Holidays

My mother gave me a sound telling off about not updating this blog often enough. I'm pretty sure she is about to revoke my membership of the human race if I don't get my act together, so here are more holiday photos.

You're welcome.

They are always doing this. Okay, maybe not. I totally told them to kiss, but hey, they did it, so I figure I win at parenting. For once. 

Lulu on the carousel in Honfleur. As you can tell, she loved it. Isaias, on the other hand -
"I NOT go on carousel! Carousel too scawy!" This joins a long list of things that are too scawy, including watching Finding Nemo and eating meat.

After two minutes on the carousel - already feeling pretty nonchalant about it. Carousel? Whatever.

Whatcha doin, twins?

Uh.... just hanging around.  (Sorry, had to be done).

More kissing. I guess I win at facilitating grandparent / grandchild relations, too. 

The beach! It was very warm and sunny. Obviously.

 It was a gorgeous beach, actually. This was pretty much the only two minutes of sunshine we got all week, but those two minutes were lovely.

 Giving us the look that sums up one of her favourite phrases: "I BUSY!"

 so grown up.

 such a baby.

  

 So beautiful.

So unaware that he is not actually a dog.

 We went to an aquarium. There were lots of fish.

 It was freakishly, ridiculously, insanely rainy. It rained every day. Actually, it poured every day. This day, Isaias and I ran down to the beach to build sandcastles in the rain - J and Lulu were too chicken tired. We got thoroughly, utterly, bewilderingly wet. And for ten minutes, as we got soaked to the skin and I kept digging in the sand with my boy anyway, I truly felt like a good mother. 

Ten minutes after that, of course, I told him that we were going go back inside, and Nanna got these pictures. Please note how self-satisfied I look. Also - wearing this wet wool cardigan is probably the only time I have smelt worse than my two-year-old.   

 

 More kissing. I'm sensing a pattern. Also: I don't want to criticise my two-year-old's technique, but please note that I am not the one going straight in with an open mouth. French kissing indeed. 

And that's it, I think. 

Back

We are just back from France. (The compensation for British weather, of course, is that France is only a ferry 

away). Two weeks with no wi-fi, so I've come back to a pile of un-checked email (including some moderately 

important work stuff - oh, well) and several hundred unread blog posts. You'd think I might have used all the 

non-internet time for getting useful stuff done, but no- mostly I was just eating butter. (Did I mention we were 

in France?) The area we were in (Brittany) has this amazing butter which is unsalted -creamy and almost 

sweet - but studded with big flaky salt crystals. Honestly.Honestly. It's like having your mouth filled with dancing

 angels. Why don't the rest of us demand that our own butter manufacturers get on board with this? In the first 

four days, we had to go back to the shop three times to buy more butter because we were eating it so darn fast.

 Also - the other regional speciality is this same salted butter boiled up with sugar to make salted butter 

caramel. Salted butter caramel everywhere! Why did nobody tell me this? I would have gone years ago. 

On a related note - she who goes to France without elasticated waistbands is an idiot. Ahem.

Anyway. I'd say that it's good to be back except it's not - it stinks to be back. I feel discombobulated and 

discomposed and cranky. Why isn't my fridge full of salty crunchy creamy butter? Why aren't my parents 

getting the children up in the mornings?  Why isn't there a beach outside my window? I don't want to go 

back to work, and I don't want John to go back either. Why can't we go to the aquarium instead? Also - why 

did I think that it was a good idea to book the children's first dentist appointment tomorrow? 

I love holidays. I really do. I just hate how, for the first few days back, I always feel like this:

If You Know Me At All...

You won't be even slightly surprised that I haven't done any Christmas cards this year. (Okay, I didn't do any last year either. Or the year before that). I'm very sorry. So it's up to the children to tell you...

From our house to yours. May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be... delicious. Speaking of, I'd better go and boil some ham. 

Sorry about the typing. Yes, I did write 'merry christmas'  on the piece of paper they are holding, but I got the light metering wrong and all the photos I took look like they are holding a nearly-blank piece of paper. I guess that means I can make them say whatever I want, which could be handy. Maybe I could rent them out as adversing space. Any takers? 

