Christmas...a 4 year olds view.

Here are some of Isobel's Christmas pictures taken with her new camera.







We've had a busy week, trying to get back to normal. We took the kids bowling and to see Madagascar 2, and it's Ryan's birthday tomorrow. Not that he gets to do anything special, it has to be the second worst day to be born, after Christmas day. I think he's going paintballing with a friend at the end of the month as a birthday treat, and of course he's had his main present from us already, his laptop, so it's always a bit of an anticlimax. We are off to a New Years Eve party at a friends tomorrow night, so at least he gets some kind of celebration.

Over for another year

We had a wonderful day. Probably one of the best ever actually, we all really enjoyed it. Ate too much food and spent too much money, but it's once a year so what the hell. But I am going to inject this blog post with a little bit of negativity before I get on to the good stuff. I need a rant!

On Christmas Eve Ryan called his Mum because she has basically stopped calling him, as was predicted when they started speaking again back in April. Our phone bills shows that Ryan is spending £15 a month calling her, which she never reciprocates. That has to stop as she contributes no maintenance money at all to this house. Why should I go to work to pay that phone bill? The money she promised him every month? He now gets the odd tenner if he calls her and begs for it. Which is still more than he's had for the last three years, but still, why promise the poor lad something you can't stick to? Anyway, she hasn't called him for about 10 weeks. So he calls her up and she's driving back to her house, so he asks her to call him back, and she agrees. An hour passes, no call. Ryan gets the hump and takes himself off up to bed. Almost 48 hours have now passed and she still hasn't bothered. I guess she won't be winning mother of the year award.

My other annoyance is a bit petty really(I think?), and quite tough to convey with the written word, but it has annoyed me nonetheless. Taylor's Dad married his girlfriend of over ten years at the end of November. She still hasn't really got the hang of the whole "My partner has a child with another woman" thing. She is a nice enough woman, I have never had a problem with her and we get on fine, even in the beginning, but she has a problem with poor Taylor. She tries, but fails really. But being a stepparent is tough, I should know, so we forgive her. It is her Mum that I'm annoyed with really. At the wedding she walked up to Taylor and said "I'm your grandmother now". After ten years of her daughter struggling to play step mum to Taylor, now she can be his grandmother because they got married? Sorry love, you are ten years too late. Why has the wedding ring changed anything? Is Taylor suddenly more important in their little extended family because of the wedding? She should've been looking out for him all along. Anyway, she even bought him a present yesterday. In completely the wrong size. To me it feels like she has resigned herself to the role of 'Granny' after ten years of ignoring it. Am I being completely irrational? Is my view of this family lark skewed because my family have been so fantastic at taking Ryan under their wing? They all treat him like he is really mine, and always have. My Nan adored him, and my Mum and Uncle and Dad and stepmum all buy him gifts and send him cards. Pete's Mum and Dad too have always been great with Taylor. I guess I just don't understand it. *shrugs*

Back to the festivities, I didn't get much sleep Christmas Eve, so was completely knackered on the big day! The baby was dancing on my bladder at 4am so I got up and let Santa into the house(in other words sneaked their sacks into their bedrooms!). Goodness, that part stresses me out. Getting caught is my worst nightmare. I'm the same with the whole tooth fairy, coin under the pillow business. Then, I was up again at 5am to put the turkey on. I kept tossing and turning thinking about that damn turkey, then the kids woke up at 7.30am.


I was a naughty mama though, and hardly took any pictures. I was too busy. Isobel got a digital camera though, so I'll put her pictures up tomorrow. Here are the kids in the morning opening their sacks from Santa.







The dinner was brilliant, Pete's friend really enjoyed himself, and even better I got to have a snooze on the sofa for 20 minutes at about 4pm, which I NEVER do on Christmas day. When I woke up my Mum & Uncle had started cooking the evening buffet for me. I quite like being fat and pregnant and garnering sympathy. We all had a really lovely day. I usually get a bit of an anti-climatic feeling once it's all over, but didn't get that this year. It was just really good fun.

Merry Christmas

Well, it's finally almost here. This week has been really hard. I still feel fluey, started to feel better for a few days and now it's come back, so I have no energy to organise anything. We shopped all day yesterday so my back is pretty much useless today, and I still have so much to do.

