Saturday, December 24, 2011

ThingOne and ThingTwo's 2011 Christmas message to the nation

ThingOne and ThingTwo have recorded a message, which says a lot about them and their attitudes to life and Christmas. Happy Christmas Everyone.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Mistletoe and Bathwater

I covertly filmed ThingOne and ThingTwo for six minutes yesterday as ThingOne tried to teach ThingTwo a song. ThingTwo saw me, ThingOne was oblivious. I edited down to one and a half minutes of their (mainly ThingOne's) weirdness.

In days gone by this would be creepy and frowned upon. It probably still is.

ThingOne seems rather keen on Mistletoe and Wine.

Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Ambitions

ThingOne asked me about university this evening as she and ThingTwo ate tea. I explained that it's somewhere you go when you're 18 if you want to continue studying, and you can choose what you want to learn.
ThingOne: "I want to learn about the elements."
Me: "Well, that's Chemistry. Mummy did some of that. She did Biochemistry and Genetics. Genetics is about DNA."
ThingOne: "That's what I want to do. Biochemistry and Genetics."
ThingTwo: "What's easiest?"

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Birthday Anne!

ThingTwo wrote a message to Anne earlier in the week, with me and ThingOne telling her which letter came next on the last bit of the message.

The 'biro jgmsy' bit ThingTwo wrote herself. Not sure what it means, but it has since become a favourite phrase of the kids.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

iBlog

Maybe I'll use this blog more often now there's an iOS Blogger app.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Delivery tracking glee

I love watching UPS (and similar) parcels wing their way around the world to me, even when (as in this case) I'm in no real hurry to receive the item. It's an aspect of the internet age that gives me (ridiculously) great pleasure. The example below gives me an extra bit of pleasure as I was in Eindhoven last week.

I especially like with some couriers I can see that it's been delivered to home when I'm at work, click on a link and see Anne's signature from when she signed for it. I then email her and say "I see you signed for my delivery" and freak out my naive Lincolnshire wife with my magic abilities.


Sunday, June 19, 2011

Swing out sisters

Father's Day today and my mum's birthday tomorrow, so my mum visited for a double celebration. Anne wasn't well, but managed to cook a roast dinner and a nice chocolate and chilli (!) pudding, before flaking out in bed this afternoon (thanks Anne).

We got a swing from Toys R Us and tied it to the apple tree in our garden. The girls seem to be enjoying it, and at bath time this evening ThingOne was impressed with how many bruises she had from banging into the tree.

ThingTwo's new-found obsession with death, and ThingOne's longstanding obsession with the same came in handy today as I showed them photos of my dad. ThingTwo spent the rest of the day telling people that he's only in my head now. I'm not entirely sure whether she believes that's literally true.

We've been watching The Sarah Jane Adventures to try to satisfy ThingOne's love of frights, monsters and 'baddies' in a more kid-friendly way. This led today to ThingTwo and ThingOne both trying to be gorgons and turn people into stone. I'm not 100% sure if this is healthy for a 3 and 5 year old, but it's funny, and maybe that's the main thing.
 

 


Friday, June 17, 2011

Tickle time

Here's a video of Tickle Time, before the evening bath. And we wonder why they're not calm for bed...


Video here also if it doesn't appear above.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Holiday in Suffolk

In April we went on our now-traditional spring holiday around Norfolk and Suffolk. We stayed near Beccles, on the border of the two, and it took us a bit of time to work out which county we were in (it was important to ThingOne we found out).

We were very lucky with the weather, and had a really good time. We took the kids' bikes with us, and ThingOne made good progress towards learning to ride without stabilisers (she's since figured it out).

Here's a video of our time there, which slightly breaks my usual rule of keeping these under three minutes.
(It's here if you can't see the video.)

Sunday, February 27, 2011

ThingTwo's big big-birthday weekend

I hope we gave ThingTwo a weekend to remember. She jumped in puddles, had a mini party thrown for her, including face painting, watched Dumbo, went swimming with her family, went out for lunch with Granny KT, had a visit from her Auntie Lindsay and Uncle Chris, and ran into a door frame cutting both her cheek and her chin. She's the girl who has everything!

