Happy New Year to all who reads our blog. Hope that this year brings all that you hope for.
Alice was very excited that it was Christmas time, as most children are. However, at 2 and 3/4 you are never quite sure how much they understand or are taking in. On the day that Nana and Grandpa were arriving we asked her if she could guess who was coming to visit. She initially looked a bit sheepish and then said "Father Christmas?". We said "No, Nana and Grandpa". Not sure if she was disappointed or not. She does get very overwhelmed when they visit because she's so excited to see them. Stuart's parents arrived on Tuesday 22nd Dec. We didn't tell Alice which day was Christmas Day as we wanted to get some sleep that night.
Stuart got her up as normal and gave her breakfast and we had put all the presents under the tree the night before and Alice nearly missed them all. Then was very excited to see them all as she has been asking for presents all week. Then they came up and woke me up and Father Christmas had left Alice a stocking in our bedroom. I guess he didn't want to wake Alice up in the middle of the night!!! FC brought Alice the Jungle Book DVD (wondering how long it will be before I can quote the whole film, as we are watching it rather a lot), In the Night Garden 2010 Annual (how does that work, when you are buying it when 2010 hasn't happened yet?) and The Christmas Journey by Susie Poole, a book which starts at creation and then works its way to the birth of Jesus and why He was born. A very good book. A bit too much writing in it for Alice, think she will want to read it more next year.
Then we were all downstairs washed and dressed and having a mid morning snack of Christmas morning muffins. A bit of a tradition in our house now. Stuart makes them and they are yummy, with cranberries in.
Then it was on to opening the presents. Alice had more presents than the rest of us put together. She has told us that her favourite present was the pram bought by Nana and Grandpa. She hasn't stopped playing with it.
As you know, none of my family was particularly looking forward to Christmas this year. We all seemed to get through Christmas, but I found the post Christmas lull very difficult. On Boxing Day we normally go for a walk on the beach and that is when the last photograph of my Dad was taken last year, by me. So I just couldn't face going for the walk. So everyone else went and I stayed in and watched the Strictly Christmas Day special. This is Alice on Boxing Day at the beach.
Just a sweet photo of Ian and Alice. He kept singing Twinkle Twinkle little bat, how I wonder what you're at... from Alice in Wonderland. Alice thought it was hilarious and laughed and laughed, now we're not allowed to sing it because Grandpa sings it. I had a rhinitis flare up for a few days which made me feel really wiped out, so wasn't up to much for a few days after that. Then Ian and Marion left the frozen north to go home to warmer climbs.
Stuart and I stayed in New Year's Eve, not really much else to do when most of your friends have got children and baby sitters are at a premium that night. We saw in the New Year with Jools Holland's Hootenany. I was quite surprised that I felt like I was leaving my dad in 2009 too and saying goodbye to the year was like saying goodbye to him and I didn't really want it to end. Not sure anyone else has felt like that, but it felt really strange and sad.
Woke up on 1st January to this winter scene. Three inches of snow. So what better way to spend the afternoon than build a snowman.
We could actually have built one twice the size of this as this was about a third of the snow from the garden. Alice really enjoyed throwing snow at Stuart and I, but wasn't quite so keen to have it thrown at her.
Later that afternoon the weather warmed up a bit and the snowman started to melt. As he was melting and tipping over it got really cold, snowed again and he froze in this position. The leaning snowman of North Tyneside. We then went round to good friends later in the afternoon and had a good time with them before they have number two baby (due any day really) then fly out to start new lives in Romania. You will be missed Mike, Vicky, Joshua and Chutney.
Alice seemed to enjoy putting the Christmas tree away with us and kept hugging the tree and kissing it and saying goodbye. We then asked her how old she will be next Christmas she said "3"!!! Then started saying it was her birthday next. Who teaches them that?
We cut and cooked up the apples from the tree. We had to do it in two batches as we got two massive pots full. So Alice and I made a crumble. When I say we both did it, Alice had no intention of actually making the crumble. Rather she would put her fingers in the butter "I eat some" "No Alice, it's just butter, I need to add flour to it". Add flour to butter and start to rub. Alice shoves her hands in and lifts out a huge blob of floury butter "I try it", whilst laughing lots. "No Alice, we need to rub it together" and that's kind of how it went on. Her shoving her hands in and putting it straight in her mouth and laughing lots. Then adding the sugar and coconut and Alice shoving the big spoon in and trying to fill it and get it into her mouth before I tapped everything off the spoon. It was very funny. She's absolutely no help whatsoever when baking, as her sole reason for doing it is to get as much in her mouth as possible, whilst pretending to help!!!! If you click on the photo, you get a larger version and can see more of the stuff round her chops.
Just a sweet wee picture to end on. On Christmas Eve we went to a family service at one of the local Baptist churches. The service was earlier in the afternoon and for young children. The pastor got all the children on stage to be the different characters. We asked Alice what she wanted to be an angel or a shepherd. She wanted to be an angel, so went up to the front on her own got the piece of tinsel from the box and then one of the lambs from another box (not sure she'd quite grasped that she was being one and not both characters), then went and sat on the stage. I sat on the floor with the rest of the parents. She did get a bid bored after about 10 mins and went for a wander. So this photo was taken on Stuart's mobile from a distance away, hence not great quality.
We are hoping for a better 2010 than 2009, the subsidence is obviously ongoing and no doubt will continue to miss my Dad every day and carry that grief. However, on a more positive note I am going to start picking Alice up at lunch time from next week onwards. So we'll see how that goes and we hope my energy levels will deal with it.
Here is our poor wonky snowman. From the previous post, he stayed like this for nearly two weeks. 
We did have so much snow, then one night it got a bit warmer and the next day it was nearly all gone.
This is the bowling green at the top of our street.
Alice did enjoy the snow, lots, but it was soooo cold.
