Tommy flew out to Lanzarote with us, he even had his own suitcase and tshirts for the holiday. It was the most challenging week of hiding Tommy as whilst our family room was large, it was open plan and I had to wait until everyone was asleep to hide him. In these photos you can see him riding a balloon animal the children had made in their club, sitting on the pool ring, sampling the free toiletries, colouring in, sitting on the Stack’ems etc.. He continued to write a daily letter too. Again it was sad to say goodbye to Tommy, he really is one of my favourite traditions.
Tommy Week 2
This week has been a very busy one so Tommy’s hiding places have needed to be quick and simple. I enjoyed making Lego Tommy although Mr S was bemused to what I was doing playing Lego when the children were in bed. Letterbox Tommy has the Santa letters arriving in the post. My mum did the most fantastic letters again this year so personal and magical. 
Christmas Decorations 2016
Our Christmas decorations are similar to last year’s. I don’t have a theme, simply they are all special to me and our family and all bring a little joy and beauty to our home. I have added a few new decorations this year. I started the glass decorations last year and returned to the same art gallery this year to add a few more to our collection. They are beautiful in the way they reflect the fairy lights in the evenings. I can’t resist a hand made fabric decoration so the felt characters were bought at last week’s Christmas market from a craft stall with all takings going to our local hospital. The nativity tree decoration are new too, bought from the RNLI store at the market too. The town’s Christmas market was fantastic this year for handmade craft items and a great place to shop for different gifts and decorations. I loved the peg dolly stall, there was a real variety of peg ladies illustrating different hobbies. I bought the tea lady for our tree and bought my mum a peg lady sewing, both are stunning. I love the look of our tree, bursting with colour and texture, hand crafted decorations by the children and I mixed with local crafted decorations too. It may not all colour coordinate, the decorations aren’t all evenly hung and it’s a complete mish mash of themes but I love our tree it’s us on every branch. 
Tommy’s home
Our Elf on the Shelf has returned home for his 4th Christmas with us. I love this little elf so much and the magic and delight he brings to our family. I hide him every evening and he always writes the children a letter everyday telling them all the brilliant things they did and looking forward to the coming day. I love the creativity in trying to find new ideas, by the end of this year I’ll have tried to hide him in over 100 different scenarios. Piniterest and the app are fantastic sources of ideas. If I see mini accessories throughout the year I’ll buy them to help a tableau! We’re going on holiday soon and Tommy has a suitcase and tshirts ready, I may make him a passport too! Here are the scenarios from our first week with Tommy 2016. I was really pleased with the return when he brought Lego advent calendars, with a little photographic magic and magic dust he shrank the calendars to enable him to hold them on his journey and they were still sprinkled with snow and magic dust in the house! Here are the other photos too.
November’s month in a word – preparation
With lots of family birthdays in October, I only start to plan in earnest for Christmas in November. I do keep notes and buy a few presents throughout the year but November is action month. This month has been full of lists and plans. With a weekend on my own at the beginning of the month most presents were wrapped and ready then as the only day Mr S and I could shop together was the first Friday of the month, we made good use of our shopping trip. This year November has not been simply preparing for Christmas but a bonus holiday too, so extra to do lists here too. I end the month feeling pretty relaxed, December is full of events but I have done all that is realistic to be able to focus on the fun rather than the stress of the Christmas season.
Me Time
This weekend I have a night and day alone at home, my first in over 6 years since the children came to live with us. This quirk came around as Little Miss is away on Brownie camp and there is a family celebration at Mr S’ sister’s this weekend which the boys are attending. I was not comfortable with attending the event in case there was an emergency with Little Miss and she needed me quickly so I stayed at home. This is the first night I’ve been away from my babies in 6 years, its strange and I miss them but its an important step for both of them. I hope we’ve been able to give them the confidence and independence to be away from me whilst being secure and enjoying their time away. Little Man is with Daddy and has had a brilliant day but its hard not knowing how Little Miss is getting on at camp. For all her confident manner and bravado, she can be fragile and needs reassurance, I hid a little note in her pyjamas to remind her how loved she is and that we are all hoping she has a brilliant time away. The cuddle I give her when I pick her up at 12 tomorrow will be one of the sweetest we’ve shared.
So, the day which I have dreamed of arrived today. This week I’ve spent lots of time thinking about what I would like to do, although I have been restricted by my need to be local and ready to drop everything if needed. I think an ideal day on my own would be at a spa or visiting some galleries in a big city. I am somebody who spends all my time with people at work and home and am always busy, busy, busy. I was looking forward to the solitude. Today has taught me that for all I dream about being lazy and doing nothing I’m not really that sort of person. I had imagined after waving the boys off at 7.30 that I would jump back into bed but I was awake and looking for something to do. By lunchtime I had been to the gym, sorted out and organised my wardrobe, chatted to my mum on the phone, done some recycling at the tip, pottered around choosing a book in the library, driven over to the neighbouring town and done a little shopping! Since then I’ve read, wrapped Christmas presents, watched Strictly and this is my second blog post written. Its been a day of simple pleasures and to be honest not that much different from a normal Saturday just without the company of my 3 favourite people. The bonus was that I’ve not needed to think about making meals!
I do think that having a little time to yourself is a real luxury and a nice way of reminding yourself of the things you like to do. I feel refreshed and relaxed and know that I’m going to be a happier and engaged Mummy tomorrow when we are all home together. I just hope that the little ones are not too tired to share their stories and adventures with me.
