It's time to bring the decorations down and start facing real life again but for my first blog post of the new year I'm going to mention Christmas one more time. We usually have a reasonably quiet festive period which suits us as we seem to have such hectic lives and are glad of the wind-down time.
This year we had visitors for the Christmas week in the form of my sister-in-law, her husband and their two children. With a household of four children and four adults we had a busy time of it but it was fabulous. Christmas is never so magical as when there are children enjoying it, wrapped up in the joy of Santa and all the excitement the expectation of his visit brings. I really enjoyed seeing the children all together and it was great to catch up with family we just don't get to see enough of because of time and distance.
We had some upheaval as well. One minor in the dishwasher deciding to pack-in just after Boxing Day causing a call to a local electrical store and the speedy arrival of a replacement. One much more worrying with my dad being admitted to hospital on Christmas night and remaining there for a few days whilst they tested him for a suspected heart attack. Very relieved that he's home and okay but frustrating that the tests seemed inconclusive, different doctors gave different opinions on whether it was a heart attack or angina and finally discharged him with little clue what happened and the instructions he was to attend a clinic if it happened again. His own GP said the clinic could have a four week waiting list and wasn't best impressed so has advised him to get straight back to A&E if he has any further problems.
On a lighter note, one of my favourite things about Christmas is the time we get to spend together as a family. No working away, no clubs and sports, school or homework. Not even any writing or blogging. Instead we got the bikes out and went cycling, we went walking and of course there was the obligatory building of the construction sets that are always an aspect of our Christmas.
My six year old has discovered a love of Enid Blyton and my eight year old has decided to tackle the Lord of the Rings (a tome I first read when I was thirteen but have read again a further five or six times) whilst I reread The Hobbit in anticipation of watching the new film.
This year my daughter is very into Lego Friends and she got four sets of it. My son likes the mechanical K'nex and he got a new character (Chomp - he already has the spider) and the roller coaster. Two things new to us were the Lego games. We've now got the Hogwarts and Hobbit sets. Together with an electronic version of Guess Who they've kept the four of us amused and entertained. There were new Wii games in the house as well but I love how much time we've spent together playing these new board games, without the kids begging to escape and play on a games console. The Hogwarts Lego is more strategic, the Hobbits based on the memory game so both require some thought. The Hogwarts board is a lot sturdier than the Hobbits one but I'd highly recommend both.
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| Lego Games: Harry Potter & The Hobbit |
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| Christmas Construction Sets |
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| Lego Friends Stable & Horse Trailer |
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| Lego Friends Camper Van & Sea Plane |
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| K' nex Chomp |
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| K' nex Rollercoaster |
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