Evening all!
JM - try and arrange a week away for your birthday so that you don't have to accommodate the spoilt brat! Seriously, there is no way you have to accept her demands, just tell her you won't be there during that time, sorry an' all but she'll have to think again or go to a hotel. You can say no - it's ok, honestly!
FX that the knee thing is the simple version and that it all works splendidly and you'll be back doing the lotus position in no time [hwink]
CMOTD - bah to pathetic brother but relief about not having to do the long journey, hey. I have a pathetic brother as well but at least he wanted people to come and see his newborn babies. Not bothered much after that but that may be because we didn't all bow down and worship at their throne (yes, really, he did expect that - he was very apparently pissed off that my sis managed to provide my parents with their first grandchild ahead of him [hhmm])
Scout - have you tried making your own pizza? We have a decent pizza base recipe using spelt flour (not necessary for you I know) and have pizza night about once a fortnight - miniThumb and I have one, MrThumb has the other (we don't do tomato either but he does) - it's one of our favourite mealtimes!
Bean - miniThumb is of a similar nature to smallbean by the sound of it - whenever a "bad boy" is doing something wrong, he will a) call him a bad boy (I don't know why, he never gets called a bad boy!) and b) join in when the "bad boy" is being told off (parroting whatever the parent is saying). Of course I stop him as soon as I hear but sometimes they aren't all immediately close by.
UniS - your weekend sounds manic! hope you have a good time and aren't completely exhausted by it all!
MT - good luck with getting DH to karate - I've tried in the past to interest MrThumb in my activities but it hasn't worked - the only thing we can do is join in with his tennis if we all want to do the same leisure pastime.[hhmm]
We had a lovely day in Sydney at the Aquarium, meeting up with some Sydney MNers. Hadn't quite realised the full impact of taking two nearly 4yos around though - they went completely feral! it was still fun though but very tiring so we ended up in bed before 9pm last night! normal for miniThumb but not for me [hshock]
Anyway - hot chocolate 
for anyone?