A beautiful day!

I have discovered a new blog written by a guy who very suddenly lost his hearing, I am only dipping into his inspirational story but the last post I read was about how much he is using his other senses. He particulary wrote about how much he uses his eyes which got me thinking about my walk to nursery. I have taken rather a lot of photos of my gorgeous walk with Bubbs today, as we noticed all the lovely different plants springing to life. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did. If anyone else whats a fascinating read please see my blog roll of Life in a cone of silence.
xx
Above is a shoot coming out the bottom of the tree which Bubbs thought was brilliant
This is my favourite pink blossom
Some forget me knots at the bottom of my road

Some more blossom this time less pink with beautiful blue sky
Bubbs loved saying Clematis
Isn't this the most amazing colour!
And finally at the end of our road again a lovely white blossom tree, I took all these photos with my cell phone and did get some very strange looks from passers by but the great thing about blogging is that it gets us noticing things around us especially when we are inspired by others.

School Blessing

Firstly, can I just thank everyone who has been praying for us and our school situation. I have been praying alot recently about it and I found out yesterday that I have maybe been praying for the wrong thing. I was of course, praying for anything other than the school we got allocated but really should have been praying for the 'right' school for William. This was shown to me when I went to visit our allocated school. I have been dreading this day as I have heard so much hearsay about how bad it is/was, the ofsted report is not that great, and in a terribly snobby way just didn't want to go to do the school run in the area....I know, I know this is so unchristian of me but I am human!
Anyway, I went to visit the school and the headmistress yesterday and it was amazing. First we got a tour of the school and there was nothing wrong with it at all, it was good, not great but good. We then also had a meeting with the Headmistress, this was fantastic. I am going to start gushing now and it is all going to come out in a babble but it really was that good. We had been able to talk to either a full time teacher or teaching assistant in each class year so alot of our questions had been answered and talking to the Head all the same answers were given which were good. I had the fear of Bubbs being so young when he starts in Sept, and this was wonderful as they are very flexible about how quickly or slowly he would go full time and they really do go along with how the individual child is fairing. There were alot of prayer points around the school with psalms or verses which made me feel really comfortable and I wanted to get down to how much christian influence there was in the school so this was my next question, we did alay our annoyance with the fact that we are not being given a place in the school which is in theory supposed to serve our parish. She was really understanding about this and said that Father E was very involved in the school and that he and his wife are both trained teachers so they have a wonderful understanding of communicating with children. They have a service each wednesday and celebrate other christian holidays. The BEST bit about it all is that the Head is a committed christian herself....yeah! I can't gush on it anymore but just wanted to get it out in the open that we now need prayer for the Head and the Father to carry on with all the good work that they are doing in this school and that Bubbs enjoys and thrives there as much as I hope he will.
Today was also a great day as I had my training for my new job which I start next week. I am going to work one evening a week in a ceramics studio as an assistant which should be great fun and earn us a little cash to try to make a dent in the finance situ. Our good friend C came to visit for the afternoon as well and brought some wedding outfits for the children to try on, they looked amazing and it was so lovely to see her as she travels so much with her job, she is an air stewardess, that we rarely catch up, so a fabulous time was had by all.
Hubby is off to Wales tomorrow with a friend on a cycling trip, he is extremely excited and hoping for half decent weather at least!

Super Heroes!!

I just had to post this picture for the grandparents in various locations, Bubbs is Spiderman in the back and his friend T is the other one and A is Superman with a watering can. They had such fun out in the garden today playing superheroes which for a while consisted of running about but then turned to more horticultural pursuits! This included emptying my friend V's water butt with the above watering can and proceeding to make one of her flower beds into a quagmire.....when Bubbs was asked what his fav part of the day was for praying about tonight he said making the pond in V's garden. They were out there for hours and came in filthy and happy and then ate masses of pork and apple stew, mash and crumble and trifle....the puds were left over from yesterday which I will get onto now.
This next photo is the end of the football (soccer) match that hubby played in in support of Global Hand a charitable organisation that one of our friends works for, it does amazing work so any help we can give is a real pleasure. Right in the back with by the goal is Bubbs, he decided he wanted to be goalie in the end so was out there by himself with a ball....bless. After this we went for an afternoon tea party at our good friend J's house. She is someone I really admire, she is always so competent in the kitchen and whenever I am doing a dinner party I always find myself wondering what she would do if I find myself in a sticky situation. Anyway, there were sandwiches, Fortnum and Mason duck for wraps, cheese and biscuits and lots of lovely cakes and puddings, including the trifle and crumble. The weather held for us so all the kids had a tea party in the garden which was lovely as it kept the sticky fingers out of the house as there were 8 in all and they loved it. We went quite late into the early evening and then T, J's son came for a sleepover with Bubbs, luckily they were so exhausted from the afternoon that they fell asleep almost as their heads hit the pillow and we didn't hear anything from them until the morning. Hubby loved this bit as he always gets up first for work so got to spend time with them feeding them toast while he had his. I know that this is his favourite part of the day with Bubbs and soon the girlies will be joining in but at the mo they have their milk in their cots still. I know I always go on about how blessed we are with our friends but we really are and just always need to keep remembering how lucky we are.

