About time.

It's been so long since I last posted I honestly don't know where to start. I guess first of all I want to say thank you for all the comments on my post about Alice's sore foot. She wasn't walking for nearly a week so it was obviously a painful sprain but I'm happy to say she is back to normal now and running around again.

Since my last post I've painted and decluttered the spare room, which had become something of a dumping ground, ready for Norma's arrival.


After nearly30 hours of travelling (including a 10 hour stop over in Dubai) Norma and Caelen arrived in the UK on 23 April. Although it had been a couple of years since Norma was last here and even longer since we'd seen Caelen, once they were here that time disappeared and we carried on where we left off.  Caelen is living with Kyle and Emma (his eldest brother and his fiance) and Norma is staying with us.

The last time Norma was here Alice was about 6 months old. Alice has spoken to Norma on Skype a number of times when she's been round here, so Norma was looking forward to meeting her again and getting to spend time with her.  She didn't have to wait long as Claire and girls came round the next day. Alice soon warmed to Norma and it wasn't long before they were reading books together.

 

 

I love this photo of Alice :o)

 

Since Norma's arrival we've been busy virtually every day, mainly locally and with family, but we also had a trip to Lewes for breakfast with a friend.  Lewes is only a 20 -30 minute drive from here and yet I'd never been there before. It was lovely and although the weather wasn't wonderful we did have a little walk around. I've got a few more photos from that day but will leave them for another blog post.

This is Grump a Lump Alice ;o) There are some days when she doesn't go down for a nap and by a certain time of day things get a bit much and a melt down can occur. I thought I'd take a photo to add to my Project Life to document this, though I doubt Alice will thank me for it when she's older ;o)

Spring made an appearance and we've had blossom on the cherry tree. It always looks so pretty, it's a pity it doesn't last for long. Again, a photo for PL so that I can see when it flowered this year compared to other years.

The 2nd of May saw Norma and me at the local Community Centre so that I could vote in the local elections. This literally took a couple of seconds and we stopped for lunch in the cafe afterwards.

Mandy makes a wonderful homemade soup and her tomato soup was no exception. It was delicious!
However, after her homemade tomato soup tinned tomato soup doesn't taste so good. Norma found a recipe for Roast Tomato and Garlic soup which she made this week, she added a couple of extra touches and it was really tasty. Certainly one we'd make again.

The nicer weather made me want to plant seeds - these red pepper seedlings were my first attempt and started off on the kitchen window sill. They didn't take long to grow and were then repotted into these pots. Unfortunately the snails liked the look of them too and I've lost three of them. I'm hoping the remainder survive. Since then I've also planted sunflower, tomato and basil seeds and the tomato seedlings are ready to be transplanted too. Fingers crossed we get them big enough to get fruit from them.

We've spent time with Mum and Dad who are loving having Norma here. This week we were able to give them something else to look forward to when we told them my younger brother, Robin, will be coming over for a holiday arriving on 06 June - Mum and Dad's Diamond Wedding Anniversary (60 years). We're excited to see him again - I think the last time was about 2007?

Cloud has a skin condition that causes sores on her which burst and take a while to heal. We need to try and keep the area around her scabs trimmed. On this sunny day I was trimming around the scabs but got a bit carried away. I trimmed virtually the whole of one side of her and had no option but to carry on and trim the other side to match. She would normally go to the dog parlour but they don't like to take her if any of her scabs are weeping, so her fur was quite long. At some stage I felt like I was shearing a sheep with a pair of scissors. Fortunately she didn't look as bad as I'd thought she might (for those in the UK, I was thinking the sheepdog in the Specsavers advert!) and she seems more comfortable with her fur short.

Then we come to my beautiful granddaughers, who we've seen quite a bit of :o).

 Megan is now 4.5 months. She has cut her first two teeth (both bottom ones) and could possibly be starting on the top ones. There's been lots of dribbling!! She's generally a very happy little girl with lots of smiles for everyone - until she's ready for a feed when her demeanor can change in seconds from smiling to howling until the bottle is in her mouth, haha! Once she's had some food she's back to smiling Megan again.  Claie recently started giving her solids as she was waking up hungry at night again. Since she's started on the solids she seems to have gone back to sleeping through the night.

