It's that mad time of year when we poor Mums have to ferry these kids around the countryside, from one pint sized social event to another.

In his school concert, Alexander was a shepherd. He remembered his lines and performed his part well. It never ceases to amaze me that the teachers can get these kids to co-operate and remeber what they are meant to do.

We also had to dress Bella up as a Christmas pudding for her preschool concert, which was a lot of fun. So, out came the sewing maching and Alexander helped me to run up a little costume for her (he loves machines). On the day, she thought she looked wonderful. Before the concert started she stood out the front (about 100 people in the audience) and performed a solo ballet routine while all the other kids were in the preschool getting ready. For those of you who don't know, Belle is a "lady" now.

Alexander also had his music Christmas Concert, which I was quite impressed with. Just to make sure the other kids got it right, in the middle of the concert, he took to the centre of the stage with a stern look on his face and started to conduct the masses (quite purposefully and with some skill, I thought).

Margie and Belle had a Christmas party at one of their little playgroups yesterday. Belle was so excited when Santa arrived and kept trying to jump to the front of the queue for her pressie. Margie sat on his lap (and howled) and Belle was more interested in the pressie than the big red man himself.

There's about one more week's worth of mayhem before the Christmas break. It's all such great fun!

She's on a roll. This week Eleanor was snapped at story time at the library and got her pic in the local paper. She was quite impressed again. What next?

Click to see article & pic

A photo of Eleanor & Alexander features on the front cover of the Christmas edition of Families East magazine. Bella was so pleased to see herself in print, as this was her first time. Alexander, being a bit of a veteran at getting his face in the papers was pretty cool about it. The first article (in a series) about him was published in a national newspaper (the Guardian) just two days after he was born!

Click here to see a copy of the cover
And here to go to the mag's website

And just for some fun, here are Alexander's old articles. Wasn't he cute! And I thought life was busy then!!
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3