Laura’s Life

This is just a hodge-podge of photos taken at the end of January.

Evan had to have a day off nursery on Thursday because a rotten cold had made his asthma flare up.  He, therefore, spent the day in his jammies but had enough energy to play gormiti with Arlo:

We borrowed this baby activity centre from the Toy Library and Arlo has been having a blast using it:

At the weekend, Orin instituted a club with membership restricted to himself and his brothers.  This is Arlo’s name badge:

The first club activity was a treasure hunt with written clues to solve and lead to each item of treasure.  The treasure was a collection of Ice Age toys.  Gotta love ebay:

Meanwhile, Arlo was playing computer with his Daddy:

Arlo is sitting in the high chair at dinner time now:

Random sunrise photo:

Aidan entered a competition to design an undiscovered creature.  This was what he came up with - a Spectrum Shark:

Evan and Arlo crawling out from underneath the coffee table:

Orin and Evan have been excited to be working on a Superheroes theme at preschool.  Orin wore his Batman shirt and took Batman and Spiderman with him one morning:

Evan collected all the stickers for his reward chart and got to choose something from the prize drawer.  He chose a pack of toy dogs:

Arlo playing in the activity centre again:

Arlo now has four teeth!

Last weekend, we took the kids for a walk around Kilmory Loch.  It was cold but crisp and bright so a perfect day for a stroll.

How exciting is life for my kids that they spend whole minutes staring at a drain?

Then again, how exciting am I that I love to take photos of lichen?

Evan splashing in a stream:

Arlo in the backpack doing his best impression of Elvis’ lip curl:

Aidan doing his best … em … fish face:

More paddling:

Chris and Arlo:

Evan digging at mud with a stick …

… and successfully flicking it all over me:

I loved the dew-covered moss on this stick.  Because I am not quite normal:

Orin with our pet stick that he named ‘Peter the Magnificent’.  He’s not normal either:

Aidan with our pet stick:

Evan leaning against a really big tree:

Evan did not want to adopt a stick so he carried some lichen with him.  Nope, he’s not normal either:

I love this moss!

Arlo:

Chris and Arlo again:

Me.  I was actually there too:

Aidan refused to have his photo taken unless he was pulling a silly face …

… and Orin can always be relied upon to do something odd whenever the camera is pointed in his direction:

Evan brushing a tree trunk with his lichen.  Yup, still quite far from normal:

Sun coming through the trees above the ice-covered loch:

Orin:

Evan:

Aidan:

Orin found a piece of ice he liked because it was shaped like a mammoth tusk:

Chris and Orin on the side of the frozen loch:

Evan and his pet lichen:

Aidan and Evan:

The gang!  Would you believe this was the best group shot I managed to take?  They only stayed in a clump long enough for me to fire off two shots and the other one must have been truly deranged for this to be the best one:

Aidan:

Evan beside the stepping stones we had just crossed:

Arlo can sit!  He has not quite mastered balance fully enough to be considered independent but this is a big milestone:

Last weekend, we went for a walk around Barnluasgan Loch, which was completely frozen over.  This is Aidan slipping and sliding about in the car park before we even set off on the (thankfully flat) trek around the loch:

A view of the loch:

Arlo and me.  You are allowed to be a style crisis during cold weather, right?

This robin followed us around a quarter of the circumference of the walk.  If birds had lips, then I am sure he would have been licking them.  Poor wee thing was probably so hungry he would have snacked on Arlo given half a chance:

Aidan:

Orin pulling a crazy face as always ….

… I cannot imagine where he gets it from:

Aidan writing everyone’s names in the snow:

Evan:

Aidan and Orin drawing lines in the snow with their swords:

Orin making a snow angel:

I would like to be able to say that Aidan is also making a snow angel in this photo but actually he is sprawled out having slid for the umpteenth time:

A cluster of snowflakes:

Some more views of the loch:

Chris and the boys out on the ice.  Worry ye not - we only allowed them to walk out as far as they are normally allowed to paddle:

The boys turned this slope into an ice slide:

Aidan:

Arlo:

My bootprints in the snow:

The Crinan Canal is also frozen over:

My parents gifted the boys bedroom makeovers for Christmas and last weekend we found the time to actually change everything over.

This was Evan’s bedroom a couple of months ago, before he even had a bed in his new room.  It was the former study so was pretty boring:

And this is Evan and Arlo’s bedroom now, decorated on a vehicle theme:

Aidan and Orin’s room is still a bit of a work in progress since I accidentally left their wall stickers at my parents’ house and they also need a new chest of drawers.  Their room is decorated around a dinosaur theme.

This is the room as it was before:

And this is it now (Evan insisted on being in every photo!)

Having been unable to fit all of the Christmas presents in the car, we had been forced to leave some of the bulkier items behind.  This then meant that, on our return home, we had a second Christmas.

Orin wearing his new Batman shirt:

Eating breakfast out of their new bowls:

The huge heap of presents!

