Crashing into the new year, toddler chaos, kid activities, weekends, and the ongoing search for the potentially imaginary "downtime"

I'm definitely not feeling any sort of "new year energy" - I think for me that maybe comes in August?  I wish I had it in January, but mostly I feel like new year more sleep (not a goal, a biological necessity).

Return to school and work has been... fine.  I think my brain is broken and I probably should have taken a sick day or something because I definitely did not perform at 100%, or even 30% this week.  I feel like I started to get into my work at about 11am this morning and now it's the weekend (in this context, 3 days of childcare) and I am already lacking in patience for kid shenanigans.

The 5 & 7 year old are also tired from their reentry into school.  This afternoon Lily did the classic crying walk home from afterschool club where she was freezing cold (because it was raining and freezing) but could only take one tiny step at a time (because she was tired) hence becoming more cold, and more wet, and more tired.  But - FYI - she was certainly not tired at 7:30 bedtime.  She told me.

The twins are completely thriving with our nanny.  She does all the amazing toddler focused play and chat that bores me to tears.  I am trying to figure out how to use more nanny help to destress my life, but even if we ask her to work on a weekend we still need to find something for the big kids.  Also, the dream for Rachel hobbies is quiet time in the house, which necessitates kids out of the house.  I think in the summer we will be at the age that we could perhaps ask her to take all the kids to the park... but for now there's just a lot of kids at home.  All the time.

Also, our house is a clutter chaotic mess.  We've used January sales to top up on things we need, but not yet put all these things away.  For instance, we bought new shelves for the kids rooms, but the one thing you certainly can't do with kids around is put up shelves.  

I was listening to a podcast where someone said "it gets harder as it gets easier" and I feel that is where we are at with the twins.  They are easier - they don't need constant 100% attention or they will die - but they are harder.  They need stimulation and they have opinions.  Clara does NOT want to get in her car seat sometimes and it's nearly impossible to get her in.  Aubrey will ONLY WEAR TIGHTS AND A JUMPER and I cannot seem to explain that tights are not leggings or trousers and need to be worn with a dress.  Andy is way better at doing 2 year old life, but I find it tricky.

Also, on the theme of ever diminishing "me" time, we signed up for weekend kid activities.  After being a weekend activity-free family for 7 years the kids started tennis lessons in November.  They love it.  I love them running around.  I love having a bit of structure to the weekend.  I like the other families in tennis lessons.  

BUT... our weekends now have a Saturday morning activity that is definitely not for all 4 kids.  So we split the kids, but then neither parent gets down time.

Because I am a glutton for bad scheduling, I signed the big kids up for a trial of small class swim lessons on Sundays... at 9am.  Again, single kid activity, which means neither parent gets downtime on Sunday morning either

Further decreasing the downtime is that we have double birthday parties this weekend - Ezra and Lily have one on Saturday afternoon (it's Ezra's classmate, but I asked if Lily could come for logistical reasons) and then Lily has one on Sunday afternoon (at the same place as the Saturday party.  It's a gymnastics party, which is actually a pretty decent kid party venue).

All weekend slots are now taken up with activities such that, even if it were possible for one parent to watch 4 kids, we don't have any time in which to do this.  I foresee a downtime-less weekend.

No wonder I am so tired every Monday.

Maybe also if I can't do the stuff I like, I may as well like the stuff I do.  I may as well enjoy watching my kids learn to swim and maybe have some nice parent chats at the party.  I've invited some new friends over for a play date on Saturday morning while the big kids are at tennis, they have one two year old so our two year olds can play together.  It's not as good as a long run or a bike ride or being in the house alone, but, as my dad would say, "it's better than a punch in the face, depending on who is doing the punching".

I don't really get that saying either.

Oh, and a photo to leave you with!  This is the classic online grocery order.  I ordered one leek and one zucchini.  And obviously I wanted a leek 3 times the size of the zucchini right???  What is this monster Leek?

