Hugh is 25!

Today is Hugh's 25th birthday! Where did the years go?

I thought I'd just share a few photos of him through the years. It's been interesting looking through the years and seeing the changes.  In the later years it's been more the change in hair styles, piercings and tattoos. I could have put in loads more but I thought I'd better not. 

 

 1988

Days old.

 

6 months

 

Aged 2

 

Our super heroes

 

 

 

1999

With Emily

 

2006

 

 2008

 

2009

 

2010 birthday photo

 

2011

Alice helping to open the presents.

2012



 

2013 (Mother's Day)

 

 

Happy Birthday, Hugh!

xxx

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all the UK mothers. I hope you've enjoyed time with family and loved ones.

I am fortunate that I get to see all my children most days - Claire has her own house but is only a short drive from us and I see her and the girls often.  I had hoped to get photos of me with each of my children today but, unfortunately, by the end of the day I'd got photos with Hugh and Emily but not Claire. We'd talked about it and wanted to take them and then forgot until after Claire had gone home :(  I'll have to get one at some stage this week. In the meantime, here are a few photos from my day today ....

                     

 I managed to get Hugh to pose with me before he went to work this morning. Thank you Hugh!

I spent time at home this morning, chatting to Norma on Skype, talking to Emily and catching up on a bit of quick blog reading.  I popped round to Mum and Dad's to give Mum her Mothers Day present and as I left, Claire phoned to say Alice had woken from her nap so I went round and picked her and the girls up.

 Megan is getting so big, another couple of weeks and she'll be 3 months old.  She is so cute to watch, when we're lucky we get the cutest smiles and if you talk to her, there's a fairly good chance she'll babble back :)

 She loves Alice and Alice loves her right back. Here Alice is showing Megan the little duck and shaking it so she can hear the rattle.  She gets upset if Megan cries for too long - though she likes to look at the photo of Megan crying in my Project Life album. It's a series of photos where Megan was quite happy in the first two and then is crying in the 3rd one. You turn over the insert and Megan's having her bottle and then smiling. Alice will now tell you that Megan was hungry in the crying one (true!) and then we fed her and she was happy again. So cute!

Alice is still very much a Grandma's girl.  Today we had the chance to sit and read books.  She likes this counting book and especially the page with the Teletubbies on it. She finds it quite funny when I sing the Teletubbies song on that page - especially when we go through all their names.

 Although we're not reading it here, another favourite book at the moment is It was you, Blue Kangaroo!  I love that she takes in the stories and is able to answer back when I ask her what either Lily or Blue Kangaroo says next.  Looking forward to getting another few Blue Kangaroo books soon.

 And finally, after having taken Claire and the girls home after dinner, Emily and I realised we hadn't taken the photos of Claire and me and of Emily and me.  We rectified the latter - not the most flattering photo but I have one :)

Hope you've had a wonderful day with your family too

xx

Sick Week

Well, what a week this last week has been!  Things had been going well for a while and I guess we'd got used to it.  However, that changed last week ...

 On Thursday morning Claire phoned to say that Alice had been sick a couple of times.  Looking after a sick child isn't always easy and even less so with a baby as well. I offered to go round to help out and spent most of Thursday like this, with Alice on my lap dozing on and off.  I hate when little ones are sick, you feel so helpless. Alice was so good though and never made a fuss at all. Even when she was sick she let us hold her hair back and stroke her forehead, then when she was done she'd settle back on my lap and sleep some more. :o(

By about 2pm, after she'd had a fairly long sleep, she woke up and seemed much brighter. She hopped down from my lap and was chatting, playing and asking for some juice. What a relief, it was so good to see her feeling a bit better.

 Unfortunately it didn't last too long and she'd been sick again during the night. On Friday Claire and the girls came round to the house for a while and Alice was fairly quiet and spent time sitting quietly on the sofa.  I took them home again around 4pm as Emily had an appointment at 4.30.

Just before 10pm I got a call from Claire to say she had started being sick too.  There was no way she was going to manage on her own so I packed a bag and headed round to help look after the children.  I did the night feeds and got up with the girls in the morning.

 We had a very quiet day on Saturday. Alice continued to be unwell and slept on and off through the day. Claire was feeling drained and washed out and we took turns with the girls depending on who Alice wanted to be with. Fortunately, by Saturday night Claire was feeling a lot better but still quite wobbly as she hadn't eaten much all day so I stayed another night to do the feeds.

 Sunday dawned brighter all round. Alice did some finger painting in the morning and Claire was starting to eat again. We thought it would be quite nice for them to get out of the house so we packed some stuff together and came here for a change of surroundings. Although Alice still wasn't 100% she was so much better than she had been on Thursday and Friday.

Aunty Em was happy to have cuddles with Megan (who fortunately didn't get the virus) who is growing so quickly - can you believe she's 7 weeks now!

 Claire tried to do a bit of Project Life, though Mac had other ideas about that.  He REALLY thought she should be paying him more attention!

  And another one of Megan, just because she's cute :o)

Claire was happy to go home again that evening and I told her to phone if she needed anything.

 Monday was a bit of a surprise as we woke to more snow! The weather reports had said it was going to miss us but when we woke on Monday morning, there it was.  Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for a snow day so Emily donned the wellies again and headed off to school.

 I popped out to Waitrose for some shopping for us, for Mum and Dad and for Claire.  The trees in the car park were so pretty with their coat of snow but it doesn't really show up as well in the photo.

