BABY GIRL LOVES HER DADDY TOO

I love to watch my husband with our children; the love that they have for each other makes my heart melt.

MY BEAUTIFUL BOYS

Seriously, how did I get so damn lucky?  I am truly blessed.

(A LITTLE BIT NAKEY) TEENY AT 34+5

Apologies for the exposure of flesh, but I do love my bump and it won't be here for much longer.

Oh and as an aside my little lady looks so grown up.  Where has my baby girl gone?  Time is just going too quickly.

FEELING DESPONDENT

I will post properly when I can see through the tears, but basically after fairly smooth sailing regarding my request for a home birth we seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall due to staffing shortages at the local midwife led unit which means they get the on call midwives and I am expected to go there if there isn't a midwife for me. 

I can't just sit on my hands and wait and hope for the best once the time arrives because that isn't good for my stress levels so it seems that my only option is to fight which is really not what I should have to do at all and is definitely not what I need or want to be doing with six weeks to go!

TEENY AT 31+3

So here is Teeny at 31+3 (with much needed haircut at long last). 

Seriously though where is the time going?  It is funny how different a second pregnancy is to a first.  As excited as I am and as much as I love being pregnant there is definitely no time to romanticise about it like you can the first time round.  Two pre-schoolers just do not allow for that.  Although they more than make up for it with their heart melting requests to kiss the baby or cuddle it and their little tales of what they are going to show or teach the baby when it comes. 

Long may the love continue.

LIEBSTER BLOG AWARD - LIKE I GOT AN AWARD!

My little ol' blog was set up originally just for my kids and for little ol' me really so I feel very excited that the lovely Helen at Raindrops 'n Roses has given me this award.  For all things domestic goddess like you should definitely check out her blog.  I just do not know where she finds the time!

I do have to say though that I did laugh at her reference to me being calm.  That is the swan effect my lovely (calm and serene on the surface, paddling like mad underneath to stay afloat).

So back to my lovely shiny award. 

 The Liebster Award is given to bloggers who have up to 200 followers in the hope it will bring them new followers and friends. The tradition is that it is then passed on to five other bloggers to help them too.  This is where I am going to struggle as I just don't follow enough people, not really sure why that is to be honest.  Mental note to self to find some more lovely blogs to follow.  I am sure that there are plenty of them on here.

I am told that to accept the award, you need to:

1. Link back to the person's blog who gave you the award and thank them.

2. Post the award on your blog.

3. Give the award to five fellow bloggers who inspire you.  

4. Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know.

So onto the important bit and selecting five blogs to give the award to.  I think I am going to reserve judgement on this for now and go away and find myself  some more blogs to indulge in as there aren't many that I follow and most of the ones that I do have lots of followers anyway.  I should, however, say that if Helen hadn't given the award to me she would clearly be one of them.  I just adore all of her crafting, but also all of the lovely things she seems to find time to do with her girls.  She really inspires me to delve into my depths and search out that little bit of domestic goddessness.

On a final note I must just give Beth @ My Name is Beth this award because hers was the blog that got me  thinking about blogging.  I really enjoy finding out what she has been up to with her little man and we are similar in some ways with our approach to parenting, except that she seems more comfortable in her own parenting skin than me so I seek out inspiration from her blog.  I bet you didn't know that did you lovely so thank you.

I'll get back to this in a few days with the rest of my awards.

TEENY AT 28+2

Ok so still in need of that haircut mentioned in the last picture, but here is an updated bump picture taken last Friday.

I am so pleased to say that, despite having to go in for a trace last Tuesday as Teeny was being unusually lazy, Teeny is doing really well and yes you guessed it as soon as I arrived at the hospital for said trace they were dancing around like there was no tomorrow.  Although I did feel very reassured having had what the midwife referred to as "a beautiful trace".

I also had my 28 week check last week and everything was as perfect as it can be at this stage.  Nothing showing in my urine, bloods came back lovely, bump measuring 28.5, heard a lovely heartbeat and Teeny is head down (for now).  I had nobody to have A&D so had to take them with me which I wasn't looking forward to, but I was really glad that it happened that way.  They do have their moments and I tend to focus on those a lot, but I was so proud of them when we went to see the midwife; they behaved beautifully and were really interested in everything that was going on.  They loved hearing Teeny's heartbeat and stood with their heads peering over the bed while the midwife found it and measured my fundal height.  I even had to explain to my inquisitive daughter the reason why I had to give the midwife a urine sample which was interesting.

