Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Yet another catch up post!!

WEDNESDAY - Little Prince spent the night throwing up and so had to miss school he was devastated that he missed his school Christmas party. Although he spent the whole day curled up on the sofa in his pyjamas watching TV (so not like him!!) so he wouldn't have made it to school anyway. Missed my chance to go to Ikea and get the bookcases I want to finish the refurbishment of the hallway. Oh well Mr Messy promises to take me between Xmas and New Year AND to not whinge about the lack of parking, although I will probably have to get up at the crack of dawn for this privilege!!!
THURSDAY - Little Prince went to school. Was thrilled that Miss saved his present from Father Christmas :-) I spent the day shopping with a couple of the other mums and finished the last bits and bobs :-) Drama Teen missed her schools Day Trip (same as last year and she didn't want to go) and instead had the 'thrill' of going to work with daddy!! She now wishes she had gone on the school trip lol. Me and Mr Messy went to the supermarket and bought the meat for the festivities, then played Tetris trying to get it all in the already overstuffed freezer!!!
FRIDAY - I spent the night throwing up. Spent the day in bed. Little Miss Sensible looked after Little Prince very well, I am SO glad she is home :-) He went to the Pantomime with school and loved it - oh no he didn't :-) Oh YES HE DID :-)
SATURDAY - Still ill. Panicking I can't be ill Christmas isn't ready yet!!!!
SUNDAY - Still ill. OMG Christmas will never be ready at this rate!!!!! LMS and The Boyfriend step in and finish off the last bits of wrapping up for me. They are stars :-)
MONDAY - Still feel yukky. Forced myself to get showered and dressed to take Drama Teen, Fraulein and Little Prince to the Pantomime. Fraulein's first pantomime and although confused by the leading boy actually being a girl, and the widowed mother being a man, she loved it. When we got back me and LMS went out delivering Christmas cards round the village, although I'm almost certain I've lost a huge pile of them!!! This is what being ill does to my organisation!!
If you've sent me an email in the last couple of weeks and I've not replied - I'm really really sorry, but between Christmas organising/ill kids/ill me I've just not had time to reply. I will reply after Christmas honest :-)

Dentist and Carols

Me and the three children had our annual check up with the dentist this morning, and we were all given a clean bill of health :-) Lovely - no fillings as a New Year 'treat' :-) Me and Little Miss Sensible dropped Drama Teen and then Little Prince back at their respective schools, and went home to collect the Little Tikes Workbench that Little Prince no longer plays with, and take it to the local playgroup for them to play with. Not sure how Little Prince is going to take its disappearance, and the space looks quite big and empty without it lol. But we need to make room for the new stuff that could be arriving very soon lol.

This afternoon we went to our local church, for Little Prince's school Carol Concert. I love the sound of Away in a Manger sung by children - that just symbolises Christmas for me :-) We were allowed to bring the children straight home from the concert, I explained where the Workbench had gone, so that Little Prince wasn't too surprised when he got home. He didn't seem bothered at all luckily :-) Perhaps its the thought of new toys soon :-)

I've had to dose him up with calpol and snuggle him up on the sofa, as he doesn't feel very well. He says he is cold and is shivering, despite many layers and being under a blanket!! Oh dear, doesn't sound too good!! Hope he is ok, only three school days left before Christmas and I could do with him being at school for all three of them!!!

Special Day

Today was a very special day :-) It is the third anniversary of the official adoption of Little Prince :-) We don't make a big deal of the day, all we do is buy him a cake for after tea - and sing Happy Adoption Day to You (like Happy Birthday lol). As the day is so close to Christmas we don't buy presents and also thought that making the 'celebration' quite low key would help if at some point Little Prince decides he doesn't want to celebrate/acknowledge the day any more. This years cake was perfect - an Asda Cheeky Monkey one - we always say Little Prince is our Cheeky Monkey :-)

