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what a weekend!
We sure packed a lot in.
Gwen's party was planned for three hours in the afternoon, which meant of course the excitement had her up around 6:00am, and though she laid back down for another hour or so I'm pretty sure she didn't sleep. So we were up again not too long after that, to mix up the birthday cake and pop it into the oven. We then left the buzzer next to daddy in bed, because we were off! It was Gwen's first lesson at the drama/singing/dancing Academy we've signed her up for. It went...OK. It started off with EVERYONE (not just the young kids, everyone up through highschool) up on stage with REALLY (unnecessarily) loud music playing for some group warm up, and she got whisked along with the others and then basically stood a bit petrified. After that, I went with her to the Poppets lesson, and she wavered between warming up and being her happy cheerful self, and curling up on a chair next to me, saying she was tired (and she was obviously flagging). But after they'd done their dance three times, she joined in for part of the fourth, and when they practiced singing at the end, she enthusiastically sang Jingle Bells while sitting next to me, and she joined in for the end-of-lesson game of duck, duck, goose. In all, she was much more standoffish than she normally is, BUT I think the newness, the sensory assault of the start, and her tiredness had a big effect. We'll give it a few weeks before we make any decision, I think once she finds things more familiar that this could still be a lot of fun for her. And if not? We're out a few GBP and we can always try again in a year or two if we think she'd enjoy it then.
We headed home to eat some lunch and decorate the cake -- red frosting with a rainbow spider web and Spiderman sprinkles! -- and tidy the house before the guests started coming. Sadly, Eve was ill during the night so she wasn't coming, but in the end, three little girls, two bigger girls, plus two of our friends filled the house. We made birthday crowns, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream, made jewelry, painted nails, and just let them run around the house and play. My decision not to make any formal plans for games paid off.
Then afterwards we skyped with both sets of grandparents, and by the time bath and videos and stories were over (and Gwen suddenly realized she hadn't had supper -- which was fine with me because she'd been snacking all day, and then she decided it was okay too), it was already rather late.
This morning she was up around 7:00 as usual but I didn't manage to get out of bed until 9:00. I do love that she's able to entertain herself for two hours on a Sunday morning! One of our gifts to her was a set of Frozen posters with watercolors, and as soon as she'd opened it on Wednesday night she wanted to paint; I promised her we could do it on Sunday. So after we tidied up the livingroom after breakfast we got the paints out. Another gift, from Grandma & Grandpa, was a set of three dinosaur cookie cutters and a snail cutter, which combined with the fact that we had leftover frosting from the cake meant that baking cookies was indicated. We had a lot of fun with that, and afterwards Gwen told me, "Thank you, mummy, for making these cookies! They're so TASTY!" -- she is really quite sweet about spontaneously offering thanks for sometimes rather abstract things. It's very satisfying every time she does, because it means we're doing something right.
We then headed over to the new place to briefly see the upstairs floors with their first two coats of wax on (OH WOW DO THEY LOOK BEAUTIFUL), and then pick up Joel and head back to the peninsula. Every other year in November Durham hosts the Lumiere Light Festival, something we'd been hearing about almost since we moved here last year! It was so busy last time that this year, between 4:30-7:30 you had to have a ticket to get onto the peninsula. But if you were already there, say, around 4:00pm...So that's what we did! We ended up walking around for more than two hours, ending up hope about 6:45pm at which point Gwen was simply exhausted so I put her to bed with a cookie and a cup of warm milk, after which I promptly collapsed on the couch. It's nearly 9:00pm and I haven't written my 400 words either today OR yesterday; and I may not worry about it. I can bang out 1200 tomorrow if previous weeks are any indication.
This photo is of the old Shire Hall, across the street from my office, taken from my office Thursday evening:
Same view, on Friday:
Most of what we saw tonight was punctuated with, "Oh, WOW. That was BEAUTIFUL!" Nothing like attending a light show with a four year old. :)
Whales flying above the marketplace:
The cathedral:
The castle:
I'm really glad we got to go, and that Gwen enjoyed it so much, and that Joel was able to take the time off of working on the house. And in two years' time, we'll have even more fun, I'm sure!