I have Sam & Harvey coming over this morning, then my Dad & Pauline over this afternoon, then my Mum arrives this evening(though she'll be a help rather than just visiting). I still have to make bread and pigs in blankets at some point, and my housework list is still huge. I am not enjoying being this pregnant at Christmas. I was 20 weeks pregnant on Christmas day with Isobel and that was bad enough. Being 28 weeks this time is too much, thank goodness I'm not right at the end, it would be McDonald's for Christmas dinner!

We have an extra mouth to feed this year, a friend and work colleague of Pete's will be joining us. He's French, and his ex wife and child are back home and he is all alone here. I couldn't bear the thought of him sitting alone in his bedsit, so we are having him here. I like having guests over the holiday period, makes it seem more festive. I had to rush out yesterday and buy him a token gift, didn't want him sitting there during the mayhem that is the present opening without anything to unwrap.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to all, I hope you have a good one.

Flu

Well, Pete has the Flu, I have the lightweight version, and the kids are all just coughing and spluttering.

It's been a lazy week here, it's been lovely actually. I've done no coursework at all, naughty me, and we've been more or less bedridden. It's Pete's birthday today(happy birthday honey!), and we haven't even been able to celebrate that. He had a football team night out on Saturday to the Comedy Club that he had to miss, and we were going to have a meal out tonight which has fallen by the wayside too.

I've started planning the garden for next year, last year was a disaster-mainly due to the cat destroying all my seedlings with her rampant toileting habits. I'm buying a small poly tunnel to grow in, to try and keep her at bay, and hopefully extend my growing season. We are all out of homegrown grub now, so it would be nice to still have winter cabbages and stuff out there next year. It should make gardening with a small baby easier too, especially if the weather is bad. He can come out there with me. I'm 27 weeks pregnant now, still meandering along enjoying myself. I've got the usual complaints that I get, bad hips, terrible heartburn, but nothing that would ever stop me from loving every minute of it. Thirteen weeks to go.

We are almost ready for Christmas, only Ryan's big pressie and our grown up ones to buy now. Everything else is under the tree, getting inspected and rattled by the children regularly. I can't wait! I suppose I'd better start planning the food shopping lists, as we only have about 9 days to go.

December

I love Christmas. I think it's the preparation rather than the actual day itself. It's always a bit of an anticlimax at the end of a hard days cooking and tidying. I love the decorating, the planning and buying of presents, the food preparation, wrapping gifts...it's all good fun.

I had a complete nightmare trying to get my essay done on time, the cutoff was November 20th, and I was so behind with my reading that I couldn't answer the question. I was also really ill with sinusitis. I asked for an extension, and my tutor never even bothered to reply to my emails until two days after the cut off date! I ended up staying up late and writing it, and got it in on time anyway, so politely told her to poke her extension. I got my mark back and got 75%, so I'm dead happy with that as I thought I'd done really badly. I got 100% on an online test on graph reading too. I have until 5th January until my next one is due to catch up, so lots of studying to do over the holidays. I only have 6 days left in work until we shutdown, I can't wait.

Parents evenings

It's that time of year again - parents evenings!

Ryan's was during one of the days that I work so I couldn't go, but Pete said it went well. He's falling behind with his PE theory, which although he loves the actual sport side of the lessons it does make sense. It's science based and that isn't his strong point. He's gone to London for a business skills thing today, only certain students were picked for it a few weeks ago, so that's quite good.

Taylor's last night was excellent, he's been picked by an artist working with the school to go on the gifted and talented register. We are really pleased for him. His other stuff is all on target too, but she wants him to read more fiction. He's usually got his nose stuck in a biography, so we need to steer him away from that slightly.

Isobel starts school in exactly 8 weeks time, and I've been worried about her joining an established class of older children, so I've been concentrating on getting her to write and we've got somewhere with that. She can write her name now with no help at all, and I got her to do the whole family with me calling out the letters, even Baby Kit. She needs help with Y and K though, so I helped!


I'm supposed to be doing my assessment for my course, it's due today, so I'd best get on with that and stop procrastinating.

*bangs head*

I just can't take the mess in this house anymore. I want to firebomb it. I have been at this point many, many times before. I usually get over it and carry on with the relentless cleaning, but I'm starting to feel like I can't physically carry on.

We've just had the week from hell where our kitchen drains had blocked so I had no sink to wash up in and no washing machine. Pete was my knight in shining armour, bless him, and managed to fix it yesterday. I now have 20 loads of laundry to do to catch up, and it's raining outside so I can't get it dry. We have no clean uniforms for school tomorrow.

