Thank you for Fridays

It's Friday at last! I'm tired for sure but also happy that it's the beginning of the weekend. The wine is in the fridge cooling and will be ready for drinking as I type.

Had a nice week, getting into work mode slowly but surely. We also had time to visit the baby clinic and have Emily weighed. She's now 18lb, and at this stage her growth rate will slow down as she is expending more energy as she is now very happy to flip over onto her tummy at every opportunity. Her teeth are slowly emerging and are very sharp! Just watch those fingers everyone otherwise she will gnaw them off.

On Wednesday we also visited Tosha and her lovely little un's Digi and Kalilah. I was fed some lovely chocolate cake and full fat cola - I needed a sugar and caffeine hit! Our kids played, ate and played some more - Digi had me in hysterics as he proceeded to strip off his trousers and pants and run around the playpark!

I also used my local Freecycle website this week, I'd been given an old sewing machine that I didn't need (many thanks to the Dude for purchasing a new one for me). I logged onto http://uk.freecycle.org/ and advertised it, and one day later it was taken away. It did need some minor repairs and probably a service but it has gone to a good home and I hope someone gets some use out of it. I urge people to join this site and see what's on offer - you just never know. I've noted many different items for free - baby cot's and clothes, toys, garden sheds, etc etc. It's a wonderful site just to browse through. Now lets see what else I can recycle.

Blogless

I know I haven't blogged for a while. My return to work and new schedule means I'm busier than ever. I've been out for the past 3 nights. Monday night I was at the St Ives Rifle & Pistol club where i spent 2 hours shooting rifles, c02 pistols and air pistols - I have to say a nice man let me try his Beeman Webley - NICE! Tuesday was Tae Kwon Do and Wednesday I went to the cinema to see 300, which was a fantastic film.

Tonight and tomorrow are going to be quiet - Tonight Phoebe is out to a school disco and tomorrow is at a sleepover.

One last thing a very Happy Birthday to Lisa on Saturday, and Pump up the Mamm!

Slings and Things

I've been on a sewing frenzy this weekend. Decided to pop over the Milton Keynes and pick up some quilt batting and finally get my baby sling made.

Here's the product of a couple of hours of hard work:

Looking Good

Emily slept well last night, so it looks like the teething didn't bother her too much. She's now happy chewing on her soft feeding spoons and anything else that comes within her grasp.

Stealth Teeth

They're here at last! Emily has her first 2 teeth!!!!
I was just thinking that they would never appear and that she would be a dribbly baby forever and a day. I can't believe how sweet she has been through out her teething - just one grumble at 1.30am this morning. I got up after hearing her and took her into my bed for a cuddle and a feed. After playing for about 30 minutes she dropped off back to sleep till 6am. I never thought anymore of it, until this evening at bathtime when she was on the floor playing. And hot-diggity-dawg I could see something strange on her gums, and on further inspection (finger in the mouth test) bingo I found them. Not 1 but 2.

Bless my red cheeked cherub - I hope the others come in with as little discomfort as these 2 have caused.

It is the evening of the day

I sit and watch the children play. Smiling faces I can see, but not for me. I sit and watch as tears go by. ("As tears go by" by the Rolling Stones)

Today is my last day of maternity leave, tomorrow I officially start work. Sad as it makes me, it makes me feel sadder that I will be spending 3 to 4 days of the week away from Emily and I will miss those first new changes in her life. I may miss the first morning she wakes up with her first new tooth. I may miss the day she calls one of us Mama or Dada. I may miss her cuddle whilst feeding her in the afternoon. I may miss the first time she feeds herself with a spoon. I will simply miss her.

Going
Going
Gone!
Hold on what's that flash?
Hey it's Mommy, I'm awake!

Wild Cat

Just got this link from Lisa's blog and quite liked it, try it for youself

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Offsetting

https://energy.money.uk.msn.com/msn/CarbonOffset/

Whilst browsing this morning I found this handy tool to calculate your carbon footprint. Using our electricy and gas payment we calculated that we use 45% less than the national average (this goes down if I switch to a diesel car as they cause more pollutants!). And it worked out that our carbon footprint is 2.4 tonnes per year.

