Christmas pictures

 My Grandad

Caitlin being held hostage!!!

Christmas pictures

 Caitlin kept a record of the days proceedings in her new diary.

 Esaias the frog

 Caitlin's butterfly mask, which she calls her face warmer!

Christmas pictures

 Wootton School Nativity play.  Esaias was a Roman soldier and Caitlin was reporter no.1!  She did ever so well with her lines :)

The children were so tired after a busy Christmas day.

Christmas was a little sad this year...

on the whole it was a nice day and the children had a lovely time.  Esaias woke us up at 4:30am-ish and the children sat on our bed and opened their presents from their stockings.  Esaias got his fake poo in his stocking and exclaimed "Just what I wanted!!" so we were on to a winner from the outset!  We then woke Uncle Aiden up as he was staying with us, and went down stairs.  Caitlin got the Sylvanian Beechwood Hall - it has working lights with light switches - and the elephant Sylvanian family.  Esaias got a blue Wii remote and the Little Einsteins Pat Pat rocket, and Nathan got a Police helicopter and Buzz Lightyear.  They all loved their presents and had a fun time playing on them.  Lewis and Uncle Aiden went back to their beds, while Caitlin and I did very quiet karaoke  on the Wii as Lewis bought me the Glee game for the Wii...we waited until 7am to turn it up!
Lewis got all snuggled up in his new pjs and slippers, I think he was quite pleased with them!
We had a family Christmas dinner at Uncle Paul's and the boys (the grown up boys) had a Nerf gun fight over the dinner table with even my Nanna joining in.  The highlight of which was Lewis running in with a pig mask on (one of the children's gifts) and a big nerf gun shouting "It's the 'pigs'!!"  He got shot a lot after that!
The low point was the behaviour of my Mum who didn't get to sit where she wanted at the table and decided to make my life a misery because of it.  I am afraid to say I grew so tired of her childish behaviour that I took our family home and that made me sad.
 Later on that evening we got a call from Lewis's mum to let us know that Lewis's cousin who had just a few days earlier been given 3 weeks to live, had passed away on Christmas day.  Lewis hasn't seen him since he was about 12, but he was upset for his family.
Moving on, we have visited Lewis's family and seen the majority of his siblings, and we have had my little cousins Cameron (10), Oliver (7) and Theo (16 weeks) to sleep last night while their Mum and Dad went for a bike ride in the peaks so that's been fun.  On New Year's Eve we have Lewis's brother Darryl, his wife Alison and their three children coming over so it should be a fun evening :)

Happy Christmas

I've been a bit rubbish about sending Christmas cards out this year, so here is one especially for you!  I hope you and your family have a very wonderful Christmas!

Joan, I did write you a huge e-mail in reply, but something went wrong when I sent it and it is lost in cyber space!  But I do hope you have a wonderful time with your family especially as this year may be a little difficult, my thoughts and prayers are with you, and YES I do still want you as a friend, especially because you are a little nuts :)

Dance moves

There really is nothing my children enjoy more than dancing!  Here they are strutting their stuff to the Phineas and Ferb music videos.  Why is the picture so blurry? Because they wouldn't keep still!  Even Nathan's nursery teacher has commented that Nathan has "some moves" tee hee!
In other news I have been promoted to Senior Midday Supervisor, so I'm currently training the guy who is taking my old job as assistant midday supervisor and looking forward to a pay rise in the new year...yipee!
We still haven't heard anything about Lewis's job yet, so fingers crossed he will be ok.
Caitlin and Esaias still have one more day of school, while Nathan and I finish today.  They are so excited for Christmas and I'm excited to see their faces when they open their presents.  Nathan has been wishing us Happy Christmas every morning since the 1st of December, so it'll be nice when it actually is Christmas day!

School pictures

A Great Birthday

It's not very often I appear on my blog but here I am opening my presents for my 30th birthday.  They were all Union Jack based, which was so cool!  Lewis also bought me Vera Wang Princess perfume which I have wanted for ages, and a book by one of my favourite authors, and the children bought me a chocolate make up set which is so cool, I've also has some other beautiful and tasty presents!  I have had a lovely weekend despite the weather which put a stop to some of my plans.  However, I did go and have my hair done yesterday and I did go and see Harry Potter at the cinema which is what I really wanted to do.

