Hello 2009!

Figured it was about time I made my first post for 2009 :) 

We enjoyed the day in Birmingham yesterday with P's sisters (one visiting from down south) and in all there were 12 children and 6 adults in her house!! Suprisingly it was peaceful enough day. After we exchanged gifts, all six girls disappeared upstairs for the majority of the day. A took her new curling tongues with her, so spent a chunk of time curling lots of long blond hair! There was a fair amount of PS2 playing on Lego Indiana Jones by boys and girls (though not my girls) and and some quiet viewing of Toy Story (1) for the younger boys for an hour's chill time after lunch (although that did draw quite a crowd in the end, not just the four small boys). The frost that blessed us with 'white winter wonderland' views on the way down the M6 at 10 in the morning, never thawed all day and made it a very cold day - far too cold to troop out  for a walk with 12 children & two recovering flu victims! But it was actually OK :) We left aroung 8.15 and were home by 9.15 (it really is a straight hours drive on a good day) - kids nearly all sleeping, so easily carried into their beds and tucked up for the night - just how I like it :) 

   

I was asked by a friend, later in the evening, if I have any big plans for the year and the answer was quite honestly "no". In all honesty, like others, I find plans only seem to lead to disappointment. I prefer surprises! We made plans last year and we're still here :( - I figure this year I won't make any and something might happen! I really would like to move house as we are rather cramped here. Not exactly over crowded, but more over-stimulated by the inability to get away from each other in such a small (although for most families it wouldn't be) space. 4beds and 2receps is not much for 9 people and the tinies are becoming less tiny by the minute!! One more bedroom and another reception room would be ideal, but I would settle with just an extra bedroom to get the study out from under our bed (oh! to sleep in a 'real' low-level bed again!). It would be a super-blessing to have 3 extra rooms as that would give us a spare room/study, a room for Abs & Caleb (A does not like 'pink' and the other 2 girls do and this would then kill two birds with one stone; lowering the numbers in each room and giving Joel his own room, which he needs for his drums really) and a 'school room' separate from our dining room. The ever increasing expansion of our school resources (with increasing numbers of children of school-age) is gradually taking over our dining room and it's a real pain having to clear everything away so thoroughly to eat in the evenings. It would be nice to leave just their mats and pens out at least - and project work on occasions to just 'pick up' the following morning - just close the door on it at the end of the day! But maybe I dream too hard, and I would be happy enough with an extra bedroom at least! 

So, what else... the only other things I would like to acheive are; 

1. Less wobblies from me and my kids! 
   
2. More normal sleeping hours for myself (purely because I'm not sure that being such a night-owl is very good for any of really). 
   
3. Improvement in Phoebe's spelling and getting Ellie reading - first difficult, second probably not so! 
   
4. A tidier, cleaner home (with a little help from a re-signing with Fly-Lady to help me along - if I don't delete all her emails!!) and a thinner, fitter self (hmmm - I said that last year and haven't acheived it AT ALL!!). 
   

Low goals are more likely to be achieved around here ;) Not sure if these are high, or low, or simply somewhere in between, but four is enough!