Sunday random - cold snap, house projects, hairbrush, misc shopping.

Well we made it to Sunday everyone.  16 days off work.  I did enter the holiday with a bit of fear, and it turns out it was well founded fear because that wasn't the best holiday ever.  16 days in the winter is a lot of winter days.

I didn't get any sports in this week, I didn't do any planning, I didn't set any goals.  The house is kind of a tip (british for a mess)

I did go swimming with the kids a few times (not my favourite activity but an essential life skill) and on Saturday I took Lily to my favourite soft play with Aubrey and Clara and I enjoyed a peppermint mocha (first and last of the season, not sure I like the drink as much as I like the idea of the drink).

It's been brutally cold (for cardiff) hovering at around freezing.  There is a snow and ice warning today.  I can tell it's been cold because £30 is a lot to keep a house at 18c/65f during the day for 4 days:

Also, I did start another house project... because why not.  

Our lounge has long annoyed me.  It photographs well, but the curtains are A LOT.  They reflect the fact that we decorated in November.  

They looked good in November.  I finally found a new pair of curtains I liked enough, but it was £200.  Luckily it was down to £150 in the January sales! So I ordered the curtains in Sage.  When we hung it up it was a definite improvement, but I should have also tried Olive as the color was not perfect.  So I have now ordered the same curtains in Olive and carefully repackaged the Sage ones so we can return one... but in the interim my lounge now looks like this

Not ideal.

Also, I ordered a new hairbrush! Here is my current brush, was which gifted to me by my grandma when I was in high school:

I spent a LONG time looking at brushes.  I think the one that is most similar is this:

But that seemed super expensive and I couldn't face paying for shipping.  I also thought maybe a round ceramic brush would be a good idea?  Maybe the type of brush grandma bought when I was 12 isn't definitely the right type for the rest of my life?

So I bought this one:

And this one:

In unrelated news... We are currently borrowing a Air Frier.

I am not sure what to do with this air frier.  Andy used it to reheat a mince pie and it cooked it very fast! I am not sure we will keep it since we need counter space, but before we give it back i want to try cooking some things in it.  So far my ideas are

• Something with Tofu
• Aubergine/Eggplant thing?
• Salmon

Does anyone have an love an air frier and can send me your favorite recipe you use it for?  Is this like asking "What should I put in a slow cooker"? 

I'm back in work tomorrow, which I am feeling OK about.  I think it will be a hard day because the twins have gotten very used to having me around and are in a definitely mommy phase.  The big kids have started sleeping late.  I'm not looking forward to getting out the door, or the crying.  I'm not feeling at all rested after using almost 2 weeks of annual leave.  But whether I'm rested or enthusiastic or not, work starts at 8am and I'll have to remind myself that everyone probably feels much the same.

Goals Goals Goals! A Review of 2025 (spoiler alert - not done is the dominant theme)

 Oh Hey! 2025 is over! Let's have a review of my goals and how I did...

First, I think I only have one goals post from last year, and it's here.  I had a lot more goals than this, but apparently never got to blogging them.  So... how did I do?

Personal

Paint my Nails Monthly
    Yes. I've been pretty good about this... mostly if I can do it during a work meeting on teams.

Train for a 1/2 Marathon
    Yes. I trained and ran it.  I'm not super pleased with how the race went, or being really ill the week beforehand, or doing only 2 of the 3 training runs a week... but I did it.

Improve Accessory Situation.
    Nope. Have not bought, worn, or thought about this.

Strength Train 100 time
    Nope.  I did 85. Oh well.

Ride 50 miles in one weekend
    Nope. Did not do this or find a weekend where I could even try this.

Buy a blazer or jacket to classy up work clothes
    Nope. work clothes are sort of worse than ever.

Take a skills class at bike park wales
    Nope. I just couldn't find a day for it.

Go To Paris
    Nope. Postponed to next year or the year after or some other time

Take a bread making course
    Nope.