I have come to this momentous milestone and realised that I have a lot of people to thank for their part in my life over the last thirty years.
To my Mum for taking care of me, even now and making me the person I am today, and also for great genes which mean I currently have no grey hairs and have no need to invest in any anti-wrinkle cream just yet.
To my Dad for teaching me how to cook and teaching me valuable lessons in life.
To my step-dad Mark for stepping in where my Dad left off and for making my childhood a lot of fun.
To all my friends, especially but not exclusively Martin, Jamie, Joan, John, Baishali, Jen, Emma, Andy D, Helen, Andy B, Mickey C and Caroline for making life fun and laughing along with me and listening to me complain.
To the lovely people, including the children, I work with who are fabulous and keep me going.
To all of my family who are awesome.
My grandparents for teaching me the importance of working hard and the importance of family.
My super uncles who are amazing in everything they do and who are my heroes.
And my aunties who put up with my uncles and are also lovely people.
To my cousins who are more like siblings, I am so lucky to have been blessed with such great people to grow up with.
To my brothers who I love to the ends of the earth and back, they inspire me every day.
Thank you to my beautiful children for making me want to be a better person every day, and for giving me THE BEST hugs and kisses in the world.
And of course to my super husband and best friend, words can't say how much I love you and I will be thanking you for the rest of my life for being the star that you are.

Community Spirit

Ok, so yesterday was fun.  We played in the snow, we trekked to the shop and it all felt like a little adventure and it was fun for us all to have a snow day.  Today is not fun.  Lewis is worried what his boss will think about him if he doesn't get into work and so he has been digging snow since about 8am this morning.  With a LOT of help from me, the kids and our neighbours we have almost got the road clear and Lewis has just set off to try and get to work.  The children are running round the house leaving disaster zones in their wake and I don't have five minutes peace or a chance to tidy up because if I do they just mess it up again.  They have all been banished upstairs because they have had enough of playing in the snow now.  I did have a whole load of shopping ordered for tomorrow, but now Tesco aren't delivering until next wednesday so tomorrow I am faced with the prospect of trying to do a big shop with three kids in tow and probably very little on the shelves.  I also had a fun weekend planned, starting with having my hair done on saturday morning and then going to see Harry Potter with Lewis, we're also supposed to be picking up a book shelf from Scarborough for our bedroom, and then on Sunday Mum was going to cook me my favourite roast lamb dinner for my birthday.  We were also due to put the car in the garage on saturday so we could get it fixed.  This has all pretty much gone out of the window now, and I am feeling very fed up!

What has been really nice is the people who turned out to help Lewis dig his way out of our road, most of them are off work or college right now so they don't have anywhere to go, but they came out and helped anyway and for the I am so grateful.  Jamie if you are reading this I need to have a rant but Lewis says I can't write about it on here!

I hope you are all keeping safe, warm and well x

Snow Day 2010

 This was our garden on Sunday...

This is our garden today...

Lewis tried desperately to get the car out this morning but after about 30 minutes digging he managed to only move it about 3 feet.  Lewis loves the snow and was so excited out there this morning.  He hasn't been able to get into work but he is still on duty if any calls come in from Ulceby.  Wootton School is closed today so Caitlin and Esaias are home.  I don't know whether New Holland is open, but we can't get the car out anyway so Nathan and I are home to.  Hopefully we are going to spend the day putting up Christmas decorations :)

Fun picture

Lewis has been messing around with pictures on his Iphone, I quite like this one so I thought I'd share it with you.  I will try and put up some snow pictures soon along with the photos Jessi took of the children tonight.  Despite the snowy weather both Wootton and New Holland schools have been open today.  Nathan is still off school with slapped cheek virus, but I think we will try and get him back tomorrow.  

It's a big week this week for me.  Not only will I turn 30 on Sunday, but I will also find out if I get my promotion this week to, so fingers crossed all will go well.  I'm also super nervous about my party next week, I've been planning it so long that it's a bit strange to think it is less than two weeks away!

Dithering...

Well I went to see the Head teacher at Caitlin and Esaias's school and after a fifteen minute conversation I am now undecided again...aaaaarrrrgghhhh!!!!!!!  I'm driving myself mad!
Caitlin and Nathan are poorly at the moment poor little things.  They are both full of cold.  Esaias got very upset this morning because he had to go to school on his own, bless him!  Not a lot else going on here thank goodness other than my preparations for mine and Nathan's parties.

