(I plan to 'pretty up' this page but am rushing - as ever - sorry. Just realised that the posted Christmas Cards & letters will start arriving and I had not done the photos!)

Here is our Christmas Letter with extra photos ~ More to follow
(Most of these photos are part of my profile images on Epilepsy Support and be viewed as a slideshow )
Iplan to attach them here direct when I can)

(Time at the Stables~very sweet, Mushroom~very cute & Swimming~rather funny photos to follow (plus everything else that I can think of!)

When we first started thinking about our Christmas letter, we realised that everything that we felt was interesting or exciting; is something that the children have done or something that we have done as a family or something that is associated with something that the children do.

So we'll get the boring bit done first!
Mark is still a programmer and because work is now so close (on a good day a 10-15 minutes journey) he gets home a lot earlier than he used to and is even able to pop home for lunch sometimes!

Jane is still a teacher at the same infant school in Ilford (which is 1 bus + 2 trains + a bit of a walk each way) but as she is working part time (Tuesdays & Wednesdays) it's not that bad (although the getting up at 5.30am is not great). Wednesdays are like Fridays much to the irritation of colleagues when they are wished a good weekend.

Now for everything associated with the Children.
While Jane is at work Jane's parents look after the children. The children are very lucky to be able to spend so much time with them and when it is the school holidays they miss them when they have not seen them for a few days but truth be told the most exciting thing for the Hannah and Amber Dawn are their visits to help Nanny, Grandad and Aunty Paula with the horses.

They are now experts at 'doing the woodchips' (breaking up the compacted bundles of woodchips used as bedding by the horses). Aunty Paula has now bought them each 2 grooming brushes and has been showing them how to groom.		As well as the fun with the horses, playing golf with Aunty Paula, riding up and down on Jane's old scooter on the yard, rides in Grandad's little blue truck and lots of wheelbarrow rides ("Faster, Faster!" - poor Grandad in particular now that they are getting bigger!)

It was an extra exciting day at the stables when Aunty Paula showed Hannah and Amber Dawn, teddy sitting on Charlie. Hannah wanted a go to and so she got on for a turn. Nanny tipped Jane off about the event but when she asked Hannah if anything exciting happened at the stables that day, she was told that Amber Dawn dropped her biscuit on the floor in the tack room but she did not drop hers (oh, not the answer expected) Amber Dawn being a lot smaller is far more cautious around them (the horses not the biscuits) and does not want to sit on Charlie (yet).

Now that Amber Dawn is older she has been able to join in some of the exciting things that she's watched her big sister do. They both go to Tumble Tots but their classes are not consecutive so there is a lot of hanging around / playing in the playground which is ok until it is freezing cold or pouring rain / trips to Asdas. Hannah has swimming (photos to follow soon) lessons on Fridays (which Mark comes to watch in his lunch hour) and Amber Dawn has her lesson on Saturdays with Daddy.

When Amber Dawn first started swimming she was fine on her tummy but when she had to go on her back she screamed. Even when Mark & the swimming teacher got her on her back, she'd lock her legs and feet rigid straight up in the air at 90° angle to her back in the water. Very, very, very funny to watch but not for poor Mark in the pool with her. Mark has decided that he does not want to be the one in the water with Amber Dawn for her swimming badge assessment. Having decided that swimming on her back is not so horrific she is now refusing to swim on her front. All the other smiley relaxed parents, with their happy excited young children; together with Amber Dawn screaming and yelling face bright red with rage and poor Mark scarlet crimson in embarrassment (Needless to say we are not expecting her to win her next badge!) We were very proud of Hannah getting her 3rd swimming badge (step 5 Amelia 1) on Friday but Amber Dawn has missed a couple of weeks a bit of relief from Mark there.

Hannah also goes to Mushroom Theatre Company (more photos to follow soon). She was a little lion cub in the Lion King during the summer show, we were worried that she might be too young (although she was not the youngest) but we are so glad that we did let her do the show. It was absolutely fantastic. When we watched the performance she was the only person who when the curtain was drawn, left standing on the wrong side of the curtain. It was great, so her! More interested in what other people are doing and not concentrating on what she needed to do.