Take 15 in person yoga classes
    Nope.  But also the yoga studio I liked closed down.  I did 6.

Learn to style my hair, buy a new hairbrush, and potentially a new hairdryer
    Medium I got a hair drier, learned nothing about my hair, and even my husband thinks I need a new brush because now about 30% of the bristles are missing from my existing hair brush.

Professional

Grow professional network - reach out to 5 people

    Poor. I reached out to 1.  We had a good call and then nothing happened and neither of us pursued anything.

Spend 90 minutes a month on personal learning courses. 
    Nope. 

Document Successes Weekly and Monthly
    Medium... I have a bit of a monthly review going but work was weird and intense.

Mentor other people - figure out step forward for mentoring

    Medium - I had a mentee! For a few weeks until she quit.  So I guess that's not really a success and I haven't had headspace to move forward on this at all.

Family

Overnight trip with Ezra
    Nope.

Overnight trip with Lily
    Yes! Went to Bath

12 Adventures with Andy
    Yes... sort of.  Some of the adventures were a drink or lunch.  But I did manage to fit in 12 things that we did, including indoor climbing and a trip to Bike Park Wales.

See a theatre show with Andy or kids
    Yes - I saw a few this year, Andy and I went to Banff film festival.  I took the kids to a pretty average kids production of The Frog Prince.  We went to a kids ballet in Feb as well. 

House

Hang art in the office

    Yes... and then we moved rooms and now I still need to hang art in the house (there's less art than the end of last year)

Replace toilet paper holder downstairs

    Nope.

Improve lighting - buy a new lamp

    Nope.  If anything it's actually worse than last year, we now have light fixtures we don't like which also have burned out bulbs because we intend to replace them but haven't.

Replace bath panel

    Yes - but the new one we got (which was $$$!) is already falling apart so that is a mid fail.

----

So... that was a year of random goals rarely achieved.  But even so, many of those goals were to dos, and they can stick on the to do list this year.

Because I am in a January funk I don't really have many goals for this coming year yet.  Which is fine, because days pass and at some point I can make goals again.  Maybe surviving 2 year old twins (and hopefully making some nice memories with the 5 and 7 year old!) for another year will be success enough.

It was the blergest times, it was the blargest times.

Daria commented on my last post with "do you ever get mad" which made me laugh out loud.  Yes I do get mad.

I haven't posted in the last few days because now I am finally experiencing the standard winter "everything sucks".

Since getting back from holiday I feel exhausted, behind on everything, and generally joyless.  Kids have had some bad days and I have had moments where I wish the floor would swallow me alive and then at least I wouldn't have to be standing in IKEA while Aubrey screams on the floor and Clara runs to the exit.

This is partially my fault too... on the day after we got back Andy went for an all day bike ride (well, to 3pm).  The twins only napped an hour in that time.  The kids were generally fractious.  I think I used all the energy needed for the second week of school holidays in that 7 hour chunk of time and now I have nothing left.

That afternoon I took the big kids to a local toy store to spend their £30 gift cards.  It was super cute and fun but we were late and a bit rushed.  While there I saw another family of four, who I would guess were ranged in age from 12 to 7, possibly with twins as well.  They were having a nice time and the mom looked super calm and while it gave me hope it also made me want to just crawl in a hole and wait 5 years until maybe I won't be the chaos family.

I usually love the age of 2 because toddlers become little people with goals and they can sometimes be reasoned with and they get more independent and it's great.  but two two year olds is, like all double things, just a lot.  I feel like we are now getting to a point where I can do less than I could before... and I could barely do anything before.  I used to load them up and go to sainsburys, but last time Clara took down a rack of boots while Aubrey rearranged the pyjama display and the big kids asked for grapes and mango and then no one would get in the cart and it was just... impossible.