I find today bittersweet - I gained a son, but Tummy Mummy irrevocably lost one, and that is so sad for her and Little Prince. I remember putting him to bed three years ago, on the night before his adoption day, and crying thinking that this was the very last night EVER he would go to bed as a Looked After Child or Child in Care. From that day on he would have a mummy, daddy, sisters and a whole family who will love him forever and keep him safe. While I would never, ever forgo the experience of parenting Little Prince, I fervently wish that he could have had the safe, loving care every child deserves from his birth family, and never had to go through the trauma and loss that he did. Or I wish somehow that he could have been born to me and Mr Messy so that he would have been safe from the moment he was conceived, but then he wouldn't be the fabulous wonderful little boy that he is. I hope that as he grows up he can somehow come to terms with what has happened to him and why, and be secure in the knowledge that mummy and daddy love him to the moon and back, no matter what. And that despite the fact that she couldn't keep him safe, so does Tummy Mummy.

Little Prince's Quirky Beliefs!!

The other day Little Prince wanted Little Miss Sensible to tell him the Christmas story at bedtime. She tried to, with LOTS of interruptions from Little Prince!!

To start off she tried to establish the basics - "Do you know who God is?" "No", "Do you know who Jesus is?" "No". Not a good start. So she tried to explain God...
"Well, He's a very magic person that you can't see and He made everything"
"Did He make me?"
"Yes"
"What about Blankie?"
"Yes"
They then argued for a while over who actually made Blankie (God or Foster Mum!) and settled on God helped!! She tried again...
"Right, so God is really magic..."
"Father Christmas is more magic than God"
...huh...?
"He has reindeers and Rudolphs" (plural!) "so he's more magic"
UPDATE: Little Prince announced this morning (17th Dec) that Mickey was more magic than ANYONE!!!

This left Little Miss Sensible totally speechless for a while but she decided to move swiftly on to the rest of the story! It turned out that Little Prince knew the story much better than she did, as he repeatedly interrupted to correct her or give dialogue. It's been a long time since she did a Nativity, but only a few days since Little Prince did one, so he did have a slight advantage!

They got as far as "They went to Bethlehem" when he started on -
"Where's Bethlehem?"
"Um...that's a good question! Let's ask Dad." So they went and bellowed from the top of the stairs...
"DAD, WHERE'S BETHLEHEM?"
"I don't know?! Israel!"
"DAD, WHERE'S ISRAEL?"
"Um...The Middle East"
"DAD, WHERE'S THE MIDDLE EAST?"
"...a long way away...!"
Which luckily finally satisfied Little Prince!! And they did eventually get to the end of the story. LMS came down stairs complaining that her ears were ringing and that her little brother talked a LOT!!

And while we are on the subject of Little Prince's quirky beliefs - he saw a crescent moon the other night and we asked him what the special name for that shape moon was. His triumphant answer "A mosque" Oh well back to the drawing board on religious education I think :-)

Slightly Calmer Sunday!!

Mr Messy took Little Miss Sensible and Little Prince out for breakfast, which allowed me to have a lovely quiet lie in :-) Isn't he wonderful :-) Unfortunately I did eventually have to wake up, as I had to drop Drama Teen and Best Friend off at the cinema (again!) to see a different film with a different set of friends. And then drop LMS and Fraulein off at the shops to get their last minute shopping done. AND then go and trawl round the supermarket as we've run out of loads of stuff as I haven't had time to stay in and wait for our regular supermarket delivery. I managed to get most of the shopping I needed done, which was a huge relief. I had to buy a car charger for my phone as my battery had run out and I needed to get in touch with both sets of girls and arrange to pick them up!! We had arranged to meet Drama Teen and her friends at McDonalds, so once I'd picked up LMS and Fraulein we went there to eat (again - there's only so much MacFood I can take, hopefully that's the last time for a while!!).

Once we got home we did a quick tidy up and dust, well I told the girls to get on with it while I cooked and then supervised Little Prince having his tea. I also had them bring all the Christmas decorations downstairs. This is the first year we have let Little Prince join in the decorating, the past few years we have decorated while he's been in bed and he's woken up to a HUGE surprise :-) He enjoyed himself immensely and loved putting decorations on the tree, and even spread them around the tree with out being told to do so. After a while he was getting rather over excited and we ended up telling him it was bedtime - cue lots of tears and sobs that he wasn't tired. As soon as I hugged him he said he was very very tired and was going to take himself to bed, I insisted on taking him anyway and we had a lovely calming story before he fell asleep. Maybe we should have waited another year before having him help decorate?!?!