The boys do nothing. I can barely get them to put their dirty dinner plates in the kitchen, let alone actually help. People spill things on the floor and either leave them, or think putting a bit of a squirt of a spray on it will do. So it builds up to the point where I need to spend 5 hours on my hands and knees with the carpet cleaning machine scrubbing, which is what I'll be doing tomorrow when I should be writing a 1200 word assignment due on Thursday. Socks get left all over the floor, and I can no longer bend over to pick them up. I can't get the hoover upstairs on my own any more, so haven't bothered in about 10 weeks. No-one has noticed.

I am very tempted to call in sick at work as I just feel overwhelmed with it all, and just want to stay in bed, but two other people are off sick, so as usual I'll just have to carry on regardless.

Scan

I thought it was about time I scanned this and put it up here. I know a lot of people can't make head nor tail of these things, but they are like those magic eye pictures - once you 'get it', it's obvious. The picture is a profile shot, so you can see the outline of the nose, lips and forehead, lit up with a white line. So, there he is. We have a name picked out, have for a while, and there are no other contenders so this is the one...Christian. We'll be shortening it to Kit as my Dad is a Chris and I can't deal with two in the close family.

I'm not used to feeling so settled with a name. Taylor was nameless for almost a week, and with Isobel we were armed with a list of names just in case Isobel didn't fit her, but this is the only name that seems right this time. It's his name, and that's that. It haunted my every waking thought for about two weeks before I mentioned it to Pete, and he loved it too, and that was it settled. It feels bizarre being so certain.

I've been very busy this week, starting to move bedrooms around. I started by clearing out the wardrobes and moving them around earlier this week, and today the kids have swapped rooms. The bedroom situation here has been terrible for ages, really bad. When Ryan moved in 3 years ago he started off sharing a room with Taylor, but as time has gone on he has basically pushed Taylor out of the room. He plays Xbox live really late, and moans at Taylor for snoring. The poor little guy has been sleeping on the sofa for the last 6 months.

After Christmas we are building an extra room downstairs for Ryan by cutting our lounge in half as it's huge, but until then I've moved Ryan into Isobel's small box room, and Isobel is now sharing with Taylor. She's such a good girl, it didn't faze her at all and she's gone straight to sleep. On Sunday we will be swapping our large bedroom with their medium sized one, and splitting it in two with a room divider to give them some private space each. Once the new downstairs room is built in 2009 Ryan will go down there and the baby will be going into Ryan's box room. Eventually, once our new little boy is sleeping through the night, he can share the big divided room with Isobel, and Taylor can move into the box room on his own as he'll be getting older. Whew! Confusing, and a lot of work still to be done.

Just as we thought.

Yes, it's official, I am now permanently outnumbered in this house. :)

Isobel was at the scan with us and has been pretty desperate for a sister, even though I've tried to prepare her for a brother, so her little face dropped when the sonagrapher told us. She was still adamant that it was a girl for a few minutes, but once she realised that she'd be getting a gift from the baby, and giving one to him one in return, she changed her tune. Typical girl! She ran into school yesterday afternoon telling everyone about her brother, and is now saying "he" instead of "baby", so I guess it's sunk in.

Isobel said she wanted to announce it to the boys when they get home from school, and they were excited when they found out. Ryan jumped up in the air and shouted "Yes!" when we told him. He has three half sisters, so to him it was about time for a brother.

I can't wait to have a little boy again, they are so cuddly and loving.

I've been sorting some baby clothes tonight(yes, I am a hoarder), and I was planning on giving the bags and bags of girl clothes to a friend of a friend, but I just heard she's having a boy too. Somebody needs to get pregnant with a girl, quick. There are bundles of baby clothes on offer! I hate selling on Ebay, and really want to give them to someone I know so don't want to Freecycle them. I thought I'd gifted out all my nice boy clothes, but it looks like my friend Angela gave them all back to me because they all seem to be here. Baby clothes are a vice of mine, I go a bit mad in the sales each year and refuse to throw them away, so I have oodles of boy clothes too.

Here's to another 18 years of muddy football boots, washing kits, and standing in the pouring rain!

Anticipation

Last Christmas, I bought Pete one of those experience day type things, but seeing as he works every hour that god sends he hadn't had a chance to use it yet. We booked it about a month ago, and a hotel to make a night of it, then set off early on Friday morning. Pete got to drive the love of his life, a Porsche, around a race track. He was like a little child, hopping from foot to foot with excitement. Unfortunately, even though Pete had booked the whole weekend off, he ended up having to go in to work on Saturday, so we were up at the crack of dawn and on our way home from Market Harborough by 8.30am. We did get to have a nice Italian meal the night before though.







