Miscellaneous catchup

Time to catch up on plenty of things from the past year or so that didn't really fit into a post of their own...

Miriam continues to make excellent creations out of Lego!

This provides some inspiration for her little sisters

A couple of shots of the beautiful place we live. First, this was taken from my office window at the university. I zoomed in a bit to miss out the other buildings, but this is genuinely (normally) the view from my desk.

This is the River Forth, a few minutes' walk from our house. The "River Walk" is currently on our agenda most days. Just occasionally though, extra rain means that the path is blocked (as shown by the debris on the path)

We can go for a longer walk around the loch at the University...

We also get some pretty good sunsets around here.

Some pictures of our girls at play...

(Lydia said she wanted a sword when we were visiting Stirling Castle. So we made some...)

Grandma came to visit in February last year, just before lockdown started. Happier times indeed.

Jay was the last one to have a non-lockdown birthday

The next couple are from the day the parks reopened after the first lockdown.

Some excited girls that day!

This is the "wobbly tree" on the way to the park in Bridge of Allan. The girls really like to play under its branches and have had a lot of fun here.

Some more shots of messy church and Sunday School at home...

Lydia is now getting some big teeth. Here she is proudly sporting a "gap".

In t he summer Naomi and he friend wanted to raise money to help the snow leopards, so the set up a stall in the street selling various wares. They made a decent amount too.

Naomi really likes the band Little Mix. In the summer the had an online concert via YouTube, so Naomi and Miriam got to invite their friends around and enjoy a big night of entertainment.

Lydia can now ride a bike!

We had a little bump in our car a few months back. The major perk was that our insurance was good enough to get us a really shiny hire car while ours was getting fixed. Every trip was a big day out that week!

This swing/climbing frame had been able to absorb a lot of the excess lockdown energy.

Naomi made a portable speaker...

Ice is also fascinating!

Naomi has been doing some painting with the watercolour set she got at Christmas.

As you might expect, she's really good.

Naomi has also volunteered to help make dinner a couple of times...

Finally - the girls said they wanted a pinball machine. I don't know where they got the idea from.

It turns out that all those amazon boxes from the past few months can make a really good one! Hours of fun.

Esther Art II

 Another picture from Esther! She's getting really good.

Esther's art

 Esther has suddenly become very good at pictures! Here are a few of her creations.

Butterflies

One of our learning activities was to get some caterpillars and watch them grow. Overall a pretty successful exercise, though I think parents got more out of it than children! Having now released them, the girls see a butterfly on many of our walks that must be one of ours...

Christmas Holidays 2019

A final catchup on Christmassy things and all that went on in the holidays.

First up, the Church Nativity, where Lydia had a surprise upgrade from "shepherd" to a more central part...

All packed and ready to go!

 First, a fine walk out in the increasingly dark countryside near Granny's house.

I particularly like how moody this looks.

All set for Christmas night

Most impressed by the thanks-in-anticipation here

Just liking the irony of this one.

...and on to Christmas morning with a 7am present opening

Lydia has remained attached to this pen ever since!

and Esther LOVES here doll's buggy

On to Grandma's house and cousins to play with!

The end of a busy day. Naomi set up a little surprise for Lydia.

We had a few trips to Aden, where there are a load of new outdoor toys. Very nice!

Standard shenanigans setting up a family photo with so many small ones.

My family had a meal out a couple of days after Christmas - Esther got a massive load of ice cream!

Lots of time for fun games

We also made use of the sales to get some new school shoes: on to a good thing at John Lewis, where there is some Lego to keep everyone occupied.

Most trips north we drove along Aberdeen beach past Codona's and the girls have been consistently asking to go there for years. This time we did and they had a brilliant time!

Lydia was excellent at the penny falls 

And some treats as well.

I got this game as a present; essentially a bit like Tetris and right up my street. Hours of fun and there are two board so I hada a few races with the girls, who are impressively good at it.

Naomi set up a birthday party for me, complete with games. Here's pass the parcel.

My birthday!

Grandma's swing is still in good working order.

Another nice moody picture, this time in Grandma's front garden.

Naomi went for a nice long walk with Jay to have a bit of Mummy-Daughter time. There is now a new path between New Deer and Maud that provides a really decent walk.

Holidays nearly over, here we are back home.

Esther in her superhero costume.

Miriam had some spare clay left from making her snowglobes, so she gave me the red present here to put in my office. Here it is!

...and the extensive thankyou letter writing begins.