Photo a Day catch up

04 May 2012

Theresa went into hospital for keyhole surgery last Friday and my sister, Kay, was looking afterTyler and Alyssa. Alyssa was missing her Mummy in the morning (Tyler was at school) so Kay phoned and asked if they could come round and Alyssa could play with Alice. Alice loved having Alyssa here and they played so well together.  There were lots of cuddles and kisses when it was time for Alyssa to leave.  Unfortunately,  Theresa was still in a lot of pain this week and on Friday was readmitted to hospital as they think she may have an infection. She's on antibiotics and we're really hoping that's all she'll need. She's due to have a scan tomorrow and they'll reassess things then and hopefully we'll get a better idea of how long she's likely to be in for.  

05 May 2012 

 Saturday morning Sainsbury's shop and a photo of my trolley at Starbucks where we go for a well needed coffee ;o)

06 May 2012

 Lazy Sunday morning.  Hugh was playing a selection of his music for us and was making us laugh with stories of his night out the night before. I don't talk much about Hugh on my blog (and that's the way he prefers it) but he really has a wonderful sense of humour and often has us in stitches.  We have been so lucky to have three wonderful children (and a super cute, adorable granddaughter :o) ) and I'm able to say I'm so proud of all of them and the young adults they have become. I couldn't ask for more!

07 May 2012

 Monday was a bank holiday in the UK and we didn't have any plans. It felt so good to finally get a chance to work my way through Kerri Bradford's first Silhouette class on JessicaSprague.com  My Silhouette Cameo is still very new to me and I haven't had much chance to play around so I really enjoyed working my way through the class. I haven't made the mini album yet, because I need to decide on the papers I want to use, but hope to make it in the next few weeks.

08 May 2012

 Things were back to normal - Emily was back at school, Jon back at work, Hugh on his Personal Trainer course and Max (my nephew who is staying with us) working an early shift.  I spent some time in the morning round at Claire's flat with her and Alice and in the afternoon made another Playlist on my iPad. It's something I've wanted to do for a while but never got round to it - I made my first playlist the night before and then the second one this afternoon.

09 May 2012

 My day to have Alice here and the first day we'd had together since the previous Friday. At lunch time I dropped down the height of her booster seat and took off her tray so she could actually be pushed in to the table to eat.  I then sat opposite her to have my lunch.  Another sign of how much she's growing up but I just love seeing her develop and learn new things. She's a real little chatter box now and is such a pleasure to have around.  I love the days she's here and realise how lucky I am to get to spend so much one on one time with her.  I'm afraid I am a totally besotted Grandma!

10 May 2012

A busy day - dropped Tyler and Alyssa at school/playschool, a quick coffee with friends, took Max to the Dr, picked Alyssa up from playschool and took her home, home for a quick lunch before going back up to school to pick up Tyler and take him home. Once home again it was time to start making cottage pie for dinner. I also finished sewing up this little cardigan for Alice.

11 May 2012

 Alice and I had a fun filled day and I got to take a number of photos. We spent the day at home and as the weather improved in the afternoon, were able to spend time outside too. She started the day wearing this little t shirt and a denim pinafore dress with cream tights. The shoes and tights came off soon after we got to the house. Once outside it wasn't long before the dress had to come off because she'd poured the water from her watering can over herself so she was down to a t-shirt, vest and wellie boots. By the end of the afternoon I had to take the t-shirt off as well as it had got wet and then she'd been playing in the sand and the sand was sticking to it.  She ended up going home in her vest and the little cardigan I'd just finished :o). I have lots more photos from this day which I'll be able to put in as an extra page in my Project Life album. For those who are friends with me on Facebook, I'll also be posting them there.

Hope you've all had a good week
xx

Photo a Day 03 May 2012

I made my third shopping trip this week for more fruit.  Our fruit bowl at the moment has bananas, oranges, grapefruit, apples, lemons and there are grapes in the fridge.  So far this week I have bought 6 bags of oranges, 3 bunches of bananas, 3 bags of apples, 4 grapefruit and 2 punnet of grapes. Hopefully this will now last till Saturday ;o)

xx

01 May 2012

After the amount of rain we've been having the last few weeks, it was great to be able to get the washing on the line to dry.

02 May 2012

Alice likes to point out where her Mummy is in the photo :)  

xx

Final day in Dublin

I'm sorry I've been missing for so long.  After getting back from Dublin and then getting the gastro bug, I got very behind with everything and by evenings just wanted to collapse.

Last Monday Hugh started a Personal Trainer course.  This is something he's wanted to do for a while and it's finally come true.  He's working really hard and really enjoying it. In the evenings we sit and go through everything he's learnt that day and then, if needed, I'll test him on what he's learnt.  It's fantastic to see him finally doing what he's wanted to do and I believe he'll be a wonderful Personal Trainer when he's qualified.  So, if I don't post as often, please understand. I hope you'll still pop back from time to time to see if the blog's been updated and I'll be visiting blogs whenever I can but my family comes first and life is quite busy at the moment.  

I'm still taking my photo a day photos but I'm not going to post all the ones I've missed on the blog.  I'm hoping to get back into the habit of at least posting them every few days again and will try and keep up to date.  

In the meantime, here are the photos from our final day in Dublin.

 On our last day in Dublin we decided to get an early start after breakfast caught the Luas in to town. We walked down to the Liffey where I got a few photos. I love the reflections in the water

 capturing the buildings along the river

 and both the buildings and the reflection.

 We then walked up towards Christ Church Cathedral. This statue was up on the side of one of the buildings

 I love bridges between buildings - we've seen them in Cambridge, Oxford and now Dublin.

 Approaching Christ Church Cathedral on one side of the road ....

 and coloured doors on the other side. There are coloured doors all over Dublin. I'd love a coloured front door too - something I'll have to think about :o)

 Christ Church Cathedral

 While we were looking around the Cathedral, we heard a roar from the road and turned to see one of the Viking tours - such fun!

 From the Cathedral we headed back down to the river where I got a chance to see some of the bridges again.  There are 20 bridges over the River Liffey and although we didn't see them all I loved the ones we did see.

 Ha'penny Bridge was one of my favourites.

 O'Connell Street Bridge

 Samuel Beckett Bridge

 And a final one of the lamps on Ha'penny Bridge

 We walked round Dublin centre for a while, had lunch, looked at the shops and on the way home came across St Anne's Church of Ireland and went in to have a look around. It calls itself  "The Church in the heart of the city with the city at it's heart"

 There were some beautiful stained glass windows. 

 In the evening we headed back into the city to find somewhere to eat.  On the way back to the hotel I couldn't resist taking another couple of photos of the river

 And I had to get a photo of a green post box (& Jon) ;o)   I'd heard all about them and Claire had seen one when she went to Dublin but we hadn't seen any until this last evening.

And when we got off the Luas at the hotel stop, I loved these clouds behind the Guiness buildings.  The evening light in Dublin was fantastic and I could happily sit watching it change as the sun set.  We were early to bed that night as we had an early start the next morning.

 We were up bright and early on the last day and had to be at the airport by 7am.  Once through security we went to find somewhere to have some breakfast while we waited to board the plane.  We settled on The Chocolate Lounge :o)

 Where Emily had a hot chocolate and brownie and Jon and I had coffees and I had soda bread toast.

 We had a great view of the planes and sat watching this one being unloaded, refuelled and saw the next lot of passengers get ready to board.

Then we were homeward bound ourselves.  Thank you Ireland for making us feel so welcome and for having wonderful weather while we were there ;o)

xx