April WW Round-up

Wow, this is such a late post. I completely forgot to do a WeightWatchers round-up for April, although I did remember to take photo's. So it was obviously on my mind to do it and then life must have gotten in the way as it usually does.

So here are the photo's I took...

Strike the normal poses... LOL. As far as weight loss goes April was not great. I was still really struggling with the new ProPoints plan and getting my head in the right place. So my overall weightloss for the whole month of April was 1lb. As I said, not great. However at the end of April things started clicking into place for me and I managed to get my head together too... so I'm hoping for a decent overall loss in May!!

While I was taking these photo's this happened... and I thought you'd find it amusing.

... and then she insisted on having her photo taken....

What is it with my kids and always wanting to pose for the camera? At this rate they'll both end up as models when they're older!

Anyway, it's a lovely day here so I'm going to take them to the park. I haven't spent a whole lot of time with them lately due to being extremely busy with prepping for workshops etc. So today is going to be a Mummy and Daughters day and with the sunshine finally making an appearance I'm thinking that a trip to the park might be a good call.

Thanks for dropping by and leaving me a comment. See you soon!

Redefining our Family

When I started this blog... ok, not THIS exact blog - the previous one: Creating Space- I realised fairly quickly that although I didn't mind showing pictures of my family I still didn't want to include their names. In this day and age of identity fraud, web-savvy criminals and internet paedophile rings, I just didn't want that sort of information floating about. I figured that as the main reason for my blog was to keep friends and family up-to-date with our happenings that it wasn't really necessary to mention names either. Simply because anyone who might need to know that information... well, already knew it! So I settled on calling us Myself, Himself and Herself.

Easy enough to remember. Just a little bit confusing to write!

But then this one arrived!

Now, for a while my blog just referred to her as 'the Baby'... not a problem! But babies have a habit of growing up like this:

Can you believe that is the same child in both pictures? They just refuse to stay small!!

Now, this presents me with a problem. I can't really call her 'the Baby' anymore, can I? She's determined to be 'a big girl' and I feel I ought to honour that. So what do I call her here in blogland?

Myself, Himself, Herself and ..... and?... and? Nothing rolls off the tongue at all! I'm thinking that I might have to redefine ALL our blogland names, but that presents further complications!

Any ideas would be most welcome please!

For all those people out there that think I have completely lost the plot... you may just be right! LOL.

Part 1: The girls

I promised you an update on all our comings and goings during 2010, however, it's been harder to put together than I anticipated! Firstly, I'm so out of practise with this whole blogging thing that the words dont seem to flow very well. Secondly, I wanted to include some photo's but then realised that, along with blogging, organising my photo's isn't one of my forté's so I felt the need to sort and organise first! (Procrastination, however, IS one of my strong points!) However, being the numpty that I am I somehow managed to delete almost my whole Picture folder!! So I have spent ages using various free programmes off the web to restore all those memories that I lost... and then because the programme just dumped it all in once place I've had to go through and sort it all out again! Methinks I should just have posted the update and ignored the mess on my hard-drive!

Anyway, now that photo's have been recovered and restored and reorganised and re-sorted I shall finally do this blogging thing again! Thanks for all your patience!!

So in January 2010 - which is about the last time I mentioned either of them in a blog post - Herself was 4½ years old and still at nursery. She was very much looking forward to her birthday in July and starting 'big school' in August although she was still rather enjoying nursery!

The Little One was only 16 months old and had only just gotten the hang of walking!

In May the girls enjoyed having Grandma and Grandad around for a visit from Down South. Especially as Grandad is always up for a bit of this:

In June Herself performed in the nursery 'end of year' play and did really well! Never the shy, retiring type she was very pleased to be given a 'solo' part!

As the weather improved we all spent more time out in the garden, which Himself and my Little Bro had childproofed for the girls.

We also went on holiday where Herself started learning to ride the bicycle ....

..... and so did the Little One!

In July, my pre-schooler turned 5!!