Busy Busy Saturday

We had so many things booked for today that its a miracle we managed to get them all done!!! First of all Little Prince was going to his friend's birthday party, at the local indoor play centre. Me and Mr Messy took him and dropped him off, we then nipped over to the shopping centre to get some last minute shopping done while he wasn't with us!! We got presents for his foster mum and her son while we were out, as straight after the party we were setting off to visit them. During the party Little Prince asked his best friend's mum who Best Friend's foster mum was - he must think that everyone had a foster mum!! I had planned ahead and brought a spare outfit for Little Prince to get changed into after the party, which turned out to be a great idea as his socks were disgustingly black (do they ever clean those places?!?!?!) and he had party food all down his shirt!! Once he was nicely presentable again we set off on our visit. Little Prince was upset that we had left his comfort blankie at home and blamed me and Mr Messy for that oversight!! He spent most of the rest of the journey alternatively complaining and blaming!! Once we told him we were almost there, he suddenly said "Thank you so much for taking me to see Foster Mum, mummy and daddy" I filled up at that.

The visit went very well, Little Prince seemed to feel very much at home and showed no signs of nervousness or shyness, as he usually does when visiting people he doesn't see very often. He and Foster Mum's son played with the toys, had a turn on the Playstation and then played some more. We gave Foster Mum tonnes of photos of Little Prince in addition to her Christmas pressie, and she seemed to really appreciate them :-) Well who wouldn't - he's gorgeous :-) When the boys started to get over excited, giddy and noisy we decided to call it a day and Little Prince happily hugged them goodbye and after checking that he could visit again, was happy to get in the car and come home. That was when it really hit him that he didn't have comfort blankie, and I think he could have really done with it. He calmed down after being promised a trip to McDonalds on the way home.

While we were doing all of this, Drama Teen went to the cinema with her Young Man and some other mutual friends. They were dropped off by LMS and The Boyfriend, who then went to eat in a nearby restaurant (wasn't very nice apparently) before picking up Drama Teen and her best friend and bringing them home for a sleepover - and no doubt a good gossip about Young Man!! Fraulein, went shopping in town with one of her college friends and managed to get herself there and back using the bus with no incidents :-)

Fabulous Friday

Me and Mr Messy went straight to our LAs sw Offices after dropping Little Prince at school. The roads were icy and slippery so we were slightly late. The sw Team Leader we were meeting was in a bit of a flap as she hadn't booked a private room for our meeting, and had been unexpectedly inundated with visitors who HAD booked the rooms!! After trying a couple of full rooms, we eventually ended up in the large conference room that is used for Adoption Panels - scary!! We started off by discussing the lengthening wait times, and how we felt about that, and showed her the facts and figures gleaned from the CCAA referral announcements (2006 they referred 4 1/2 months worth of people who were logged in - 2007 they referred 2 1/2 months worth of people who were logged in!). We talked about how our family had changed since we did our homestudy - Little Prince lots more settled and now in full time school etc. We showed her the list of SNs one of my American friends had sent me, and discussed the implications of the SNs we had chosen to apply for. Team Leader seemed pleased that we were being quite picky about what we could and could not accept, and not just saying we could cope with anything and everything to get a quicker referral. Team Leader apologetically told us that the dept would have to charge us for the homestudy addendum, as they have to pay our sessional sw directly. They will also have to charge us for Panel time, unfortunately we will have to go back to Panel!! She didn't have any idea of how much this could amount to, but will send us an official agreement (that we will pay if we are approved or not) to sign. Bit like signing a blank cheque - but its the only way forward! She ended the meeting by saying she could see we had done our research thoroughly and weren't just jumping into this blindly, and that she couldn't forsee any problems with us changing over from the dept's point of view :-)

After the meeting Mr Messy dropped me back at home and then set off to pick Little Miss Sensible, The Boyfriend and mountains of stuff up from university. I was fidgety all day knowing my baby was on her way home :-) Although I did manage to get a lot more wrapping up done - mostly LMS's stuff, so that I can ask her to help me with the rest lol.