I have my scan tomorrow, I'm almost 22 weeks so it's a little later than normal, but it still marks the halfway point. I'm incredibly excited to find out what flavour we have in there, but I'm worried that something will be wrong with the baby too. I try to not think too much about it.

I've been really missing my Nan tonight too. I would've been straight on the phone to her tomorrow, telling her our news. She was always the first to know about anything. If it's another girl, it'll have Joyce as a middle name to honour my Mum and Nan, as it is/was their middle name too. I want to be able to tell her that.
Looking at this photo of her, it's like she's still here. She hasn't gone at all. I can still call her tomorrow and hear how excited she is to have another new baby in the family. She really loved her great grandchildren.
There have been times in the past two years when I have called her number, before I've realised what I'm doing, and quickly hung up. I can't decide if I hang up through embarrassment, in case someone else now has her number, or whether it is fear. Am I going to hear her voice at the other end?

Autumn

It took me about an hour to get everyone ready and out of the house, but we finally did it. How we all get to work and school on time every day, I don't know. It'll be even worse when we have another, smaller, fussier creature to pander to.










Both of them spotted a mushroom each. Isobel found some Common Inkcaps;


But I'm not sure what Taylor's ones were, they were a bit ambiguous. Any experts out there?;

October Sun

We have no Ryan here this week, he's gone to Wales with his Mum for the week. He didn't seem too confident that they would get on, she's been a bit stroppy with him on the phone. It's the first time he's gone anywhere with her in two years, but normally the first visit goes fine, it's the second one where she treats him like crap. We'll see.

It is a beautiful day today, so I'm going to get the chldren dressed and go out and take some pictures, before it decides to rain again. I love the light at this time of year, when we actually get any.

Lazy Monday

I'm being very lazy today after a busy Sunday, so thought I'd best do a blog post.

I realised yesterday that we have exactly 3 months until Isobel starts school full time. We had a phone call the other day to tell us that the class that started in September had 8 spaces, so they'd been looking for the most mature pupils in the nursery to go into that class and Isobel had been chosen. So her and one of her best friends are going into that established class instead of the completely new class in January. At first I was pleased that they thought she was that grown up and advanced, then I realised that she was always going to be the youngest in this class, and at a bit of a disadvantage. Is she always going to be that child that is behind? The one that can't yet read, or write, because she is 6 months younger. Oh well, I guess the teachers know what they are doing.

My first assignment is due this Thursday coming, and I'd been really struggling to find the time to do it, so I stayed up until gone midnight on Saturday and finished the bleedin' thing. It was only a small one, 600ish words, but I was quite excited about sending it off to my tutor for marking. She's emailed me saying she's received it, so I can't change it now!

Both Taylor and Ryan's football teams are doing well, but I'm particularly pleased for Taylor. Ryan's team have always been good, but last season Taylor's team were RUBBISH. They lost every game. They always took it with a smile on their little faces and kept on going though. This year, they've won every game. They won 11-1 yesterday. Taylor is the goalkeeper(he played half goalkeeper, half defence last year), and he is so good, bless him. We get the other teams managers and the referees coming up to us in the car park congratulating him after the games, it's so nice for him to get a bit of recognition. Here are the previous two match reports on the team website;

Sunday 12th October 2008 - Shoebury Youth (2) Vs Beech United (4) Best performance of the season. Beat the top team. Players never stopped running, 100% effort from both teams. Great game to watch-T.Lane was outstanding in goal today and deserved his man of the match trophy.


Sunday 5th October 2008 - Beech United (5) Vs Eversley Boys (3)
Today's game Beech United played Eversley Boys. Very tense match in terrible conditions. Brilliant performance and effort from all the players. Won 5-3 today. Goal scorers as follows g.wilson 2 goals, j.sharp 1 goal, c.adams 1 goal, d.terry 1 goal. T.Lane made a great save from the penalty spot to keep us 4-3 up!

Angry

This will be a rant...you have been warned.