One of the performances was recorded and put on DVD. You can tell which of the identically dressed lions (with white make up round their nose and mouth and black nose and whiskers drawn on top) is Hannah, she the little lion walking along with her turned to look at all the other performers on stage and away from the audience. Typical Hannah which is one of the reasons why for us it was so great.

For Jane the most moving thing for her was watching the way that people responded to one of the members of the cast who had had a seizure and had fell into the audience. She was treated with such dignity, nobody panicked, nobody fussed, those nearest were there for her and everyone else just got on with the show. There is a real sense of community with Mushroom, everyone pitches in and does different things. Mark volunteered to do the Mushroom and Equal People websites (initially it was supposed to be a joint thing but it's definitely his Baby while Jane's is definitely Epilepsy Support.) Penni who began the Mushroom Theatre Company also started up the Equal People charity to raise funds to build a disabled accessible community theatre. Lee Mead the winner from the TV show for the star role in Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat is a former pupil of Penni is the patron of Equal People.

		She has just done the winter show (other than the intro (where everyone was singing Queen's 'We will rock you!')
	she did 'The Twist' and danced around the stage finding butterflies, picking them up and lifting them up and letting them fly off again, dancing to the music of 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'. The idea for the show came from the Wizard of Oz, mixed with some ABBA and more Queen songs. We are so glad that we started taking Hannah to Mushroom, it is very good for her. Hannah was on stage with: older children, children with learning difficulties, children with Downs Syndrome and people wheel chair bound. Everyone was dancing and enjoying performing. Watching people doing somersaults and vaulting over people, people doing wheelies as they travel the length of someone lying down…. Words can't describe properly how it was.

We are very lucky that both the Swimming and Mushroom are within walking distance of our house. Although not officially a member of the Mushroom (i.e. we don't yet have to pay for her!) Amber Dawn joins in with most of each session. The only things that she can't do are things like skipping (why does there always seem to me loads of it) where her little legs physically just can't keep up with the speed of the older children. She has a go but when they are skipping round either of us have to basically lug her round travelling at roughly the same speed as the other children. (Neither of us are up to skipping around whilst holding her, our job is to avoid a traffic jam!) Amber Dawn can Blues Brother 'bend over let me see you shake your tail feather'; 'The Locomotion' (which is hysterical watch because by the end of it the train has broken up and is going all different directions - often partly caused by Hannah when she is not looking at the person infront of her and heads off as the new leader) and 'Dingle Dangle Scarecrow' with the best of them!

Hannah goes to pre-school 3 days a week and will start 'big school' in September L it has gone so quick! We had a look round 3 local schools and had to register our preferences by the beginning of this month. Hannah is really, really, really excited about going to big girl school and she wants to go to the same school as her friends from pre-school that started this September. (She does not understand that they will be a different class to her). When Hannah starts Reception class, Amber Dawn will start at pre-school. Which will seem really weird the thought of 1 of us (because Mark will be at work) getting the house alone for a couple of hours seems really strange.

We have done other stuff as a family this year we went to Tropical Wings (with lots of butterflies) which fascinated Amber Dawn. We have been before but this time Hannah did not really like it, too many butterflies flying too close for her.

They both loved Colchester Zoo (more photos to be added soon), penguins were popular with them both but Amber Dawn's favourite animals were the giraffes. Nanny & Aunty Paula loved it to.

We also went back to Southend Sealife centre where Amber Dawn touched a real starfish during a rock pool talk (n.b. It was part of the talk). We walked along the mud and pebbles on Southend Seafront. Hannah is absolutely desperate to go to the (real) seaside, fingers crossed for next year.

We took the children to Hanningfield reservoir (photos to follow soon) this autumn. They had a couple of 'hides' to watch the birds on the water. We went in with the children clutching their toy binoculars, there already were a couple of birdwatchers, with their huge telescopic lenses on their cameras and sitting silently, peering out the windows. Well, Hannah pipes up in a very loud voice, "I can see a penguin!" The very serious twitcher next to us (who had been trying to ignore our family and concentrate on the fowl on the water) sat trying to stifle his snigger / giggles. We were just about to go into the other hide when a couple came out (clutching their huge cameras) the woman said I would not try to go in there, it's full of twitchers because someone has spotted a rare Purple Scoter. As she walked away Mark said well there would have been even more people in the other one, if they'd known that Hannah had seen a penguin there.

More family photos - Barleylands Show