06 Dec 2009 Just popping by!

I have not been around very much lately, except to look at the alerts that my email sent me, it has been very full here!
My mother-in-law has been visiting us the past three weeks her and her little dog, and it has been busy but fun! Her name is Jeanette, but we all call her Granny, and she does not mind at all.
Every day we went on walks to look at the Christmas decorations going up, to she opp shops, and to the normal shops. The fridge and freezers were filled to bursting, the washing machine well used, and sewing galore!!
She spent time with the grand children, with Michael and with myself, and it was a really nice time! As she was sleeping in the spare bed in the girls room, she even got to re-experience getting up the crying children in the night if she happened to be bothered getting up before I woke!
Her dog, Tassy, had a great time with our two, and we even look all three out for a walk on a couple of occasions! Granny recons she had never managed to wear him out as he is a Jack Russell cross, but the combination of Max and Gaspode, AND Malachi (who took a shine to him) and he was taking a lot more rests than she was used to him taking!
Finally she went home with tears and many waves, and I am now finding my house rather empty with two less bodies in it!!
Phebe has reached the stage where she can get into almost anything, and talks back when you tell her off. It is unbearable cute and extreemly frustrating at the same time!! She and Hadassah have started to fight, usually being broken up when the screaming caused by handfulls of hair and scratches down the face reach either Michael or my own ears and we race over to break them up. Ah! I love my girls! Unfortunately they don't seem to love each other at the moment. They both love Malachi, however.
All our Christmas lights are up, inside and out, and it looks pretty good, even if I do say so myself! We are blessed with both a front fence and a hedge, so the not so desirable characters in our neighbourhood tend to not do much more then chuck rubbish in, and occasioinally yank of a fence pailing (the mongrels!!!!!), so we are able to put quite a bit out the front on display, while other people who do not have a front fence will more often than not only have stuff in the windows and/or on the roof.
We have had a few compliments on our decorations, but I am slightly frustrated with the whole thing, as we have had abour five lights die, and I really liked a couple of them, and its not like we can just go out and buy more, but any way. I have tried to get Christmas out the back as much as possible for the children, and so we have some other hardier ornaments, tinsel, and a couple of soft, washable toys out there all arranged nicely, and the children love it!
Oh yes, and we're pretty much oranised with the presents, not only the Christmas ones, but also the birthdays, as Malachi is the 21st, and Dassah is the 18th. Mine is the 4th of January, but I do not have any yet, unfortunately. But there is still time!!
I hope every one has a WONDERFULL Christmas, and a relatively stress-free festive season!! HOOROO!
 Eh, we've been collecting their presents all year, and the tree going up is an excuse to get them out of the shed, and into a slightly cleaner environment! But don't worry, they are all wrapped and in Santa sacks, so while the children sort of know they're there, the can't really see anything.