Another thing - its RND at Phoebes school so here are some piccies of the red head babe and her dodgy finger (no it wasn't me - her friend accidentaly shut her finger in the door at school, luckily it wasn't broken just badly bruised, and it took A&E 4 hours to find that out!).

Yawn I'm tired - I was up till 1 am getting rid of this worm , stupid firewall was off when I update some java files, friggin thing rode straight in. Luckily I had Mr H online to give me some pointers and hand at removing the beast. All looks well now, and I know I'll be in bed real early tonight :)

Busy Bee

This is my morning so far, woke up at 6.30 and listened to Emily cooing in her bed. She then fell asleep and I read some chapters in my book. I then got out of bed at 7.20, made lunch for Phoebe, got myself dressed, put on one load of washing, made a cup of tea, made biscuit filling and finished off making custard creams, wiped the couch free of cat hair, ran a virus check on the PC and cleaned it, said good bye to Phoebe. Changed, dressed and fed Emily. Went into town to do the fruit and veg shopping, picked up a can of red hair spray (for Red Nose day at school tomorrow). Checked PC again for viruses, cleaned registry, deleted files. Unpacked shopping, oh and blogged. And it's only 9.30 - who says I'm not a superwoman?

Bargain Booty

Since I'm in a bargain hunting mood this week - please note that if you have Nectar points - that Nectar are having a sale starting on the 17th March - over the following 4 weeks they are having sales on CD/DVD's, Electricals, Wine and then Music!

Feeding Time

Ahhh finger food going down well!

Fashion Shoot

Ok I found some trojans on my pc that were affecting my internet connectivity - hence the lack of blogs. But we are clean and up and running - so I just had to post some photos of Emilys new clothes that I was able to buy at Tesco (and I got some great bargains too!)

Shopping

Emily received a gift card from Alison, so this meant I had a licence to shop (only for clothes for Emily!)

Drew is feeling arty this morning - the above picture was created using the rasterbator.

Early Mornings and Hangovers

It's now almost 9am and I've been awake for 3 hours and I feel a tad rough.
Last night we had a small dinner party and I surprised myself by being able to cook fillet steak to everyones delight. They all loved it! I was surprised as I'm not a fan of red meat - let alone cooking it. But I bought the steak from a reputable local butcher and I have to say that it was the best thing I've tasted in a while and I was so chuffed that I was able to flambe too! I could be another Nigella in the making - but somehow I don't think I could look as saucy as she does in a kitchen ;)

Anyway it was a successful night, lots of laughs and lots of wine and beer were consumed. One thing that sticks in my mind is what my friend thought of me and my internet obsession. Apparantly I'm like a hamster in a wheel!

Audrey - this is for you

Strange things that I do

I've not been up to much over the past few days. Mainly housework, looking after kids and trying not to ruin any more cakes. Yesterday I did a quick tidy up of Phoebes bedroom and noticed her pedometer. So I decided to try it out today for a laugh. I found out that in the morning when I get up and get Emily and sort out Phoebes lunch I do about 300 steps. Then we went to the Market and that was another 3200 steps. I went for a 2.7 mile run and that was another 5600 steps. At the last count I've done 9603 and I've still got the rest of this evening and a Tae Kwon Do class to attend so my little experiment isn't over yet!

Crazy Lady

Crazy Lady Driver was back again today, this time she really astounded me with her parking. She must be at least 2 foot away from the curb and is seriously asking for her car to be wacked. It happened to us yesterday on our way back from Tesco. We had just parked and I hadn't even opened my door when some plonker drove to close and clipped the wing mirror.

I still hate Mondays

Bleeding sewing machine broke today.
The End
:(

Pervs and other such things

I've come to the conclusion that swimming pools are places where perverts prey on anybody. Not only have I been flashed at by a lesbian in an Aberdeen pool changing rooms, I've also been perved on by some pool stalker.