.... and so she officially became old enough for 'big school' which she duly started in August. There was quite a bit of excitement from Herself on the big day (and a fair few tears from myself!)...

Meanwhile the Little One had progressed to running everywhere and talking ten-to-the-dozen. She turned 2 in September!

In October we had a lovely (if somewhat chilly!) day picking apples in the back garden.

With all the snow bringing so much disruption in November, we ended up staying at home a lot! We tried building a snowman but the Little One didn't enjoy the experience!!

Gosh, I can't believe what a fun year we've had with our two growing girls! It has been fun, frantic and very special. I wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Finally, I leave you with this image. The Little One has been brushing up on her computer skills so she can take over the blogging from her mother. Perhaps this way you might get more regular updates!!

Thanks for your patience and thanks for dropping by! Later this week I shall be updating about my weight loss progress. It will be significantly LESS photo-heavy I promise!!

Where does the time go?

My goodness, how time does fly! Today is the 10th of the month, which means that it is Little Miss' 'month day'... and today she is 17 months old! Where did that time go? It seems to have gone so quickly and suddenly she is doing new stuff and trying new things. I can't keep up!  She's walking properly now - trying to run even! She's finally cut her third tooth, ages after her peers have but at least it's there now. I'm hoping that the fourth one isn't too far away! Talking is progressing well too; she has a few words that are quite distinct and loads of words where the general sound is present but not properly formed yet. Signing is still popular and she seems to be learning or making up her own signs almost on a daily basis! She has started dancing to music now; well, waggling her bum really but that's as close to dancing as a toddler gets! She loves singing and has learned the tune and rhythm to loads of nursery rhymes. The words aren't quite there yet but in some cases (particularly 'Twinkle Twinkle') she is forming the sounds quite well. All good and positive things... however, there is a downside too. 

The beginnings of the terrible two's have struck as well. It's as if someone flicked a switch last weekend - and suddenly the tantrums, the head-shaking and saying "NO!", the running away from Mum & Dad when called and the fighting over toys - has all started! Except now we have herself joining in too as usually the fighting over toys is because Little Miss has something herself wants to play with. Suddenly herself has turned into a Little Madam as she realises that her sister can not only get around much faster, but as she is standing up too she can now reach the toys that had previously been out of reach! And so, trouble ensues! Somehow though, over the next 18 years I'm hoping that they will learn to put up with each other, but right now it's not happening!

My baby is growing so fast, and I'm having to learn to keep a camera handy at all times just incase I miss that vital moment that marks another step forward. Unfortunately it means that I'm snowed under with lovely photo's and not enough time to scrap them all! 

Photo gallery cannot open this picture...

A picture is worth a thousand words... or so the old addage goes. So I wonder when I get a message that says "Photo gallery cannot open this picture or video. The file appears damaged or corrupted" how many words, impressions, descriptions of my little one I have lost? I wonder what this picture would have said to me. I cannot tell. I have lost the words, but the memory is still there. I remember taking lots of photo's of her first few hours, her first days. All in hospital. A photo of her under the photo-therapy lamps - looking like a little sun worshipper complete with sun-goggles. A photo of her in a Number 2 bodysuit to match the one of her older sister in the Number 1 bodysuit at the same age. I have that one, but not the other. 

So imagine my delight when I find, hidden in the vast megabytes that is my mother's picture folder.... these! These few pictures of her that are now so precious, so treasured. A few thousand words returned to me out of the many thousands lost to the crimes of technological corruption.

Thanks Mum, for being such a shutterbug.  A thousand words could not express the gratitude I feel for just one of these pictures!

Lazing on a sunny afternoon... in the summertime!

(Photo's taken in May 2009)

Blog Prompt #3: 5 Favourite things!

