A "quiet" family Christmas...

A calm Christmas @ Four Acres!!!!

An acceptable wake up call at 0730 with 4 excited little boys and a bemused Leah as they all came to our room with their stockings, going downstairs to find out what Santa had left.... A scrambled egg and smoked salmon breakfast with warm pains aux chocolat before Chuch, then off to" The Limes" to say Happy Christmas to" Bumpa" and the residents and open presents from Bumpa. Back home to put goose in oven and start opening our presents....

As we had said that not all presents would be opened on the day, the children played with each toy as it was opened, no clamouring for more to be unwrapped but a calm excitment and tidy afternoon with wrappers being bagged at each opening session. We sat to watch "Five children and It" then had a late lunch (1530!) more presents and tv then Christmas pudding and Brandy white sauce for pudding/tea!!! Children in bed and still a few wrapped presents for Boxing day!!!

No time constraints, no pressure,no expectations.... just us! All 7 together for a quiet family Christmas.

Thank You Lord for sending us your son in the form of a newborn babe... The most loving gift ever given.
Let us be mindful to remember Christmas as a celebration of your arrival on earth, your forgiveness and the everlasting life promised us...

A Christmas greeting.

Merry Christmas,
thank you for visiting our blog!
See you in the New Year!!!
PS please click on link for a card!

http://www.dayspring.com/ecards/card.asp?ID=03b8a37d-bok

An eventful day...

What started out as a quick shop, quickly turned into my idea of a nightmare when running round the corner of one of the shop aisles, at full pelt, Isaac ran straight into one of the metal cage display tables...
All I can still see is him bouncing back from it with blood everywhere!!!!! Having split the skin under his nose and with two eggs on his forhead, as with most children's injuries it looked worse than it was, but as he did go very quiet and bit of an odd colour, the ambulance was called out as were the "first responders".
I did feel somewhat out of my depth as Tom was still London way and I had all 5 children with me (well three were in the bus!) But thankfully I'd seen Penny walk out of the shop as I had gone in so I rang her and she made her way back to Sleaford to my rescue...
Penny together with the Lidl staff got all the children rounded up, and then took Leah and Benjamin back to hers' as I went in the ambulance with a very brave if a little too quiet Isaac and big brothers.
To save on too much disruption the crew arranged for us to be seen at Sleaford medical centre who deal with minor injuries. Isaac charmed the nurses with his big blue eyes and by now had started to smile again and chat. The bleeding had stopped and they decided stitches or glue was pobably unecessary. There were no signs of concussion from the whack he'd given himself although he was very lucky his nose had gone between the bars... I dare not think of what might have happened otherwise...
My big brave soldier is now recovering with a bit of a headache and swollen lip and I think mummy's nerves will take longer to get over it than Isaac's face..... What will Malcolm make of having a beaten up shepherd for Sunday's nativity play in church!

Another birthday in the house....

I can't believe it! Matthew is 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only seems like yesterday.......

He has had a great day, starting with presents and warm pain au chocolat for breakfast.... School carol service this morning and freeplay afternoon.... a surprise booking at the "Smiley Club" (afterschool) to have some more party fun and then a very" treat tea " @ McD's! and finally home to presents, cake and...the holidays!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that!!!


A little thank you card from him to you...:

http://www.batchmates.com/ecards/viewcard.asp?card=00390708313079130

The Grandparents

Having saved our last Ollan Mills photo session to give to Maman and Daddy for Christmas to have a photo taken of them with all their grandchildren, having arranged for Poppy to come up for the weekend for said photo session, having received a confirmation phone call for said photo session on Weds...... Picked up a message from Ollan Mills on Friday to say the company has gone into receivership..... NO PHOTO!!!!

I can honestly say that I was gutted but Tom put it into perspective for me.... think of all those young photographers who have just been made redundant, a fortnight before Christmas?!

We decided to go ahead with photo session with Four Acres as the venue......

Well I now know WHY we pay a photographer to take group photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lots of shouting, positioning, laughing, giggling, blinking, tilting heads, looking away, tickling, balancing,crying, sulking, getting bored.......probably in the region of 50 odd photos taken (thank goodness for digital cameras!!!) ... I think we have a charming OK photo! (disappointingly not one that jumped out and said THIS IS IT, although M&D have some more.)

Maybe we need to invite Fiona up again for a weekend and have an informal outdoor photo shoot...But we didn't get much notice for this one!!

A video to watch

Leah showing off her newly acquired pulling to standing skills aged 6mths on the 19th Oct.

Fireworks and festivities

Remember, remember, the fith of November.....

Bonfire night,

Charles' Christening,

and Leah's first two teeth!

A walk in the woods

The Autumn chill had definitely made an appearance at Ostler's Plantation when we turned up for our second "Billinghay Family Walk". The few decideous trees had an array of colours as well as the ferns turning a brilliant red... The increased rainfall and general moisture had encouraged a few mushrooms out but the birds we could hear teased us by staying out of eyesight, the children did however manage to catch a very majestic shield bug. The children, had great fun this time running ahead and finding dugouts for dens and trees to climb. There were quite a few brambles in the undergrowth but as long as feet were picked high their tripping up capabilities were kept to a minimum! The sun started to set as we made our way back to the car park and it was decided to have a nice brisk winter walk in December.

Get Your Own! View Slideshow

A very French wedding.

The two Stainsby girls escaped Four Acres for a weekend in Paris!
I drove down to London on Thursday night with Leah,and after spending the night at maman and daddy's with Sarah, we were joined by Kaz and Andy at 0630 and off we went. The three sisters had great fun "being" together ( a feat rarely seen) and winding daddy up!. We arrived in Paris in the afternoon and settled ourselves at Babette and Bruno's townhouse in "La Garenne Colombes". Unfortunately feeling unwell I needed to visit a GP who got me back on track for the wedding festivities. Saturday saw the arrival of countless wellwishing bouquets, a lovely get together lunch and meeting my cousins whom I haven't seen for fifteen years... We got our glad rags on and then to the "Hotel de Ville" (registry office) for a very legal, concise ceremony in the most oustanding room. The bride and groom were beaming with joy and the guests were delighted to be "in" on this very tender and happy union. The reception (once we had extricated the minibus from the very low ceilingued parking) was held in Auvers (where Van Gogh lived and painted the church) and the meal was a gastronomic sensation!!!
Sunday arrived and with the extra hour we lazed around, before suddenly having to up the tempo to pack up the bus ready to leave as soon as the buffet lunch was over (and Andy and Sarah had returned from their shopping trip across town!) We drove back to Blightey, as many other Brits did, hence the enormous queue at Eurotunnel! and arrived back to London rather later than anticipted. We stayed on for the night and drove back home to our boys in time for breakfast on Monday morning.
It was a memorable weekend for the wedding of course but also for having the three girls together with M&D, Leah enchanted all who met her and looked adorable in her dress (thanks Julie)

A busy house for the week

Jon and Janneke came over for the ½term week (21st - 28th Oct) , so with their three children the "dormitory" housed 8 children each night! Busy mealtimes were interspersed by independent or joint activities indoors, outdoors and further afield... Starting off with a puppet show at the New Life Church in Sleaford, a walk around Billinghay to see the Zoetropes, Four Acres garden with it's trees to climb and trampoline! a vist to Lincoln cathedral, Tattershall castle was a great success especially as we watched a eurojet coming in to land at Conningsby.Our friend Simon came over from Nottingham to catch up and Uncle Mark joined in the fun with cousin Charlotte to make for an uncommon gathering of the three Stainsby boys.