Dad's Birthday

Saturday was Dad's 84th birthday and a reason to celebrate.  It was good to have the family around for afternoon tea - those of us close by anyway. When Norma lived in South Africa she used to say she missed being part of the birthday celebrations but this year it was good to have her here to celebrate with us.

 

A quick photo before everyone arrived.

Some presents to open.

 

We had been speaking to Iain in Australia as people started arriving and he asked for some photos to be put up for him to see.  So Iain, here are a few from the afternoon ;)

Mum and Emma

Kay and Martyn

Norma holding Brooke

 Emily

 Claire

 As you can see, Megan wants to be on the move now.  She's pulling herself up on anything she can get hold of.

 And Alice is super busy and doesn't like to stay still long enough to have her photo taken.  In fact, she's already got to the stage where if she sees you with a camera she says "I don't want my photo taken!!"  Sigh!!

 Theresa

 The children had fun playing outside and it's lovely that they're at an age where we don't have to worry too much about them outside on their own.  Won't be long before Megan and Brooke are joining them ;)

 Alyssa and Kyle

Kyle is always brilliant with the children and they love it when he goes out with them.

 Not quite sure what they were looking at but he certainly gets their attention (Alice had seen the camera lol!)

And to show I was there, Claire took a photo of me - which also shows I was holding Megan for a while - hence the chocolate covered top!

There may even be another update next week after Emily's birthday ;) 

xx

Quick roundup



 On Thursday when we went in to visit Dad we were told that he had been assessed and the hospital were happy for him to come home as there were no beds at the rehab unit coming up any time soon.  Dad had been having physio at the hospital and they said he was doing well.

So, on Friday Mum and I went and did a weekly shop in the morning so that Mum had enough food for Dad coming home that afternoon.  He was brought home by Patient Ambulance and got back to the house just after 3pm.  I popped round a little bit later to check up on him and he was settled in his chair. The transfer had been a bit traumatic as Dad had been taken down to the patient transport waiting room at 9am where he was left sitting/slipping in a chair until after lunch time. By the time he got home he was quite tired and cold.  But, he's home and that's the main thing. Now to get his physio at home up and running again :)
 one of Megan
On Saturday Claire and the girls came round in the morning and we all (Claire, the girls, Emily and I) went round to see Dad in the afternoon. He finally got to meet his youngest Great Granddaughter :) although he had seen photos of her while in hospital.

Sunday was spent quietly at home and a visit to Mum & Dad's.

I don't have many photos from the weekend but I'll leave you with this one of Megan asleep on her Aunty Em :)   Can you believe Megan was a month old on the 25th - doesn't the time go quickly!

 xx

Photo update

Life is pretty  hectic here at the moment.  Dad is back in hospital and has been since the 23 December 2012. He was taken in after a night of severe vomiting and after tests and scans ended up having to have an operation to remove part of his small bowel.  He has recovered well from the operation but went through a stage of extreme confusion/hallucinating which was quite upsetting. Fortunately, for the last couple of days he has been himself again but we are now facing the prospect of him having to be moved to a rehab unit at a different hospital. I'm fighting to try and get him moved closer to home or back to the rehab unit at the hospital he was in after having his stroke. There he would know the people and hospital and it would be less traumatic for him. Just hoping we can arrange it.

Claire is over the baby blues and, apart from being tired, is back to normal.  Alice has adapted to Megan being here without any problems and is very good with her.  I know the photos are a little bit blurred but they are so sweet.  In the one above she was talking to Megan and in the one below she had wanted to hold her (Claire is sitting to the left of the photo and was holding Megan too). 

 Megan is a very content baby and, as you'll see from these photos, sleeps a lot and tends to only cry when she is hungry.

 Aunty Em is totally smitten with her and is more than happy to sit and hold her (or rock her) when Claire and the girls come round to the house.

 Alice decided some lip balm was required - everywhere apart from on the mouth ;o)

 I love this photo of Claire and Megan

 Uncle Hugh having his first hold.

 I've been going round to Claire's most days (or she's come here) and on this particular day Alice and I were building a tower with her Duplo. I think she was quite impressed that it was so much taller than she was.

