It's just the way that the year goes round...

Daniel (2⅔) seems not to have noticed that he’s meant to be a terrible 2. He has a mischievous streak, but manages to misbehave in such a cute way that it’s difficult to really be cross with him. He wants to do everything his big brothers do and is a very independent and determined little boy - “Mine do it mine self!”. He loves jumping (particularly into the swimming pool), dancing manically, colouring (tables and walls mostly) and making all his wooden Thomas engines into the longest train possible.

Thomas (4½) started school in September. We find it quite comforting that they found him “challenging” to start with – it’s not just us! They have been brilliant with him and he has settled in well. He’s taught himself to read (they’re not supposed to start until January!) and loves writing letters and words. He has also become adept with the computer. He continues to amuse us with his choice of language; recent highlights have been his IT based analogies: “The toast is downloading.”, “My sound is not working.” (when he had a sore throat), and “I just going to drag the chocolate flakes into my yogurt.”

Joshua (6½) is in his final year of infants, and we are encountering homework for the first time! He loves numeracy but is not so keen on handwriting. (The former inherited from his mother, the latter from his father?) He still enjoys being creative with his Lego and likes anything to do with “monsters” - Scooby Doo, The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the recently discovered Doctor Who. He is very interested in how the world works and often comes out with his own outlandish theories.

Emily has been trying to stay sane and to keep everyone else provided with clean clothes, delicious food, cuddles, entertainments, learning support, space to walk across the floor etc etc with varying degrees of success. She has also dealt with more poo than one person should have to see in the course of a year. In her spare time she has taken up aquaerobics, resulting in the loss of a few more pounds and another dress size, has masterminded the Ridgeway Project (see below), has joined an online quiz team and has become a moderator for mental health and weight loss forums on the web.

James has discovered the joys of video editing and has spent much of the year splicing together mashups and montages (most of which are available for viewing on the videos page). He is also a fairly active blogger. (He jogs on a treadmill as he is typing.) He is still involved in the church worship group and often plays on Sunday mornings – recently he got to lead for the first time. The beard is still present; unfortunately so is most of the waistline.

The Ridgeway Project has taken off in a big way this year – after only managing 6 miles of the trail in 2010, we have added another 27 this year (Emily doing much of it twice going back to get the car!). Only another 54 miles to go! The boys have become quite good at tackling fairly long walks and love to see the part we have walked drawn in with a highlighter on the large map we have stretching along the wall in our hallway. Holidays include a windy February week at Butlins, a gloriously sunny fortnight camping (in our new tent!) in Pembrokeshire and a slightly damp Greenbelt where we ran Contributors’ Hospitality again, but this year in a new INDOOR venue, with real plumbing! Emily and James have even managed a couple of weekends away without the boys, including our anniversary weekend in Harlech, where we walked across the (dry-ish) estuary to Portmeirion – a surreal experience given that we’d watched the cult TV series “The Prisoner” for the first time earlier in the year.