Sunshine and smiles

As it was still the holidays we decided to have a day out today after one of my lovely friends looked after all my children while I went to the gym. Poor girl probably didn't know what had hit her looking after my 3 and her 1. But she was amazing for volunteering. Bubbs did have a bit of an accident with his friend and got rather a large bloody bump on his head but apparently after a bit of arnica he cheered up and when I got home he was very proud of his lump! We all had lunch together then went on our adventure to the Tree Park. We are very lucky having this so close to us as the kids love it. There are lots of different play areas which we normally go on but it was so busy we just went for a walk. I have to say with the girls it is rather like herding cats and ones that don't want to go the same way as anyone else! The boys had a great time though scavenging in the woodland looking for treasure and out of the shade it was quite warm so R and I sat on a bench at one stage basking in the sun, lovely! Above is the boys walking up the Ginormous Car Parky mountain on our way home, by then naming it this was the only way to get them up and trying to push the pram up certainly reminded me that I had worked out earlier.
Once home, we made the most of the nice day and played out in the garden, this is the kids doing wheelies on their various modes of transport, Moodle was very proud of her one in the middle, Jim Jam was really annoyed as her one just wouldn't lift up...bless her she is trying. I actually came inside at this stage and managed to make a cup of tea and sit in the conservatory watching them which was so nice but didn't last for that long before they started scrapping!
All in all a great day again, so lovely being able to be outside, the children slept last night which I'm sure is all to do with the fresh air....roll on proper nice weather. Especially as this is written today while there are clouds, rain and cold wind outside, such a contrast!

To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question!

I am not going to be long as I have the arduous task of writing my appeal letter for Bubbs school decision. I have been putting this off as I try to gather information that may or may not help us. I don't actually see how any subscription criteria has been broken but I do have some issues which I wish to bring up. But we will just have to wait and see. Maybe God gave us the school he has so that we can get in there and try to make it better, who knows. Whatever happens we need to focus on the most important thing which is Bubbs and his first few years of structured education.

On a lighter note, the last few days have been great. Spent a fab day yesterday with a couple of friends and Bubbs went on a play date at someones house for a couple of hours, and that gave me some time with just the girlies. What a lovely pair they are when they are on their own. The didn't seem to fight as much when he wasn't around, I do kind of envy people who only have a set of twins because when you add another child it does alter things. The girlies then decided they had been far to nice all day and woke up at midnight last night and proceeded to scream and I mean scream till about 23oam when we finally gave them some milk and they went to sleep. I am sure I am digging myself a massive hole here which I won't be able to get out of but I just don't know what else to do at the minute. Some nights they sleep like angels others not at all!! Today they decided to be nice again, and we spent a lovely day at a friends house who also has 3 children but 2 of them are 8 and 11 so it was amazing having children who want to spend time with the babes and we even got to go the park as it was slightly sunny for a change, yippee!
Off to try to do my letter now and hopefully get some sleep. If you want a good read look at my sisters blog, she went on a balloon ride today as she is over the moon about it.
xx

What a great week!