Now I just hope that all stays well and uncomplicated because, as much as I am trying to stay level headed and sensible about it all, I am finding myself getting extremely excited at the prospect of a home birth and I can see me being quite heartbroken if it doesn't go according to plan.  Yes I know that in the grand scheme of things all that really matters is that Teeny gets here safe and sound, but a home birth is so important to us as a family especially as we really want A&D to be involved too.  On that note what really surprises me is that they are not in the least bit freaked out by watching women in labour on the TV, but then again why would they be I suppose?  They are innocent children and I guess that because I haven't made a fuss and have answered whatever questions they have had honestly (but in simple terms) it is just normal to them.  We also have a beautifully illustrated children's story book called Hello Baby told from the perspective of a little boy whose mommy is having a home birth and they really like it.  We are just going to play it by ear with them though and if at any point it doesn't feel right for us or them that they are there then they will go to Nanny's for a while. 

Whatever the outcome though we are all so excited about the impending arrival of our new addition and we feel incredibly blessed.

SISTER UKHANA - A SHAMELESS PLUG

A bit off topic for my blog, but I need to give Sister Ukhana a mention as I have been meaning to do so for a while.

Sister Ukhana is a Community Interest Company set up by a friend of mine.  Back in 2005, I think it was, my very very good friend Jade went to volunteer in an orphanage in Ghana for around six months or so.  I missed her lots during that time, but she came back in 2006 with a plan to set up a business to sell fair trade cocoa butter products made by women in Ghana and packaged by women here.  If you want to know more you can find out more about the ins and outs of the business on her website. 

Now I have every faith in Jade that she will accomplish whatever she will set out to do, but I have to say that a teeny part of me thought this might be a bit of a tall order, even for Jade, but I needn't have worried.  In the midst of training for a new job, working more than full time, buying a house, learning French, being a heavily involved director of another Community Interest Company and a good few other things thrown in for good measure including the selfless acts of being my bridesmaid and organising my baby shower ;) Jade is well on the way to having Sister Ukhana as a fully functioning and trading business.  She has worked to complete application after application for funding grants, worked with pharmacists (or the like so don't quote me on the exact qualification) on formulations, website designers, graphic designers, friends and associates in the UK and Ghana to sourcing ingredients and a team etc, etc.  The list goes on!

Sister Ukhana CIC was registered in 2010, but there's been huge progress this January what with the website being launched so I thought this was the perfect time to show Jade and her hard work some love and tell her how extremely proud I am of her for her achievements and also how much I love her for being my friend.

Jade and I on a night out pre-motherhood

Oh and given that I like to talk a bit about my photography interest in this blog I am very selfishly going to give myself a little mention for doing some of the product shots for the website like the one on  the top right hand side of the website's homepage.  I was really chuffed that Jade asked me to do this, even if it did take me an age to get them sorted,  and am so pleased with how they look on the website, can't believe that I actually took them.  Thanks so much for the opportunity my lovely.

So finally if you would like to find out more about Sister Ukhana have a look at the website, like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

SAY HELLO TO HERMAN

Almost a fortnight ago my lovely friend Jess (or The Baking Queen as I like to label her, just ask A&D who makes the best cake and they will always tell you Auntie Jess) gave me a starter mix for a Herman Cake along with some instructions on how to take care of Herman.  This was "day one".

As I understand it Herman Cake is a German friendship cake and is basically the cake version of a chain letter.  They are super easy to make into a lush cake and even baking novices like my little ones and I can make a delicious cake with very little effort.

So basically the starter mix is a sour dough base I think, in fact I don't actually know the exact content.

...goes away to look it up...

Ok so the starter mix consists of active dry yeast, sugar, flour, milk and warm water, but I didn't need to worry about that. 

On day one you transfer Herman from the container he came in to a new home that gives him plenty of room to grow.  In our house the new house was actually a big bowl and the roof a tea towel.  Like me, Herman likes to be nice and warm so there is no putting him in the fridge.  We just left him on the side in the kitchen.

