Alice - Megan comparison

A couple of you have said you think you can see a resemblance between Alice and Megan or have asked if there are similarities.  I decided to look back at the photos of Alice at the age that Megan is now and I'll let you decide for yourselves ;)  These photos are of Alice and Megan at the 2 month stage

Alice

 Megan

Alice

 Megan 

Alice

 Megan

 Alice

 Megan

If you ask my opinion, I'd say there are quite a few similarities ;)  

xx

Megan

Yesterday Megan was two months old. Hasn't that time gone quickly!  Although I think "2 months already!" at the same time it feels like she's always been here.  We are so blessed to have such cute granddaughters and also that we are able to spend so much time with them.  Claire and the girls came and spent the day here yesterday and I was able to get a few photos of Megan at 2 months.

 Megan - very relaxed ;)

 We were getting quite a bit of bubble blowing yesterday

 Big eyes

 Smiles for Mummy :)

 She has the cutest little smiles and both Claire and Alice are often the lucky recipients of them. Megan loves watching Alice as she plays and Claire says her eyes follow her around the room and she smiles at Alice. These girls are already so cute together and I can't wait to watch the bond develop as Megan gets older.

I've skipped the photo of Megan in full screaming mode as she she became hungry and we'll settle for the feeding one instead ;)

Unfortunately, when I popped in to see Claire this morning, Megan wasn't well.  She had her first lot of jabs last week and yesterday her little voice had sounded quite hoarse. Today it was worse and you can just see she's not feeling great.  Poor little love!  Mummy's going to have a tiring day today as each time she put Megan down she'd wake again and her little face would crumple.  Get well soon precious girl <3 nbsp="" p="">xx

Chocolate Oaties

Emily really likes the Cadbury's Brunch Bars that we get here. They're basically an oaty bar with a layer of chocolate on the base.  I was going through magazines, trying to clear them out, when I came across this recipe and thought it would be worth a try.

CHOCOLATE OATIES 

Makes 16

125g  (4oz) butter, plus extra to grease
125g  (4oz) self raising flour
125g  (4oz) light brown soft sugar
125g  (4oz) porridge oats
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
1Tbsp golden syrup
125g  (4oz) milk or plain chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 180C, Gas mark 4 and lightly grease two baking sheets. I used baking parchment instead.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, oats and soda. Set aside.
In a small pan, melt butter and golden syrup. Add to the dry mixture and combine.
Divide mixture into 16 and squeeze each portion into a ball.
Arrange on the baking sheets, spacing apart, and squash down a little.
Bake for 15 - 18 minutes until golden.
Leave to cool for 3 minutes on the trays, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of barely simmering water (or microwave on full power in a glass bowl for 20 second bursts).
Using a pastry brush, pain half of each biscuit, on the top and bottom, with chocolate.
Alternatively, drizzle the chocolate liberally over biscuits.
Transfer biscuits to a wire rack and allow to set before serving.

Biscuits will keep in an airtight container for up to a week. (However, I doubt they'll last that long - ours were gone within a couple of days!)

If you make this recipe, I hope you enjoy :)

My brother-in-law has just given me a flapjack (crunchie) recipe very similar but which includes coconut and chopped nuts. I'm making that today and will let you know how they turn out.

xx

Project Life post for Norma

I know, I'm not doing very well at keeping up with blogging. I could have done another weekly recap but, to be honest, I've not been very good at taking photos this week as it's been half term and we've been having a relaxing week.  However, Norma has asked me to post my Project Life pages so that's what I'm doing today. It's photo heavy (they all seem to be these days) so don't feel you have to look at all the pages. My PL is being kept very simple this year, photos and a bit of journaling.

Week 1 double page

 Week 1 Left

 Week 1 Right with extra insert

 and without the insert. 

That's how these photos are going to go, pretty self explanatory so I won't repeat for each week. If I've added an insert there will be two photos for the right side.

If you made it all the way through to the end, well done. As you can see, there are going to be lots of photos of our granddaughters in my albums ;o) but I love that because we can look back and see how much they've grown and what they were doing when.

 If anyone wants to know how I've done anything or where I might have picked up digital supplies, leave me a comment and I'll reply to it in the comments section.

Hope you've all had a good week :)  Back to normal for us next week

xx

PS. Clicking on the photos will enlarge them.

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

A Day in the Life (31/01/2013)

I've seen Ali Edward's Day in the Life before but never remembered to join in on the day. Last month I saw her mention it again and decided to play along.  I must warn you though that this post is very photo heavy.

A school week day for me starts at 6am when my alarm goes off.  I do tend to lie in for another 5 minutes or so before getting up and heading for the shower. I wash my hair and do my make up when I get out, before heading downstairs.  On the way I'll pick up the washing and sometimes collect dry washing ready for ironing.

The washing gets put in the machine first, then I feed the cats (we have 4)

 I switch on Daybreak (morning TV) so we can see the weather and I can catch the news.

 then dry my hair.

 Emily had great fun teasing me about my attempts at self portraits (with my camera sitting in the kitchen cupboard)

 Hair dried and it's on to making her lunch while she sorts out her breakfast.

 When I have my breakfast depends on how organised I am, but it's normally with Emily

 Time to catch up on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram quickly while Emily finishes getting ready.

Emily getting her music ready for the walk to school

 And getting me back for taking photos of her

 Then sets off (she only has a five minute walk to school but likes to leave a bit earlier to see her friends before school starts)

 A phone call to Claire to catch up on her and the girls

 While Hugh comes in to make his breakfast.

 On Thursday I was meeting friends for coffee at 9am so the car park was still fairly empty when I got there.

 Walking up London Road (I do like our town and the old buildings)

 and along the High Street

 to Caffe Nero 

 All the town photos were taken using my iPhone including this one of a couple of Sarah and Carol.

After coffee I popped in to town to return a jumper, go to the bank for Mum and get a few bits from Boots (the chemist). 

Popped in to Mum and Dad's on the way home

 Dad was looking a bit brighter again though he'll be glad when he finally gets his hair cut on Wednesday as it's been 4 months at least since the last time.

  Helped Mum with her shopping order (which reminded me I needed to do mine!)

 Not the most nutritious lunch - hot cross buns with butter and jam and a cup of coffee ;o)

 I had been trying to get a shot of the new jumper I got but my arm isn't long enough (lol!)

 Catching up on a few blogs

My Sainsburys online grocery order

 A bit of editing - ready for Project Life - before making dinner 

Chicken wrapped in bacon, new potatoes, roast tomatoes and steamed veg (with a bit of ranch dressing on top)

 A hot chocolate (because I'm trying to cut down on eating chocolate)

while watching the previous evenings taped Greys Anatomy before heading to bed around 10.30pm.

I quite enjoyed doing this and may (if I remember) try and do it at the end of each month.

xx