Well, I am back after a fantastic week with my moomin. She has now gone off to my sisters for some much needed R and R, including sleep and crafting. We have had a great time though and the children have loved having her here and after a few rough nights we even got some sleep. Luckily mum didn't have to do too much ironing either as my sister had done a large load already. Once she had gone on friday night I got to have a great girlie time as it was a friends birthday, it started that night when we got together at my friend R's house and spent the whole evening having rather too much to drink and playing Singstar on the PS2, I am so addicted to this and guitar hero they are so much fun. We sang so many songs and on one of my gos I even got to 'Superstar' status, I have no idea what that means but it was still very exciting..We were all rather hoarse by the end of the evening.
The fun carried on the next day as Birthday girls hubby had organised for us to go for days shopping without the children, how amazing is that. We all had a great time and so enjoyed sitting having coffee and spent the first hour and a half in a coffee shop just catching up and planning where we wanted to go. That evening I hosted a birthday dinner for J with a few friends and again a fab time was had, so all in all another amazing weekend.. Bubbs is still on hols next week and hubby and I really have to get down and get our appeal letters written for his schooling, they have to been in by the 25th April. Leaving you with another pic of my mum having a lovely little snuggle and book read with all 3 of her grand children....bless
Love you Doomin, hope you enjoy the pix
xx

Nannie's home!

I'm not going to blog much this week as my mum (moomin) is home from France. She needed a children fix as well as seeing all the other sets of family. She arrived at about 11pm at a motorway service station where my Hubby was waiting for her and fell into the sofabed in the living room where she tried to catch up on some sleep. As always, the girlies did their usual of waking up at midnight and then were awake till about 430am! We are all absolutely pooped but still having a lovely time. In the morning Bubbs came downstairs and I had to show him one of nannies shoes so he knew who was in the bed as he was convinced it was a monster...bless him. Once he realised, that was it and it hasn't stopped, 'nannie will you play with me?' 'nannie can we do ....fill in the blanks'. The girlies on the other hand, although happy to see her have been rather miserable with lots and lots of high pitch screaming, it has to be said I was glad to get them in bed, they did sleep a bit better though and we all went to bed at 9pm..how sad are we.
Today, we awoke to beautiful sunshine so we made the most of it and went for walk into town, moomin needed to pick some stuff up and we met my friend J for a coffee with her children too. We managed to spend most of the day in town and the children were really good, although Bubbs doesn't not like going into any clothes shops so we had to bribe him with some lego....that always works! All in all a good day and I have just been to the gym, yippee!

Fantastic Day

Well, I wasn't going to blog today and save till after the weekend but I have had a such a lovely day I just had to.
I had a surprise visit from my sister. I logged on late last night and she asked if she could come down, wow what a fab surprise and it has made for a great end to the week. She arrived in time to take Bubbs to nursery which he just loved and then after playing with the girlies for an hour or so they went to bed and we got on with chores. Bless her, she made spaghetti bolognaise for us all this evening and I cleaned up the kitchen then as I sorted an order out for some customers she did my ironing. Well, if anyone has read her blog she doesn't have to iron at home as K does it, so her doing mine was so amazing and at least it means mum isn't going to come home to a great pile of it. Mum usually always ends up doing my ironing, not because I ask or expect her to but she does which is lovely and it means it doesn't pile up like it normally does.
The weather was amazing too so once Bubbs came home we all wandered into town and got him a new pair of shoes, us a new pair of shoes each and had a coffee. Such a cool day! Yippee. Have a great weekend everyone speak soon.
xx

Schools!

Well we got the letter today and put it this way I spent most of the day either emailing waiting lists or crying, I can't believe I was but couldn't stop. We not only didn't get our first choice, or our second choice or even our third choice but none on the list and a place was offered to us from the school that is possibly the worst in our area according to the Ofsted reports!
Anyway, we are starting to appeal so hopefully get something else soon, will have to keep you posted. Luckily, Bubbs only turns 4 in July and doesn't legally have to start school until he is 5 so we have quite a long while to play with, thank goodness.
Having also spoken to a few of my friends this seems to have happened to quite a few so the appeal process could be fun!
Apart from that not much going on, I have eaten myself stupid today as I was so cross, and got no comfort from it so it wasn't even worth it, might just eat cereal tomorrow. Could so do with a day off!!!!! I am sure there are many nods of fellow mums out there.
Hubby off to hospital on Thursday to see what they are going to do about his leg as the lump on it is still there from the bike crash, he may even have surgery there and then so I could have a very unhappy bunny that night.
Got my WWW group all coming for coffee in the morning so that should be fun and actually depositing some money into my business account, yeah!
Speak soon xx