We have become THOSE parents!

Saturday we went to Sparsholt countryside day. This a college farm that opens it's doors for you to look around. We arrived at 10am which is about 30 mins after it opened. The queues weren't bad at all however it was cloudly and lightly raining. This soon turned to a quick bout of heavy rain just as we were paying to go in! Thankfully within 5 mins it was all over and no more rain for the rest of the day - Horray!

We decided to get a trailer ride up the hill to the top rather than walking. Partly due to having to push a heavy Sophie up a field and mainly due to having to drag a tired Jessica up. So rather than set off on the wrong foot with an exhausted child we chose to cheat :-)

We saw cow's being milked, a fish farm, horses in a show ground, sheep being sheered, monkeys, rabbits, hamsters, rabbits and mice and reptiles of alsorts.

We found a hidden jumble sale which was good as I picked up some books for the kids for 25p each. Bargin! 

Jess found the fun fare and had a 4 minute for £2 on both the big slide and the mobile soft play unit. She wanted a go on the tea cups but the machine was broken so they got given a refund.

We then searched down the field with all the vans of food. We all chose something different so I joined the fish and chip queue for the girls, Someone else in the hog roast queue and hubby in the hot dog queue! We all queued up for 50 minutes! So nooot impressed with that wait! Thankfully I always carry snacks so handed out crisps to the girls to tide them over as it was almost 2pm when we were done!

The sun was starting to come out by this time so we sat on the grass and ate our food. Jess then had a play with some nearby toys and I had a look in the craft tent and found some more cheap books. We then headed over to the plant sale where I struggled to carry a lot of plants and push a pram! This limited me to what I could get. In the meantime the others were at the "crazy golf" which was just hitting a ball on a bit of grass. We decided to head back to the car so started walking down the hills. We diverted into a tent to buy some cheese cake for a snack. Again this was just crushed crunchie with some cream and then a choice of whatever toppings you wanted. We chose strawberries, twix, chocolate sauce and mint aero. After eating this we went back to the car. We ended the day with a mini nap on the sofa and then doing some gardening. It wasn't until bed time I realised that despite taking the sun cream we had forgotten - first time ever - to apply it to the children. ARGH! Jess was ok but Sophies face was some what red! It had gone down by morning and better by today. Deary me we have become one of those parents! ... No pictures today i'm afraid as I wasn't efficient enough this time! Well except for this rabbit asleep in a hole I saw.

All about Sophie!

So Sophie is now 21 months old! This has gone soooo quick and so slow all in one for me. I am very traumatised as it means that she is almost 2 and we can no longer call her "the baby"! :( However it also excites me as we can ditch all the rest of the baby stuff either in the loft or in the ever growing "to sell" pile. Need any baby stuff up to 2 years anyone???! ...

So they say that when you have another child they will be completely different to the first. This I got but by heck I didn't appreciate just HOW different they would be! Jess was a 5lber new born and is still tiny - measuring on the 25th centile like me. And Sophie was 7.7lb at birth and raced up to the 91st centile by 16 weeks old or so. She is still huge now! With weight comes added challenges for mummy. Until literally the last 2 weeks she would only go to sleep if rocked. Whilst I still rock her for naps (oh my poor back, hips, knees and pelvic floor!!) hubby has found that he can rock her for 5 to get her sleepy then she will let him put her in the cot. This results in her self settling if she lays still or a bit of rolling around then going to sleep. Or needing a bit of help from stroking/patting. But again this is a step down from needing to be rocked off. So we have some progress! We last gave her a try with sleep training - gradual retreat - before christmas. This didn't work as she was also going through the 18 month sleep regression so we gave up to come back to it at a later date. The imminent death of father in law became of prime importance.

Baby 2 newborn period was dead easy!! Much easier than I worried about. I had already mastered breastfeeding and cosleeping. As I was in hospital again after having her like with Jess as she was a Caesarean due to breech I knew the drill. I hated harrassing midwives to keep passing her to me for feeds every hour so I just took to cosleeping. They tucked us in and pulled the side up so we were safe which was very sweet! This time I was in a high dependancy room for the first 3 days/nights so just me and her. So once again I pulled her into bed with me and we snugged up. Every time she wanted a feed I would just latch her on leave her to it. Soooo pro :-D

This continued when we got home. Jess took to her like a dream.

I had prepared a new box of toys and books for Jess as a suprise so when I was breastfeeding I could just whip it out to entertain her. Sleeping was a case of Sophie in the moses basket for the first part of the night and she came into our bed around 3am when I was sooo tierd I didn't care so longs as I got sleep! She ended up cosleeping until she was around 10 months old when she started sleeping though the night without needing night feeds.

