My Beloved Phoebe

These last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic to say the least, and with Spencer being away for 4 days last week and 4 days this week it has just added to the stress.

It's been a really hard week this week, which seemed to come to a head yesterday when I went to pick Phoebe and Elijah up from my in-laws after my first governors meeting. I can mostly deal with Phoebe's 'moments' but when even your mother-in-law say's she's been a nightmare it's hard to have patients with her. After going to bed and sobbing myself to sleep I woke up this morning determined to do better. I made a deal with Phoebe that if she didn't cry, I wouldn't have to shout. Well that lasted all of 5 minutes when she got down stairs and Faith was sitting where she wanted to sit. So she proceeded to throw herself on the floor and cry for the next 10 minutes. Needless to say she went to school with no breakfast, her shoes on the wrong feet (as she wouldn't let me help her) and her hair not brushed.

Why is it then that she is now at school having a great time with her friends and I am stuck at home feeling like the worst mother in the world?

Who ever said motherhood was easy, has not meet my beloved Phoebe.

The Show

This weekend just gone was the girls BIG dance show. They appeared on stage at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton and they were STARS. They had 5 dances and the finale and as the show didn't end up starting till 7:45 it was going to be a late night.

Phoebe and Ziah getting ready for 'How Does she know' dance.
Ayesha and Faith at the dress rehersal for the Princess dance.

It was my first year being a dresser as Auntie Julie has always done it for me before. It was an experience and to use the word hectic would be an understatement. But when I was standing on the side of the stage watching my little princesses dancing their little hearts out, it was all worth it.

Ayesha, Faith, Ziah and Phoebe at the dress rehearsal for U.G.L.Y
Phoebe doing her tap dance to 'I'm a little yellow fish'

Some of the costumes I was not very happy with and as one of the songs was U.G.L.Y I thought they maybe could have made some better choices for the 2-7 year olds but non the less they LOVED IT.

Mum's Birthday

On Thursday last week it was my Mum's birthday and for the first time ever I woke up in the morning and completely forgot to phone and get the kids to sing Happy Birthday down the phone. I felt awful. So as we were all meeting up at Sarah's on the Friday night to watch the England match (which was terrible) I made mum a birthday cake to say sorry.

Fantastic Faith

Today I was able to go to Faith's school assembly, she was going up to get a good works badge for finishing her words. They have a certain amount of words that they have to learn for each level up to level 5. When they have learn't them all they go up and the Headmaster (In today's case it was Mrs Jones the Deputy Head) opens up the empty box and say's 'Where are all your words?' to which they reply 'There in my head'

She looked so proud of herself and I was super proud of her.

(Special thank you to Daddy who stayed at home with Elijah so that Mummy could stay in and watch all of it)

A week of firsts

Well this week has been a week of firsts for Elijah. He had his face painted at a birthday party, he walked all the way to school and back without Mummy taking the buggy and he got his first pair of big boy pants. Quite a week for our little man

Scripture Study

We have recently started to really focus on our family scripture study, and I have to say it's going really well. We do it straight after dinner and before pudding. That way they sit still otherwise they know they won't get any thing for dessert. (A wonderful tip I got from my wonderful sister).

Well tonight we were reading about when Laman had gone into Laban's house to ask for the brass plates and how he had to run to escape or Laban would kill him. Phoebe and I were looking at the book and as we looked up Elijah had got down from the table and gone into the play room. Phoebe turned to me and said

"Mummy Elijah has escaped, we don't have to try and kill him do we?"

You've got to love how a 3 year old mind works.

My favourite place in the whole world

This is my favourite place on the PLANET. This is Claremont lake in Surrey, it's National Trust and I have been going here with my parents ever since I can remember. I LOVE it for so many reason. It's just so beautiful and peaceful. I have always said that it is exactly how I image the garden of Eden must have been. I have never been here and not had a lovely memorable day. I have taken many friends here but I never took any of my boyfriends until I meet Spencer cause I didn't want to have any bad memoires of the place (if that makes sense)

Having moved to the Midlands I haven't been here since Faith was 1. So when visiting my mum and dad this weekend I said 'we have to go!'
And I'm so glad we did. The weather was beautiful and they have even built a new play area for the kids. I took as a sign that this is going to be a place that will not only be loved by me, but by my family to.

We loved seeing all that new baby ducks and swans and being surrounded by all the beautiful amazing wildlife, flowers and trees. But I think the thing that made the day all the more special for all of us was being able to be there with Mama.

Faith loves Mummy

Last night I had the chance to spend some one on one time with Faith. It was doing the food shopping but it was still us time. She was very well behaved and helped me rush around 3 shops in just over an hour. She ticked each item off the list as we put it in the basket and took great joy in telling me off if I got something that wasn’t on the list. On the way home I said

“Faith, do you like it when we have just Mummy and Faith time?” Her response was “I miss Phoebe, Elijah and Daddy”

I thought this was very sweet. She then continued with

“I don’t like it when you go out on your own mummy.” As I was sitting there thinking how adorable my little girl is she continued with. “ I miss you when you are out but sometimes I am just having so much fun I don’t notice your gone”

Oh well nice to know she notices me some of the time :o)

I LOVE YOU FAITH!!!

Phoebe loves her Papa

We were at my parents this weekend. My Dad is going in for an operation on his shoulder tomorrow morning and Spence was asking the girls what we could do for Papa to make him feel less worried about it. (He was aiming for one of them to say we could say a prayer or he could have a blessing) At this point Phoebe turned round and said

"It's ok Papa you can share my medicine"

We love Phoebe for her adorable and witty one liners

We also had an one liner from Elijah to Mama but I have been told by Mama I am NOT allowed to put it on here :o)

Long Over Due

This last weekend we had an Ives family get together. It was Nathan's birthday party on the Saturday afternoon so we decided to have a bar-b-que at Sarah's house after. It was the first time that ALL of us have been together in a few years so it was a really lovely day.

Although we had to make some mad dashes to the house when the rain started coming down we were still able to get in a few games of cricket and the kids played on the trampoline.

The evening was then spent watching the Eurovision song contest and a quiz show. (Not everyone was over joyed about the Eurovision)

It was lovely to watch all the cousins playing together in Sarah and Jared's HUGE garden and we are looking forward to all being together again for Kathy and John's wedding in August.

Our mini heatwave

Last weekend we had our mini heatwave which was LOVELY. We love the sun and see far to little of it in this country. So we headed down the park for a family get together and to cool off in the pool. A great time was had by all and we are looking forward to a lot more sunny days at the park this summer.