Little Prince bounded out of school, and immediately asked where LMS was! He then ran to the car to see if she was there, then demanded we drive home really quickly (we didn't!!) to make sure we got there first!! He was VERY disappointed to learn he had to wait till after tea to see her. And predictably, as soon as tea was finished he was asking why she wasn't home yet. Drama Teen was also excited, but managed to make it a little less obvious - although she did text LMS to find out when she would arrive home. On being told in about 15mins, she went to stand at the open front door with Little Prince exactly 15mins later :-) When LMS finally arrived she was smothered in bear hugs from Little Prince and Drama Teen :-) Little Prince insisted she took him to bed, and read him his bedtime story :-) More about that later!!

We then spent the rest of the evening catching up with all the gossip and just generally enjoying having all our family together :-) When it was finally time for The Boyfriend to go home, Mr Messy had already gone to bed (it WAS almost midnight!) they finally got around to emptying the Stuff Mountain out of the car (and into the lounge urgh!!). After quite a bit of persuasion, LMS agreed to drive The Boyfriend home (much whinging about not having driven for ages, about not liking driving in the dark etc). I was just about to go off to bed, when they came back in, the car had no petrol and she isn't insured to drive my car!! Aaaaargh!! So I had to take him - and it was COLD!!!!

Father Christmas

I was just tucking Little Prince in bed after his story, when Drama Teen came rushing upstairs to tell us that the Rotary Club Father Christmas was coming through the village. Luckily Little Prince was in his all in one snuggly suit, so we could rush straight downstairs to wave to the man himself. Father Christmas waved to Little Prince from the sleigh, called him by name and reminded him that he'd promised to behave himself, then one of his helpers gave Little Prince and Drama Teen a lolly each :-) Little Prince was awestruck :-) And went back to bed without a peep :-)

Not got much done!! Aaaargh!!

Today started off badly!! I ordered one of the kids main pressie on the internet last night, and this morning got an email saying the payment hadn't gone through. Called the company and they tried again - still didn't go through. Rang the bank (to play merry hell!!) and they said company had put wrong number in!! Aaaaargh!! Rang company again - all computer systems are down and they promised to ring me back in 1/2 hour. Two hours later - they still hadn't rung!! Rang again, apparently they'd had a fire at their head office and computers were still down - told them they need a disaster recovery plan!! Gave up at that point and went and did the local errands. When I got back I started to catch up on my emails before going to get Little Prince from school. Once back from school tried the company one last time and HURRAY their computer was up and running, they managed to punch the right numbers in and the pressie is now safely ordered. Phew!!! I hope the child concerned appreciates this!!! Lol who am I kidding - no chance lol. If you want gratitude get a dog :-)

I wanted to get some more wrapping up done after tea, but Mr Messy has come home from work with a stonking headache and has gone to bed to sleep it off. So no wrapping up tonight!! I have just been planning a trip to Ikea tomorrow - but realised that the mysterious pressie is being delivered tomorrow so I have to be in!!!! Its never simple is it?!?!

Weight Watchers Update

To my huge surprise I lost 1lb!! I haven't been tracking my points, haven't been eating the things I should and just thought "S*d it" until after Christmas - so it was very nice to actually have lost a pound!!! I have now lost 2.5lbs and got 35.5lbs to go.

Getting there!!

Last night I placed a HUGE internet order, that more or less blitzed Christmas!! Hope my friend the village post lady will forgive me lol. Then this morning I went to town straight after dropping Little Prince at school and got a load more shopping done. There are still quite a few bits to get, but the majority is now done. I need to get my sister's 4 kids their presents - if you are reading Lil Sis' TELL ME WHAT THE KIDS WANT FOR CHRISTMAS :-) Then this afternoon I managed to get LOADS of wrapping up done :-) I'm starting to feel a bit more Christmassy now things are more organised!!

