Not quite a calendar month since my last entry but running a little late never the less! At least I can blame it on the time of year, 3 birthdays and Xmas makes a rather manic last couple of months of the year.

Life has been a bit strained lately, physically and emotionally draining and I'm hoping that the end of the year may bring some closure, whilst the new year will bring some clarity. I have a lot to think about between now and then for sure but I'm confident things will be easier then. At the moment I seem to have so much on my plate that sometime I just feel like doing nothing but hide away and this week is certainly one of those times.

Once again, the Navy interrupted Petes leave. We got a call telling him that he was to fly out and meet the boat. It's only a few weeks and they're currently on their way back home for Xmas (fingers crossed) but the timing is a bit shitty. It's the second time he's tried to get the hallway decorated and been called back early. Hopefully I'll get the painting done before he comes home but the wallpaper will have to wait....again! Such a shame because it's the first opportunity that he's had to take his untaken leave for four years and once again it's interrupted. Oh well, life in a blue suit eh? The other drawback though is missing Emilys birthday.

....my little Einstein is six today (or 'almost seven' if you listen to her). We have a little party planned for this evening with a few family members coming round but nothing too crazy. Luckily none of the little ones are home til 6 so i've got plenty of prep time for it. It's been a mad rush of it today as everything was put on hold for pay day and so today it's been sorting bills, getting presents, food, road tax and starting to switch my attention toward Christmas.

With money tight, the kids won't be getting much, although that doesn't worry them in the least but I'm hoping that this time next year we'll be in a much better position although we will have to get a new car next year as Billy Bongo is becoming more unreliable.

It also looks like Pete will be working Xmas day which means he will probably leave here at about 8 on xmas morning and won't be home til around 9ish on Boxing day. That is going to feel a bit strange. I'm in two minds as to whether to postpone everything by a day although I don't think the girls will let me get away with that one.

I started pulling my scrap stuff out last night. I made a few simple cards for Christmas just to ease myself back into things. I remember how it was a way of helping me unwind so I'm hoping to do a bit more over the coming weeks. I'll post some bits hopefully this week.

The girls all seem to be doing well though. I had my first brief meeting with Freyas form tutor at school which was just an informal five minute thing to see how they had settled and when I walked in he said 'Freya really stands out'. He could tell by the fiery look in my eyes that he then needed to add...'in a good way'! She's enjoying it (although not the amount of homework), has made great friends and is generally loving being at the comp. Her work has been excellent and she's got a bronze commendation for the amount of commendation slips she's received so far plus a postcard sent home from one teacher praising her work she's done in her lessons. I'm really proud of her as I set the rule before she went that during the week she gets her head down and keeps on top of things leaving the weekends mostly free and she's stuck to that.

She has been going out weeknights if she's up to date with her homework and has been darting between the two youth clubs, talking about boys constantly and explaining to me what's cool and what's not (although purely by me saying 'cool' is probably 'uncool'!) She certainly had a good weekend last week as I took her and a friend to watch Lily Allen in the Pavilions. Considering Ms Allen was suffering from laryngitis she gave a top notch performance. Then on Sunday she went with her friend to watch New Moon or whatever it's called.....I dunno, I haven't even watched Twilight!

A couple weekends ago we went to the China Fleet for a HMS Torbay family get together. My friend Kath was a star and took the girls in the swimming pool for me (bathing suits aren't something you'll see me in in the near future). Natasha managed half an hour before deciding she wanted out, Emily lasted a half hour after that which surprised me as she's a real water babe.

Whilst I got the little ones dried and changed, Kath made Freya swim lengths using only her legs and that seemed to push her somewhat....she'll do it again if I tell her it will give her buns of steel! After all that hard work it was a gorgeous carvery and the kids cleaned their plates. Then off to work off some more calories at the park and on the bouncy castles.

So off I go to get the food and decs ready for tonight...who knows, maybe even squeeze in a couple more cards?!

OMG!

You know the blog that I found the other day where I entered a photo of Emily in her Little Miss Sunshine outfit? Well I got placed 9th out of over 300 and among that are professional photographers too!

How pleased am I? I'm gonna grab myself one of the girls sticky stars and wear it all day! I even get a special blinkie to put on my blog! COOOOOOOOOL

The hangover...

not just from last night (and to be honest thats more to do with tiredness than alcohol as I behaved impecibly again) but from the whole half term. It's been a crazy one certainly.

