Ploom how fast was that! Junior Monopoly arrived already! I have to confess I only did the bank transfer this afternoon, as to my shame I actually have never bothered setting things up so I can do it myself, and the tan code goes to DH's mobile! If I posted that (explaining what a tan code is) on some parts of MN certain types of MNers would have a field day I think 
Jenny yes I think our DCs are all very close to the same ages and definitely in the same order.
My DC3 was semi planned - as in I really wanted a 3rd from when DC2 was almost 1, but DH really didn't, so we weren't going to, but then after I had a botched and failed attempt to have the coil fitted and said that I was not wiling to go in and have it done in hospital under anesthetic, as the doctor suggested, given that I actually wanted a DC3, he said we should "wait and see" for 6 months and if I wasn't pregnant re-consider ... and a few months later DC3 was on the way :) I would have preferred a smaller age gap from DC2 to 3, as the 2 years between the first 2 works well for us, and I find a 3.5 year gap gives a feeling of 2+1 children, if that makes sense...
Hope Advent's DH has a good alternative work Christams do, I'm sure it will be more relaxed and fun than the official one!
I have forgotten what else I have read... Ploom and Advent's Ds's both have big feet :o DH has size 47 so I'm expecting my boys will have big feet too :o but at the moment DS1's feet are size 31, which is the same size as DD (/) but not actually that big for 5 and 1/4 especially compared to Ploom's 5 year old (though he is at the bigger end of the scale of his friends, and had the biggest feet of the boys who he took bowling for his birthday even though 2 were older - they had one each of size 31,30,29,28and 27, which amused me, small things, not getting out much etc. :o ) DD has a male friend who is 8 and who was here the other day and forgot his gloves and I was going to offer him DS1's but his hands are huge - he ended up wearing mine and filling them out too... not idea what size his feet are, but I'd bet at least 35 or 36.
DH is in bed with the flu today, which is a double :( as tomorrow is his work Christmas do tomorrow in a hotel in the alps - and whole families are invited for a free night in a posh hotel with spa - they'd booked us a suite and I'd even bought a dress and we had to cancel :( Ah well, worse things happen and all that :) No Christmas bonus here (he has never had that extra month's pay thing with any employer, is that common?) but the do was a generous offer...
DD is hugely disappointed about not going, we have had 2 separate big outbursts of tears over it... (though she kindly saves them for me in the car etc. so DH thinks I am exaggerating...) but she has been rather tired and emotional lately, feel like something might be going on, but maybe she is just literally tired - she has had on and off tummy ache for 3 weeks and I finally took her to the doc yesterday to be told she had slightly enlarged glands and has probably been fighting off a virus, I had been putting it down to not drinking enough, which she is a terror for, and perhaps also a mix of a bit of mild stress and a bit more excuses! It turns out though that the root of her disappointment about not going away for the weekend is that her teacher reads out the best weekend diaries that they write on Monday, and she has done special things the last 2 weekends and had hers read out, and she was counting on having something really exciting to write about on Monday to get that read out too!! She is quite an exhibitionist - after 4 weeks of learning to play the recorder she spoke to DS1's KiGa teacher on Monday and offered to play Christmas songs on the recorder for his group, and so she went into KiGa and did that today, straight after school (which finished at 11.20am today) - she looked like the pied piper standing on a bench in the snowy garden playing to an assembly of smaller (and in some cases not really smaller) children! Funny girl that she would want to do that - I'm proud of her courage more than her recorder playing tbh, though she did well enough and the KiGa teachers have asked her to play at the "Waldweinacht" evening on 16th :)
Wanted to say outnumbered in answer to a question you asked ages ago -I wouldn't especially say I like living in the country, I grew up in the country and hated it once I reached 11 or so, but then I didn't go to the local school so felt rather isolated, which I hope will not be the case for my kids who are very integrated. DH won't contemplate living in a flat though, and to afford a house we have to be well outside Munich. We moved in a big rush for DH's work - had 4 weeks once we agreed to accept the offer, and I had a business to wind up and a house to sell (luckily the timing was right for that, just before the crash!) so the in-laws found us the house from a newspaper ad and we moved in without having seen it before hand! The house is fine and the landlord suits us (we only hear from him if we contact him to fix something) but the location hit me hard at first - I'm kind of used to it now and the kids are settled so we are unlikely to move any time soon, given we can't really afford anywhere that suits us better - and there is a playground right next to the house (even though there is literally nothing else but 50 or so houses and farms, and lots of fields, for miles)!
Wiffle wiffle, must stop and get the kids to bed in a minute anyway! waves at everyone I forgot, again...