Alice is also growing so quickly and is loving being able to get outside to play. When she comes here she likes nothing more than being able to run around outside, play in the sandpit and water the plants. She also likes going for walks and yesterday walked from their house to ours (probably a 20 - 30 minute walk for her) and Claire said today she walked into town, round town and home again without complaining. So nice to see her getting the exercise and enjoying it. This photo was taken after she'd been playing outside then come in and was watching / listening to Disney's "Sophia the First" talking book. It was only after she'd watched it a couple of times that I realised if you touched the pictures it was interactive (silly Grandma!).

Megan with her sock monkey from Aunty Norma.

 

 

Emily had her leavers day on Friday as the Year 11s went on study leave for their GCSEs. She was a bit emotional about the thought of the leavers assembly but, as I pointed out, she's not actually leaving the school as she will be returning in September for Sixth Form. However, a lot of the children in her year will be leaving and moving to other Sixth Form colleges or schools. Fortunately for Emily, her friends have also chosen to stay at their current school so they'll all be together again next year.

 

 

And finally, Claire found out on Tuesday that her landlord is selling the house she is currently renting. As things have turned out she saw another house on Tuesday afternoon (4 houses down from my parents and just down the road from us) which she really liked. Mum and Dad have known the owner for a number of years and he's happy for Claire to rent it from him. It's smaller than the one she's in at the moment but is lovely and light with good sized rooms and a garden Alice will be able to play in without Claire having to always be there with her. I think they'll be happy there but, as you can imagine, the next couple of weeks are going to be busy as she needs to pack up her current house, decide what she's not going to keep and move. She hopes to be in the weekend of 25/26 May.

 

I don't know how blogging will go in the next couple of weeks (especially if the past few are anything to go by) so please bear with me and keep popping back from time to time to see if I've updated. I'm hoping at some stage things are going to calm down a bit and blogging will resume ;o)

 

Thanks for popping by.

xx

Claire's birthday

Of our three children, Claire has always been the one who loves her birthday - no matter how old she is.  The excitement starts weeks in advance and builds up to the day itself - with regular reminders along the way of how long it is till her birthday and a countdown for the last 10 days or so.  

Tuesday was Claire's birthday! We started the day off quite early with breakfast at Wetherspoons in town.  The last time Emily and I went for breakfast Claire had commented that she also wanted to go for breakfast, so it seemed like a good way to start her day.

By the time we got back to our house I think both Alice and Claire were more than ready to get the present opening started.  If Claire thought she'd get to open her presents herself, she should have known better ;o)  

I know a hoover/vacuum cleaner doesn't seem like a very exciting present but I'm happy to say Claire did like it! She'd been wanting a new cleaner since she moved into her new house so I knew it would come in handy if nothing else.

As it was, a couple of days before when we were talking to Alice about it being Mummy's birthday soon and she'd be opening her presents, Alice had piped up and said "And I'll be opening my presents too!!"  Oops!  Needless to say Grandma then went out to get Alice a present so she'd have something to open.  Alice's present was also a hoover - the same as Mummy's but miniature.  She doesn't like hoovers and I was hoping this would make it seem more fun but I'm not sure that it's worked.

Claire also got Photoshop Elements 11 because her trial version had run out and she'd got used to using it. Seeing as she's been doing Project Life this year I know it'll be something she'll use.  

Caught this one of Claire and Alice as they sat in the bay windown - hence the blown out background.

 Megan couldn't be left out so she also got a little present on Mummy's birthday but in this shot you'd think Mummy was enjoying it more (lol)

 It fell to Emily to bring the birthday cake in this year.  Megan was quite fascinated with the candles.

 Uncle Hugh had to pick Alice up to let her help with blowing out the candles

 and because blowing them out once is never enough, we had to light them again! (I love the expression on Megan's face in this one!) 
The balloon is a big hit with the little ones.  We weren't sure if Megan could see her reflection in it but she lay looking at the balloon for ages.