There has been so much going on what with birthdays etc. Freya had Paige down to sleep the middle of the week for a couple nights. They both went to the local youth club...a different one from where Freya normally goes but they enjoyed themselves and seemed to have fun catching up. Watching them get all dolled up to go out was quite amusing too.

Shame they seemed to have a bit of a barny before she left though when they were coming out of swimming which I didn't find out until after I'd dropped Paige off. What is it with girls?

Then of course it was all prep for the Halloween bash. Myself and Pete (well, mostly Pete) did our pumpkins on Friday afternoon and then Freya did another on Friday night. It's Petes first go at carving as he's missed the last few halloweens but I loved them all...hidden talent there I think.

Freya did the vampire biting the womans neck one, although you have to get your eyes to go lazy to see it...or at least I do. Cracking job though and I know she was really proud of it.

We stayed up on Friday night to get the playroom 'spookified' and did a great job. We had all sorts of nastiness hanging from the ceiling, cobwebs, spiders, spooky music, smoke machine, gravestones and stuff and went to bed happy knowing the kids were going to love it. I also covered the walls of the hallway in fake blood....luckily we're decorating it next week so it wasn't really an issue...just a moment of madness.

I did take plenty of photos but don't like to upload ones of the girls friends unless their parents are ok with it and as I haven't asked permission i'll err on the side of caution. But we had a fab time with Emily saying 'This is the best halloween party EVER' several hundred times during the course of the evening.

Myself and Pete were a zombie bride and Death. Pete did have a voice changer thing but it was absolute pants and we disposed of that pretty quickly. I even relented and had my photo taken......urrghhhhh!

The girls all looked great and I'm so pleased I got decent facepaint as it was so much easier to do. Not that I'm an artistic genius...far from it, but it certainly looked better than previous years efforts. Freya just wanted to look a bit dark, so we kind of did her make up like Pink in the 'Please Don't Leave Me' video where she goes all weird! She looked very dark but funky.

Emilys facepaint was probably the best though. I was really pleased with hers and she looked great.......at least until the apple bobbing where it all came off and she looked a bit streaky.

Natasha on the other hand had to be a 'beautiful witch' and refused to have green facepaint...it had to be pink, white and glittery! I just do as I'm told. She did look adorable though and the night has certainly taken it out of her as she's currently next to me zonked out and snoring on my bed.

We played hangmans donuts, dress the mummy, balls in a cup and apple bobbing. The kids all made their own toffee apples and decorated them to take home with them along with their goody bags of gruesomeness.


My sister, Sheree and her chap Jay turned up with the neice and nephew. Sheree looked a little too sexy to be scary and she lost her wig later in the night to Natasha.

As for Jay......I'm still trying to work out what his painted face reminds me of....i'm sure it's some character from a computer game...some kind of weird ghost ghoul thing! Mind you, he looks better here than he did first thing this morning!

Freyas friend Kate arrived and they took the younger ones trick or treating whilst we cleared up after the school friends had all gone home. When I say 'clear up' I mean that in the loosest possible way as I'm still dealing with the fallout now. They returned with stocked up goody bags and enough sweets to see them through at least til Xmas.

Come 7.30, it was just us, my sis, the cousins and Freya's mate. Sheree brought over a pinatta (not sure of the spelling but as this is something completely alien to Europeans I'll assume you'll let that one slip!) This was apparently going to be a sedate pinatta as you pull strings rather than bash the poor thing to bits with big sticks......

....however, that did not go to plan as as soon as the sweets started raining from the skies there was the inevitable scramble of kids on the floor, diving into them as if they hadn't seen a sweet in their life! Flailing arms, legs, bumped heads and tears later it was time to open the bottles and fire up the PS3 with the singstar.

The house today is eerily quiet. Everyone is knackered. The rest of the family have gone home and although most of the mess is gone, I'm sure to be finding Halloween confetti for the next week or so. Freya is finishing off some homework for the week and Pete is probably mentally preparing himself for the amount of decorating he has to do over the next few weeks. The headache is starting to kick in and so it's definately an early night here tonight.

So it's off to get the uniforms pressed for the morning and finish the last of the housework (at least downstairs anyway) and hide the mountain of sweets so that the kids don't try to eat them all in one go.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. x