26th December 2007
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My my Evan, haven't you grown :)
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Today was Evan's 3rd birthday and most of his birthday
presents had survived the Christmas day attempts by Evan
to open more presents than he was supposed to. We had
his uncle Neil, aunty Pascale and Izzy the dog join us
today and we had lots of fun. Evan adores Izzy and as
usual he wouldn't leave her alone. I bought him a car
play mat for his birthday and Izzy became rather
attached to it, using it as a bed to sleep on when she
was tired.
The house will never be quiet again.. What is it with
noisy toys being the most fun! It would be easier to
count the toys that made no noise than the toys that
made noises! So many toys required batteries this year,
I think it's time to invest in a rechargeable battery
pack. Evan seemed to thoroughly enjoy Christmas Day and
his birthday on Boxing Day, it was lovely to see him
actually understanding what was going on this year.
25th December 2007
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Finally the waiting is over!
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It's Christmas! Evan was really into Christmas this year,
it started as soon as I put up the Christmas tree. Within
minutes he had been investigating the new addition to our
living room and ended with him knocking the tree over. I was
sitting at the table and saw it all happen in the patio
window reflection. It didn't completely fall, because Evan
somehow managed to catch it :). The tree looked a little
ruffled by the time I rescued it.
Evan knew it was Christmas and Birthday time this year and if
you asked him how old he was going to be, he would quite
happily tell you 3!
I was woken up at 3am on Christmas morning by Evan
announcing that he was awake and ready to open presents. He
was a little upset when I appeared from my mum's bedroom to
direct him back to bed for a few hours, he cried and
objected at first, but soon returned to the bed in my
brother's bedroom that he was using.
He got up again shortly after 7am but this was a more
respectable hour. We chose a smallish looking present for
him to open and play with to keep him amused until the real
opening of presents occurred later on that morning.
This year we must have chosen well because it took Evan a
while to get through his presents as he insisted on playing
with every toy for a good 30 minutes before opening the next
:).
24th December 2007
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Is that a cake?
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Birthday Cake Fun! I tried to find a Roary the Racing
car cake this year for Evan, but was unsuccessful in my
attempts to get one made. So once again it fell on my
hands to do the baking myself :). I should have learned
from the recent failure to make cup cakes that embarking
on a real sized cake would ultimately fail on a much
bigger scale..
Evan and I were visiting Grandma this Christmas so we
decided to take all the baking ingredients and cook the
cake at her house. I realised my mistake with the cup
cakes was that I should have used self-raising flour
instead of plain flour. It was an American recipe and I
thought all-purpose flour meant plain!
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Now that's more like it!
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I thought it would be a great idea to attempt to make a
Red Velvet Cake even though I have never seen one in
real life before. I followed all the instructions but
became somewhat concerned when it said mix the eggs (yes
plural) into the cake mixture. "hmmmm, but the recipe
only says 1 eggs" - is that a typo on the plural part or
on the number part? I decided to just use 1 egg, oh boy,
was I wrong... Cakes are supposed to rise, correct? Mine
didn't, it looked like a biscuit and tasted horrible. We
had to ditch the Red Velvet attempt and instead sent my
brother up the shop to get some more ingredients and my
mum made a new cake for us to use instead.
14th December 2007
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Evan models his King outfit.
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"I bring myrrh" That was the line that Evan had to say in
his nursery nativity play this year. Evan didn't falter when
he appeared on the stage in his homemade King outfit. I
wasn't sure when asked to supply the outfit whether he would
wear it because he usually reacts funnily to odd looking
clothes, but he really embraced this nativity play. He
wanted to wear his King's crown every day :).
Evan will be moving up to the Butterfly room at nursery when
we return from the Xmas holiday. He has been having odd half
day visits leading up to the end of term to help him
transition easily. He will be reunited with his old play
buddies Jos and Bradley. We'll miss his favourite member of
the nursery staff Lucy who will remain in the Caterpillar
room that he is moving up from.
2nd December 2007
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Is this going to have a happy ending?
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This has been an odd month for the Middlebrook's, the
month started with some high and low points. Evan had
another birthday party to go to, this time in the theme
of Fireman Sam, which he loved. He had lots of fire
engines to play with. Once again he seemed interested in
playing with the toys and not actually getting involved
with the party games going on.. I guess he just likes
playing with the toys! It's all about familiarity.
Hopefully as he gets older, he'll be more interested in
the actual party events. He does like going to parties
though; is always excited leading up to the big day.
He'd like it even more if he could help unwrap the
presents :)
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They seemed to like it!
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Other news from our household is the separation between
Caroline and I. We have ended our 10 year relationship
this month, which sees her heading back to Essex to be
closer to her family and the inevitable sale of our family
home. I'm hoping the housing market hangs in there
whilst we sell our house. I was hoping that Caroline
would remain a key figure in Evan's life but because of
his age, she believes he is still young enough to forget
about her and as a result of that, has chosen to not
continue her parenting role. It's sad, but I respect her
decision and will not try to convince her to change her
mind.
