Well, we survived the weekend (just). Ellie had her first nursery outing on Friday morning and I (as well as many of the other Mums) was a bit nervous. This was the first time she'd been so far from me and not with a relative or friend so it was a big moment for us both. The nursery trip was to The Snowman at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, and when she got back, she told me she loved it (phewww).

We had a great visit with Katie, Ben and Sam on Friday afternoon. First we met in Ikea and the 3 older kids went into the creche so that Katie and I could have a coffee in peace. Bliss, we actually managed to finish a conversation without interruptions.

After Ikea, we moved to Braehead and had lunch and a wander about the shops enjoying the lights.

Saturday we had to go to the tip. We have a HUGE pile of crap building up in our garage and most of it's packaging from Xmas pressies. After the tip, we went back to Braehead to the Singing Kettle Xmas show which the girls really loved. We had crap seats to begin with but during the interval we moved farther back and had fab views for the remainder of the show.

Sunday was lovely. We had the panto in Edinburgh arranged by Granny Clark. This is Granny's Xmas gift to her great grandchildren and they were ALL there with her which was lovely. Not many 86 year olds could manage such an event but she seemed to love it, as did the kids. We had a bit of trauma afterwards with the kids being naughty, but Mike had words with them when I took them home and they were good for the rest of the day.

Oh, I nearly forgot. For a while, we've been talking about getting a new laptop as ours is struggling a bit and not working well with MSN which is crucial for us moving. Anyway, whilst at Braehead on Saturday, we popped into PC World and while there, decided that we'd get more for our money with a desktop so we have ordered one from Dell which should arrive before the end of the year. As a result of this decision, we have moved all the kids toys up to the spare room and turned that into their new playroom. The upshot of that is that the room downstairs in now a proper study and it looks amazing. It's so much tidier coming into the house and seeing that, rather than a room with toys spilling out all over the place. The girls seem quite happy to have a bigger room for playing in too so it's a winner all round.

We have a couple of Xmas parties this week coming, and we've arranged to go visit Jim and Moira on Saturday which we're all looking forward too. It'll be nice to see them before Xmas as their house will be full on Boxing Day and probably a bit chaotic.