On days two and three you simply uncover Herman, give him a good stir and cover him back up.  Not exactly complicated even for a baking novice like me.

Day four does require a little more effort as Herman is hungry.  I personally can't believe that it takes him a whole four days to get hungry.  It barely takes me four minutes.  Ha ha!  Anyway back to Herman.  On day four you add one cup of plain flour, one cup of sugar and one cup of milk and stir well.  Yes that's it, not exactly brain surgery.  I am sure that these quantities will vary between individual recipes, but I think that as long as you are consistent with whichever recipe you use it doesn't really matter.

All Herman needs on days six, seven and eight is to be stirred well on each day.  Yes it really is that simple.

This time it takes Herman until day nine to get hungry again and at this point you simply add the same as you did on day four and stir well except at this point you divide the mixture into four equal parts.  You then keep one part to cook on day ten and pass the other three on to friends with a copy of the instructions.  If you are greedy like me you just give two away and keep two for yourself; one to cook on day ten and one to start the cycle all over again. 

Day ten is the day that requires the most effort, but even so it is not exactly rocket science.  This is because Herman is very hungry by day ten so you need to add the following:-                          

1 cup sugar 

1 cup plain flour                                              

2 eggs                                                             

Two thirds of a cup of cooking oil (not olive oil though)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon

2 chopped apples (optional)

1 cup raisins (optional)

Half cup walnuts (optional)

I have to admit though that we did away with the raisins, walnuts and apples and instead added dried cranberries, broken mandarins and dark chocolate chips.  All you have to do is literally mix everything together with a wooden spoon.  There is no beating or creaming or any of that nonsense.  Great for the kids, especially my son who likes to bake, but whose concentration span is just not long enough to do a whole recipe from scratch so Herman was especially perfect for him as he got to do a bit each day and they both loved the fact that they had to take care of Herman and mix him every day.

Once everything is mixed together you just pour it into a large, well greased tin or, if you are me, the wonder that is the silicone alternative and pop in the oven at between 170 and 180 degrees for between 45 minutes and an hour and voila.

The lovely Jess tells me that you can sprinkle with equal parts brown sugar and melted butter, but I just went for the brown sugar option.

I should admit that I think that my combo of orange, cranberry and choc was too heavy as it seemed to sink  to the bottom when cooked even though I coated it in flour as suggested by my baking guru.  To be honest though we didn't really care about that minor mishap as it still tasted lush and we don't often have home baked cake in our house so it is being devoured very quickly.

I am an absolute beginner when it comes to baking, but even I managed this and I definitely recommend it for something to do with the tiddlers as they really enjoyed the fact that they got to do something everyday and were really excited for day ten.  They also got to go to the supermarket with me purely to chose what we were going to feed Herman on day ten. 

Go on give it a go, you know you want to!

TEENY AT 24+4

It really is about time that Teeny made another appearance on this blog as I seem to be lacking in bump pictures so here they are yesterday on our trip to the park.  Granted it really is not the most flattering picture of me and I look huge as well as needing a good haircut, but hey ho Teeny is doing well so who am I to complain?

THE PERFECT WINTERS DAY

So I have been somewhat poor in updating my blog of late.  Annoyingly this isn't because I don't have anything to report,  to the contrary in fact; I have so many half written and unfinished blog posts in the "posting" section of my blog that it is getting ridiculous, but I really want them published in the blog at the point that they should be as opposed to deleting them because they are mostly about lovely memories that I do not want to forget.  Although because they will be in the correct place they are unlikely to even get read because nobody will even know they are there.   I am just really struggling to find the time energy to blog at the moment which I find extremely frustrating as I really enjoy it.  I used to do it when I came home from work as my little wind down before bed, but I am finding myself having to go straight to bed now.  Boooo!

Anyway I do have a little bit of time now so I must write about today. 

I am not one of those people who objects to winter, what I do object to are those miserable damp wet winters days which make it impossible to really do anything and we have had far too many of those of late.  Today however was different, it was beautiful; cold, sunny and crisp and has been for a couple of days meaning that the ground was hard and not squelchy and muddy.  Today was a perfect day for hats and gloves and letting the children run around in the park and for me to take some photos as I seem to have been lacking in that area of late too.  I have been feeling a little like I have lost my mojo and what little bit of flair I have.

