Welcome to the madhouse!!!

Finally decided Sophie needed a haircut - the ends were getting too knotty and her hair (when unwound and not all curled up in ringlets!) was too long to brush properly when she was sitting down, so I played at being the hairdresser.

Front and back views !!! ...

Sophie said "You can't cut my hair, I'll be a boy" !!!

Don't know if it had anything to do with the hairdressing theme, but the next day, this is what Sophie did to Juliette when I asked her to keep an eye on her while I dashed down to the freezer ...

... by a big fat bloke with a white beard and a red hat. After last week's photoshoot, on Friday Sophie first got another visit from Santa at her school (bringing her a game called Don't Let The Balls Drop, otherwise known as Kerplunk in my day and age ... the new name always makes me think of the saying "oops I just dropped a b****ck" !!!). And on the same day, she saw him again at my work's xmas party (this time she got a Barbie and Juliette got a Playmobil family, which is a bit spooky because that was one of the things on Sophie's wishlist for xmas!!!)

Today we went "shopping" in town (another one of my kind of trips where we spent nothing at all because we cashed in a voucher for a free computer game and used up shopping vouchers they gave out at the supermarket last month to try to entice you to the shops which open up on the Sundays before xmas). We bumped into Father Christmas at the Christmas market (a kiss and a sweet for Sophie) then headed off to Gravelines Christmas market and saw him abseiling down the clock tower ! He certainly gets around but then I suppose that's the magic of Father Christmas !!!

You read it here first, 2006 will hear the patter of tiny feet in our house again.

Nooooo I'm not pregnant again (wipe the sweat from your brow!!!). Mike came home from work with the news that someone wanted to get rid of their dog and we should go and see it so we went today and ended up saying yes. I was a bit dubious because I only like big dogs like labradors and newfoundlands and Mike only likes ankle-biting rats on ropes and this is more like an ankle-biter than a real dog. But she was pretty cute and very affectionate.

Her name is Victoire (which I think will end up getting shortened to Vic or Vicky because it sounds silly !!!) and she's a "bichon maltais" which I think is a Maltese terrier (unless I just made that breed up). She's one and a half years old and jumped all over us licking us to bits like we've known her forever so I'm sure she'll be great mates with Sophie.

I just went looking on google for a pic and here is what she looks like, more or less :

But judging by the other photos, if she doesn't get a regular haircut, she'll look more like this :

I don't think so !!! We'll be picking her up in the New Year when we get back from England so I'll post a piccie of her then. To be continued ... !!!

I had the bright idea of going to the big Cité Europe shpping mall in Calais to check out the xmas decorations today, so we all bundled into the car at 11.30, got down there around midday, headed straight to McDonalds. First (but by no means last !!!) freebie of the day - a couple of little bags of Ronald McDonalds sweets while we were waiting for the food to arrive.

With full bellies, headed off to look at the shops. Discovered Santa's village where you went to the information desk, picked up a card with your name on then went around the various activities getting stamps to go back and claim your reward (which Sophie immediately sussed out was a big chocolate Santa Claus, because she saw the big box full of them !!!)

Went back down to activity number one - Santa's elves' bedroom, where you all had to sit on a bed and listen to a bedtime story about Santa. Piece of cake. Activity number two - fishing (for ducks) in holes in the "ice" which Sophie managed by eventually picking them up, sticking them on the hook then lifting the fishing rod high in the air. Had us all in hysterics but she still got her stamper and a little plastic toy from "Santa's toychest". Round the corner to activity three ... a big mock up fireplace with a whole load of climbing gear at the bottom. I thought they'd harness up the kids and hoik them up the chimney but no, they had to go up to the second floor of the mall, climb over the balcony and abseil down the chimney to the ground floor. Bearing in mind Sophie gets wobbly when walking down a wooden flight of 6 steps you can see through at the zoo, I never thought she'd do it in a million years. But I've come to the coonclusion that she'd do anything for a bar of chocolate!!! She got all kitted out in climbing harness and helmet, jumped over the railings (hanging on for dear life to the climbing instructor ! ) and came out of the pitch black "chimney" at the bottom with a huge smile on her face !!! (I meanwhile was racing back along to the escalators and fighting my way back through the crowds of happy shoppers to the bottom floor so I'd get down there before her !!!) She obviously inherited my climbing genes !!! (Which I may live to regret in 20 years time when she tells me about going off on a climbing weekend with the mountaineering club and I know exactly what she'll be getting up to in advance !!!)

Headed off to claim the choccie, went over to the shops on the other side and found a FOURTH activity (you only needed three stamps) - Santa's workshop where you had to cut out felt shapes to make a xmas tree decoration. So she didn't actually have to do the abseiling to win after all !!! Not that she had any regrets !!!

Headed off to see Father Christmas - had to pay €6 for a photo but he did look the part and the photo was a biggie. (I'll scan it later but it's still in the car. Juliette smiled just at the right time - although I thought she was going to pull his beard off at one point !!!)

