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Amelie's enjoying with my hair lately. Playing hairdressers…

She's not too rough (if I get all the knots out!!)

I absolutely love it. I find it so relaxing people playing with my hair. It's always me doing everyone else's hair, so it's a much welcomed change :)

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Wrapped, packed and stacked! 

It's all exciting preparing for Christmas. It's made even more wonderful by knowing those happy sleeping children will be delighted to see how much they get. 

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I think I enjoy Christmas Eve more than Christmas day!! The excitement!! We've left out our carrots, port and mince pie. We sprinkled our reindeer dust with lots of sparkles, Rudolph will definitely know which way to come in :)

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In past years we have held Amelie back a little opening presents. I would let her open them every so often and take her time. She can't really deal with too much all at once. She gets over excited and too hyped up. 

This year we tried to make an exception…we won't again.

After a bit of anger, shouting and general craziness. She settled down and enjoyed her presents.

It was great seeing them get exactly what they wanted. Amelie getting a tablet and Arthur getting his little tykes car. We even hid it in the porch for a bit…too build the tension and a wrapped up car isn't an  easy thing to hide!!

 Christmas Day!!!!

Little guy had no idea it was Christmas so nap time was still had! Bless him, it was timed over us eating our dinner. At the very least we had a peaceful dinner :)

His new Mickey joined him!

This was my sad attempt at a 'Gingerbread house' made out of shortbread! We like gingerbread, but not a whole house amount of it! I couldn't get it to stick together! Bit of a nightmare and a little stressful so I decided to give up on this one. But I would like to try again, get some more practise in before Christmas! Be warned if you visit I may make you eat my next crazy house!

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Christmas time is all about family time! Even our cheeky four legged family get lots of extra loving. 

That and Martin gets a nice mouth full of dog hair! Ha!

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Festive night out with the girlies!! We had such a great night, after I fell over before even leaving the house and sent everyone into hysterics! I even robbed a little bit of lipstick (something I never wear). Think I shall be purchasing some of my own. 

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Here is a pair of gorgeous girls we've seen before! Beth and Millie. They let me do their hair all fabulous! A pair of heart breakers, no wonder with 2 gorgeous parents ;)

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It's nearly over a whole year has flown by. In that time I have put up all these lovely frames I've acquired up and not filled them! So a New years resolution, to fill my frames and take lots more family pictures :)

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Also must look back to this years resolutions and see if I stuck to any of them!! 

xxxx

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The book where Arthur learnt how to say 'Happy Birthday!'

It's his most favourite book. He loves opening all the little doors up to see who's behind, specially the last where we shout Happy Birthday Bear!

He even says book now. My little man growing up quickly, but enjoying all the new words coming from him!

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A mouth full of plum, nibbling on biscuits. They do say the way to a mans heart is through his stomach and Arthur is no exception!

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Amelie has made us all proud singing all her Christmas songs. She has such a sweet singing voice. She's always making up her own songs about everything and anything. She enjoyed dressing up as Mary and having her baby Jesus to carry.

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There's not long now until the big day! So the school got festive for their last day. Then we continued the celebrations at Beth's house for her 5th Birthday!! How are these girls growing up so fast?!

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Arthur's Nursery had a Christmas party with Santa and his reindeer!!! (This one was called pancake though) Not sure why the girl couldn't tell us it was called one of the actual names from Santa but never mind. Amelie and Arthur weren't keen on him to start with but she was soon piling lots of food into his mouth and was his new best friend. 

We all had a good time, family time…

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…robbing all the food from the table whilst everyone else is dancing time!! Ha!!

xxxxx

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What a wonderful weekend. Spent with horses, friends, wine and afternoon tea! I love going to York it's such pretty city day and night! It's great to be there with such good company!

Mmm and mince pies! I only ever make these at Christmas. Isn't it funny that we only have certain hints at Christmas. It would feel odd to me having mince pies, mulled wine, even TURKEY any other time of the year…so lets enjoy it whilst the time is here :) 

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OK so it's been a bit crazy with the weather being really cold then unusually warm.

I love seeing the sky so beautiful. Even though I'm surrounded by hundreds of buildings everyday I can look up and see pretty things :) Maybe pretend I'm not here :)

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Feeling festive in her Christmas jumper.  It's nice she understands all about Christmas this year and helping me decorate the house. By which I mean I brought the decorations down stairs and she decorated the everywhere :)

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Really, really enjoyed this new born shoot. Ava was so tiny and looks so breakable. She has the tiniest little face. With a house full of children I'm not quite sure how Mummy Sarah does it! I think 2 is hrs work try having 5!! All at primary school age! One very busy lady!

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It's never too young to start helping Daddy lift his weights!

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First time I've used hairspray on Amelie's hair! It had to be high pony tails for her dance show. Round the front it's still pretty short so I had to hair wrap it up! She loved having her flat, like she's always trying to make it!

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Trying to get into the festive mood! We had a Christmas craft morning at school. It was so lovely to be able to spend a bit of quality time at school just me and my little lady :) We made some damn fine food too! Amelie seemed to enjoy telling all the other children not to bother her because she was concentrating on crafting with her mummy :)

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What better way to feel festive than get up the smelly loft and drag out what you can find!

Amelie and Arthur did such a great job decorating the tree so sweetly together. OK, so it's not how I would do it but now I can't seem to change it round knowing how hard they've worked on it!

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Arthur really loves to read now. He goes to the book shelf grabs a book then brings it to me shouting and sits on my knee. This is one of his favourite pages. Probably cause we all swoon at him saying purple (with a scottish accent)! :)

His dinky little squishy toes and fingers are getting bigger everyday. I can't believe one day they'll be big hairy man feet :(

xxxx

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Festive season…busy time for me. Fitting in family, working and house stuff..oh and photography is just squeezing in at the end.

I wanted to do a lot more Autumn/Winter shoots. But it sounds like the snow is coming soon so I shall be out enjoying that!

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We haven't seen these guys for ages! Olivia and Arthur had great fun playing and fighting. Ceri and I enjoyed cake and caramel Latte! Fabulous morning! 

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Walking home from the library with all my lovely family. I can't believe how dark it gets so quickly now. It's lovely getting all cosy in the house snuggled up. BUT I'm looking forward to the sun coming back and visits to the park and beach :)

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Hot chocolates are best shared with friends, in pyjamas with blankets.

CHEERS TO THAT!!

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Lucky me getting flowers from my husband. A rare but very welcome treat. ;)

Another rare treat is having Rory come to stay. He is such a cutie. At the tender age of 15 he's lasted longer than his breed usually would. He's blind and quite deaf (slight selective hearing) but he's hanging on in there, with not long left it's been great for Martin, Amelie, Arthur and I all to spend quality time with him. His little face when the other dogs were taken out for a walk was not happy. So now he joins us on our walks. We don't take him far but he goes out wagging his little tail trotting along with us all. You can't wander off to far from him though because he'll either follow some other legs or look around hopelessly for you. 

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All children grow and learn differently. Amelie was always loved to learn something new and show everyone. Arthur is the total opposite. He likes to learn quietly, slyly on his own. I was sat watching him doing his usual bashing his balls continuously. Then I realised he was concentrating on what he was doing he was looking at the balls and matching the colours up. Even rushing to put them down and  then swap them round to the right places.

Growing up quickly. I plan to enjoy every moment of that. Nothing will ever be more important than enjoying my children grow up. 

xxxx