 Alice has given up a few of her day time naps since Megan has been born.  ON this occasion she was having quiet time and watching a DVD.  Cinderella and Tangled (Rapunzel) are her favourites at the moment and she can now sing along to some of the songs, which is very cute!  Fortunately both DVDs are ones the older members of the family enjoy as well.

 Megan has now outgrown the newborn size clothes and is in 0 - 3 months.  Unfortunately, they are all quite large on her at the moment so she does tend to swim in them a bit.

 Yesterday Alice wanted to do some puzzles. This meant she took all the puzzle pieces out and played with them and hadn't quite got round to putting them back in the boards by the time I left ;o)

And Megan slept through it all :o)  She sleeps through all the noise Alice might make and isn't sleeping too badly at night either.  Thank goodness for happy babies.

Emily is back at school from tomorrow and writes a GCSE exam on Thursday. My plan is to start the coursework I need to do from tomorrow as I need to complete 4 modules by April.  Wish me luck!
xx

Time Flies

Oh my goodness, I can't believe how quickly the time is flying by at the moment.  The days seem to pass in a blur and at the moment I don't have much time to get on the computer - I haven't been reading blogs regularly or commenting very often at the moment.  All I can say is that I'm looking forward to when I can sit down and catch up with what everyone has been doing. 

 

 I had signed up for both Karen Russell and Katrina Kennedy's classes (which happened to be running at the same time!) but haven't really had a chance to do either.  Last week I made a point of downloading all the lessons to do at a later date - I certainly don't want to miss out either class.

 I also made a point of sitting down and watching all the Katrina's videos and now need to work out whether I can save them to watch later as well or not.

 Last Tuesday Claire had a midwife appointment and I popped round to the flat to look after Alice while she was out.  When Alice likes something at the moment she does a little wiggle and pumps her hands in the air and says WeeHee!! It's so cute and I'm so glad I caught her this time :) 
While talking about Claire and Alice, can you believe that Claire is now 30 weeks pregnant!! She'll be finishing work 3 weeks on Saturday and then the countdown will really begin. We're so excited to meet our new granddaughter - just hoping she doesn't make her appearance on Christmas Day ;)

 We've been going down to visit Dad each day, weather permitting (we've had some nasty fog for a few nights now). We had a meeting at the hospital last week and they were saying how pleased they are with Dad's progress and that he's quite determined to do as much as he can.  We will be meeting with them again a week on Thursday and they're hoping that he'll be ready to go home a week or two after that, providing he continues to make good progress.

 Iain has moved in with Mum for his last week here (he leaves to go to Australia on Sunday) and he's set up Dad's new laptop ready for when he comes home.  We took it down to the hospital on Saturday for Dad to see.  As you can see, the photo above is one I've journalled on for my Project Life album and pretty much says it all :)

 Claire and Alice came round on Sunday and Claire was telling me that it was National Apple Day.  I had actually bought Bramley apples to make an apple cake so it seemed like a good day to bake.  The cake was ready in time for me to take a slice down to the hospital for Dad to have with his coffee/tea. This cake never lasts long and was finished by the following afternoon.

And a final photo of Alice to end with.  I bought Cinderella a couple of weeks ago and she loves it!  Fortunately this is one DVD we all enjoy as we've watched it a few times over the last week ;) 
xx

Catch up Sunday

I started writing on the blog again with very good intentions of trying to post at least every couple of days. Unfortunately, sometimes life has other ideas about how you spend you time and this week was one such time. However, here is a quick recap of our past week.

 

 Emily turned 16 last Saturday.

I can't believe my "baby" is now old enough to work and has her National Insurance Number.  Jon did print out a list of all the things she is now able to do - not all of which I would want her to do ;o)

 She got to open one present first thing in the morning before I headed out for a short while. She had decided to keep opening the rest until I got home again.  This one is a lovely little silver bracelet with a heart charm.  I did mean to get a clearer photo but forgot until I was putting this together (oops!)