Nativity Star :-)

Today was Little Prince's second try at superstardom, through his school's Nativity Play. Last year as a nursery child, he was part of the chorus (the MOST active star on stage lol). This year he moved up the cast list and was KING "I give you Myrrh." Me and Mr Messy got there extra early and were sat on the front row to watch/photograph/video the monumentous event. You should have seen the disgusted looks we got from all the other parents arriving after us - well they should have got there earlier lol. Anyway, due to the fact that almost every parent/grandparent/aunt/uncle in the place had either a camera or a video, we had discussed earlier with school how they could disguise Little Prince. We decided that a beard might be a good addition to the costume - luckily Little Prince agreed!! Trouble is the beard was made for a child in an older class (playing Father Christmas) and was huge on Little Prince - it kept riding up his face and he had to hold onto it to see!! After all the parents had got seated the children entered and climbed onto the stage. Due to the above mentioned beard, Little Prince couldn't see where he was going and fell flat on his face almost squashing his box of Myrrh, which was all he was worried about. He then sat still for the whole of the performance (where required), sang all the songs with gusto and had a fairly feeble attempt at the actions. He delivered his present with typical boyish aplomb - tossing it casually down in front of the baby and muttering "I give you Myrrh" He seemed to have a big grin, but it was quite hard to tell under the beard lol. It has all been captured for posterity both on Mr Messy's camera (with expensive new image stabilising lens bought specially for the occasion) and our old but faithful video camera.

Getting somewhere!!!

I have a HUGE 'to do list' on the go at the moment, but today I managed to plough my way through loads of it :-) I've still got loads left to do, but at least quite a big portion of the list is crossed off now. I'll get more done tomorrow morning, before me and Mr Messy go and watch Little Prince in his Nativity Play at school. Anyway the vast majority of my Christmas cards are now posted :-) I've just got one or two I'm waiting to check addresses haven't changed before posting. Mr Messy has been to a meeting at the opposite end of the country so he isn't expected back till a lot later this evening. And I'm off to my friend's house to help wrap up the 100 presents PTA have bought for the children at Little Prince's school, for Father Christmas to give to them :-)

Busy Busy Weekend!!

We had our two HOST students from China visit this weekend, one called Clement and one called Bernice. Little Prince promptly misheard and called Clement LEMON all weekend! Its a good job he had a great sense of humour :-)

On Friday I took all of them to the village's Santa's Grotto. I had hoped we would get to see Father Christmas arrive on his tractor (it is a farming village lol) but we were a bit late and missed that. We did sample some lovely mince pies, well I thought they were lovely and Clement and Bernice were very polite about them :-) We then queued up to visit Father Christmas - Little Prince was so excited :-) With this being a small village grotto, and not a commercial shopping centre one, Father Christmas tends to spend quite a lot of time with each child - discussing what they would like for Christmas, where they live, reminding them they must be good and also to leave a mince pie for Father Christmas and carrot for Rudolph. Little Prince listened intently and answered shyly, and was over the moon with his present and card. When he opened it once we got home, he was even happier to find a bag full of dinosaurs - and they have been attacking each other ever since!!!

On Saturday we had a traditional English breakfast, although I was trying to be good and only had toast. Everyone (except me and Little Prince!!) got up late, so it wasn't long after that when we had to set off to take Drama Teen to her last Stagecoach, which was also their play. We dropped her off and then I took Fraulein and HOST students for lunch at a cafe. It was the same cafe that Mr Messy had decided to take Little Prince to - how did they guess that's where we were going lol. So we all had lunch together, before Mr Messy took Little Prince home and I took everyone back to Stagecoach to watch the performance. We managed to get seats on the second row, and I was horrified to watch everyone leave the seat next to the HOST students empty - despite there being no spare seats in the hall. Ignorant people. Anyway the performance was fairly good, although many of the younger children were inaudible, which was a great pity as they had main speaking parts!! The songs were jolly and well sung and the dances were pretty good too. Drama Teen was a bit embarassed that she missed the first part of one of her dances (her dresser forgot to help her change outfits!!) and had to run on part way through - but she managed beautifully and slotted straight into the routine :-) Well done Drama Teen.

