Happy 6th Birthday Beth!

Sorry for taking so long to finish this post - I started a couple of days after Beth's birthday on April 18th but it's taken a month to finish!  I'll put it down to a mixture of lack of time and lack of motivation! 

As with Toby, I can't quite believe that Beth is so grown up - six already!

 

I don't know if anyone else has come across this problem but we had huge issues finding what to give her for presents.  I think the perfect present that anyone could give would have been an hour of their time to be used dressing up and engaging in princess-themed play!  Of course, if you were to ask her she would say that she couldn't live without a hideous mechanical gerbil toy (or some other such monstrosity), but she never plays with those things and is drawn to craft things and imaginative play.

In the end we decided to have a larger than normal party the weekend following her birthday and a few smaller presents rather than one large one.  Of course her friends and family also lavished her and she got some great gifts.  One of her favourites was a One Direction CD from Auntie Jane (though I'm sure she'd like me to clarify that this wasn't sent as a result of personal music choice!!).

Her party was a science party by a company called Sublime Science.  We thought that her friends had done the soft play parties, the magician, disco and general mayhem ones and we should try something different.  The kids were fairly mesmerised with the experiments and bits that Amelia (our scientist) performed.  They got to make their own sherbet (and eat it), make their own goo (to take home) and help out with some of the other experiments.

I didn't do a science-themed cake - Beth still likes a bit of princess pink and I thought a variation on Toby's cake would be easy. :)  As much fun as her birthday was, I'm very thankful birthday season is over for another year!

Belfast Weekend and Other Bits

On March 31, my cousin Garth married his girlfriend Johanna in Belfast.  Steve kindly sacrificed his invite to look after the kids for the weekend and I headed over.  They chose a good weekend for it as the weather was lovely.  

I managed to get a walk in down Stricklands Glen to the shore - a walk I love to do every time I visit.  The day after the wedding Jane and I got to walk along the shore from Crawfordsburn Country Park back to Bangor, it was beautiful.  In the photo you can just see Great Grandma Ruth's hospital (Crawfordsburn Hospital) that has now been converted into apartments.

The wedding was at the Belfast City Hall, rather a spectacular setting especially since it has recently been done up.  I have never been inside so it was great to get a peek!  

The wedding ceremony was short and sweet and was followed by a walk through the city to the Crown Bar, a National Trust property (one of the best of their properties I think!!;)).  

After a short stop there we crossed the road to the Europa hotel where the reception was being held.  The views from the penthouse ballroom of Belfast were fantastic, it was rather difficult to pull away from the window to eat as I could easily have stood looking for hours.  As yet I do not have any photos of me but I'm sure one will pop up at some point; I'll add it when it does.

It was a lovely day and a lovely wedding; congratulations Mr & Mrs G. McGuigan!

The rest of the photos are from the end of March and beginning of the Easter holidays.  The veg patch is rather overgrown and needs rather a lot of attention.  

This is the first crop of purple sprouting broccoli, unfortunately pigeons have since eaten the rest so I'll be pulling it up soon.  The only other things we have in are onions, garlic and potatoes.  I don't think I'll do as much this year as last - think I'll stick to the things we eat a lot of.  It seems cabbage is not one of those things and 22 cabbages all ready to consume at the same time shows my lack of thought and planning last year!

We also have a new batch of piglets.  The old ones are proving to be very tasty and good value.  The breed this year are slightly different, I believe they are Gloucester Old Spot crossed with Berkshire.

The last couple of pictures are from the Easter bonnet parade at playgroup (Toby is second from back) and the other is at our new village play area - I'm sure there'll be plenty more showing that in future posts as we seem to spend the majority of our spare time there at the moment.

Happy 4th Birthday Toby!

Believe it or not, our little baby is now four (yes, it's only taken a couple of weeks to write this post)!  He was very excited and has been counting down the sleeps for the last week.  I do feel sorry for parents with children born in January - it still seems close to Christmas even now and we've had problems thinking of presents to buy!

Originally I had planned to have a few children to the house for a party as we have done for the last couple of years.  However, when I started adding up the children we would need to invite, the total kept climbing and my enthusiasm for hosting diminished rapidly!   Instead, much to Beth's disapproval since she would be in school, we booked a party at the local soft play area.

Thankfully that worked really well - we scared everyone else away and had the entire play place to ourselves!  All 22 kids had a ball hurtling around; sugar highs for all. :)  Toby loved that all his friends came, especially Jack his best bud.  I'm not looking forward to breaking it to him that when he starts reception (kindergarten) in September, they won't be at the same school - at least they'll reunite in seven years at high school!

After the party we had a very relaxed afternoon and evening with both sets of grandparents and far too much cake and toys.

London

Been a while since I posted - never seem to have a minute and the enthusiasm at the same time!

Anyway, for Steve's birthday we decided to book a trip to London (with the kids) to go to the Science Museum and see the sights.  Neither of the kids have been before so it seemed like a good idea.

We caught the train from Retford direct to Kings Cross on Friday afternoon. All went well until the outskirts of London where we were delayed for 45 minutes due to a 'knocking' - they couldn't find anything wrong so eventually just carried on!  Not quite sure how to feel about that, at least the train held together until we arrived.

We stayed at the Park Plaza County Hall, just the opposite side of the river to the Houses of Parliament.  It wasn't a bad room at all as it had two rooms and a mini kitchen along with a great view of Waterloo station (in the photo it is the building with the crane in front of it and blue windows)!


