Welcome to the madhouse!!!

http://www.elleadore.com/cote-cuisine/vos-recettes/desserts/pain-aux-bananes-par-cheryl59.php

You'll need to register as a member, make a note of your username and password (because you can come back and vote once a week) then go back to the link above and click on vote. If it's worked and you click again, you'll get a message saying you can't vote more than once - but that'll be of no help to you because it'll all be in French !!!

There's a scarecrow in the garden below us and Juliette says goodnight to it every night (along with the cats, dogs, birds, park, cars and dingdongman !!!) - and the other day, in all the storms, it got blown over. So she said (with a broad West Country accent, wherver that came from !!) :

Ohhh scaowcraow, faoullen aowver !

I laughed and called Mike, said "tell Daddy about it" and she said :

"Scaowcraow tombé !!!"

We keep asking her about it and every time it's "faoullen owver" for me and "tombé" for Mike !!!

News of the week is : Sophie can now ride a bike without stabilisers !!! It took her all of half an hour and she only fell off twice !!!

Is she looking proud or scared ?!!

And she's off !!!

It took her until the second night to master turning the handlebars and going round corners - it was a dangerous time to walk across the car park in front of her until then !!!

Mike took the day off work last Thursday so we headed off to Belgium, Ostend for a change.

We had dinner in an Irish pub - Mike had Irish stew, I had fish & chips & mushy peas (homemade ones, tasted ok actually !!) and the girls had fish & mash (and pinched half of my chips ! ) and apple sauce !

The rain stopped and the sun came out so we headed along the prom, the girls had an ice cream, we looked at the millions of stands selling dried fish !!!

Then we came home and Mike went looking at flat-screen TVs and GPS Natsav systems for the car - boys toys !!!

Looks healthy - until you spot the leftover fairy cake icing around her mouth !!!

And this one was a setup for an upcoming Nutella competition !!!

So what have you been doing in the holidays girlies ?

Made fairy cakes ...

... and ate them !

Did arts and crafts

ummm what are we supposed to be making ?

a mess ? oh no, a caterpillar !

an indoor picnic when it's rainy and stormy outside !!

Can you go to this website http://www.defi-photo.com/accueil.php?prov=99 and vote for the photo of me and the girls finding a four leafed clover as many times as you can ? You can just make up the names and email addresses, they don't check !!! It's only a week long contest so should finish on Monday. Fank yoo !

Juliette looks like she's a ventriloquist's dummy saying "gottle a geer" !!

Go and swing off the kitchen table instead - Juliette made this game up all by herself and even impressed Sophie who tried to copy but couldn't fit her legs under the table !!! It's that monkey gene again !!

Bright idea for the day - sticking dyed pumpkin seeds (still hanging around from last Halloween !!) to make pictures - kept them amused an not as messy as painting !!

A couple of hours before the party last weekend - final preparations !!!

I can already predict the comments you'll be leaving for this one !!!

Oh no, it's an orange !!

It must run in the family !!

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves ! A great time was had by all !

Luckily most of the mums asked me what to get as a present so I told them about the 51kg of toys that we won and said clothes and stationery for "big school" after the holidays !!!

Is it me or do the two on the end look just like the kids next door when they were little ?!!

Two cakes and the only ones to eat any were Sophie and Juliette !!!

Pass the parcel - went down so well I had to make another one up quickly when they all ran upstairs for ten minutes to play in Sophie's room !!!

Ten freebie padded envelopes and loads of freebies in each parcel - that made some space in my ebay cupboard !!!

Musical bumps, musical statues, hide & seek, pin the tail on the donkey ... then the mum's started arriving !!!