So, Monday night after dinner Emily says she's feeling queasy. I had felt the same myself but thought it might just be because I'd had a bit more milk than normal (I have an intolerance).  Emily was sick before bedtime and decided to have an earlier night. I thought that was a good idea myself and headed off to bed myself. Jon said he's sleep in the spare room and let me get a decent night's sleep.  Ha ha!! By morning Hugh, Emily and I had all been sick and by Monday afternoon Jon had joined us.  So, Emily's been off school since Tuesday and I can honestly say that today was the closest to normal I've felt since then. Let's hope that's the last of it.

 I popped round to drop off some Valentines chocolates at Claire's this morning (as well as a present I'd missed at Christmas for Alice).  It was so good to see them all again and I think we could say that Alice had missed me :)  I got big cuddles and was invited to play. She'd got a Playdoh set earlier in the week and wanted to show it to me - though she wasn't quite so keen when I started playing with it!

Claire said Megan must have also missed me because when I got to hold her I got LOTS of smiles.  I felt very privileged because although I have had a few, today the just kept coming. What a little sweetheart she is, so cute!

Here's to us all continuing with good health now. On the plus side, my Project Life album is right up to date! I really must take some photos sometime to share. I also realised I never got round to posting my December Daily - feels a bit late for that now though ;o)

xx

Photo update

Life is pretty  hectic here at the moment.  Dad is back in hospital and has been since the 23 December 2012. He was taken in after a night of severe vomiting and after tests and scans ended up having to have an operation to remove part of his small bowel.  He has recovered well from the operation but went through a stage of extreme confusion/hallucinating which was quite upsetting. Fortunately, for the last couple of days he has been himself again but we are now facing the prospect of him having to be moved to a rehab unit at a different hospital. I'm fighting to try and get him moved closer to home or back to the rehab unit at the hospital he was in after having his stroke. There he would know the people and hospital and it would be less traumatic for him. Just hoping we can arrange it.

Claire is over the baby blues and, apart from being tired, is back to normal.  Alice has adapted to Megan being here without any problems and is very good with her.  I know the photos are a little bit blurred but they are so sweet.  In the one above she was talking to Megan and in the one below she had wanted to hold her (Claire is sitting to the left of the photo and was holding Megan too). 

 Megan is a very content baby and, as you'll see from these photos, sleeps a lot and tends to only cry when she is hungry.

 Aunty Em is totally smitten with her and is more than happy to sit and hold her (or rock her) when Claire and the girls come round to the house.

 Alice decided some lip balm was required - everywhere apart from on the mouth ;o)

 I love this photo of Claire and Megan

 Uncle Hugh having his first hold.

 I've been going round to Claire's most days (or she's come here) and on this particular day Alice and I were building a tower with her Duplo. I think she was quite impressed that it was so much taller than she was.

 Alice has given up a few of her day time naps since Megan has been born.  ON this occasion she was having quiet time and watching a DVD.  Cinderella and Tangled (Rapunzel) are her favourites at the moment and she can now sing along to some of the songs, which is very cute!  Fortunately both DVDs are ones the older members of the family enjoy as well.

 Megan has now outgrown the newborn size clothes and is in 0 - 3 months.  Unfortunately, they are all quite large on her at the moment so she does tend to swim in them a bit.

 Yesterday Alice wanted to do some puzzles. This meant she took all the puzzle pieces out and played with them and hadn't quite got round to putting them back in the boards by the time I left ;o)

And Megan slept through it all :o)  She sleeps through all the noise Alice might make and isn't sleeping too badly at night either.  Thank goodness for happy babies.

Emily is back at school from tomorrow and writes a GCSE exam on Thursday. My plan is to start the coursework I need to do from tomorrow as I need to complete 4 modules by April.  Wish me luck!
xx

End of the week already?

My goodness, where has the week gone!

 Hugh wanted to go in to town to do his Christmas shopping and wanted me to go with him. We didn't do very well - found a DVD I'd like and Home Alone for Hugh then went to Costa for a Black Forest Hot Chocolate.

 On Tuesday morning I was up earlier than normal as Emily had to be at school by 6.15am because a group of Textiles students were going up to The Clothes Show Live in Birmingham.  Claire had a midwife appointment in the morning to discuss her choice of having a home birth. Alice and I stayed at the house and played and then as she got tired she wanted to watch a DVD but wouldn't sit on my knee because she knows if she does that I'm going to try and get her to sleep. She's not silly ;o)

 It was freezing when we got up on Wednesday. When we came downstairs I kept saying how cold I was so Emily went and checked her phone to see what the temperature was. -6C!!! No wonder I was cold!  By 2pm it was still only -2C. It looked very pretty (though you can't tell so much from this photo).  Emily started writing her mock exams and had one in the morning and another in the afternoon. She came home at lunch and I took her back up to school in time for the 2nd one.

 Yesterday morning I went up in the loft to pull out all the baby stuff for Claire. I definitely think it's time for her to get ready for baby arriving as the due date is two weeks tomorrow! She now has the Moses basket and stand, 0-3 month baby clothes and a suitcase to pack in case she needs to go in to hospital. We have agreed I'll keep the bouncy chair and crib here as she has the Moses basket and pram and a baby swing at the house.  It still seems a bit unreal that baby could be here so soon but it's soo exciting too :)

 I took a few photos of ornaments yesterday and had to try the reflection one. The bauble could do with a clean but use it for now.

 Claire and Alice came back to the house after we'd been in to town in the morning. Alice is so at home here and she loves coming to sit and play on my computer. I had been trying to do a few bits but who could say no to such a cutie!

The Round Table Santa came round last night but Alice wasn't keen on seeing him. He was very understanding and just waved to her from the end of the path. Maybe next year she'll like meeting him more.

I have been doing a December Daily (very simple) and keep meaning to take photos of it but haven't yet.  I'll try and do that this weekend and post it on the blog. Have a great weekend!

xx