So today Shimelle has us thinking about lists. Mostly lists of our favourite things, places or people. Favourite aspects of life, our kids, food, landscapes, tv programmes, clothes, colours, scrapbook pages, books, movies, CD's, concerts, plays, colours of nailpolish, pizza toppings...  Well as you can see the list of all the lists could be endless!  So thinking about my list of favourites, I started thinking about all the bits of life that are good right now. So 5 things that I love about life at the moment: 

1. I love our new house! OK, so its cost us a fair bit more than we had expected. We've had to do stuff that we didn't think needed doing. Like replacing the entire fuseboard because the vendors had tampered with it and it was unsafe as a result. Like having to replace the oven - which had looked perfectly ok, but wasn't. So the ensuite needs completely replacing because the previous people bodged it and the garden drainage needs sorting because a tiny bit of rain turns it into a quagmire. BUT! And here's the big BUT, I love it. The house feels more like home in the few weeks since we moved in, than our previous house did - even after all the work we did to it. We've all settled in well and most of the boxes are actually unpacked!




2. I'm loving how both the girls are playing so nicely on their own now! Both herself and the little one are enjoying taking themselves into their own corner and playing. No interference from me! Herself is currently dressed in a Stephanie costume (from LazyTown) and playing with her little sisters toys. The little one on the other hand has crawled between the bookshelves and sofa and is happily unpacking and re-packing her older sister's bag of Baby Annabel accessories. Both girls are happy playing with each others toys, and peace has ensued. Long may it last!

3. I'm enjoying my little scrapping space! So himself finished building my new scrapping space inside the spare wardrobe, all the rails and flatpack have been assembled and the stash has been unpacked and sorted... and then re-sorted again! Now that its all accessible I am really enjoying my crafting again. I'm trying to make time every evening to sit and do a little bit of scrapbooking and also some altering. In fact, I'm in the process of completing a project that I bought the pieces for 2 years ago! I shall post piccies once I've given it to the recipient.


4. I love that the Christmas preparations are underway! I love the festive period every year. The days getting shorter, the air is getting that cold bite, the councils are putting up the christmas lights, we're drawing up pressie lists and making our purchases (slightly later this year!), menu's are being created, christmas cards crafted (or bought!), christmas cakes baked,  the decorations will soon be taken out of the loft and then christmas trees start appearing in every window on the street and soon we'll be sitting down to eat a meal and open presents with family and friends. I love it all... including the mulled wine!!


5. I'm loving the thought of setting up my own business! BUT, the reality of it is quite scary actually! There's so much to think about! Wholesalers, ebay, website, premises, funding, business plans, bank accounts... and then the elusive name for the whole lot! Definitely having problems with that one! Each time I think I've got a name that's suitable I discover that someone else has beaten me to it. Suggestions on a postcard please! 


Phew, that's enough for now I think! Thanks for reading!

Nearly 3 weeks ago.....

...we added another member to our family! Let sleepless nights commence!

I went into the hospital with contractions 4 minutes apart only to be told that I wasn't in labour. However, they decided not to send me home immediately as they wanted to monitor the baby. The monitoring revealed that the baby's heartrate wasn't doing what they wanted and that the foetal movements were down too. After several hours of them saying that they were going to send me home once the monitoring was done, they suddenly decided that they wanted to induce as they weren't happy with the monitoring results. Four hours after the drip was started a beautiful 8lb baby girl called Cecily Rowan was delivered. She had the cord wrapped around her neck twice, but other than that there were no other complications at birth. Our only concern was that she seemed a little sleepy and struggled to feed. This concern continued for another 2 days until they discovered that she was jaundiced. An extra two days in hospital gave them time to give her some photo therapy for the jaundice and got feeding a bit better established. Nearly 3 weeks later feeding seems well established and she is gaining weight well. I just wish we could say that she was still sleepy tho' as she has now decided to wake up and make her presence felt. 

Unfortunately most of her waking seems to be done at 5am and her sleeping is done during the day. Somehow we have to figure out how to turn that around so that her waking hours coincide with ours... but I rather think that's going to take some time!

Anyway, here's a few pictures of our newest bundle!