Gwen's party was planned for three hours in the afternoon, which meant of course the excitement had her up around 6:00am, and though she laid back down for another hour or so I'm pretty sure she didn't sleep. So we were up again not too long after that, to mix up the birthday cake and pop it into the oven. We then left the buzzer next to daddy in bed, because we were off! It was Gwen's first lesson at the drama/singing/dancing Academy we've signed her up for. It went...OK. It started off with EVERYONE (not just the young kids, everyone up through highschool) up on stage with REALLY (unnecessarily) loud music playing for some group warm up, and she got whisked along with the others and then basically stood a bit petrified. After that, I went with her to the Poppets lesson, and she wavered between warming up and being her happy cheerful self, and curling up on a chair next to me, saying she was tired (and she was obviously flagging). But after they'd done their dance three times, she joined in for part of the fourth, and when they practiced singing at the end, she enthusiastically sang Jingle Bells while sitting next to me, and she joined in for the end-of-lesson game of duck, duck, goose. In all, she was much more standoffish than she normally is, BUT I think the newness, the sensory assault of the start, and her tiredness had a big effect. We'll give it a few weeks before we make any decision, I think once she finds things more familiar that this could still be a lot of fun for her. And if not? We're out a few GBP and we can always try again in a year or two if we think she'd enjoy it then.
We headed home to eat some lunch and decorate the cake -- red frosting with a rainbow spider web and Spiderman sprinkles! -- and tidy the house before the guests started coming. Sadly, Eve was ill during the night so she wasn't coming, but in the end, three little girls, two bigger girls, plus two of our friends filled the house. We made birthday crowns, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream, made jewelry, painted nails, and just let them run around the house and play. My decision not to make any formal plans for games paid off.
Then afterwards we skyped with both sets of grandparents, and by the time bath and videos and stories were over (and Gwen suddenly realized she hadn't had supper -- which was fine with me because she'd been snacking all day, and then she decided it was okay too), it was already rather late.
This morning she was up around 7:00 as usual but I didn't manage to get out of bed until 9:00. I do love that she's able to entertain herself for two hours on a Sunday morning! One of our gifts to her was a set of Frozen posters with watercolors, and as soon as she'd opened it on Wednesday night she wanted to paint; I promised her we could do it on Sunday. So after we tidied up the livingroom after breakfast we got the paints out. Another gift, from Grandma & Grandpa, was a set of three dinosaur cookie cutters and a snail cutter, which combined with the fact that we had leftover frosting from the cake meant that baking cookies was indicated. We had a lot of fun with that, and afterwards Gwen told me, "Thank you, mummy, for making these cookies! They're so TASTY!" -- she is really quite sweet about spontaneously offering thanks for sometimes rather abstract things. It's very satisfying every time she does, because it means we're doing something right.
We then headed over to the new place to briefly see the upstairs floors with their first two coats of wax on (OH WOW DO THEY LOOK BEAUTIFUL), and then pick up Joel and head back to the peninsula. Every other year in November Durham hosts the Lumiere Light Festival, something we'd been hearing about almost since we moved here last year! It was so busy last time that this year, between 4:30-7:30 you had to have a ticket to get onto the peninsula. But if you were already there, say, around 4:00pm...So that's what we did! We ended up walking around for more than two hours, ending up hope about 6:45pm at which point Gwen was simply exhausted so I put her to bed with a cookie and a cup of warm milk, after which I promptly collapsed on the couch. It's nearly 9:00pm and I haven't written my 400 words either today OR yesterday; and I may not worry about it. I can bang out 1200 tomorrow if previous weeks are any indication.
This photo is of the old Shire Hall, across the street from my office, taken from my office Thursday evening:
Same view, on Friday:
Most of what we saw tonight was punctuated with, "Oh, WOW. That was BEAUTIFUL!" Nothing like attending a light show with a four year old. :)
Whales flying above the marketplace:
The cathedral:
The castle:
I'm really glad we got to go, and that Gwen enjoyed it so much, and that Joel was able to take the time off of working on the house. And in two years' time, we'll have even more fun, I'm sure!
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