I mentioned a few weeks ago about my Centre having a few problems with the Council, who basically pay my wages but we don't have much to do with them. First they wanted to stop the trips because of insurance, then it was staff using council time, then it was a cash handling issue. Now, we are looking at being in a position where we can't handle cash at all, for trips, classes, tea bar - nothing at all, which is 80% of our job. They are obviously trying to make staff cuts, but aren't being honest about it. Why can't they just tell us? This has been rumbling on since April with no resolution, and now the press are involved. I, as a staff member, can't really fight this, it's the Committee's job, and bearing in mind that the Committee members are all 60-70+, they aren't up to much.
I've come in to work today to a letter sent to our Committee Chairman, basically detailing our cash handling, then at the bottom in small print it says:

The committees would like to recruit one service provider able to deliver a cash handling service to all three centres. However, bids to one or two of the centres will also be considered.
We would be pleased to receive details of your proposed methodology and charges by close of business on Friday 14th November 2008.

This letter has also been sent to a range of voluntary groups and the Community Volunteer Service, Basildon District Volunteer Carers, and Age Concern, so that they too can put in a bid to run our centre.

The Committee and my boss have had this letter for a week, and completely ignored this bit at the bottom, which is basically the whole point of the letter. The Council think that as old people they are too stupid to put in a bid, and at the moment they are right, it is a huge undertaking! I spent an hour convincing the Chairman to at least try and put in a bid, then my boss comes in and gets in a strop. He hates anyone having any ideas that aren't his, and he has been so rude to us girls today because we've been trying to explain it to both him and the Chairman. My boss is adamant that the Council won't go ahead with it...hello...it's there in black and white; on the 14th November tender for the cash handling closes, and if you aren't in it, you can't win it. He has his head buried in the sand. It makes me so mad! I offered to help the Chairman write a bid, and gave him a few ideas, but now I just feel like throwing in the towel, after the way my boss spoke to me. He can't bear to not be in control, which would be fine if he wasn't so bloody useless! I do all his work and he takes all the credit, I do his personal reviews, his risk assessments, his minutes for his managers meetings...he's happy for me to put the effort so he can be lazy, just as long as he doesn't look like a fool and can take the praise. Grrrrrr....

Cutting costs

Although we are managing to survive with this looming financial crisis, this month was the first time we've noticed it being a bit of a squeeze. Pete got paid last Tuesday, and he earns a good wage - way above average, and the whole lot is gone on bills. I'm going to have to borrow £200 from somewhere(probably my wonderful boss), just to make it through to my payday on the 18th. All we did was pay things like council tax, electric bills, fill up the car, buy some food...it's getting ridiculous.

I've subconsciously cut down our shopping over the last few weeks, so now we are buying hardly any meat, and I've stopped buying fruit and have been picking it outside as much as possible(our wild apples near the school are delicious!). I'm not sure how else I can save money. I won't compromise on organic milk and free range eggs, I'd rather go without(in fact, we have stopped buying eggs so much and are making a dozen last a month now), and I try to make bread whenever I get the time - which is not very often.

I might have to start buying value brand washing powder and cleaning stuff, which is absolute crap, I may as well not bother to clean at all. Anyone found any bargains, or stuff that actually works? If I use anything other that Bold 2in1 then the many stains don't come out of the kids uniforms, and if I don't use Domestos bleach then my toilets end up looking like something from a horror movie. I am already tightfisted with this kind of stuff, I only buy Zoflora to do all the other cleaning jobs. It's only about 70p and you can use it for just about anything(floors, surfaces, toilets, animal cages). I also refuse to buy fabric softener, we just have to put up with crunchy clothes! I'm not sure what else to do.

We were supposed to be moving around Christmas time, mainly to get the extra room, but also to get Ryan nearer to his school and get us into a nicer area. Now we are not so sure it's wise. We are very lucky to be in a secure position here with a small mortgage, and both our jobs are safe(well, if my centre gets closed I'll get transferred so technically will keep my wage), but I'm not sure I feel comfortable going out there in the big wide world and renting a home off someone who might not be so secure. I'd hate to move and get settled, with a newborn baby, then find out our landlord has declared bankruptcy, or been forced to raise our rent or sell the property. I think we might be more sensible building the extra rooms here and waiting it out. In two years when Ryan has finished school, we can go wherever we like.

Decisions, decisions...

Stuffies

I have a new obsession, otherwise known as a way to waste time. Making stuffed felt animals and monsters. This is my first one;

Franz the Rabbit:



Isobel is nagging me to do her a cat now, but as my degree coursework arrived yesterday, I'm going to have to back away from the bag of felt and start my work instead.