 Alice and Claire came back to the house with me and Alice was more than happy to help Aunty Em open her presents.

Emily's birthday balloon was a big hit with Alice and she carried it around for a good part of the day.

 Emily probably won't be thrilled that I've posted this photo ;o)  The one I took when she was blowing out the candles was way too dark so I asked her to blow again - this was the look she gave me lol!

 Sunday saw me meeting up with Claire and Alice again for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  I guess funny faces run in our family.

 The weather has certainly been cooling down recently but, if I'm honest, I'm actually enjoying the cooler weather and being able to cosy up in warm jumpers.  When we first moved back to the UK I might not have been quite so excited.  I was so chuffed that I managed to get a shot of this spider web in focus.  It looked so pretty from the kitchen window so I'd gone outside to take a photo but it just didn't work.  I came back inside and tried again and managed to get this shot.

Tuesday certainly didn't begin the way any of us expected.  I was woken by the phone at 12.50am and Mum telling me that Dad had had a stroke and had been taken to one of the local hospitals.  I spoke to the paramedic who was with Mum who confirmed this but advised that we wait and phone the hospital in the morning.  Fortunately it was a mild stroke but it has affected the left side of Dad's body and he wasn't able to feel or move his left arm and leg.  Fortunately, each time we go down to visit we are seeing some improvement which is very encouraging.

I've still been having Alice while Claire is at work and she does wonders to take my mind off the more serious issues.  I love watching her play and playing with her ;o)  She really is a little ray of sunshine and so funny too.

 She loves my iPad but did make me laugh on Friday.  When it's time to go and pick Claire up from work Alice helps to collect all her things together - her dummy, her bunny, her blanket (which should stay here but she likes to take it) and then on Friday she said "my iPad!"  She wasn't very impressed when I told her it was Grandma's iPad and it was staying here. 

 

And finally a photo of Dad, taken yesterday.  He was in good spirits and was making us laugh with some of his "stories".  When it came to taking photos he had great fun making faces at me. I did manage to get this one which I really like. 

The good news is that yesterday Dad was able to lift both his left arm and leg off the bed - something he wasn't able to do at the start of the week.  He did make us laugh when he told us the Physio lady said they were going to move him to a bed in the Rehab ward as soon as one became available and he told her he wasn't really that keen on going to the gym or exercising!  So funny!! He was enjoying not having to do physio over the weekend but was sure they were going to make him work twice as hard on Monday.  It's good to see the improvements, they may seem small to him but they are all steps in the right direction and we're hoping they continue. 

My thoughts and prayers this weekend are with Deb (Paper Turtle); Deb's Mum, Marti; Carrie (Rosalind Revival) and their family. Love to you all. xx

Dad's 83rd Birthday

My Dad turned 83 on Friday.  I'm sure he won't mind me saying that he never expected to reach this age. However, he's still active and walks into town to get the newspaper every day.  Truth be told, he's probably an awful lot fitter than I am! He's had a few hiccups over the years, health wise, but is still strong and, hopefully, will stay strong and still be here in ten years time to celebrate his 93rd birthday.

 Dad with his three youngest great grandchildren (Alice, Tyler & Alyssa)

Mum had thought they would just have a quiet day but I guess the rest of us thought otherwise. Claire, Alice and I went round in the afternoon to give him his presents, and to take a cake, and when we got there Kay (my sister) was already there and had brought a cake too. Emily came straight from school and Theresa (Kay's daughter) arrived with Tyler and Alyssa soon after.  There was plenty of cake to go round and we had to have the candles for the children Dad to blow out ;)

 Alice was taking it all in and got very excited when the candles were blown out.  Even after they'd been relit and blown out I don't know how many times!

 Dad, Alice & Tyler

 



 My first shot of Alice and her sister-to-be (Claire's bump ;) )

 

I think Alice was more than ready for a slice of cake :)

 

Iain (my brother) arrived later in the afternoon once he'd finished work but unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of him.  (Mind you, having just typed that I realise I didn't get any photos of any adults other than Dad :) ) 

 

Hope you enjoyed the rest of your birthday day, Dad. Love you lots xx