A&D love being outside so there was no element of persuasion needed at all when it came to them and seeing them run around in the sunshine all wrapped up and having fun with red noses and rosy cheeks is one of my most favourite sights ever possibly even slightly more than in the warm sunshine of the summer.   I have been feeling slightly guilty hormonal irrational of late about how Teeny's arrival may affect the lovely little settled life that A&D have so this beautiful day with them and my lovely husband was just the tonic that I needed too. 

I don't think that I really need to write much more about the fun they had, what's that saying?  A picture (or in this case pictures) paints a thousand words.

So grown up

Obviously we headed straight for the big slide Mommy

See...

...Saw

I love my Daddy

Ha ha Mommy!  You can't catch me.
  

GETTING INTO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Well in preparation for the big day I dragged out the domestic goddess in me.  This doesn't come very easily, but as A&D have now reached an age where they are thrilled by the prospect of Christmas I felt it only fair that I try to indulge them a little.  Neither of our baking attempts were a great success presentation-wise, but I was really pleased that the kids had a great time and also that I made such an effort, oh and taste-wise they really weren't too bad and went down well. Even my lovely husband enjoyed getting involved in making the gingerbread house.

So our first baking attempt was on the afternoon of 23rd when we made the gingerbread parts for our gingerbread house which was subsequently assembled by my other half on Christmas Eve and decorated by A&D on Christmas Day.  With the leftovers we slightly burned made gingerbread stars as a little Christmas gift for nannies and also as a nice snack ready for Santa's visit Christmas Eve.

Finished Gingerbread House

Stars for Santa

I am pleased to say that for once I wasn't bogged down on Christmas Eve by last minute wrapping, preparation or shopping so we had a lovely afternoon eating fish and chips whilst watching Christmas movies (The Polar Express being the favourite in this house which pleases me no end).

A&D then had an early bath and hopped into some new PJs which had been left on their beds with a letter by Santa's elf, Elsie as an early gift from Santa.  They were very impressed with these, although D has the teeniest waist in the world so despite being age 2-3 (and he is already 3) the bottoms kept falling down which means that I am going to have drag out a bit more of the domestic goddess in me, along with the sewing kit and put a stitch in the back of them.

Elsie's Letter

New PJs were quickly followed by spilling drinking home made hot chocolate with marshmallows and eating gingerbread stars whilst writing letters to Santa and leaving him and his reindeer their snacks.

Yummy Hot Chocolate

Goodies for Santa and Co

Finally the children finished off this lovely day by hanging out stockings in the bedroom and reading some festive stories from the Christmas book that Elsie brought for us a couple of weeks ago. 

 

Once A&D were in bed the second of my baking attempts began in the form of this chocolate yule log.  The plan was to make the sponge and the filling and then to assemble on Christmas Day.  I did doctor the recipe slightly by replacing the brandy in the filling with Baileys.  I did this for two reasons, the first being that I don't like brandy and the second being that we didn't have any, but we did have Baileys that needed using and obviously I would not be indulging in emptying the bottle given my pregnant state so Baileys it was.  This stage of the yule log went quite smoothly and without hiccups and I really enjoyed doing it.  The assembling on Christmas Day however, was not such a straight forward affair.  I got distracted by the dinner and so forgot to make the chocolate flakes to decorate it with and the rolling was disastrous to say the least so my final yule log actually looked like this and nothing like the picture on the recipe, but hey ho I tried and for me that is a big thing and to be fair it tasted yummy and nobody who tried it left a crumb so just need to work harder on the presentation next year.

Poorly presented, but still yummy yule log.

Domestic goddessness does not come easy to me, but I am hoping that A&D had as magical a day as I intended for them.

I love you and your daddy more than you will ever know.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Am up to my eyes in wrapping paper and food, but just wanted to write a short post to say have a wonderful Christmas today.

Will update  properly later.

Lots of love

xxxxx

TEENY AT 20+2

I would like to be able to say that Teeny is always this glamorously adorned, however given that I have two three year olds I am sure none of you would ever believe me.  Work's Christmas party on Friday was just an ideal opportunity for a bump picture.