12 weeks til around that 10 month time I had PND and Anxiety so took on cbt. This seemed to help if for no other reason that to give me a reason to get out the house once a week - baby and child free! We had home help come in from home start but tbh they were useless over all and if anyone was as desperate as I was for someone to just take the kids and regular then I wouldn't really recommend it. If you need practical help in the house and don't mind missing out weeks at a time then it might work for you. 

Sophie has mostly been behind Jess. So not sleeping through til 10 months but Jess did this from 12 weeks. Not doing any self settling really until 21 months - Jess gained this skill around 5/6 months! She also started teething later than Jess too. I think she was around 9 months where as Jess was 8. She started solids at 26/27 weeks as that kinda crept up fast on me and I wasn't prepared for it! Jess was raring to go by 24 weeks. In regards to breastfeeds they were about the same by day but once Sophie stopped the morning feed she didn't want any substitute. Jess had cows milk Sophie just has water. With food Sophie loves all things veg and mostly all fruit - brocalli is a massive favourite! Where as Jess to this day will not touch any veg at all. And has become fussy with fruit.

Sophie is very cuddly and kissy where as Jess is quite standoffish. She doesn't really like cuddles as much. She will come up for them sometimes but gets bored quick. She is very sensitive so needs treating gently and for me to plan in cuddle times.

Sophie loves water play now. She can often be found tipping water from her drinking cup all over the place! Into bottles, play kitchen cups, over her dolls face, books - just any where!

Her favourite thing to say right now is "car," "ride". When she stands on the changing table she likes to watch what is going on out the window. And I am often fighting a madly waving arm to get her into a top whilst waving bye bye bus! She loves birds and is always saying hi birdy,

If she can't find you she can often be heard saying "where yar you". If she does something like make a mess she can be heard saying "oooooh did it" ...

So she is right little character now! She loves books and we do story time separate at bed time so that they each get their own mummy/parent time. 

Sophie sleeps funny on some of her naps. Look at these 2 pictures of her hands tucked in and her little feet crossed over lol!

She can count very well. 1-2-3-4-5 ... 9 7 8 9 ... ?! But this good as they are only meant to be mastering 1-3 pre 2 years old. Jess is a numbers girl though so recon she will follow likewise!

She has just started doing puzzles now.

Her hair is much longer than Jessica's was at this age! And it also straight. Jess has these most gorgeous curls so I am missing those for sure! The other big thing is hairclips or bobbles. We put them in and she immediately pulls them out!This is why she looks somewhat feral in most of her pictures ...!

Right that will do for Sophie! Here are a few piccies to end with :-)

Chin up and look to the sky! 🌸Remember to subscribe for updates! Until next time take care! X

All about Jessica!

So today I thought I would write up a little update on Jessica.

Jess is still doing school and nursery until the end of the month. We love Farley and really are mega upset that she only has 3 weeks left! After half term she will be in school for 4 days until September. And she will continue to have her one day a week at home with mummy. (That said the other day she said she would rather go to Farley!!!) So that will be the end of Farley until October when Sophie will start.

Jess is doing fab at school. Parents evening's have reflected her strength in maths which is what we already knew. She loves anything numbers related - always has! And is slightly behind in knowing things related to time - this morning, last night etc etc. So we have an area to work on :) I actually have a board game that has this type of stuff on it along with days of the week so we shall be working on that :-D

She has just gone up a shoe size to a size 9.5e so we need to get her more new shoes. Not bad though as I was under the impression kids grow out of shoes mega quick and was expecting to be buying new ones before the new year! I also need to get her sandles for summer and a pair of crocs for the garden too. I shall look for those in sales and ebay etc too.

Jessica is on tapestry - this is a site the school sets up that they upload the children's observations and photo's to for you to observe their progress in reception. We have had all manor of pictures from her surrounded by boys in the mud kitchen making mud soup to a picture of her being the teacher and leading the "class"! She loves doing this at home and can often be found making a register and asking her teddies, the cup?!, chair?! etc if they are here ...!! Even mummy, daddy and Sophie have to sit in class ...!

We have a new sand and water table that both girls enjoy and Jess can be found making yet more soup in one of my saucepans - sand, water, daisies and compost are a real favourite! She also likes putting in dishcloths and washing them in the water side?! 

She is very into collecting nom noms at the minute and has made a bus for them to sit in - complete with seat belts with daddy's help.

Well that's it for a quick update! Next I will need to put an update up all about Sophie! Until next time ~ Chin up and look to the sky! 🌈

Declutter, Declutter, Declutter with the Flylady!