Went to Toys R Us and spent the cheque Mamy and Papy gave us for the girls - Noddy computer for Sophie and activity desk with free talking shape sorter for Juliette (combined price said to be over €50, special deal €39,99 for the two - and the little shape sorter by itself was being sold for €20 just next to them so it looks like a pretty good deal ! "Cheap as chips" !!!)

Headed off to the big supermarket and got a whole trolleyful of stuff (presents and household stuff) to use up the €80 voucher offered by Mike's works for xmas.

Finally made it back to the car at 6pm, all totally knackered and having spent a grand total of ... almost nothing !!! Definitely my kind of shopping trip (but can I please join in the abseiling down the chimney next time if I promise to be a good girl for the whole year?!!!)

I think the title says it all ... the tummy bugs have found their way to our house. It started off on Monday - Sophie looked white as sheet in the afternoon so stayed home, ended up with a "runny bottom" ... then that night, Juliette decided to throw up her whole bottle of milk all over me and the bed (at 10.30pm, just before heading to bed, after a long day ... so I had to change her, the bed and jump in the shower before finally making it back to bed). Tuesday was my extra long day at work (8am-8pm because of class meetings) but they both seemed better in the morning and got through the day with no mishaps (even saw Father Christmas at Mike's works in the evening who gave a Dora computer game to Sophie and a Winnie the Pooh musical lightshow to Juliette) .

Thought it was all over but got a phonecall at work from the childminder on Wednesday - Sophie had just been sick all over her floor and she didn't want her kids to get sick so she wasn't going to take them until they were better. Ran around preparing classes, filling in the last of the reports, photocopying worksheets and telling the teaching assistants what they needed to do in which classes until I got back ... so here I am, at home with the kids on "sick children leave" (yesterday and today - I'll go back on Monday) and everyone's absolutely fine ! Sophie's got tummy ache and atomic poo (!!!) but apart from that, no more sickness or anything. Oh well, it gives me a couple of days' respite from the kids at school who are going absolutely loopy because it's almost the holidays. Only one week to go ... !!!!

They seem to be getting bigger and more grown up by the day !!!

And for my next trick ... !!!

It's not round the wrong way, she was laying on the floor trying to get in shot because I was laying on the floor taking snaps of Juliette at floor-level !!!

And finally, if you really must have a piccie of me to print out for the wall, at least have one where I didn't just walk in from the rain and the wind and I have a total bed-head !!!

With some carefully-placed bubbles to cover up the rude bits !!!

I always feel guilty sticking Juliette in the playpen but she actually seems to like it !!!

This has been one of those weekends when something happens and you go "oh that's a brilliant idea, let's do that" and go running off to do something else ! It all started with the traditional "it's the first weekend of December, let's drag out the xmas tree and decorate the house" (it's very contained at the moment, only in the front room, but if I have time, I have plans to slowly creep through the rest of the house with bits and bobs when Mike's not looking !!!) You only have to look at our tablecloth to see what we've been up to on the messy play front - it's covered with paint, glue and glitter splodges and I can't be arsed to change it until we've finished or it'll just get dirty again !!! It'll be a good test for my washing powder (I'm actually doing market research at the moment on a big box of (freebie) mystery washing powder so it's a real time-saver, I can do my seven loads of stained items on one piece of washing !!! And not only was the powder free, I get paid €12 at the end of it too !!)

Anyway, after listening to my xmas CD on repeat and getting creative with the tinsel and ribbons, the idea of going to a xmas market sounded good ... even in the rain !!! So we headed off to the little xmas market at Malo les Bains (the beach area of Dunkirk) - it's only tiny but it's the first one of the season. We bumped into Father Christmas and Sophie was totally in awe of him and went all shy whereasJuliette took one glance at him and turned back to the xmas lights !!! Anyway, a bit further on, there was a stall selling crêpes (pancakes), beignets (doughnuts) and gaufres (waffles) - and Sophie decided she wanted a waffle.

So today in the supermarket in Belgium (on a failed attempt to find a xmas turkey - they obviously don't eat them in Belgium either !!!), we spotted a pack of waffle-mix so we decided to make some at home. Our toasted-sandwich machine has a waffle attachment, which we'd never used before, so we (me and Sophie) dragged it out and then fell on the floor laughing because the fist one whistled as it cooked and the second one "farted" !!! You had to be there to find it funny, but if you see Sophie giggling and wafting her hand around her rear end while eating her waffle, you'll know why !!! (And giggling while eating a waffle covered in icing suger gets very messy ... but as least it just looks like fake snow so you can get away with it !!!)

There are two weeks of work left and 21 days until xmas, and me and Sophie will probably both get taken away by the men in white coats before then because we're making each other get more and more excited and christmassy !!! But if we don't get carted off, we'll be making xmas cards, paper chains, sugar mice, crackers (without a bang!) and god knows what else before then. Ummmm anyone who doesn't know what to buy me for xmas, a new tablecloth sounds like a good idea to me !!!