Welcome to the madhouse!!!

Sorry, the Hastings photos are on the other memory card !!!

The fringe has now grown out so she can see again !

Look Mamie, Christmas clothes !

Is it me or does she look all grown-up without a fringe ?!

Juliette wasn't feeling well and promptly threw up all over me yesterday - but she's full of beans again today !!!

The accident doesn't seem to have affected either of them - except that if Mike isn't home on the dot, Sophie says "Is Daddy late because he's had an accident ? " ! She's extra extra careful about crossing the roads now too, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

See ?! I said I only had a little graze on my face - it healed really quickly too !

Sledging in Laval (the bloke is giving her a funny look because he's waiting for her to go up the slope !!!)

Wow !!! Presents !!!!

Everyone needed some time to regroup and chill out - and we managed to get out just before the flu germs !!!

Sledging in the town centre

Juliette wasn't happy and refused to go anywhere near Santa for any of the other photos !!!

Couldn't even tempt her with a sweetie !

Juliette was even scared of the mouse !!!

New Hello Kitty mittens because she lost her Pucca gloves ... except when I washed her coat, they were stuffed right at the bottom of her pockets under about a million tissues and biscuit wrappers (because they eat their midmorning snack in the playground at school !!!)

The balloon dogs didn't last long !!!

The "stick Juliette in the pushchair so she can't leg it" approach !!!

Crêpes at the Christmas market

Yes, she is sitting on the toilet !!!

It looks very impressive but it all came in a kit !!!

All we had to make was the icing

And it even survived the car crash !!!

Tada - the finished result ! I let the get on with it this year, I was snowed under with school reports to fill in !!!

But I DID decorate the dog (ok I admit it, for a competition !!!!) Didn't win either !!!)

Sophie won the tickets as part of her prize for entering the St Martin sugarbeet sculpting so I took her along.

Easy tiger !!! (old Swansea saying !!!) (It's a meringue, if you're wondering !!)

She got to meet *gasp* "the real" Snow White after the show !!

And even the wicked stepmother (who gives Mike a run for his money as an ugly woman !!!)

http://www.babyexpert.com/Gallery/babyrusk-smiles-%21%21%21/gallery

Voting ends in January, not sure when exactly

Thanks !!!

I know you've been missing it !!!! So here's a new voting competition for you - prizes for the top 15 at the end of the month !!!

Click here :

http://knorr.havassports.net/popup.aspx?id_soupe=1333

and vote for

The leaderboard is here if you want to see how I'm doing :

http://knorr.pourtoutvousdire.com/soupes_party/Default.aspx?menu=8

Well, last year went out with a bang (sick joke !!!) so the first thing to do this year was find a new car. The hire car had to go back on Thursday - €220 for the few days we were in England *gulp* (but it was worth it, everyone would have been moping around and reliving the crash otherwise). Mike walked to work on Friday - and managed to talk some of his colleagues into dropping him off in the evening !

We had the insurance expert on the phone and the old car is being treated as a wreck - the procedure is to throw it open to see if any breaker's yards want to buy it. If not, they'll be sending us a cheque for about €16.200. In some ways, we'll be glad to see the back of it - I'm sure it was jinxed from day 1 !

Mike went to the garage today and "bought" a new car - another Scenic, this time "beige poivre" (pepper beige). It costs €22.000 which is basically the same price as the old car was when we bought it.

The car will be available next Saturday but we can't have it until we receive the cheque which could take anything from 10 days to 3 weeks - so they'll lend us a car for the interim from Monday night onwards. So only Monday will be a bit hectic.

I'll post a pic when we get it !