Our family has the distinction of 5 of our 6 children having birthdays within three months after Christmas.  It isn't very good for our budget, or for my energy levels.  But somehow I psyche myself up and get through it all, and none of the children has ever complained to me about having a crappy birthday (that may be because they have a healthy respect for my ability to get very upset, very quickly, if I perceive ingratitude), so there must be some kind of standard which I am maintaining.
     Samuel turned 10 on 22 January.  We let him have his first sleep over, with four other boys.  It was snowing heavily about the time his party was supposed to start.  Having mostly girls, I hadn't realized how much more energy boys have than girls.  Those boys were up ALL night - that's never happened at our girls' sleepovers.  We got them to quiet down around 4am, but then at at 5am they were at it again.  Samuel didn't seem to mind, so I guess that's good.
     Eleanor turned 6 on 24 January.  Her party was the next weekend, and I think it snowed that day as well.  She had a good group of friends come over and they played party games.
     Verity turned 4 on 6 Febraury.  We had a party for her, but only one person showed up, but it was her best friend, Shayla Shami, as well as Shayla's whole family, so we just had a family party, and I think that was much better anyway.    
      On February 22 Abigail turned 15!  Wow!  I, for one, am happy to see the back of 14 and harbour hopes that in the upcoming year Abigail will enjoy a maturation process, rather like a good cheese.
     Abigail is fortunate in that her birthday almost always falls during half term, and this year was no exception.  She decided to forgo a birthday party completely this year (yea!) and just take one friend with her to London instead.  She spent her actual birthday in London, full of culture and shopping and good food!  But, it was also very, very cold.  We have suffered an exceptional cold snap in 2013 and February half term was almost unbearable!  It was hard to do anything outside because most of the time it was so bitter.
     So, we braved the streets of cold South London (think Oliver Twist) to go see the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  We didn't really think about it when we booked it, but the Globe Theatre is an open air theatre, so it wasn't the most comfortable thing we could have done that day.  But it was still amazing.  Here is the stage (with our tour guide):

She's standing in the Pit, where the cheap seats were.  Here is where the 'groundlings', or the 'stinkards' would have stood to see the play:

 

 

Here's a view from the upper-class seats:



 

 

Samuel, Aisha, Abigail, Imogen and Georgiana, destined for greatness (either that, or life in the stinky seats):

 

 

 

 

 

The box seats had beautiful murals, with scenes from Greek and Roman myths:

 

 

     After the Globe Theatre, Abigail, Imogen, Aisha (Abigail's friend) and I headed over to Harrods to do some shopping, while Tim, Samuel, Georgiana, Eleanor and Verity went to see the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace.  They saw some mighty fine carriages which have been used for various coronations, royal weddings and etc.

 

Here they are in front of Buckingham Palace, in very cold English weather:

     There are no pictures of the rest of our evening, but Abigail, Imogen, Aisha and I had a lovely time in Harrods looking at horrendously overpriced clothes and gaping at £500 pairs of shoes.  We always end up in my favorite place, which is the food hall, probably because the items there are more within my price range, and I don't have to lose any weight to enjoy them.  Then we dined at Pizza Express in Covent Garden, which was delicious.  And then we made our way over the the theatre to see one of the final performances of 'Shrek' the musical.  Abigail said she enjoyed it, so that's the main thing.
     The rest of the weekend was really too cold to do anything else, but I did manage to pull the three little ones out of Grandma's house on Saturday afternoon and take them to Scotney Castle, a National Trust property near Pembury.