Rachel, Owen and Kathryn

Kathryn Sarah has just achieved her first decade! I thought this would be a good time to refresh the family blog, and relaunch it - especially as I'm not feeling very positive about Facebook at the moment, and want to maintain alternative communications channels (like postcards, for instance!). Unfortunately in the 2 years since I used this platform I've forgotten how much of it works, so until I can link up all my mobile devices, updates may be sporadic. But in the meantime, happy 10th birthday Katy! Here's a pic from the archives.

Full marks to Katy's new class teacher, who has taught them 2 new things in her first week (Katy used to complain that they only taught her things she already knew). The first was metaphor - which has to be the most important thing, in my book (and who knows, in a few years time it may be the most important thing in my actual book :-)). The other was a 'fact or opinion' game, which we have just been playing in the kitchen. You put up a 'fact' sign on one wall, and an 'opinion' sign on the opposite wall. You then read out a series of statements, and the children have to go and stand in front of the sign which they think is right for the statement. I could be wrong, but this looks suspiciously like they are being taught to think critically for themselves! Just a pity that the spelling needs a bit more work.

How many of the Little family can you fit onto a two-seater sofa? More than you can capture in a selfie without a wide-angle lens - the hint of black fur at the edge of the frame is Tsi-Tsa, who didn't want to be excluded from the post-Christmas huddle.

Katy is feeling very inspired at the moment - two new jokes this week. What do you call a person with a genie, who puts out fires? An exting -wisher! What do one-eyed kids read to get clever? An en-cyclops-pedia!

The letter has been written. I think I can spot a Pokémon theme emerging for Christmas 2015.