ELSIE HAS BEEN TO VISIT

I was really inspired by this thread on the Verity forum about Santa's elves coming to stay, but knew that we probably wouldn't get an elf coming to stay with us this year as I am just nowhere near as organised as the lovely Bronwyn, Helen or the other supermoms on Verity.  However I was really hoping that Santa would choose to send us one of his trainee elves next year so I made sure that we got the Christmas CDs on and the Christmas tree up this weekend so that Santa could see that we are serious about Christmas and I am pleased to report that on Sunday morning we found under the Christmas tree the following letter from Elsie Elf along with a lovely book that Santa sent her to bring to us.

 

"My name is Elsie and I am one of Santa's trainee elves."

"Santa noticed that you have have been getting into the Christmas spirit by listening to Christmas music and taking part in your Christmas concert at pre-school.  A, Santa thought that you sang beautifully and D, he was really impressed that you shook your bells in time with the music.  So now that your mommy and daddy have put up the Christmas decorations, Santa has decided to send me to bring you a special book full of stories, songs and poems about Christmas that you can read with your mommy and daddy."

"You must take care of this book and get it out each year with the decorations so that you can enjoy the stories all over again and then, when you are grown up, you can read it to your own children at Christmas."

"Santa says that if I do this job well and manage to get the book to you safely then he will send me to stay with you for a few weeks before Christmas next year to carry on my elf training."

"Please take care of the book so that Santa lets me come to stay with you next year."

"Lots of love, Elsie x"

So needless to say we are thoroughly enjoying the book that Santa has sent to us and absolutely cannot wait for Elsie's visit next year.



BIRTHDAY SHENANIGANS - PART 1

Well my poor, deprived kids have never had a proper birthday party, just a nice day out somewhere followed by lots of people who love them visiting them over a couple of days around their birthday bringing pressies, cards and most importantly lots of kisses and cuddles.

Well this year before the shock, but fabulous, pregnancy I had been planning a lovely big party in my head, but unfortunately I am far from the most organised person in the world and so when the exhaustion and nausea that are the first trimester of pregnancy took over I went to ground and forgot all about couldn't face arranging a birthday party until it was all too late. 

I was however determined that they would have some sort of party given their current obsession with party food and balloons so little old me decided that we would have a very small (due to our dolls house size house) indoor teddy pears picnic themed party.  There were no fancy invitations I am afraid just an email to a few people inviting them mainly because if they had had  to wait for invitations they would never have got them. 

I then sourced some gingham table covering in red and green from Dunelm; one to use as a cover for the dining table and one for the indoor picnic rug.  I really am not very creative, but I decided that it would be nice to use the offcuts from the table coverings along with some ribbon to make some bunting and a happy birthday banner, after all we were having a picnic even if it was inside in the middle of winter.  Other than some red, white and green balloons and some gingham ribbon I didn't need to buy much else in terms of decorations as we gave all of the teddy bears that we had in the house a red gingham bow and just used them to create little bear scenes in the living room and used the bears as weights for the balloons by tying the balloons to their arms or legs.  We had a big bear reading three little bears a story, some bears having a cup of tea, one on its mobile phone, a big one on the dining table guarding the food and a few others scattered around for good measure. 

Unfortunately the reason that I am having to describe all of this as opposed to putting lots of pictures up is because all of my hard work was destroyed enjoyed by the children before I got the chance to take many photographs and then even the few photos that I did manage to take of the whole day were rubbish (I am a natural light kind of a girl when it comes to photos and I am just not very good at flash photography, I have no ability to take a really good photo as opposed to just an ok one using a flash. Anyway I digress, sorry!)

Food was typically over catered party food (I have a distinct inability to correctly cater any event, I just can't stand the thought of there not being enough).  So there was sarnies (bear shaped ones for the children), crisps (none other than Pom Bear for the kids, obviously) pizza fingers (well pitta breads with tomato puree and cheese on), vegetable sticks (which you may be surprised to find out went down very well with the kids), failed bear shaped jellies, biscuits, raisins, fruit and a million other calorie and/or fat ridden foods which on the whole I normally avoid when it comes to my kids, but I know that they generally make sensible choices when it comes to food, ie fruit and a biscuit so at parties I just roll with it and make up for it over the few following days.   At this point I must say a special thank you to the Irwins lot as you are so affectionately labelled (you know who you are) for showing up post party and finishing off the food, I was genuinely so glad not to have to throw half of it away.  You rock!