Sometimes I'm having impossible times and people offer me help (like getting me a twin trolly at the shop) and now I mostly find myself having the kid of impossible times where everyone steps away (like when Aubrey laid on the floor of the IKEA line and wouldn't move towards check out and instead everyone went around me so I was further in the back of the checkout queue than I started)

Another thing - and maybe this is all because of the awful IKEA trip (which Andy was there for as well, FYI, and it wasn't as scarring for him) is that I don't really get the chance to think about anything if I am out with the kids.  We bought Skadis Pegboards (I have dreamed of owning one of these for years!) and because I can't think I just grabbed a million accessories and then we ended up spending £200 at IKEA because I had no ability to think about what we needed or the price or anything.  This is why I do all my shopping online, but online shopping requires time, and I got up at 6am to try and order a lampshade and instead I wrote a blog and now I can hear a toddler awake.

And I will caveat that all of this is fine because I am literally complaining about buying pegboards and lots of people have real problems and real troubles that are not an inability to pick out a light fixture.

So yes, I do get mad.  Sometimes at the kids (we have family visiting this week and the big kids spent 20 minutes shouting at each other in the car in front of the guests and so I took away the presents the guests had gotten them and I am still mad about it).  Sometimes at the twins (why are they awake at 6:30???!) and often at everything at once because this wasn't really what I signed up for (not that anyone signs up for what parenting is).  

And yes, I'm relying on this post not existing when my kids are old enough to read.

Christmas Recap 2025 - a not bad Christmas!

Happy post Christmas time everyone!

We have had a lot of hard Christmases in a row.  Not for any terrible life reasons, and this is going to sound rather counterintuitive, but it's mainly because we have had a lot of small babies a lot of years in a row.  Let's just recap:

Christmas Memory:

2018 - Ezra was 10 weeks old. On the way to Christmas dinner with husband's family we were informed that 5 year old cousin was attending with an active hand foot and mouth infection.  We waved through the window and headed home to eat leftover and questionably old fish pie.

2019 - Ezra was just over 1 year old.  I don't really remember this Christmas.  There are a lot of videos from around 5am where he's wandering around the house.  He didn't sleep well.

2020 - Covid Christmas in Wales.  We were under lockdown, and then extra big lockdown for November, and then the government said we were going to be allowed to mix with our families as long as we stayed at home for the start of the month.  Then they closed all the stores and then 2 days before Christmas the government said we weren't allowed to mix houses afterall and then we had a super awkward at home christmas.  Oh, and I had a 3 month old.

2021 - This one was kind of fun actually.  I think we cooked a dinner and had Andy's family over.  My brother visited!  But also I think it was still covid awkward.

2022 - My brother visited and we all went to Andy's family but his grandma's 3rd husband ended up in hospital and it was all very unfortunate and awkward.

2023 - We had 2 month old twins and life was impossible

2024 - We had 1 year 2 month old twins and life was still impossible.

This year we decided it was too many hard Christmases in a row and we booked a 5 night Christmas holiday to Bluestone - a holiday resort in West Wales.  We booked a 4 bed house and my brother came with us.  The resort park has a swimming pool with slides (which was open on Christmas!) and an indoor soft play and a outdoor kids adventure play area.  

This was also a test to see how the twins do away from home since we've booked more holidays this year.  The twins have never slept away from home before.  They have slept in their own cribs since they were born.  They slept in beds on holiday.  It went OK.  Except for one night where Clara stayed awake till midnight and then woke up Aubrey who then stayed awake until 3:30am.  Of course that one night was Christmas. 

But besides one difficult night, the trip was pretty good.  Ezra had a great time and cried when we had to leave and took a video of the whole house to remember the trip.  

We had been to Bluestone in 2021 when Lily was 6 months old:

And here she is now (5 years 2 months old):

Christmas dinner.  We had smoked brisket (slow cooked), mac and cheese, corn on the cob, and roast carrots.  It was really good.  I kind of want to get a meat smoker now.

Ezra and Lily Opened presents on Christmas.  We did most of our presents on Hanukkah but brought a few for Christmas morning. We've decided we are not a Santa family - Santa only gives presents to kids that haven't had 8 nights of presents already.  

