25 December 0600 hrs

Two very excited children, possibly questioning the conventional wisdom that you have to be really well behaved to get such a large haul.

Big Eleven

Christmas run-up is a time to ...

Get some healthy exercise

Ride on plastic animals in shopping centres

Make decorations

Relax at home

Trick or Treat

A bit of history

The other week we had a visit from Jane, Mike, Dane and Kate.  Mike and myself took the older kids to Archeon, an archaeological living museum.  It was reasonably interesting.

Escaping the Mesolithic: Part I

Escaping the Mesolithic: Part II

Wrestling Mike in chain mail

Viking chic

Making a Roman mosaic requires patience.  Do they look like they're going to finish?

Sophie not being impressed by men playing at killing each other ... c'mon Minxy, it's fun 

Archery ....

Jousting ....

Mallorca

Just back from two sunny weeks in Mallorca.  Will post some more pics soon.

Thomas and Friends Get a Makeover

Thomas the Tank Engine's female friends were treated to a makeover with a genuine mud face mask.  It's an older sister, younger brother thing.

Sports Day

Hanging out in the Garden

International Day

Sophie went in a home made Norwegian Bunad for international day at school.

He's a runner

Matthew likes to make a break for it whenever the opportunity arises.  He's heading towards the horizon on all the pics in this posting.

Back in business

... with added chips

Amy Johnson

Last week Sophie had to give a cultural talk to her classmates at school.   The centrepiece of this had to be a description of someone famous from her home country. After much research (and the realisation that most famous people in the past led rather sordid lives) she landed on Amy Johnson.  She did lots of research on the computer and made this map of Amy's famous flights to illustrate her talk.  The culinary treats for her cultural talk were lemon curd tarts.

Something to embarrass you when you're 14

Sorry Monkey!

Horsey Daddy

Sledging in the Netherlands is a bit tamer than in Norway.  We did, however, get out into the woods a couple of times in the recent heavy snow.

Dog gets ears pulled ... again

A very patient Beast.

I'm supposed to be filling in my tax return

Today Matthew migrates from his cot to a big boy's bed.  He's rather hesitant but Sophie's keen to help him settle in.  Check out the photo from October 2008 when this bed was called a big girl's bed.  Now back to the Inland Revenue.