After Stagecoach we brought home Drama Teen's Young Man, who was coming to watch the village Christmas lights switch-on and have tea. Her Best Friend from school was also dropped off, at the same time we arrived home from the show. Trouble is she had forgotten to tell either me or Mr Messy that Best Friend was coming for a sleepover - she told me on the way to Stagecoach!!! Thanks Drama Teen - a little more notice next time please!!! We took everyone to the village square to watch the switching on ceremony - this years celebrity switcher on-er was the head of the primary school. The school choir sang a few carols, and a brass band played a few carols - then the crowd sang a few carols!! But the highlight of the whole evening for Little Prince was the arrival of Father Christmas on a horse drawn sleigh - well that and the chocolate bar Father Christmas doled out to all the children :-) We completely lost track of time during the rest of the evening and ended up returning Young Man home very late, I don't think his grandad was very impressed! Whoops!!

Today was a bit quieter!! Mr Messy dropped Drama Teen, Fraulein and Best Friend off in the town centre to get their Christmas shopping done. While he was out Bernice and Clement went off for a walk round the village taking photographs - we were going to take them yesterday, but it rained all day!! Once Mr Messy got back we organised the photos for our student visitors book, and then it was time to leave for the station. Unfortunately Bernice hadn't told us that she needed to buy her train ticket, so she got on the train with seconds to spare!! Clement's train was a little later and he was very relieved that he didn't have to dive on the train at the last minute!! We had a quick look round the shops before collecting the girls and returning home. Fraulein wasn't that happy, she said she was very tired and that she had found shopping with the other two quite hard. Apparently they stuck together quite a lot and I think Fraulein felt a bit left out, but sometimes she expects everyone else to make the effort to chat with her, but forgets that she has to make an effort too - so it was probably six of one, half a dozen of the other!!

When we got home I got Little Prince a quick tea, so that we could write his Christmas cards together and still get him in bed at a reasonable time. He got half way through his tea before throwing it all back up all over everywhere!! He was quite cheerful about all of this, and happily went off with Mr Messy for a bath and clean up - while I dealt with the mess (yuk)!! Once he was cleaned up and in his pyjamas he seemed perfectly recovered, so we got on with his cards. I wrote his friend's names on the envelopes and he wrote his own name inside the card :-) He managed beautifully and was very proud of himself and his lovely writing :-) He then went happily off to bed and there hasn't been a peep out of him since!! No idea what caused the vomitting and I hope whatever it was is now out of his system - as (horrible as it sounds!!) I really could do with him being at school this week as I've got so much to do!!!

I have managed to get ALL my Christmas cards written :-) It took hours as usual, but its DONE :-) I'll get them all in the posts tomorrow morning and that's another job out of the way :-)

Very Sad News :-(

We've received a Christmas card from Little Prince's foster carer, who looked after him for 12 months. Unfortunately she is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer and has lost all her hair. She is an older lady, single parent to a young boy and I'm so worried about them both :-(
UPDATE: I've managed to speak to Foster Carer on the phone and although the treatments are hard, she is coping with them. We are taking Little Prince to visit her next weekend.

Busy Weekend

I'm feeling a bit under the weather with a chesty cough and stuffed up nose and general bleugh feeling. But that doesn't stop the relentlesss advance of Christmas ever nearer!!! The fact that I took a week out of the preparations last week, is just starting to dawn on me - I'll never be ready in time!!! To top it off we've got two HOST students staying this weekend too. They are just playing on the Wii with Mr Messy, Drama Teen and Fraulein and from the laughter I can hear I think they are having a good time :-) I have just realised what a manic Christmas we are heading for too!! Little Miss Sensible has arranged for an unknown number of guests (friends from uni) to visit around New Year for an unknown amount of time - makes planning catering a tad difficult lol. Then Fraulein's best friend is coming over to visit and arrives and leaves on the exact same dates that Drama Teen goes to/returns from her CLAPA Ski Camp!! AND (yes there's more!!!) we have to fit in a visit to our Welsh niece, who's birthday is Boxing Day so that Drama Teen and her can go shopping for her birthday!!! No idea how this is going to work - I'm pretty confident it will work, just not sure how lol!!!

Big plans!!!!