Santa did a parade on Christmas eve.  Here he is waving to all the kids.  Moments later both Lily and Aubrey catastrophically melted down and had to be carried home.  It was very cold.

Ezra and Lily got tickets to Elf School for Christmas.  It was cute.

We rented a golf cart to get around the resort and decorated it like christmas.  

Here we are carrying 5 days of groceries back to the lodge.

Overall it was a fun but exhausting holiday.  I am not terrified of future holidays.  My brother was a great sport about helping with kids and staying with us, but I am aware it is A LOT to spend 5 nights with 7/5/2/2 year old kids.  

Christmases should get more fun and easier.  I don't think we will do Bluestone again (it was very much a "we haven't been on holiday in years" kind of expense) BUT it's fun to think about all the Christmas traditions we can now make as a family.

Looking forward to catching up on everyone else's Christmas adventures in blogland...

Christmas break, feeling better about the pile of life admin, Hanukkah thoughts and it's time for bed.

First, thank you everyone for your lovely comments on my disjointed chaos complaining post.

Today was my last day of work until January 5th.  I finished a really big project today which I'm about 75% happy with... I promised to circulate it "this week" prior to presenting at a meeting today.. and I circulated it 15 minutes before the meeting started.  But it's sort of the first big project of my new role and I feel like I'll have lots to come back to in 2026.

Yesterday evening I stayed up super late but finally packed my box for the USA, and booked shipping.  I have to drop it off tomorrow at a local corner shop (weirdly, FedEx is only received at a weird shop about 5 minutes away that sells mostly booze and cigarettes).  I feel relieved to have this in progress, and will feel even better when it is in the post.

Tomorrow I will also go to the post office to buy stamps and mail some UK presents. 

It's my last Friday morning with the twins, because in January they start a morning nursery (drop off!) for 2.5 hours on Fridays.  Well, they will start it if I get the paperwork done at some point.  Add it to the growing list of things to do.

We are halfway through Hanukkah now and I've managed to do presents every night so far.  Without buying much I had collected presents enough for 8 nights, although Aubrey & Clara are currently sharing presents and that's not going to work next year.  

Tonight Lily got a Unicorn Sticker Dolly Dressing book, and Ezra got a secondhand lego set.  Aubrey and Clara got a horrible talking light up Owl (£4 charity shop) which apparently costs £50 new!

I also had a major Hanukah fail this year because I didn't realize I had no Hanukkah candles. Oops! Luckily we have some birthday candle menorahs, so we are using that, but I also don't have 44 birthday candles because Hanukkah is a math problem:

So we are just blowing the candles out and relighting them the next day.  I have forever to figure out Hanukkah.

About a week ago I told the local Synagogue I didn't feel like it was safe to go to any events right now and then two days later the Hanukkah shooting happened in Australia.  I know that's Australia and not the UK, but I'm not particularly inclined to put the Menorah in the window right now, or go to the one public lighting in Wales (it apparently went fine?).  Which is... sad.  I find it disheartening to feel like the safest places to be openly Jewish are probably Israel or the USA. 

In other news, today I did my annual Christmas blood donation

Is blood donation selfie a thing?  I had two tasty chocolate bars after.  Now I am tired (probably from staying up late packing, and donating blood, and the stress of the work stuff this week) and I think a 9pm bedtime is in order.  I am currently reading Jill Mansell's A Walk In The Park which I bought on kindle because none of my books came in when I finished All Fours and I read a sample and liked it enough to pay £0.99 to read the rest.  It's nice.

I keep remembering and forgetting to-dos... but I don't feel as chaos as I did on Tuesday.  I think I might even have a nice twin day tomorrow, and a nice weekend... and potentially a nice Christmas?

Disjointed Christmas Thoughts, To Do Lists, Busy Season.

Christmas Fun.