Yesterday I took Emily, Phoebe and her friend to the Parkside Pool in Cambridge. This was going to be Emily's first time in a swimming pool, and also a great chance to let Phoebe and her and mate have some fun larking about in the water. Everything was going well, Emily was enjoying the warm water and the girls had gone off to try the slides. After half an hour I decided Emily had probably had enough so I told the girls I was off to shower and if they needed me I would be at the poolside cafe. I got changed, found a seat beside the pool and started to feed Emily some lunch, when I noticed that one of the lifeguards was staring at me. I didn't think too much to begin with but after 15 minutes every time I looked up to see if I could see the girls I caught this man looking at me. This went on for another 10 minutes, he'd wander off only to return to the same spot and turn to look at us. This also caught the attention of another lady who also had a very young baby and I mouthed to her "is he staring at me", she replied "yes". Slightly uncomfortable now, I finished feeding Emily and held her in my arms till she fell sleep exhausted, and then I got my chance. I saw the pervy guy leave and I took the chance to get one of the other lifeguards to get the manager. I explained what had happened to the manager and that another lady with her baby had seen the guy as well. The manager was nice about it and said he knew who it was and would have a word with him. I felt relieved but I also wanted to now leave the pool but I couldn't see the girls as they must have been in the bigger pool. So i had to wait, finally one of them appeared and I asked them to get showered and come out. Both appeared happy about that (well they had been in there for 2 and a half hours), when next thing I know Phoebe is in pain. I thought she had stubbed her toe on the side but when she came limping over and sat down at the side she showed me an earring sticking out of the bottom of her big tow. Yikes - I got a shock. I was almost in tears as I could understand that that would really hurt. My poor mite was in pain, luckily she let the lifeguard take a quick look and he quickly removed the earring from her foot. We then all got taken through to the first aid room, where lo and behold I met the manager again! Phoebe was brave and let the lifeguard clean the wound and put a plaster on it, whilst I helped fill out the incident form. At this point I really desperately wanted to leave. Finally the girls got dressed and we were about to go when Phoebe realised she had lost her goggles. *!?*&%$!*!?!?! Once again I had to speak to the lifeguards about her missing goggles, just when I thought everything was over, the lifeguard then presumed that another lady in the pool had nicked Phoebes goggles. So we watched her like hawks only to have the manager (again, he must have been sick of us by now) come over and hand over the goggles that had been left in the first aid room. I made a quick exit with a sleepy baby, 1 tired kid and 1 kid barely able to walk.

This is not quite the end of the story - before we got to my car at the fire station Emily decided to sneeze in Phoebes face and throw up a little over my arm as I carried her.

I think all this calls for a big pressie for Mothers day :)

Drink!

The dude and I often have this occasional discussion of who we would like to be in our drinking club. Let me explain , this is just a fantasy club of people (famous or not it doesn't matter as long as the other person knows who you are talking about), that you would like to have in your said drinking club. Now the dude already has a fair amount of people in his drinking club so I thought that I would start my own club.

My list of VIP's would be -

Madonna (even though I think her adoption of the Malawian boy was OTT, I still like her, she's smart, sassy and doesn't take cr*p)

Posh Spice - well you just have to get to know the girl, and she looks like she could do with a drink to loosen up.

Brad Pitt - goes without saying!

Matthew Fox - sweet eye candy :)

Helen Mirren - for her award winning performance in The Queen

Catherine Tate - am I bovvered?

Tosha - She's a yummy mummy, doesn't take cr*p either and has a wicked sense of humour

Lisa - someone who I trust enough to help me deliver my own baby!

(Tosha and Lisa - I still haven't been out with either of you two on the town - so whenever your ready!)

It's not easy being Green

Over the past couple of years we've been slowly getting greener, and I'm not talking about my skin colour. When the council handed out their blue and green bins I thought that this was brilliant. I love recycling. This year Drew worked out how much money and electricity would be saved if we powered everything off that we normally left on standby - I think his calculation came to £12. But not only does this save us money it also saves carbon emissions - being Carbon Neutral is the latest subject in the news. At the moment we only drive to our supermarket once a week, we shop at the farmers market in town on a regular basis (no car needed), and we recycle every available item that I can think of. I've even been lucky enough to have such good friends who have lent me baby items such as clothes, toys, and a cot. Does anyone else have suggestions on reducing carbon emissions or being greener.

Some suggestions here

Petrol

Big news that people are noticing their cars are failing after buying Tesco petrol. Looks like you will be compensated if they find a fault but it's increadingly looking like they will. Fill your car up now - get the compensation :)