The normal winter thing!

We have been really ill for the last week. Michael was in bed for nearly a week, followed by exams the next week - he feels like he did okay despite only being well and alert from the Sunday, so not much revision happened there. As well as he could expect to anyway! Then Peter got a cough, which is about when my parents paid us a little visit. We met at the temple in the pouring rain - Michael and I really couldn't have gone to the temple without Peter without absolutely major disappointment on Peter's part though! We enjoyed the visitor's centre for a little while, and then had lunch in a little out of the way room, and then Mum and Dad took the children to their Primary party while Michael and I spent some time TOGETHER in the temple for the first time in a very, very long time. They were there for the children's sacrament primary presentation the following day too. Rebekah gave the first talk with a little help from Mummy and seemed to totally enjoy it, and even totally enjoy being up there the whole time. No shyness at all. They all gave a talk and joined in with the singing and seemed to really enjoy themselves. :o)






Well just after that Rebekah became very poorly with flu. We've all had a share of it now - some worse than others. You can't not share things in families can you, or at least you don't seem to get much of a choice with the nasty things like that! After being in bed for three days, and not even seeing downstairs for more than two of those, I was well enough to get up this morning and take Rachel, Hannah and Sarah to church. They all really wanted to go, and Rachel and Hannah were keen to sing the song on their own in sacrament meeting that we were supposed to be singing as a family. They did a verse of another one on their own too and sang with the choir for the rest of it. They seemed to enjoy it. The quartet I should have sung in sounded great as a trio luckily! I had so been looking forward to this Sunday, and especially all of the singing we would be involved in. Talking has been more than enough until today though. I stuck around during sacrament meeting in the relief society room which is right at the back of our chapel (so I wouldn't be near anyone), but it exhausted me so much that I needed to go back to bed to rest a while before going back to pick the girls up at the end of church.

Peter, Michael and Rebekah watched church videos for most of the day, with Michael and Rebekah falling asleep in turn (Peter and Rebekah had seemed to get a bit better later i the week but then came right back down again yesterday). We watched a few videos in the afternoon together, and decided in the end to watch a Christmas Mormon tabernacle choir show for our family home evening, so everyone could join in. A bit too much video watching for one day! (Peter fell asleep during that in the end though. He hadn't fallen asleep until midnight the night before after crying for hours that his ear was hurting, but not letting us give him any medicine. When we finally got some into him, he was straight asleep and slept straight through.) We finished off by watching a video on You Tube of the angel Moroni being put on the London temple during the last week. We're hoping the scaffolding will be off so that we can see it properly when we are finally well enough to go back there and see the Christmas lights, etc. This week, or next week I suppose it might be now. Then we sang a carol by the light of the Christmas tree and the candles I had finally restocked from last year, and listened to a lovely christmas story from the Friend magazine the year Michael was baptised. Hopefully everyone will be asleep soon (illnesses depending)! That finish to the day should have been happening for a while now, but illnesses have somewhat got in the way of everything. It's nice to have started it though. It'll feel a bit Christmassy from now on hopefully.

Michael, Rebekah and Peter stayed in their pyjamas and rested all day today. Actually Peter has been in his since Friday night - all weekend. :o) Rachel looked at Michael this afternoon and laughed though because she said he looked like a fisherman! I could totally see it when I looked at him. As well as the pyjamas he has been wearing his winter hat and a scarf round his neck for most of the last two days. I'm sure the stubble helped a bit too though. :o)




So anyway, while the camera was out, I had to take a few other pictures too. I had been putting a few more decorations up in the living room (something that has happened in tiny bursts in between feeling really ill!) while the children watched a video this afternoon and Michael slept - he said he was fine not going to bed, so ended up looking very strange lying on a settee instead. I think it was to block off all sound and light!



I couldn't work out where to put the last bit of tinsel I had in my hand, so ended it up with it tied in a bow on me. I do look rather silly, but Sarah did want to take a photo and I've let Michael look silly on here so...




Then here's bump at 17 weeks (pictorially is probably the best way to show bump we figured, and we've never taken many pictures of me pregnant before, or of me at all really, so I get to be in the family a bit more for a while too!) ...



... and the children in their Christmas clothes, and of course the obligatory pyjamas. :o)







Maybe some of the things we had planned for Christmas will still happen. I hope so. We do hope everyone else is well this winter, especially this Christmas, and in case you don't look at this again before then, or I don't put anything else on here before then, we hope everyone has a really especially celebratory wonderfully HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!

Little Women

This has taken more than a week, and many many tries to FINALLY get a couple of videos uploaded onto Blogger, or even one! So we haven't really been silent, just trying hard in the background. :o) .....


One of my very favourite books (one of Michael's too actually), and our very favourite film too is Little Women. I was watching these four girls dancing the other day, and thought of various parts from the film and book of how the March girls played and worked together. There have been several times when they have totally reminded me of those March girls, and this was one of them. None of the video clips we have actually captured it at all, which is a shame. They all seem to be taken just at the wrong moment, but hopefully you'll get the idea.





Peter gets very excited when we mention dancing, and likes to say 'dance', or more like 'danth' actually. He LOVES dancing in Mummy's arms, and often on his own or with his sisters too. I think he must have had enough by the end of that last one though - he suddenly wasn't really in the mood anymore!



It's really funny how, in age order, they have quite a few of the same characteristics as Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. There are loads of differences too of course - they're their own people and not a book character! It if fun to watch and observe the similarities at times though. I hope you enjoy a little bit of them too. :o)


Oh, and here is Sarah still madly in Mary Poppins mode. All four girls have not stopped singing those songs for the past few weeks since we watched the film for the first time. Then they went to a friend's house, and they had the sound track for it - so we had almost non stop Mary Poppins songs after that. The only thing that stops them is other music to sing or dance to. Rachel even started singing scales after she heard me playing some scales om the piano last week! That's our lovely Rachel. :o)

They also like to say "spit spot" when quickly getting ready to go, and every other fun phrase they can think of from the film. I think Rachel would quite like to BE Mary Poppins! :o) Oh, and sliding down, and up the banister became a favourite pasttime for a while (that last one with a little bit of help!)