The Hurley Annual 2010

This year things have just seemed to get busier as the children get older! We took a well deserved break in the early summer to have a family holiday in Devon, and as I write we are just stripping out the old kitchen, and trying to get our new kitchen fitted before Christmas. However, I fear that we are outgrowing this house faster than we can finish renovating it! This year everyone has written their own updates for you to read. The slideshow below has the kids updates in it:

http://hurleybird.co.uk/blog/annual2010/

Hannah
I am 29. The best thing about being 29 is not being 30 yet! In between juggling the busy lives of our four rapidly growing children, working part-time in community care, running the local toddler group and serving as a youth leader at church, I endeavour to find time to read, play the piano, and try to learn the ukulele alongside Will, make and sew things, and work on the house.

Adam
I am 31. There is nothing special about being 31. I have no one favourite food, I enjoy pretty much all food. I like to cook food, eat food, read about food, photograph food, and watch other people cook food on TV. This year I bought a pizza stone for the BBQ – a sound investment in food. I changed jobs this year, and am enjoying my work again after a dreadful year at 2e2. I have a wonderful family.

Christmas

I am looking forward to Christmas. When it is Christmas instead of writing a list of toys that I want for Christmas I am going to have a surprise. I know it is 6 days till Christmas & 5 days till Christmas eve. Today it is my aunty Mools's birthday. My aunty Mools is 32. The boys bedroom is quite tidy the girls bedroom is nearly 100% tidy but right now the girls bedroom is 97% tidy. The reason why we have to tidy our rooms is because we won't have presents on Christmas if the bedrooms are tidy.

YouTube Videos

I suppose the one thing I'd never have foreseen in my children's lives is the pervasiveness of the internet. I quite frequently share with them things I've seen/read that I think they'll enjoy. Seeing as this blog is an attempt to document moments in our family life and inspired by YouTube's Rewind Page - I thought I'd put up some of the videos that have punctuated 2010 in the Hurley house.

Pogo




Very much a discovery of 2010, Will can't get enough of Pogo, but it was a big hit with all the kids. They all try to sing along - which is a feat in itself.

Simon's Cat


A huge hit with all of the kids, but especially Rufus who won't let you on the computer without pulling it up. This is one that gets requested after bathtime and just before bed. All the kids huddle round and laugh their little heads off at it!

Baba O'Riley


This isn't strictly a 2010 moment - this pre-dates Rufus. It is though very much a Saturday-morning music session with Dad. I would pick up Will and Josie and dance to this. The ending requires a lot of energy!

Will Hurley is online!

Hello! My Dad asked me to write on the blog. We created a new email address.

In the morning, we sat in Mum's car to set off to Church. When we got our seatbelts on, Mummy put the engine on and we reversing but suddenly Mum's brakes were frozen because the temperature was -3 Celsius. So we put hot water on the brakes and we tried it but it still didn't work. Soon we got off the drive and Dad told Mum to go off the path and drive forwards and then turn right then drive to the traffic lights and come back on to the drive. Then Dad decided to go in his car. We set off to Church and Mum told us to go into Church and put our coats on the peg, me to send Rufus to nursery and tell Josie to go down to Primary and me to tell the teacher in young womens that Mum would miss her lesson. When I went down the corridor, Megan Slade said "We're going to go in Josie's class because Teresa Draper is poorly". So I went into Josie's classroom and we told Caroline Chrimes stories like Daniel and the Lions and Jesus dying on the cross and other stories.

After Church, me and my brothers went in Dad's car and Josie went in my Auntie Kate's (Mools) car. Then we drove to my house and while we went in Dad's car we thought of a little race and when we reached home Dad's car won the race. When we got out of the cars I told Josie that we won the race and Josie thought that it wasn't actually a race, when it was. Then we said goodbye to the Malyons and went into our house. When we got into the house we took our shoes off. So we went into the dining room and me, Dad and Mum had the left over Domino's pizza and dip. The three dips that we had were barbecue, honey and mustard and garlic and herbs. The pizza that was leftover was Texas BBQ.

After that, Dad changed Albert's nappy when I came into the bedroom and when Dad finished Albert's nappy, Daddy started to unlock the laptop and opened a program to tune the guitar. Then Daddy started to play the guitar and the song that he played was "Silent Night".

Then Daddy remembered that I needed an account so gmail knows that I am part of gmail. Then Daddy thought of putting me on this Blog and wrote emails to my mum and dad saying that I am part of gmail and never forget that I am on gmail. Then Daddy opened up the Blogger website and let me write this Post on the Blog.

I'm now going to play Donkey downstairs with my family and I hope that I am not the Donkey.

See you soon!

Let them eat cake!

I always have to take a deep breath and dive into July, and hope to emerge at the other end with a reasonable amount of sanity intact. Not only is it the month that involves numerous school assemblies, concerts, trips, sports days and open days as the school year comes to an end, but between them my children clock up numerous birthday party invitations (currently they have one every Saturday between now and September) and other events that just fill every hourly crevice of the month. We do our own fair share of filling July with birthdays too: in the second half of July we have three in our immediate family alone - Albert who achieved his first birthday on the 16th, Rufus who turned 3 on the 28th, and Adam on the 30th. Add to that my nephew and my sister and a couple of friends, all in the last week of July, it's quite a celebratory week!

It always amuses me at how a first birthday celebration, those who are the most excited is not the birthday boy or girl themselves but virtually everyone else around them! Hounded by Will Josie and Buzz, we made sure he had presents and cards, and were all up as early as they could be (for that read: as early as Daddy allowed!) to present their gifts to a rather nonchalant Albie who as a typical 12 month old was just as interested in the paper and boxes that surrounded his gift than the gift itself. It was also interesting to note the plethora of noisy musical additions to the toy box...

In contrast to Albie, Rufus was acutely aware of his impending birthday and impressed me with his mathmatical knowledge as he counted down the days faithfully (but only down from ten, he hasn't got the fingers for more than that - or the patience!). We had planned to coincide the showing of Toy Story 3 at the cinema with Buzz's birthday and had the tickets booked. Overhearing a conversation between an excited Buzz, Josie and Will, I heard plans developing for the cinema trip to include what characters they were going to be dressed up as: Rufus as Buzz, (naturally), Josie as an alien, and Will as Woody. I laughed to myself as I listened to the discussion of what Daddy could go as. I abruptly stopped laughing as I they continued on to what Mummy was going to dress up as. Fortunately, Daddy was given 'grown-up Andy'(Jeans and T-shirt, I think we could persuade Daddy to that) and Mummy 'Andy's Mum' (the other choice was Barbie, but I think that may have required a bit too much effort, not to mention plastic surgery).

Big School

I got back late from work on Josie's first day at school. So when I woke up the next day, I asked her to tell me all about it. She did so in her own inimitable way, I'm glad I had the presence of mind to record it!

You join the story a little way in, because that presence of mind kicked in only after she'd begun.

Little English Scholars.

The English language by all accounts is a complex thing for a grown up to fully master let alone for four and five year olds. But they try...

Josie had been invited to a birthday party at 'Jolly Roger's', one of the big foam slide/tunnel/ball pit establishments here in Swindon. A brief, but heated discussion was had when Josie failed to see that clambering about on giant foam blocks was not easily accomplished whilst wearing a long flowing party dress, even for her. The scales were tipped when I informed her that everyone might see her knickers when she was climbing about. But The-Queen-of-all-that-is-pink-and-girly was only willing to compromise to a degree. Hence we ended up with her least best dress that is slightly too small and therefore not so long - with a pair of coordinating leggings on underneath... The party appeared to be a success (food, cake,and giant wobbly slides - how could it not?) and as I collected a rather tired and dishevelled Josie from the party I enquired how it had gone. With a slight hint of wishfulness she told me that Denan (the birthday girl) had been wearing a very pretty dress and had "proper clip clop shoes" and sparkles on her. Not entirely sure what that meant, I asked where she had had sparkles.
"On her arms, her cheeks and on her eye-pods"...

It was rather hot when we got back to the car after church, and since they had been fairly good the whole three hour block AND then sat through choir practice with me, I figured that we would just roll all the windows down instead of just switching on the air-con. As we pulled out they all started giggling as their hair started whipping about and I glanced back at Buzz who was grinning like a Cheshire Cat whilst trying to breathe. Now, there are two routes home - the quick way down the duel carriageway, or the slightly longer route round the houses. I realised as I pulled out that my I'm-hungry-let's-get-home-quickly auto pilot had turned right - the quick route home. As we approached the slip road, Will realising that I was about to wind the windows up before we hit 70mph yelled from the back of the car, "Mum, leave the windows down on the George Carriageway!" And you know what? I did!