The boys opening the first presents of the day:

Arlo cuddling his new Thumper rabbit:

Chris opening his presents:

The boys received bedroom makeovers from their maternal grandparents.  Aidan and Orin are going to have a dinosaur bedroom and Evan and Arlo’s bedroom is going to have a vehicle theme:

Should I be insulted by the names of these beauty products?

The boys playing their new Lord of the Rings interactive game:

Arlo and his Daddy:

Sunset:

These photos were taken on Hogmany.  The boys (who were living in their chainmail) made an airport out of wooden blocks:

 

Evan made the control towere all by himself:

Hurricane Arlo approaching!

Also on Hogmany, we all went along to a pantomime.  It was ‘Cinderella’ and it was a really good panto, with performances just the right side of hammy, a good few musical turns and some nifty wee production details.  The boys insisted on wearing their armour to the performance.

On New Year’s Day, Ant, Ali, Jon and Jess came to feast with us along with Ali’s dad, John, and his wife, Gill.  We ate a selection of pies for our main course and then dessert was a chocolate fountain.  The kids had a blast with it:

Could Arlo look any more envious?

Seriously, the baby is trying to use telekenesis to transport that strawberry into his mouth:

Jonathan:

Chocolate coated Aidan:

Some of us then took a walk up Old Sarum.  This is (obviously) Arlo and me:

Especially after all those pies, our shadows were the only skinny thing about Chris and me:

Jon:

Jessica:

Aidan:

Heather:

Aidan in the sunset:

Arlo home again, warming up after the walk:

Once we returned to our own home, we had to find homes for all the new possessions.  This is Chris with the Roman glass jar I bought him:

The boys had fun playing with their armour and weapons in the “snow” (which was actually layers of ice):

Meanwhile, Arlo played on the baby gym in his jammies:

We drove from Scotland to Wiltshire just ahead of the bad weather so our journey was no trouble at all (well, except for our DVD player was busticated so we had to play guessing games for 11 hours straight) and the kids even got to enjoy some deep snow when we stopped for a break at the services at Westmoreland.  Here’s a photo of the landscape looking all white and pretty:

We spent the next day sludging around Jim and Heather’s house - but I still took photos.  These are of Orin and Evan vegging out watching telly:

Aidan, meanwhile, played on the computer:

The boys spent a lot of time playing with the contents of the dressing-up box and Orin turned himself into Frodo carrying the ring by putting a pirate’s earring onto a necklace:

These next few were all taken on Christmas Eve.  Evan dressed up as a snake:

Heather (my mother-in-law) has lots of nutcrackers to decorate the house with at Christmas and Evan loved them so we took this photo of some of them together:

Arlo with his First Christmas snowman:

Jim and Chris took the oldest three boys to a Nativity event in Salisbury Cathedral.  Aidan studying the art installation that formed part of the nativity show:

It appears to have been a tad freaky, with some creepy-looking gothic angels dangling from the ceiling:

A scene from the nativity performance:

Ant, Ali, Jon and Jess came over for dinner on Christmas Eve:

Evan was pretending that this small football was Saraman’s palantir (the eye of Sauron in a glass sphere).  Oh my wee Lord of the Rings wingnut!

Christmas itself will be in a separate blog entry so these next photos are from Boxing Day.  This is Chris wearing the A Team t-shirt I bought him:

Evan playing with the Littlest Pet Shop toys that Santa brought him:

Orin playing with his new gormiti on the piano:

Aidan chillaxin’:

Chris, Evan and Aidan building up Orin’s new castle.  Note that Orin left his minions to do all the setting up for him:

We went for a walk through the fields to the village church to burn off some of our Christmas calories.  Arlo wore his new snowsuit.  It makes him look like a multicoloured marshmallow, which seems appropriate given that his brothers give him the nickname MarshmArlo:

Here’s the head that goes with the body from the previous photo:

Trotting through the mud:

Goodness knows what Aidan is up to in this photo:

Evan jumping on a molehill:

Looking at horseshoe tracks:

We stopped to feed the horses in a nearby field:

Jim (my father-in-law):

Aidan splashing in a puddle:

Heather and Evan:

Aidan with some ice from a puddle:

Chris and Evan:

The Church of St Lawrence:

The house in the village where Pitt the Elder once lived:

The church ground contain a topiary in the shape of the church:

Aidan went to church with Jim and Heather the following day and was taken on a tour that included going up this tower:

Aidan using the boot scraper:

Orin exploring in the churchyard:

The churchyard contained a section full of war graves which interested me as a family historian and as someone who likes rooting around in cemeteries:

Evan “reading” an inscription:

Orin:

Chris:

Heather:

Arlo and I beside the war memorial:

Evan and Chris looking at the gargoyle-like bosses inside the church:

Aidan loved this lectern:

Jim and Orin:

Chris and Evan:

Since Arlo cannot eat a mince pie, he decided to have a crack at its case instead:

Playing with Orin’s new marble run:

Orin playing with his castle:

Evan with the nutcrackers.  (He had drawn on his face with a biro):

Playing the new Lego Magikus game:

And playing the Lego Minotaurus game that Aidan got from Santa:

Aidan took this photo of me with the Minotaur:

Evan and Orin watching “Ice Age 3″ in Jim and Heather’s room:

Arlo:

Monday 28 December was the day of Evan’s horse ride.  Here he is getting his helmet on:

He was on a Shetland pony named Dougal:

He was so excited, I thought he might just explode with glee:

He got really confident at it and was placing his feet back in the stirrups, correcting his own balance on the saddle and even holding the reins with one hand:

Orin wearing a helmet (because he was in the same field as the ponies):

Aidan grooming Charlie.  Charlie had accompanied Evan and Dougal on their trot because apparently the ponies are inseperable:

Evan grooming Dougal, an element of horse ownership he was less keen on:

Leaving the riding centre:

After that, we headed to the Historic Dock at Portsmouth where there was loads to do.  We chose to focus on a tour of the Victory and an interactive place for the kids.

This is Aidan trying to balance the goods on board a ship:

Orin sailing a virtual yacht:

Arlo and me:

Chris, who enjoyed the simulators as much as his sons did:

All the boys (big and small) had a go at flying a helicopter simulator:

Should I be worried that my two year old knows how to squeeze his fingers on the trigger of a gun?

Aidan and a pirate:

The Victory:

Aidan, Orin and Admiral Nelson:

Arlo and me:

The tour of the Victory was really interesting.  It was fascinating to see the living conditions and see how the captain’s living quarters were converted in times of combat, learn about day to day life and see an actual section of deck from the Napoleonic wars so that we were literally treading in Nelson’s footsteps.  The boys, of course, loved the more gruesome elements like the cat o’ nine tails, the surgeons instruments and the places on the ship where people, including Nelson, had died.

We were, however, frozen to our marrows at the tour’s conclusion so we headed off to a mess hall to warm our cockles with some hot chocolate.  Can you tell that Aidan needed thawing out?

Evan showing he has “pirattitude”:

Bellowing at Orin to come and see something:

Aidan had a go at a climbing wall.  He was a little disappointed not to reach the top as he had high expectations and goals but he did really well scaling the wall and using the rope to come down again:

A statue of George III in Roman Emperor garb:

A statue of Robert Falcon Scott:

Aidan and Henry VIII:

Clapped in the stocks:

Orin being wacky as always:

Orin and Evan with an anchor:

The following day, the others all went to splash around in the swimming pool in Salisbury so Arlo and I had a wee photoshoot session:

You can see his first tooth in this one:

This is how Arlo gets about these days.  He propels himself backwards using his heels.  It’s like a reverse crawl or like backstroke on the carpet:

We took a walk up Old Sarum in the rain.  Why?  Because Aidan and Evan wanted to have chainmail armour like Orin had received for his Christmas.  So we hiked up to the shop at Old Sarum to buy them some armour and Orin a Knight fingerpuppet (which is what he chose since he already had armour):

You can see Orin is actually wearing his chainmail under his jacket:

Evan found a pet worm.  It was dead but it was still his pet and he decided to take it with him for the walk:

He even found it a snail shell to keep it cosy and dry:

Aidan at Old Sarum:

As well as buying their armour, the lady in the shop allowed each of the boys (well, not Arlo) to hold an expensive and heavy replica sword.  They were chuffed to bits.  Here they are wearing their armour.  Orin is the King and Aidan and Evan are his Knights:

On Christmas Eve, the boys left some special food out on the lawn for Santa’s reindeer:

Then they left a mince pie and a dram out for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph:

Then it was time to hang the stockings on the fireplace:

Presents piled under the tree:

Santa delivered his presents for the boys at some point during the night:

The boys opening their stockings:

Orin only asked Santa for a Ben Kenobi dressed as a clonetrooper at last minute so he was amazed and thrilled to find Santa had got the message and their was one waiting for him in his stocking:

Evan is obsessed with wildebeest so he was delighted to find one in his stocking:

Arlo and Heather:

Let the present opening commence!

Orin receiving the chainmail that features in so many photos:

Heather showing Evan his horse book and explaining that his present is a ride on a pony:

Orin’s present from Santa was a clonetrooper helmet:

Evan’s present from Santa was a collection of Littlest Pet Shop toys:

Aidan’s gift from Santa was a Lego Minotaurus game:

Santa’s first ever present for Arlo was a set of Waybuloo figures:

Arlo and me:

Aidan’s wobbly tooth was ready to come out and made for an “interesting” appearance for a while:

Jess and Jon:

Heather and Jim:

Antony:

Alison:

Me and my new compost caddy:

The boys playing with Aidan’s new Lego set:

Orin with his Spiderman set - which took me hours to build!

Arlo had a chocolate pudding for the first time because it was Christmas and he had been given a hamper of baby foods:

Christmas dinner:

“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!” - Aidan finally lost his tooth which meant he got a visit from the Tooth Fairy as well was from Santa:

Evan in bed with his wildebeests:

Orin drawing in bed:

Aidan writing his journal:

Arlo on Christmas evening:

Chris, the boys and I wish you all Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2010!

A short video of Chris and the boys building a snowman (a wee one) in the back garden: