Two weeks on and Advent day 9

Well, I have learned a lesson from our misfortune and that is how, despite feeling everything is going downhill, you can and must always try to find the positive in the negative.
Oddly this is something I always try to tell the children, particularly when they find it difficult with someone at school who is maybe not being kind or friendly towards them, but it was good for me to take an enormous spoonful of my own medicine for once!

So, we don't have a downstairs as such to live in, however, on the upside this has meant that we are eating meals together at the table all the time and this has meant that our family table has, once more, become the focus of our family and the candles and mindfulness that this is bringing back into my approach is warming me greatly.

It means that the children are crafting more and we have gone out this weekend as a family as we can't really sit in the house for long periods.

It has also given us a blank canvas to start again on the home that we are creating, this time we will be able to do the things we had wanted to do initially but time and money to an extent, were in the way. We will put down a proper wooden floor rather than laminate, the ghastly attempt at Tuscanesque/1950's pub plasterwork, will now become clean white, flat plaster, that just shows the leans and bends in the quirkiness of the house, rather than looking like a rather grim attempt to plaster when inebriated. The rug that I loved so much from the USA, will now be replaced by a very traditional braided Blue Mountain rug that really screams USA to me and we 'may' take the fact we're in a mess to get the black beams stripped back as

NOT our house, but wouldn't that be nice....just the rug I want

well...but I may have to work on Mr Beehive for that!

We may not have a tree or decorations in the house this year, but we went on the train early this morning to try to lift our spirits and get in the festive mood. We decided to visit the Birmingham-Frankfurt Christmas market.

007, eat ya heart out!

It was Mr Beehive's birthday yesterday and, given that we'd spent the day taxi-ing the boys and the Little Miss here there and everywhere (including Master Beehive the elder's first ball  - yeah, tux and a small tear, my boy, growing up so fast!), we decided that today was daddy's day and we'd spoil him with Gluhwein and Bratwursts!



Little Miss bought him a gorgeous snowflake candle spinning decoration. Many years ago my grandmother had one with cherubs on it that she would (or rather I would) put out on the mantelpiece each Christmas and it was the highlight of my days after school, to run home and fight with my sister to be the one to light it. As the heat rose from the candles it spun around making a cute ting, ting as it hit the little bell. When she died I think it went to my sister (I was sad!) but somehow we managed to find an identical one, so I now have that one and there is this little one for Mr Beehive too. He also bought a wonderful wooden carousel that does the same, only it is wood and has little figures. We won't be using it this Christmas, but it'll look lovely in our 'renovated' home next year!
So here are some photos of our day

So much candy, so little time!

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I hope you're getting in the spirit of Advent, Christmas, Yule!