Christmas 2010

Another Christmas has come and gone. Alice was incredibly excited and a lot more aware this year of what Christmas was all about and how many days there were to Christmas etc. She did very well though and woke at 8am on Christmas Day. She drew a list for Santa Christmas a few days before Christmas and on it was a drawing of a doll and a dinosaur with a long neck. Santa was very kind and brought her a family of dolls and a dinosaur with a long neck. She said, it was exactly what she asked for.

Stuart's dad, Ian made Alice a dolls' house. It is utterly amazing and by far her best present. Stuart was asked to go and measure our front door and Ian made a scale model of our front door for the dolls' house. He also painted it the same colour as our house. The letter box on the front door was made by his father many years ago, so Alice's great-Grandfather. Ian kept it all these years and put it on her front door. He even made a door bell to match ours too. I think my next job is going to be making curtains for it.


All the furniture has been bought by friends and family and goes really well in the house.

Alice playing with the house.

And again.


She also got a tiny tears doll and the first thing she wanted to do was see her going on the toilet. So she was stripped and fed some water in her bottle, so Alice could see where she did a wee from!! Alice has called her doll Rosie. She got lots more as well as these toys. One of her favourites was a balloon animal kit from Santa. I made her a mouse yesterday and she carries it around quite a lot and strokes it a lot.

This is just a wee update as I haven't done it in a while. Also these photos were taken with our new digital camera. We think the pictures look a lot clearer, however, these have been reduced for the blog.

Snow, Snow and More Snow and It's still Snowing!!

Yes, as you can it has been snowing since Wednesday 24th November. Thought I would post a few photos of the snow. This was last Friday, when the snow started to fall a bit more.

The was Saturday 27th out the back of our house.



The car in the front covered in snow.

Alice in the garden, trying to walk through the snow. It wasn't sticking together at all so we couldn't build a snowman.

Mr and Mrs Snowman sitting on the chairs!!

Alice pulling her doll Lou-Lou up the street in her sledge. Poor Lou-Lou had not clothes on!!!

Stuart trying to get the car off the drive last night to go shopping. He reversed it and because there is a dip before the road goes back up again it wouldn't go past that dip. The wheels just kept spinning. So he digging the car back onto drive!!! He's walking with his massive ruck sack today instead!! About an hour and a half after this photo was taken it had snowed about another 4-5 inches.

This morning it was -9 degrees and it had snowed all over again. We just can't believe how much it has been snowing. The other day we had thunder and lightning through the snow!! Didn't witness it as it was late at night and early in the morning. That's really rare as a phenomenon!!!

On Sunday as the temperature had lifted slightly, the snow started to melt a bit. So the snow that was sitting on the roof slid down and took our guttering with it. So the guttering is strewn in different parts of the roof and the garden below. The noise was horrendous, I thought Stuart or Alice were coming through the roof (I was right below were it was happening). So with no gutter to catch the water and very low temperatures this was the scene outside our bedroom window this morning. One of those icicles is about 60cm long and about 10cms in diameter.

The road at the top of our street was horrendous this morning. People couldn't get their cars up the hill and so they were just getting stuck not being able to go anywhere. A poor woman was nearly in tears. I went over to her (was with Alice so couldn't offer to push) and asked if she was OK. She said the car just won't move and she doesn't know what to do. So I went to the other cars and got people out to help her. Then another couple of blokes who were walking past pushed her up the hill too. Then all the other cars behind couldn't get up either, so they were all having to help each other. Another man skidded her car and just missed some railings. He had a group of people helping to dig the car out for him. At the top of that hill is a bridge going over the metro line and they would get up the hill and get stuck trying to go over the hump of the bridge. I've never seen anything like it!!!! The hill is not that steep or big!!!!!

I hear on the weather forecast that it's due to remain for another wee while yet!!! People here just aren't used to these kind of conditions. The snow is a bit stickier now, so we might get out tomorrow and try to build a snowman. I think some boys are trying to build an igloo in the field behind our house. They've been at it since yesterday!!!