part in the school Christmas play 'A Tale of Two birthdays'. He did a fabulous job of being radiant & angelic!
Luke was in the party guest crowd & did a marvelous job being enthusiastic, singing loudly (when he knew the words well) & looking like he was joining in with the songs with great gusto when he didn't have a clue what the words were! 10 out of 10 for miming skills! :o)

After much deliberation & difficulty we decided to buy an artificial Christmas tree this year. The kids had a lot of fun decorating it. Annie-Joy put all the gift box decorations in one corner of the tree! Every day someone would secretly move the decorations around so it never looked the same on any two days. It was jolly cheerful!

My favourite Christmas decoration is the lovely wooden nativity scene that my mum bought us last year. It is very popular with the children too- especially Baby Jesus.

The sheep didn't come with the scene originally but were a gift from Lee's parents to me after a holiday to Australia. I think they go with the wooden set perfectly, don't you?

The children & I made grandparents, Godparents & the boys teachers boxes of chocolate truffles for Christmas. I had fun creating the gift wrapping & my new polka dot bag was just right to hold the boxes when we went out delivering them to everyone. We made the milk chocolate truffles into little Christmas puddings with a blob of melted white chocolate & some holly leaves & berry sprinkles. They LOVED putting those on the top!

Luke helped me to bake the Christmas cake which we took to share at my parents house on Christmas Day.

Annie-Joy helped me to ice it with royal icing & I put the sugar Mary, Joseph & Jesus on top along with a gold candle, gold ribbon & some glitter! Not bad for a first attempt!! LOL!! We had a wonderful day celebrating Jesus' birth with my parents & we all really enjoyed going to their rather high Anglican church Christmas Day service. The boys took their Dr Who Daleks to show which rather delighted the vicar I think!

At New Year Annie-Joy made some Christmas tree biscuits with me. She loved sprinkling the sprinkles onto the icing & putting a marzipan star on the top.

And the last of our festive baking was this gingerbread house that Jordan & Luke made with me. Timmy helped with the house construction & snow placement! We were all pretty delighted with the results. We ate it when my mum came up to stay when Lee & I took the boys to their first pantomime, Peter Pan, at Liverpool Empire Theatre (which they LOVED!!). All in all we had a lovely Christmas full of fun family times. I am very thankful to God for the gift of his son Jesus & for the opportunity to remember his birth at Christmas time. :o)

I Can Cook!

A while back Lee heard on the radio that Katy from cBeebies I Can Cook was doing a roadshow at a shopping centre near us one Saturday morning. We decided to pop down nice & early before the crowds hit the shops!
After much wandering around the maze like shopping centre we found Katy getting ready to make carrot & courgette muffins! Katy is a brilliant presenter & even better in real life! You can tell she loves kids & loves what she does.
Luke & Timmy were both chosen to help Katy cook the muffins. Luke snapped the courgette in half so that it would fit into the grater & Timmy turned the handle on the grating machine.

Katy uses different actions for different ingredients. Here they are being raisins- all squashed up & wrinkly!!

When the muffins were in the 'oven' being 'cooked' Katy sang a song to recap what she had done to make the muffins. The old lady next to me was convinced it wasn't really Katy playing & singing but it was!!

The children all got autographed pictures of Katy. Luke's face here says it all!

Next they made fruit salad with a lady called Joy (who was delighted that Annie-Joy shared her name!). Hands were washed & they all had a go at chopping & peeling the fruit. Our boys were the only kids who knew what all the different fruits were!

When the salad was made they had a blind folded tasting session. Jordan is looking at Luke's taste buds before Joy gave them different fruit to taste & guess what it was!

Katy was very chatty & the kids showed her the fruit salad they had made. We then went to buy goodies to fill the boys Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes which was lots of fun!

Before we left the shopping centre the boys wanted to say goodbye to Katy. They all showed her the toy Wall-E's they had bought (from the pound shop!) & Annie-Joy enjoyed a lovely cuddle with Katy. It was a really exciting adventure & the boys are still talking about it! :o)

Go Penguins! And St George Too!

Part of the city of Liverpool's Christmas celebrations for 2009 was an art exhibition called Go Penguins which was a bit like the Lambanana Safari that happened in the summer of 2008 as part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture year. When the boys school had an inset day my friend & I decided we would take our 7 children to see the penguins in St George's Hall. It was a VERY wet day!
The boys were all very excited to see the penguin that they had helped to make on display inside St George's Hall!
Lots of children's groups made mini penguins but the majority of the penguins were designed by professional artists. This was one of our favourites. He is called Peng-a-tron!