Sweetcorn

I'm just inundated with the stuff...not! I don't think I'll bother next year, it just doesn't want to grow without the sun. I don't think we are ever going to get another hot summer again. This is the grand total of my sweetcorn crop this year:



Last weekend we went for a lovely walk in the woods at Thorndon, Sam & Harvey came and Pete even had a day off work, which is a rarity. I had a whale of a time looking for mushrooms, didn't find anything edible though. We saw loads and loads, but they were all nasty ones, albeit very beautiful.





I just got interrupted whilst typing this because my new childminder was knocking on the door.

If you've noticed the 'new childminder' part, it's a long story, the old one lost the plot last week and said awful things about me to Pete, then she told me Pete was lying when I confronted her.

Anyway, the new childminders daughter has chicken pox, my two haven't had it, and I'm 16 weeks pregnant. I wish they would catch it, Taylor is almost ten and hasn't caught it yet, just not now. It can harm the baby before 20 weeks.

Oh well, no point stressing about it.

Stealth Cat

I am alive...just

I've had the lurgies all week, caught from Isobel via the childminder, so have been pretty miserable. I've started being sick today too. Isn't morning sickness supposed to stop at twelve weeks? I'm fifteen weeks on Sunday...no fair!


I did a trip to Leeds Castle with my work a few weeks ago at short notice, one of my colleagues was meant to do it but couldn't. Thankfully we had a few spare seats on the coach so the whole family, minus Ryan who no longer ventures out in daylight(seriously-why do teenage boys do that?), came out for the day.
I'd been here about 12 years ago with my Dad, and I remembered they had the greatest maze, so I dragged everyone in there. Forty minutes later and we were still wandering round getting vexed. We found the entrance again and poor pregnant me escaped to the loo, before we braved it again, and finally cracked it after about 10 minutes. We stood on the mound in the middle directing other poor lost souls for a while too.


You have no idea how gutted I was that this Chicken of the Woods was too high to reach. Pete had to drag me away from the tree kicking and screaming. I even tried knocking it off with a stick, but even my 6ft frame was no match.


Isobel looking very small at the base of a gigantic tree



I ended up at the hospital a week or so ago as I was bleeding, but after making me wait all weekend for a scan, worrying about what we were going to find out, I finally got seen on Monday. Everything looks good in there;



Pete's football team have recently split into two halves, he's now playing for the old farts side, Landsdowne Vets. They organised a charity match against each other in aid of St Luke's Hospice so I volunteered to help out and do face painting. I'll let you guess which side won! The face painting kept me busy while Pete played football and the kids pretended they were at the Olympics by running round the athletics track. Isobel ran round it twice...she's nuts!

Not much to say

I'm having a blog slump, don't really have much to say, and am feeling a bit under the weather. Boo. :(

I am mental...it's official.

I sent off the application to start studying for a degree with the Open University yesterday. It starts in October, when I'll be 20 weeks pregnant. Fun times.
I'm actually really excited. I love learning and researching anyway, I do it in my spare time for fun, so doing it with a goal in mind will be great. I hope I can find the 16 hours a week needed for study. The boys are going to seriously have to start pulling their weight around here. It's an honours degree in Health & Social care, and my wonderful employer is paying for it.

I have a pretty action packed week this week. I have a lovely new sofa being delivered on Thursday(well, not strictly new, but it is new to us), then Pete's Mum is coming to stay for a few days on Friday. I have a trip to Leeds Castle on Saturday, Sam's birthday meal that evening, then a charity football event on Sunday with Pete's team. The kids are also back to school over the next few days so we need to get back into some kind of routine, well, one that doesn't involve staying up until 1am watching Family Guy anyway.

Mutant Veg

Eeek...I don't fancy taking a bite out of this!

Zombie

Sorry about the picture, but I thought Zombie Cat was quite cute. We've been back for two weeks now and I am just so tired and drained that I feel like a zombie. I don't even think it's the fact that I'm 11 weeks pregnant, I actually think it's the malaria tablets. They've just made us feel grim. I just can't be bothered to do anything at all.

So, what have we been up to? It was our anniversary on the 14th, we were so tired we almost forgot, but managed to drag our arses out of the house and went out to celebrate. It was also my late Nan's Birthday on the 16th August. I still miss her like crazy, I can't believe she won't be here to see the new baby. I secretly got Pete and I tickets to see Lee Evans last Sunday, he was so pleased and we had a really good time. My sides hurt from laughing so much.

I've taken the younger children out twice in the last week, trying to squeeze it all in before they go back to school. We went to a butterfly farm last week;




Then we went on the rides at Southend yesterday;