So life has begun to settle down nicely the last couple of weeks. I have made a dent in the house and the clutter once again. Having seen off the worms we completed the backlog of sheets and towels when we got home from FIL's funeral. Yesterday I cleaned a mouldy bin (it had been touching window and gone manky on the outside with the condensation) and a wooden car run that had gone manky underneath and I hadn't noticed. Must have had water spilt on it by the kids at one time or another. Monday was a bank holiday here so we boxed up loads of the kids clothes/toys and took them up to the loft. Much to hubby's annoyance as we aren't having any more babies so he doesn't see the point but I can't emotionally detach from them yet. I have thrown some that will go to sell on ebay/facebook/nct. I say thrown ... This is literally ... Thrown onto a huge mountain of a pile that reaches up to the ceiling almost! We have no less than about 14? big boxes of stuff to sell. I am soooo gonna be busy ... at some point!

Our downstairs table is somewhat clutter city right now. I have worked through some of it. This consists of a pile of stuff to photograph to go on ebay - a box of stuff that is to be put on ebay and then a box of the kids craft stuff that I need to find a home for ... Some where?! We just don't have enough space in this house to put things! We will one day get the garage converted but all we seem to do is think and talk about it and get no further. It's a big job! The garage is a room built into the house. We have all of our garden stuff in there right now. So we need to get a shed/summerhouse type thing up the garden that we can relocate all that junk into and then we have any empty room to go for the conversion. This isn't going to be anytime soon and I can't see it being in the next couple of years which is a pain as we need the space now really whilst the kids are tiny and have sooo many toys!

So how am I managing to get all this done with the kids around?! I have clamped down on Jess and her bedroom lately. She must tidy up her toys on the floor before bed otherwise they will be taken away. She has 3 chances then they are gone. (Another bag full of junk just chucked in the nursery pulled out a few weeks later ...!!) So this helps a bit so I have less to do in that room. But other to that I follow Flylady.

Flylady is a house system whereby you break tasks down into tiny areas/jobs on a daily rota of routines. You start with baby steps - cleaning your sink, making bed, getting dressed etc etc. You then progress to things like setting a 2 minute timer to do a hot spot (anywhere that clutter accumulates quick), a 5 minute room rescue - running around picking up those toys! - a 15 minute declutter ... Pull out a cupboard or something to sort out. You have different zones for house cleaning and different daily missions eg - clean the fridge today. I have never manage to do the zones or the house cleaning. But hey ho one day ...! If you struggle in the housework area check it out! We even have a UK Flylady group on facebook where we support each other and help each to meet our goals :-)

Right that will do for today. No pictures i'm afraid as this is just a quickie update. I'm also frantically trying to sort through a backlog of photos of the girls so facebook will be somewhat spammed from time to time ...! I aim to go through youtube and label all of the video's properly at some point too so that they can be view in a sensible order and are easier to find. 

That's me done - Til next time - Chin up and look to the sky! 🌈 😁 Don't forget to subscribe for immediate updates about the mad house 👾!

The erection of the greenhouse - How not to do it!

Those of you with a keen eye will have noticed the website change ... Yup I am now hosted on my own website address! This is akin to the feeling you get the first time your parents hand you the front door 🔑when you are 13 years old ... You know you go swinging it in your hand down the street so every one cane see ...! NO?! Just me then ... 🙀 Any way's I have been researching and realising you can do a lot more and change things for the better over on wordpress so I plan to investigate that a bit more with a view to moving over. *Better start packing the blog boxes* (Researching how to move a blog to wordpress ...!)


So I thought I would drop you all a line to tell you about the garden work going on.

We currently have 2 projects on the go. Hubby has decided that the grass needs levelling off in preparation for summer so that a paddling pool actually stays level. As part of this it involves completely removing all the turf ... I only agreed to this on principle that we replace it with new turf.That said I will miss the daisy's, buttercups and those things that you flick at each other!
I'm sure that they will soon return - Although not as soon as the bind weed and couch grass will i'm sure!!

I have been working frantically (I say frantically as frantically as you can with a 21 month old cuddling your leg and a 4 year old tipping stones at your feet ...) on weeding the garden borders. 

My heather has died so I need to replace this with a new one :( It was my favourite too as it had pretty blue flowers on. It got some white sort of mould on the leaves so no doubt diseased.

I have also been trying to erect a walk in green house. I have treated myself to an upgrade from the basic 4 tier level!  
A - I fancied one to feel more ... gardenly ... is that even a word?! ... And B - I have a side line hobby of selling my over grown cast off's on ebay :-D So I will be using this to nurse them all in pots ready for selling on. I do like my little money makers! 