The piece de résistance of the food table (which I also have no decent photographs of despite how delicious it all looked) was this cake.  As I am not very skilled at baking cakes (although I did attempt it last year just so that I could say that I had baked A&D a birthday cake at some point in their lives, even if it was not a very good one) they normally get a good old Costco one as I would never normally go to this expense for a birthday cake, but given the theme of the party I just could not resist it and a friend of mine raves about M&S cakes so I felt the need to try and we really weren't disappointed.  It tasted lush and looked exactly as it does in the picture.

We had a few non attendees due to illness (we missed you all very much) so in the end we had five children and five adults.  I let the party run its own course really, the children were really happy just to ruin all of my decorations play when they got here so I left them to it for a little while, this was followed by our picnic then pass the parcel, the prize for which was a Winnie The Pooh book as obviously I wanted to stay in the bear theme and we just had time to blow out the candles on the birthday cake before it was time to go home.

Because the children were confined to my teeny house I had been worrying about needing to fill time so my lovely husband had made a pin the bow tie  on the bear a la pin the tail on the donkey, but I needn't have worried because we didn't even have time to play it so have stashed that away for use at a later date.  Its a good job we used the cardboard bear as a decoration and had stuck him in the window so at least he got some exposure. 

I wanted to continue with the bear theme for party bags, so I made them fairly simple and just got some teeny teddy bears from Asda and popped them into some lovely brown paper gift bags that I found in good old Wilkinsons (where the gingham ribbon came from too) along with a teeny bag of Haribo sweets.  I have since heard that the bargain bears went down very well.

As if the party with the children's friends wasn't enough; after a short interlude we were inundated with visits from nannies, aunties, cousins and a good deal of others.  This gave A&D the opportunity to sing happy birthday and  blow out the candles on their cake for a second time that day which they were absolutely thrilled about.

A&D seem to have become highly accomplished at ripping open wrapping paper since the last time they had presents and luckily for them none of their guests came empty handied so A&D were thoroughly spoiled and I spent the next few days telling them how extremely lucky they were to be loved by so many people and to get so many lovely things.

So finally just a huge thank you to everybody who remembered them on their birthday and who took the time to be here.  Love you xxx

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Well my babies are three today and I will update you on our shenanigans in aid of said birthday later on in the week.  Those shenanigans are the reason for my absence from this blog and why I have so many half written posts for this blog waiting to finished and published.  There are just not enough hours in the day!

Anyway as I was saying A&D are three today, seriously three, where on earth did that time go?  It seems to have flown by, but at the same time being pregnant with them and bringing then home from hospital seems like a lifetime ago   They have taught me more than I had learned in my whole life, they have challenged me more than I had ever been challenged in my whole life and there has been more love in my house since they were born than I have ever known possible.  Most of the time I don't feel worthy of them, but I was made their mommy for a reason and I try as hard as I can to be the best that I can be for them.  I am by no means perfect and we don't have the biggest and best of everything, but my children will always be loved.

So to A&D here's wishing you an amazing birthday; I hope that you had a wonderful time today.  Thank you for all you do for me everyday, you could never begin to imagine how special you are to me or how blessed I feel to be your mommy.  Love you more than words can say.

Mommy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

TEENY AT 16+2



And just as a little comparison  this is me at 16+6 when I was pregnant with A&D.

Well this pregnancy all of a sudden seems to be flying by. I had my 16 week midwife check up on Wednesday and am pleased to report that all is fine with me. I also got to hear Teeny's heartbeat galloping away; I had forgotten what a wonderful sound that is and what a relief it is to hear.  I really wish my lovely husband could have been there to hear it.  Even though this is my second pregnancy I still find the whole experience of being pregnant amazing and want him to share all of that with me. (Sorry if that is a bit soppy for some of you and makes you want to vomit!)

My community midwife was off sick which normally would frustrate me a little, however we are, touch wood, planning a homebirth this time so actually it worked out quite well as I got to meet two other members of the community team so now have a greater chance of having met the midwives who will deliver me and am pleased to report that they were both quite up for and positive about my choice which put me even more at ease in our decision.