I am that woman …
Whilst it is only November 5th, my plans for Christmas 2016 are well in progress and it makes me happy to be this organised and prepared. I think this is partly because I grew up in a pretty chaotic family where Christmas eve shopping was part of the norm and everything seemed to be done quite haphazardly, I have happy Christmas memories but even at my young age craved some organisation in the season! Now as a parent and teacher December is just a crazy, crazy month full of parties, events and concerts which I want to enjoy and not to feel stressed about other things I should be doing. I should add that whilst I may not be running around the in the last week of term doing Christmas cards and presents, I’ll be making costumes, finding props and helping to create a grotto at work, so I will still have my share of Christmas madness.
I plan for Christmas from January, I do actually take time to reflect and record the good bits and what to improve next year and write them in my Christmas book. This is incredibly useful and my Christmas book is a lovely momento of Christmas pasts, I record everything about our Christmas with a few photos. At this time of year, I start to plan menus, gift lists, decorations and cards and wrapping. This year, we are away so the menus have been deleted from the to do list, however given our holiday, my Christmas deadline for everything is December 17th, so planning is key.
I take great care in my present buying, each gift is always about the individual I am buying for and I take some time at this time of the year to start perusing Christmas catalogues and websites for inspiration. I actually keep a note during the year of any ideas or conversations to help me with ideas. Mum has made a few comments about my soup maker, so its on the list for her, whilst a book I loved and know my friend will love it too has been bought for her. I try and do as much shopping as I can locally, we have a fantastic toy shop specialising in Lego so I have already been there to purchase some Lego advent calendars, they are an expensive calendar and different to our normal chocolate version but we’ve decided to deduct them from the Christmas present budget. I am making great progress on my present list and have started to wrap them up and label those to be posted. I don’t wish to freak my friends out so they will be posted sometime in December. I really think that this organisation makes Christmas so much more fun and relaxed. Christmas is not about gifts to me it is something more spiritual and family orientated, as illustrated in one of my favourite Christmas quotes is from Dr Seuss in the Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Month in a Word – October, Nature
At this time of year, every sunny day is a bonus and to be embraced and enjoyed. The past month has got cooler but there have been many bright, crisp days and we have been able to enjoy many longs walks and adventures outdoors. This month we have done lots of outdoor activities, the advantage of staying at home for half term was the opportunity to explore and play outdoors everyday, we went to the beach, local beauty spots and country parks and it felt a very wholesome and fulfilling holiday. I love being out it grounds me, connects me to our environment and inspires.
Halloween 2016
Unusually Halloween lands on a school day this year and with clubs running we won’t be celebrating on Monday evening as a family. I have such fond childhood memories of Halloween that on Sunday we will be doing some of my childhood favourites, bobbing for apples, swinging sticky pudding and dressing up. Whilst we have so many family traditions, trick or treating has never been a feature of Halloween and again the children won’t be doing it for Halloween 2016, the Beavers are going on a haunted walk in the dark and the Brownies have a fancy dress party. Both the children are really excited by their planned activities.
Today we have been decorating the house for Halloween. I do love a decoration to add a little sparkle to a celebration. A lot of my decorations have been collected over the years but this year we have our first Halloween tree. It’s a tree which gets recycled for Easter, Christmas and now Halloween! I bought some lovely felt decorations last year and with some new diddy pumpkin lights, the tree is gorgeous. My lightbox has a seasonal message and some of Little Man’s Lego figures have been added to the display since the photo was taken. The little Frankenstein toy is a musical toy which plays Ghostbusters. Mr S bought it for the children’s first Halloween and it is a much loved toy. To retain the magic, I pack it away with the Halloween decorations so there is always great excitement when the children see it every year. The Halloween table is in the living room and I will add a bowl of treats for Halloween too. The window display is in the kitchen by our table where we sit for our meals. The haunted house light is new this year from a local shop, it can be programmed to change the light patterns whilst the pumpkins balloons and the pumpkin scarecrows were presents. The candle holders are last year’s decorations and a battery tea light enables the flickering candle effect. My decorations always reflect a cute side to Halloween. I don’t want to scare the children with guts and gore.
Halloween has always been a special time and I hope that the little treats we do over the weekend will make it so for the children too. 
Harvest Festival
As a teacher and parent I tend to do school events twice, once at work and then repeated at my childrens’ school. The work events are more stressful as I am usually involved in preparing and presenting the event, but at the primary school, I enjoy relaxing and watching the event as an enthusiastic and supportive parent. At this time of year its harvest festival, our school event this year featured a scarecrow parade which was brilliant. We simply offered some ideas and inspiration to our classes and the results were stunning, ten life size scarecrows accompanied me in presenting our harvest festival and the children dancing Dingle Dangle Scarecrow with their models was just a classic moment. The primary school’s festival took place in our local church, a gorgeous and atmospheric setting. All the children sat at the front in their classes and sang and did the actions to their well rehearsed songs. There are some lovely harvest songs now, my favourite contemporary song is Harvest Samba, but the reception children singing Big, red combine harvester is always a super sweet moment too. I do miss Colours of Day and Autumn days from my primary school days, I may add one to our school festival next year for a retro feel! Thanks to some helpful advice from Little Man’s 1:1, we were able to secure prime position to see our little ones perform at the church. Little Man needs reassurance and to be able to see us clearly at such big events, so it was a relief for us to be right in front of him and able to give him broad smiles, thumbs up etc.. Little Miss was two rows behind him. For her, singing and performing come easily and confortably, she has a beautiful voice and loves to sing. It was wonderful to see them both perform and be proud of their role in the festival. I do enjoy harvest festivals, they are a lovely autumn tradition and I’m lucky that even when my children leave primary school I’ll still be able to continue celebrating them annually at my work and to give thanks for our harvests.
Seaside Sparkles 