Last year I took off an extra week of work before christmas and it was glorious.  This year I have 0.2 hours of annual leave left and I finish for Christmas on Friday.  I know other people work to Christmas Eve, and don't always get 2 weeks off work, but I am really looking forward to not being in work for a bit.

At the same time, I am really not looking forward to the 16 days of feeding my family.  Breakfast, Lunch, Snacks, Dinner day after day... wiping down the tables and the floors... asking if we've had too much bread and cheese... ugh.  

I am also tired of every kid thing that we eat and I'm tired of eating like a toddler.   Last night we had potatoes and beans for dinner, on thursday we have spaghetti and meatballs... I don't like either of these things.  I don't like any of our food but I just add a bunch of chili flakes and eat it because I also don't like cooking things the kids think are "disgusting" (like anything with flavour or texture)

Anyways, I digress.  

I also feel I am living all the days every day.   So while it is technically Tuesday right now, I'm also aware I am super behind on getting my gifts and cards to the USA.  Last night we spent an hour organizing our Christmas grocery orders (both before and after Christmas).  Today is swimming, Friday is a kid party, Saturday is tennis, yesterday was a dance recital, last week was school Nativity Play (there is no separation of church and state here y'all!)

In my understanding of time it feels that all of these things are happening at once.  Obviously they aren't, but I just feel so "aware" of what there is to do.

One of the apparently insurmountable tasks on my plate is to mail cards and presents to the USA.  We made calendars, which we printed for family.  I have had to do a proper project plan for this as follows:

1. Order Holiday Cards (done)
2. Order Calendar (done)
3. Order Gifts (done)
4. Address US holiday cards (done)
5. Buy Envelopes the right size for Calendar
6. Buy/Find Envelopes the right size for small gifts
7. Buy/Find box big enough for envelopes and gifts
8. Figure out how to mail box to the USA.

I was so ahead of schedule on this project plan... until I wasn't.  The dumb barrier is that I'm working forward in box size from the components, which also need boxes, to the big box, which needs to store it all, and the fact that I have to go to the store and buy packing materials, which is IMPOSSIBLE because it's Christmas and everyone is in the store buying packing materials.

Also, yesterday it rained all day and I didn't want to walk to the store in the pouring rain. 

All of this is also because I am being a bit cheap and not sending things directly from the UK because they put the price of mailing a single card up to £3.10 which is $4.  Shipping would be nearly $100 so I am hoping that by combining everything and having my helpful parent elves in the USA mail from the USA it will work out a bit cheaper.  

On the other side of the spectrum, we ordered New Years cards (not Christmas) so I feel like it's too early to send those in the UK.  But I'm fairly sure we will quickly go from "OMG it's too early" to "Oh how is it the 25th and we haven't' sent those cards??!" in about 5 minutes.  

Oh, and we need to buy stamps.  Why didn't I buy stamps literally any of the 100 times I had been to the post office not in the christmas rush?   Also, I can order stamps online, but I have to pay £3 shipping.  I'll see if I can magically get some stamps today while purchasing above mentioned envelopes and if not it's £3.

Speaking of delivery fees, last week I got ahead of the game and bought more school uniform AND some picture frames for some posters I would like on the wall and not just in a pile near my desk.  I even paid the £4 shipping to avoid going to the store with my gaggle of children.  Shipping was very quick, but the frames were clearly shattered and the box had the distinctive sound of broken glass when it arrived, battered and marked FRAGILE.  I ended up taking 3 of the kids to ASDA on Sunday to return the box, and as they ran through the isles asking for presents I wanted to tell every parent here "I ORDERED ONLINE TO AVOID BEING HERE! I paid £4 to avoid being here!" but I couldn't, and I also couldn't get my £4 back.  I got my £18 for the broken frames back... and the posters will stay on a pile for a while.

Anyways... here are some recent photos of things to end this whiny 6:15am post!  

Lily at her Ballet recital (after 4 classes)

Clara reading her age 1-2 photo album

Aubrey putting baby Jesus to bed at play group