Plants I have sold so far include: Teasels, hellibores, bamboo root stock, ferns and something else I forget the name of right now. I haven't put anything in ebay as yet and I really need to get my socks up and get on with it as it is well into the season now and I have some of last years teasels good to go! If you want any little plants just let me know and i'll send you pictures of what is available :-)

Putting up the greenhouse has been somewhat a tricky affair. Being that typical woman who is useless at diy i'm suprised it didn't fall down after the first pole! I had treble dug over the ground - raked it - bashed and stomped on it to "level it". Then I went round the garden collecting odds and sods of slabs to try and make a base for it. Here are some pictures for your amusement!

Any way this very rickity unbalanced thing is definately going to have to have some husband treatment on it next week to sort out the ground! Hopefully then we can finished the sides and get the roof on! 

Until next time ... Chin up! And look to the sky! Don't forget to subscribe for immediate updates 👀

What do YOU want to see?

Just fishing for some ideas! What do you want me to write about? Got any questions you want me to answer? Want my view on something? Goooo on give me some idea's on what to natter about or what links to share? Or videos? Or pictures? ... Add your suggestions down below in the comments and don't forget to follow me to get immediate updates! 😊 Until next time ... Chin up! And look to the sky! 🙌

Long time no see!

Wow time flies! I haven't been on here for ages. I pop back on and the whole place has changed. I soooo need to update my blog. I can see you can practically make a whole new website out of the thing now by adding pages. Great stuff! I actually really enjoy making websites - my favourite - all be it a cheat site is weebly. So quick, so easy!

So what has changed since 2014 I hear you ask?!  Well ...

Well in October 2014 Jess started nursery. This is in the only yurt nursery in the UK that is in 2 fields on the edge of a country college. Seems funny to be typing that as she is leaving in a months time! They play in fields, build fires, play in the woods on a swing, play in a massive sand pit, visit the farm and see all the animals. Just love it!

October also saw me falling pregnant with baby number 2! ... Argh! This time I fell pregnant on the first month of not actively trying but not preventing. You know when you tell yourself your not really trying but secretly you are ... but ... your firmly in the camp of denial ... Yea I was there ...!!

My whole pregnancy was a mash of feelings about whether I was going to have another breech baby, another Caesarean - then I discovered you can have a breech vaginal.So I went for this but she then turned cephalic at 28 weeks so worry over. By this point I had had enough of consultants and you must do this so looked into independant midwives. I eventually had her in the July 2015 as a home birth :-D Go me!! :-D Most amazing thing EVER! Would do it again in a heart beat ... (I did not get off lightly though as I had a PPH loosing 2 litres of blood and ended up with a 4th degree tear! (She was a shoulder dystocia.) So I got whipped in by ambulance and a nice 5 day stay after. I actually wanted to go in to have one on one time with her for bonding so I didn't mind this. I love hospitals ...

The rest of 2015-2016 pretty much saw me clinging onto life with a thread of silk mentally. Adjusting to 2 was the hardest thing in the world!! Never again ... Newborn period dead easy! We coslept, breastfed on demand, did what we could to survive. As soon as she turned 4 months that was it. Things got bad for me and I got PND & Anxiety. This was at its worse until around 10 months pp. I had cbt and this gave me a weekly focus and break if nothing else. My support network was practically non existent. I was in touch with home start. The lady that arranged it was awesome I wanted her to help us. But the ladies (we had 2 I fired 1) that came in were nice but not quiet on what they thought. I lost confidence in the 1st which made my mind go backwards and the 2nd was really and at just not being around for weeks. Always on holiday then with us for a week or 2 then off again.I know they are volunteers but I just needed consistency. They took us off their books around about christmas 2016. At the same time my cbt was ending and at the same time my FIL was recently diagnosed with cancer. So really bad timing on loosing the support.

However baby 2 - called Sophie by the way! Was older now she was over a year things were beginning to settle down. January 2017 she was 18 months and again another leap into a bit more like normality. The worst thing with her has been sleep. Fine all night once asleep but getting her down is hell. She still (now at 21 months ... ) mostly needs rocking to sleep or falls asleep on the boob. I don't mind on the boob but rocking is hell for my pelvic floor and back! However she has on occassion eventually dropped off in the cot by herself (After 10pm ...!) so we seem to have some slow progress here. 


Here is a picture of the girls now :-)

FIL passed away last month so this year has been mad so far. Hubby has been up there a lot to sort things out practically etc both before and after. The kids have been sick with everything going until this month. So now things are beginning to settle down again. Hopefully life can resume at a slower pace! So that's about all from this end. Sorry it's long but after such a long gap it always was going to be ... That's all for now. Keep looking up all! X