Can highly recommend it as it was great for kids - they were given treat vouchers to spend on ice-creams, sweets and drinks.  They also let us extend our check-out time till 2pm with no extra charge.  I also think it's fab that we paid £7 per night in advance for breakfast for all of us when it costs £13.99 each if paying later!

On Friday night Auntie Jane visited us as she had been in London 'on business'.  We went to Ned's Noodles for some nosh and had a short wander with two tired kids (though to give them credit they weren't grumpy!).

Despite not dropping off till after nine, our two home-grown alarm clocks were still up at their usual time of 5:58am to ensure we were ready for breakfast when it started at 6:30!!!

After breakfast we negotiated the tube and headed to Buckingham Palace to wave at the queen - she didn't appear to wave back so we took a long, slow walk from there to the Science Museum, stopping for a quick coffee on the way.  I think both kids were ready for a nap before we arrived at opening time, 10am.

They did perk up somewhat with all the interactive displays but I think that despite a whole host of interesting displays, much of it is made interesting by the information provided with it.  We found it rather hard to keep the kids in one place long enough to pass on the info!  Of more interest to them was the trip to Hamleys where they happily spent their spending money (with some gentle persuasion away from the horrible yappy mechanical pink puppy!).  We then had a bit of lunch before heading back to the hotel to put our feet up for a few minutes.

In the afternoon we went on the London Eye, something that I've wanted to do for years but last time I was in London (2001) the queues were too long.  I loved it but it was rather wasted on the kids as they preferred to look at the info on the computer screens rather than out of the window.  Beth was also rather disappointed that it went so slow; I think she had visions of it being like a big wheel at the fairground!!

After that we had a wander over to Trafalgar Square where the kids had fun climbing on the lions.  I felt like a country hick for most of the weekend as everywhere was so busy.  You would think that the beginning of March would be a pretty quiet time to go but no, it was packed everywhere and quite overwhelming.  Beth didn't seem to mind and has put in a request to move to London, she didn't seem particularly put off by the issues of not having a house, jobs or school to go to!

Today (Sunday) we went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs and have a poke around.  There were some impressive sights, not least the dino bones.  The kids enjoyed it but didn't seem overly amazed by things - I'm not sure if they properly realised that things were 'real' or if they, at the ages of three and five, have just seen everything and there's nothing left to astound them!!  Hopefully it's the former or they are going to have rather dull lives.

To finish off the trip we met up with one of Steve's housemates from uni, along with his partner and their five-month-old son.  We met them in Kensington Park at the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground.  It was a great playarea but we didn't stay long as it was bunged.  Instead we had a walk down to the lake and watched the remote control boats before a quick stop at the hotel for bags and back on the train home.

A very enjoyable weekend away, definitely one we'll be repeating in a year or two once we've recovered!

Our Little Outpatient

Yesterday Lucy came home from the vet as (I hope) an outpatient. She has to go back a few times a week for a while but hopefully she won't have to stay in overnight again. We're back in for a check-up on Monday

Unfortunately she still has an open wound that ideally needs cleaning and medicated gel applied five times a day - fun! I've
included a close-up photo for your viewing pleasure; if I have to poke and prod it five times a day you can all stand to have a peek at it!

She seems happy enough and is very lively. I'm scared that Ned will catch her leg with his claw when they're play fighting. If not that, she will catch it when chasing madly around the house - it seems that four weeks of confinement have been saved up and are all tumbling out now.

Ned is fine and loves having his sister back home - I've included his photo as he's been rather left out on that front recently.

Snowy Day

Well the Internet and phone have only just been restored - nine days without has made us realise how much we use it. I thought I'd do a quick post just in case the four inches of snow persuade it to go down again!

The snow started yesterday afternoon and carried on, very lightly, all night so there was a perfect amount for sledging when we got up. We wrapped up very warm and spent a few hours around the village messing about and sledging. I'm quite surprised how long we all lasted without getting cold. We met up with some friends and carried on for a bit longer before a break for hot chocolate and coffee.

This afternoon I think we'll light the fire and lounge about in front of it doing very little. Perhaps we'll have a little wander out before bed to enjoy the snow before it turns to sludge.

As for Lucy, she again stayed at the vets all week, just coming home yesterday. She's back there again tomorrow morning (along with Ned who's getting 'done'). We're not sure if she'll be home again during the week, I suppose it depends how her leg is looking. At the moment she still has a full leg bandage but while at the vet she only has a little one on, I think they know that she'll be jumping and playing with Ned and the kids at home so want to give that extra protection.

A Week in January

I've been meaning to do a post all week and then the Internet (and phone) went down and still hasn't come back on as it seems repair people don't work over the weekend! I'm going hi-tech and doing this on my phone.

Lucy is doing well, she spent all week at the vets as they wanted to change her bandage every day. She's home for the weekend but has to go back first thing in the morning. They are talking about letting her home on Wednesday with dressing changes every few days but I think it depends on how it looks then. The vets have a Facebook page and are going to feature Lucy since she will be a long term patient! I'll let you know the address once it's up so you can have a look.

In other things, we went for a wander at Clumber Park last Sunday and had a really nice morning. We walked around the lake and through the wood to reach the discovery centre and play area. On the walk we climbed trees, played hide and seek and generally chased and played our way around. Toby got a bit tired by the end but it was a fab morning.

Oh, and Toby made his first cake - it turned out pretty well and was gobbled up by hungry children. :)