Am really looking forward to my 20 week scan in a few weeks time as then we will then tell A&D about Teeny over Christmas and I can't wait to see their reaction.  D is so gentle and adorable with babies and A is a bit obsessed with them at the moment so will be fun to see what they say about it all, although I fear that I will spend the remainder of my pregnancy answering the same question over and over again about when the baby is coming. 

We have decided that we aren't finding out the flavour this time as we only did with A&D for practical reasons and we I really want a surprise, although our current bets are on a boy, but think that is probably because we have no idea at all what we would name a girl.  All (sensible) contributions/ suggestions welcome on that point!!

IN REMEMBRANCE

A&D's friend, C came over on Friday morning to play as she normally goes to Nanny's whilst my friend Marie is at work, but Nanny was on holiday so we were more than happy to have her, although a whole morning with three almost three year olds required some planning so as not to send us all completely mad! 

I had originally planned a bit of a Christmas themed morning of a baking session followed by hot chocolate and eating of the baking then crafting, lunch and a little chill out before Marie came to collect C.

The baking went ahead as planned quite successfully in fact; the children made shortbread stars dusted in icing sugar and seemed to really enjoy doing it.  They (the shortbread not the children) maybe could have done with slightly less time in the oven, but to my surprise were actually quite  lovely.  Shortbread is far from my favourite thing so I didn't indulge that much, but Daddy on the other hand loves it and was very impressed with their efforts.



As we were having a cosy morning in I then sat them down with hot (ok warm for the tiddlers) chocolate (made with proper chocolate and marshmallows I might add) and a small shortbread star each.  I was actually quite disappointed because the only person excited by the hot chocolate was me!  I thought the children would love it, but they were really not fussed by my hot chocolate and were much more interested in their shortbread.

The Christmas crafting was then replaced by making poppies in honour of the fact that I had realised while we were baking that it was actually 11/11.  I had some left over sheets of foam from a giant sized rubix cube fancy dress outfit that I had made so we used the red and black ones along with some red glitter to make the flowers and then some green pipe cleaners to make the the stems.  You can see their attempts in the picture above.

So on that note, given that it is Remembrance Sunday today , I really want take a moment to think about and thank those in our armed forces, both past and present, who have fought for our country and the freedom that we have; the freedom that I have to sit and write my views about this day in this blog without fear.  It is not a political day and in my opinion it really doesn't matter whether you agree with the conflicts that our forces have been or are now involved in.  It is about individuals who sign up to ultimately die for their country and also, just as importantly, their families. 

My lovely father in law was in the Royal Artillery for 12 years.  He doesn't really talk about the serious stuff much, just about the camaraderie, but from what my husband tells me, like the fact that he did combined ops (Parachute Regiment's P Company and Royal Marines' Commando Course) I get the impression that he was an excellent and well respected soldier, but, whilst he sustained no physical injury that I know of, I don't doubt for one second that it had a long lasting effect on him.  He was based in Singapore when he met my mother in law; they "stepped out" briefly while he was home on leave and got engaged and then a few months later she flew out to Singapore and they married without any family around them and had their first child out there.  I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been especially for my mother in law.  So to think that there are members of the armed forces out there who go through the same thing every single day and then others who go through things a million times worse than that I think that all we can do is be eternally grateful to them and support them. 

I could go off on a huge tangent here about how poorly paid I think they are and how I don't really feel that they are supported enough with the transition back into civilian life when they leave (my husband has friends who have been in the forces and then left so I am not talking blind when I say that), but today isn't about that and I will save that rant for another day. 

Today is about remembering and being thankful for those who have fought and lost their lives; for those who have fought and sustained physical injuries that they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives; it is also for those who are fortunate enough not to have sustained injury or lost their life, but who have seen things that most of us couldn't even imagine and who have to deal with those memories and the impact of those events for the rest of their lives and then lastly to the families of all service men and women.  I SALUTE YOU!

TOO CUTE

I have a half written, unpublished post from the weekend which I will return to later, but just had to pop this quickie post on.

The three of us are having a little snuggle on the sofa and I just looked up to find D asleep on A's shoulder.  Far too cute.  Just a shame I can't move to get to the camera.

xxx