She got out of bed on Saturday morning and staggered straight to the height chart on the side of her wardrobe where we measure the girls at six month intervals. She was a little distressed she hadn't grown noticably. "Why I not big?" Little oddball.

In bed on Saturday evening she was concerned that all her toes weren't now suddenly big toes. I can only begin to imagine what she thought would happen to her on her third birthday. We've been telling her for a while she'd be a bigger girl when she was three. Not hard to lay the blame firmly at our door.
She is now planning her fourth birthday party, and asked me this afternoon to write some invites for Lindsay and Chris.
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Saturday, February 26, 2011

Happy 3rd Birthday ThingTwo!

ThingTwo turns three today. We have a fun weekend planned for her, with a mini party on Saturday (which will include face-painting - this is all she seems to care about), and family coming over on Sunday.

I've been looking through video from the last year to put together three minutes of clips from the last year (below), and it's been fun for me to see her changing over the year, and hard to distill it down to three minutes. There seemed to be lots of dancing, nudity, playgrounds, playing with ThingOne and, more recently, incessant talking. I note she starts and ends this video dancing with her sister, wearing the same dress. She also does a fair impression of Terry Jones's piano playing.

Happy birthday big girl!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Duxford War Museum

We took the kids to Duxford Imperial War Museum today, the last day of half term. We met up with a friend, Liz, and her two sons, and the girls played really nicely with them.
The planes and weaponry acted mainly as a majestic but violent backdrop for the kids to run around in wide-open spaces.
The girls were shattered when we got home, so we watched Kung Fu Panda on DVD while ThingTwo asked for snacks ever five minutes.

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Hide and seek FAIL

Obviously if ThingTwo faces away from us we won't be able to see her.

It's like Hide and Seek played in the movie Don't Look Now.
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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Time for some harsh truths

This morning ThingOne asked me about the war memorial in Woodhall Spa as we walked past it. (We're here visiting Anne's mum.)

I explained that it was there to remember people who died in two big wars, one of which took place not long before her grannies were born.

L:"Was there a baddy?"
S:"Sort of. America and France were on our side, along with some other countries, and they were at war with Germany, Italy, and some others. The leader of Germany was a particularly bad man."
L:"Were all the Germans baddies?"
S:"To the English they might have been, but it was more that they were following the orders of some bad people."
L:"Who won the war?"
S:"We did."
L:(Quietly) "Yessss!"
L:"And did the baddy die."
S:"Yes, he died at the end of the war."
L:"How did he die? Did the English kill him?"
S:"Er, no, not quite." (Why do I get drawn in?)
L:"So how did he die?"
S:"He killed himself when he realised he'd lost the war."
L:"Really? How?"
S:"He shot himself with his gun."
L:"Oh."

Followed by silence.

I think I may have gone too far.

Suddenly ThingOne's almost-three year old sister ThingTwo piped up. "You can't KILL YOURSELF!" and then laughed hysterically.

I'm glad ThingTwo was enjoying herself. ThingOne was still a little shell shocked.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Happy 5th Birthday ThingOne!

 

Today ThingOne turns five.

I 'had a moment' when getting her clothes out one morning a few weeks ago when I checked the label (to ensure it wasn't one of ThingTwo's tops) and saw the age 5-6 on it. How did I become the parent of a nearly-five year old? It's a tired cliché to say that time marches on without us being able to hold it back, but it certainly feels that way.

For today though, it's all about celebration, and making sure our little chimp has a great day. She's already had a great weekend, with a ten-pin bowling trip with friends on Saturday...

...and a butterfly party at our house with a few school friends on Sunday.
 

 

 


Anne made a butterfly cake, I valiantly tried and failed to organise some party games in the front room while the mums nattered in the back room, child free, and after some food the kids danced around to Roxy Music. ThingOne enjoyed herself, which was the main thing.

And ThingTwo seemed to have a good time too.