As you may have noticed from the dearth of posts lately, I have been a bit distracted!! Not only by the celebrities in the Jungle either!! Me and Mr Messy have come to the conclusion that if referrals from China continue at the pace they have been coming (2 months 17 days worth of LIDs in the WHOLE of 2007) we will not be in a position to adopt when our turn finally comes round. We have talked over all different sorts of scenarios - considering our family complete with our three gorgeous children or applying to adopt domestically again or seeing if we can change to an expedited, direct Special Needs match from the CCAA. After many months of talking we decided on the SNs route, and I have been diligently researching this for ages now. A friend in America sent her agencies SNs list of conditions, and we have also been considering what we can and can't deal with on that list. We have now, just about, come up with a very restricted list of SNs we can consider and feel would fit into our family set up. After ensuring that the CCAA would accept an application for an expedited SN adoption from the UK, we contacted our Local Authority. To my utter surprise and delight, Team Leader was very positive and encouraging and we have arranged a meeting for me, Mr Messy and her for a week on Friday. I have talked to the DCSF and they say we need a homestudy addendum and written confirmation from the LA saying they support this change - the DCSF will then add their own letter of support and forward everything to the CCAA on our behalf. It sounds so simple when laid out like that - but I am sure that just like every other step in our adoption journey, it will be long winded and frustrating. But I am determined that we will get through this, and give this application our best shot. The CCAA might turn around and say "no" but at least we will have tried our best. Hold on MeiMei - mummy and daddy are coming....

St Nicholas Day

Fraulein has been disappointed to learn that we don't celebrate St Nicholas' Day in the UK. However, it seems we do now!! We woke this morning to find festive bags full of German sweets and chocolates and sweeties :-) Fraulein had got up in the middle of the night, and no one heard her - snuck downstairs and found everyone's shoes to place these St Nicholas Day presents inside - isn't she sweet :-) I think her parents have probably helped her with these presents as they are actual German sweets that we ate while we were over there, so thank you F & K too :-)

Weightwatchers Update

It ain't pretty!! Due to over indulging at Disneyland Paris - if you've pre-paid your meals its a shame to waste them lol. I put 2.5lbs back on, that coupled with the 1lb gain that I didn't blog before I went away, means that in 7 weeks I have lost a measly 1.5lbs - and have 36.5lbs to go!! But all that said I was ecstatic to have only put on 2.5lbs this week, I had expected it to be a LOT worse than that!!

Disneyland Paris

Our trip was fabulous :-) Disney is my HAPPY PLACE :-) Little Prince was also super happy - that's him choo chooing down the tracks on Main Street, cunningly disguised as Winnie the Pooh :-) We rode the two new rides in the Studios - we loved Cars but hated Crush's Coaster!! But at least we can say we were brave enough to try it lol. We saw Mickey, Minnie and Goofy in their Christmas finery :-) And were lucky enough to also see the man himself - Father Christmas, we realise this is his busiest time of year so it was lovely that he took time out of his busy schedule to visit the grotto at Disneyland :-) We also pre-purchased vouchers for our evening meals, which gave all of us a starter, main course, dessert and soft drink for 15% less than we would have paid in cash!! Great for saving money - not so great for the losing weight lol. But who cares I was at Disney :-) I managed to buy Little Miss Sensible quite a few Christmas presents - and no I am not going to tell you what they are, as she will read this and find out!!!

Everything went fantastically well until the trip home!! At some point between boarding the Eurostar at Disney and getting off it again at Lille, then St Pancras I managed to lose our train tickets (London - home). I was so panicked about it, thinking that we'd never get on a train, that it would cost a fortune (rush hour Friday night!!!). But luckily we got on a earlier train than we would have travelled on, for a lot less money than I was thinking and we even got three seats together on an extremely crowded train!! Lucky or what?!?! Travelling on this earlier train also meant we were home in time to watch the final of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here :-) It was a great show only marred by the fact that Janice came second instead of J. Biggins was obviously the winner from the minute he arrived at camp - he was kind, compassionate and nice amongst a group of people who were becoming increasingly nasty and bitchy about each other. Long Live King (or should it be Queen lol) Biggins :-)