Since I'm Here....

Here's one video that I can't resist posting:


Lulit and Isaias rocking out in the kitchen to some Belle and Sebastian.

Recently, life has been teaching me some difficult but important lessons. Here are some of them.

Lesson 1: One of the biggest temptations that we, as wealthy westerners, face is the temptation to think 'just one more thing and then I'll be happy'. But we never are happy, are we? New car, new clothes, new house... they always disappoint. But do you know what NEVER disappoints?

New storage. New storage never disappoints. My living room is so tidy now; I just want to rub my face against this thing and nuzzle with it.

Lesson 2: Never buy shampoo at the dollar store.

Lesson 3: Don't leave it four months in between uploading photos. It makes the task of posting them seem increasingly impossible with each passing week.

Lesson 4: When in doubt, probably a few randomly chosen photos are better than no photos at all. Even if they are absolutely out of order, span four months and two continents. Which leads me to:

me and my boy. 

Me and my boy. And my girl. And my other boy. 

The boy and the girl and the other boy and the other girl. Okay, this is getting old already. 

Sometimes life really IS about running through a field of daisies

cousins = best thing ever

This picture has everything required to make Lulu and Issu happy. 1) Miffy the Rabbit (who they call Baby, for reasons that are not clear to me) 2) Miffy ON TELEVISION - first time I played that DVD they went absolutely spiral - they couldn't believe that baby had come to life 3) a tutu 4) another tutu - Isaias' love for tulle will not be denied 5) actually, that's it.  Mostly they act like their existence is nothing but a vale of tears, but in this photo, their life was perfect.

This is what I see ALL THE TIME. Just imagine he's saying 'Wattss bee-bee? Wattss bee-bee?' and you are LIVING MY LIFE.  (Wattss bee-bee = Watch baby, ie Miffy)

she LOVES to hide

Have I mentioned these two love Shades of People? They really, really REALLY love Shades of People. 

Wonky parts and all; I was ridiculously proud of this hairstyle. (If you look closely, there's a little crown of joined twists). It lasted approximately seventeen minutes. 

after a bath

the ballet love continues

How grown up! He's riding a scooter! (Except he's not, he's just standing on a scooter and
leaning a bit.  But wow, he looks grown up in this picture). 

And she's on a bike! This is what John thought fatherhood was going to be like EVERY day.
Boy was he wrong. 

hiding-behind-a-tree-while-C-takes-a-photo-of-the-kids-FAIL

This pony is not fast enough. I want another. 

Hey, cat... how's that diet coming?

Family photo session in Australia... My sister and her crew

The best of our family shots 

My bro and his little boy. Of course, 'bro' is what I call him in real life. All the time. 

making a break for freedom. I was feeling a bit the same by this point, little guy. 

upside down is still where it's at for my two

Be still my beating heart. 

Recreation of a family portrait taken in 1987. Outfits? Not planned.  What can I say?
My whole family just really, REALLY likes blue. EXACTLY THE SAME SHADE OF BLUE.

cousins! Still the best thing ever. Even when they are different cousins. The cuteness does not discriminate by continent. 

This magic mirror turned me into a girl.

It's never too early to think about your long-term mobility needs

I loved this shot. Until I noticed my nose. 

I'm never touching that blue thing again

But you said you LOVED me

Not posed. 

Lesson 5: When it's really late at night, the pictures are only halfway done and the blogger picture uploader has creaked and groaned stopped working, there is only one obvious path:  save to draft, shut down computer, try again, fail, finally get around to installing windows live writer, realise I don't know how to use windows live writer, consider whether it is worth upgrading the computer's operating system, do some research on amazon about prices, dither, eventually fall asleep in this chair. The wiser path, which I plan to take (for once in my life) is: click publish on the pictures that are there already and and then GO TO BED.  I'll post the others another day. Probably. But for now: goodnight to all, and to all a good night.
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Why I Haven't Been Blogging Much Lately

But I promise to post more photos soon. Honestly.