Megan is certainly a Mummy's girl and Claire gets lots of smiles and chuckles from her. We are so proud of Claire and the way she's bringing up her two little girls. They are absolutely delightful and such a credit to her. They're very lucky to have her as their Mummy :)

xx

Deb and Carrie come for lunch

On Friday Deb and Carrie (who were here from Arizona) came down to East Grinstead to visit us and have lunch. Claire and Carrie have got to "know" each other through blogs and Facebook and I know Claire was really excited to get to meet both Carrie and Deb in person. Emily knows them through their blogs and also from hearing us talk about them. So, great excitement when Friday finally arrived!

Deb and me

Deb had mentioned before that she liked the look of our town so after Emily and I picked them up from the station we headed into town for a quick sight seeing trip. Our town isn't that big ;) and with the weather as cold as it was, we weren't going to be out for long.

 We walked through St Swithun's church yard where they were able to see the old graveyard and the tomb stones for the East Grinstead martyrs who were burnt at the stake in the market place.

 The High Street in East Grinstead is made up of Tudor properties (some of which can be seen in this photo) which are full of history. If I remember correctly, East Grinstead was the stopping point (about half way) for people travelling from London to the coast in times past.

Our little tour over and we headed to Claire's house and then back here for lunch.

 Our girls 

(Emily, Megan, Claire and Carrie)

 Alice took a shine to Carrie and came to be in the photo too

 Carrie, me and Deb

And one last one to finish (love that wink!)

The afternoon went way too quickly but was great fun. It felt like good friends coming over for lunch and not only the second time we'd met. What a pity we live so far apart but I certainly hope we'll meet again in person one day. 

xx

Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day to all the UK mothers. I hope you've enjoyed time with family and loved ones.

I am fortunate that I get to see all my children most days - Claire has her own house but is only a short drive from us and I see her and the girls often.  I had hoped to get photos of me with each of my children today but, unfortunately, by the end of the day I'd got photos with Hugh and Emily but not Claire. We'd talked about it and wanted to take them and then forgot until after Claire had gone home :(  I'll have to get one at some stage this week. In the meantime, here are a few photos from my day today ....

                     

 I managed to get Hugh to pose with me before he went to work this morning. Thank you Hugh!

I spent time at home this morning, chatting to Norma on Skype, talking to Emily and catching up on a bit of quick blog reading.  I popped round to Mum and Dad's to give Mum her Mothers Day present and as I left, Claire phoned to say Alice had woken from her nap so I went round and picked her and the girls up.

 Megan is getting so big, another couple of weeks and she'll be 3 months old.  She is so cute to watch, when we're lucky we get the cutest smiles and if you talk to her, there's a fairly good chance she'll babble back :)

 She loves Alice and Alice loves her right back. Here Alice is showing Megan the little duck and shaking it so she can hear the rattle.  She gets upset if Megan cries for too long - though she likes to look at the photo of Megan crying in my Project Life album. It's a series of photos where Megan was quite happy in the first two and then is crying in the 3rd one. You turn over the insert and Megan's having her bottle and then smiling. Alice will now tell you that Megan was hungry in the crying one (true!) and then we fed her and she was happy again. So cute!

Alice is still very much a Grandma's girl.  Today we had the chance to sit and read books.  She likes this counting book and especially the page with the Teletubbies on it. She finds it quite funny when I sing the Teletubbies song on that page - especially when we go through all their names.

 Although we're not reading it here, another favourite book at the moment is It was you, Blue Kangaroo!  I love that she takes in the stories and is able to answer back when I ask her what either Lily or Blue Kangaroo says next.  Looking forward to getting another few Blue Kangaroo books soon.

 And finally, after having taken Claire and the girls home after dinner, Emily and I realised we hadn't taken the photos of Claire and me and of Emily and me.  We rectified the latter - not the most flattering photo but I have one :)

Hope you've had a wonderful day with your family too

xx

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