St George's Hall used to be where the law courts were but now it is set up as a museum. The boys loved dressing up as the judge & sitting in his huge chair over looking the jury seats & the rest of the courtroom. They were also fascinated by the judge's private rooms & his toilet!! Being in the room really brought the scene from The Wind in The Willows where Toad is in court for stealing a car to life for the boys which added to their excitement!

Below the courtroom down an almost vertical flight of stone steps are the cells. Going down the steps made me realise why the judge says 'Send him down!' when someone has been found guilty of a crime! The cells still smell a bit....!! :o}

And again, the cell toilet caused much interest with the boys!!!

Anyway, the main hall is truly beautiful! There is a gorgeous wooden floor that is only on show once a year but the ceiling & huge organ are quite breath taking when viewed from the gallery. The staff in st George's Hall were really helpful & gave us a guided tour. One lady who worked there asked if we were a school group on a trip. I guess there were quite a few of us!!

Out & about in Liverpool penguins were dotted about. The children loved spotting them. Annie-Joy shouted 'Wenwin!' every time she saw one!

We saw this one down by the Pier Head after Lee's Santa Dash. that is why Jordan is wearing a Santa hat & there are rather a lot of portaloos in the background!!

And there were penguins at Lime Street train station too where we had a rather chilly picnic after we had left St George's Hall. We took the train back home again & warmed up snuggled under blankets to watch a little bit of telly. It was a very enjoyable day off school! :o)

Santa Dash!!

Lee ran in Liverpool's 2009 Santa Dash in December!! Hmmmm! What a long time ago it seems now... Anyway, I still think it is worth blogging for you all to see & to preserve the memory for posterity!
Lee ran with his work colleagues James & Brian (in the Evertonian blue Santa suit. Yep, I don't really get that either!! LOL!!). A photo very like this one (perhaps it was mine who knows?) made it into their work's national newspaper this month. Jordan was very excited to see it & announced that Lee is famous!

Rather a lot of Santas gathered early that Sunday morning. It was amazing to see a sea of red Father Christmases (with a spattering of blue here & there) sprawling across the Pier Head next to the Liver Building.

The children & I soon lost Lee in the crowd & headed for the starting line to cheer him on. While we waited in the sunshine I couldn't resist taking an arty photo of the reflection of the Cunard buildings (I think it is). Pretty cool eh?

Eventually Lee dashed past us enthusiastically much to our children's delight! Annie-Joy called Lee Daddy Christmas when he was all dressed up & Luke really thought Lee dressed up was the real Father Christmas! :o) The blue Santa to the left of the photo is Brian's wife Carole. She entered the dash the day before so hadn't done any training. Soon after this point she decided she would walk the rest of the course!

Timmy, Luke, Annie-Joy, Jordan & I made our way up the hill to the finish line by the Town Hall & waited in the cold & rain for Lee & Brian. James finished ages before them but we missed seeing him!

A professional photographer took a shine to this dog & posted the picture on Flikr. Lee & Brian just happened to be in the background! How fun! He kindly sent us a copy to post on here. Thankyou!

Lee crossed the finish line in record time amidst a flurry of fake snow. We all cheered wildly when we saw him running past but we almost missed him! He collected his medal & still has proudly beside his bed.

We all walked happily back to our car & home for a warm bath & some hot chocolate. It was a fun morning. By the way, Lee ran the Santa Dash to raise money for our churches Street Wise project. For more info see here. It still isn't too late to sponsor Lee for his dash! Thanks ever so!

Well, that's all for now. Lee will wonder where I have got to- I only popped down here to put the washing in the machine! :o)

Hello 2010!

Hello to you all! I am so sorry for the distinct lack of updates of late- snow, illness, Christmas, school, no school, every day life etc etc seem to have prevented me from quite making it to share our news on here. Anyway, enough excuses! We are all well & getting back into the swing of the new year now that the snow has cleared. Thankyou to all you faithful readers especially Anne & my lovely mum & dad & all you silent readers- I do appreciate all of you! I hope to be back very shortly with lots & lots of photos of our goings on over the past couple of months. In the mean time, I hope you like this lovey piccie of the Davies tribe enjoying a snow day in our back garden!

PS I have a new-to-us second-hand PC monitor which was given to us free of charge so I can now see photos properly to edit them making the process of blogging less of a bind! Yippeeeee! :o)