A day at the sea side

 

Lewis went to Cleethorpes on Saturday with his kite and buggy, so after a couple of hours Mum took us to join him along with Dash.  Nathan dived right in the sea despite the cold and made us all shiver just looking at him!

A new tactic

It has become clear to me that sometimes it is good to talk things with your children and sometimes you just have to pull rank and say something along the lines of "Because I said so." but obviously in a nicer way.  It really goes against my way of thinking but sometimes children aren't capable of understanding the full picture and we as parents need to make a decision that is in their best interest.
So looking at the bigger picture and trusting my maternal instinct I think I have decided to move the children to a different school.  There are a number of reasons behind this ranging from Nathan's vast improvement in his speech, the happier environment at the other school and the financial pressure coming from their existing school.  I don't like the thought of uprooting the children but they all seem ok with this decision.  The main difference is Esaias who was quite distraught when we discussed moving them to a different school last time, but this time I went in with a different tact...I told him he was moving and then asked him if he had any concerns.  He told me what worried him and we talked through it, by the end of a very brief conversation he was happy.
It's not set in stone as yet, but I really think it is for the best.

Theo

This is Theo, my newest cousin.  He is a couple of months old now, but I really wanted to share this picture his mum took because it is just brilliant.  Please note the sign which was written by Theo's older brother Oli who is 7 (he is exactly a month older than Caitlin).  It reads roughly, "In bad mood...noisy..do not take dummy out...screaming."  I really laughed when I saw this picture, I hope it makes you chuckle to :)

Counting my blessings

Well here I am moaning again!  I didn't get much sleep last night as my chest really, really hurt!  At 1am I ended up going downstairs and watching TV until I nodded off on the sofa , only to be woken up by Esaias at 4:45am who charged into the living room and turned the light on!  Sneeky little monkey was trying to get some early morning Wii time...I sent him back to bed!  Lewis went off to work on the train, but when I tried to start the car to take the children to school it wouldn't start...aaaaaarrgghhhh!
Luckily Grandad came to the rescue and let us use his car.  I also got Aiden on the job to try and fix the car, (he is such a superstar!) It's still not working but we have a mechanic friend of Aiden's coming to have a look at it tomorrow.  Fingers crossed it will work.  We are really stuck without our car and it's a real worry to not have it working.
I struggled all morning with the pain in my chest but after I was left in agony after picking up my handbag off the floor I decided to book in with the my GP.  After hearing my symptoms though the GP advised me to go straight to hospital and get an ECG.  Poor Lewis had to come home from work and we pulled the children out of school to be looked after by Aiden and Auntie Sue as we didn't know how long we would be.
It was a definite contrast to my last trip to A+E!  As soon as I mentioned "chest pains" I was whisked through and wired up to an ECG, had blood taken as well as the usual observations.  Thankfully my heart is all ticketyboo so they sent me for an X-Ray.  Apparently there was a "patch" on my lungs and the final verdict was that I have a severe chest infection, which I find odd because although I've had a bit of a cough I felt fine aside from the chest pain.  Any how, I have some awesome pain killers which make feel all sleepy and most importantly alleviate the pain.  I also have some anti-biotics which look like they are made for baby elephants!!!
All in all not the greatest day ever, but through it all I felt so blessed to have such an amazing family.  All I had to do was pick up the phone and they all pitched in to help.  I feel so indebted to my family including Lewis and my children.  My health is not great right now and they have all supported me.  I hope that one day I get to repay them.
Got to go the pain killers are kicking in...yawn!

Caitlin's Greek Homework

Happy Halloween 2010

A bit more Eureka!

Some more Eureka!

Eureka...again!

Twilight dog walk

Brownie Centenary celebration

Caitlin and Muffin

Iggle Piggle

Hannah Montana

Nathan and his Pumpkin

Let me introduce you to Nathan's favourite companion at the moment.  It's a pumpkin!  We have no idea why, but since I brought the pumpkin home yesterday he has carried it every where with him.  He took it upstairs to play on the Wii with him (and dropped it off the bed, it made a huge crash and set us in a panic until we heard Nathan say "ooops!") he brought it down for a drink, and then took it up to bed because he said it was "a bit tired".  Now he is sat watching TV with it.  How is he going to feel when I cut it open, take out its insides and make them into pie???  I only hope that he will think it's an even better "friend" when I carve a smiley face on it!  I don't think this will end well...