The start of a new adventure

On the evening of the 19th July we all gathered at Julie and Jared's house as Aaron had received a letter and we were all very excited to see what it said.

First day at school

So late again but here it is. We now have 3 children old enough to be in full time school, can we really be that old :o{. Well they all started on the same day and Elijah was the first one to go in his class, they do a staggered start over the first 2 weeks. He loves his new teacher and has a new best friend Liam. It's the first time that I haven't known any of the teachers so I was a little nervous but they all seem lovely. So here is to a great school year. 

4 Amazing Women

I just wanted to put in this little post about how lucky I am to be surrounded by some wonderful people in my life. But right now there are 4 AMAZING women who I wanted to say a public thank you for. They are
Sarah Quesne

Katharine Weeden

Julie Grice

and Mandy Chaproniere.

Between them they show me what it means to be brave, courageous, loving, caring, strong, determined, faithful, beautiful and AMAZING women and all for completely different reasons.

 I love them all and I know that I am truly blessed to have them in my life.

Last day of School, a bit late

Just thought I'd better get this post up before they start back at school in a couple of weeks. This year I was a bit more organised and remembered to get pictures with the teachers on the kids last day. Well I didn't manage to get Elijah's teacher as she was in a meeting when I picked him up but she was a lovely lady, Mrs Johnson, and really helped him in his first school experience.
Phoebe had a new teacher called Miss Lakin. She did struggle a bit being her first year as a teacher but she helped Phoebe a lot and Phoebe loved her a lot so it was a good year. Phoebe's class room assistant was Miss Reid. She was a lovely lady and she will be staying at the school so Phoebe will still get to see her around next year. Which she is thrilled about.

Faith had two teachers this year. Mr Corfield, who was her teacher in year 1 and Mrs Forrest. Faith loved them both and will miss not being in their class next year. Mr Corfield is becoming a Deputy Head and will be incharge of early years so over Phoebe and Elijah. Which is great news cause I can't say enough nice things about the man, he is an amazing teacher. Mrs Forrest will be going on maternity leave at Christmas so she will be floating around the school till then.

It's been a great year and I can't believe that in September, just 3 weeks away, I will be taking 3 of my children to full time school. When did they get old enough to do that. More to the point when did I get old enough for them to do that. But I am looking forward to being at home with Alyssa every day for 2 whole years before she is old enough to start nursery school. It just scares me that it will go in the blink of an eye.

London 2012 Olympics

Well the Olympics has come to an end and we have no idea what to do with all this free time we have not watching the events. I have to admit, in the build up I was not really interested at all and I was rather glad I wasn't living in London. But oh my goodness how did that view change. I have loved every single minute of the last 2 weeks. Once it had started I was so annoyed at myself for not trying to get tickets to any of the events. So you can imagine how excited I was when we went down South to a friends wedding and went for a walk with Kathy, John, Charlotte and Baxter to Hampton Court and found these.

We were joined by David, Michelle and Kieran.

This is where the time trial for the men's cycling started and finished and where they were given their medals. This is also the event where we got a GOLD and BRONZE for Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. I was so happy that we were able to get to feel that we had been a small bit, a very small bit, involved in the whole thing.
Elijah did make us laugh when he asked where the other throne was
"Cause there are 4 thrones in Narnia" Bless him.

     
We had a little camp out in the playroom for the closing ceremony. Phoebe and Elijah were both asleep about half an hour into it. But Faith bless her made it till 10 minutes before the end before she just couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. The same as she managed to do with the open ceremony.
We have loved the Olympics in this house and are so very proud to be BRITISH.

A Moment in History

On the 30th of June we all gathered at the end of our road to watch a moment in history. The Olympic torch was going through Wolverhampton and it was going past the END OF OUR ROAD. 

It was a beautiful day which in itself was quite a blessing due to it being the wettest June in a century. We meet up with Sarah and Jared and their kids, Julie and her girls and Nanny and Grandad. We also saw so many friends from the local area, it was a day we really celebrated as a community.

We picked possible the best spot as they did a change over right where we were waiting. Which meant that we got to take pictures and some of us even got to touch the torch.

Elijah had made his own torch at nursery school and I had kept it safe so that he could take it on the day. What a clever mummy I am, cause one of the officials saw him with it, grabbed him and took him right to the torch to have his picture taken with it. It was a great day.

 So as we are about to sit down and watch the opening ceremony tonight we are very proud to be British.

Mama's Little Clone

When Mum passed away while I was pregnant with Alyssa, it always upset me that she would never know Mum. But I think Mum had other plans. Although they would never meet in this life they have a very strong bond. A way that we will always think of her when we see Alyssa.

How is that for a spooky resemblance.

And do you know what, I couldn't think of anyone more beautiful for her to take after. 

My Little Pirate

For the last weeks of school Elijah has been doing a pirate project. Building a boat, making flags and everything. He has also learn't a new song. Not quite sure I agree with the words for a 4 year old but to adorable to ever forget..

2 very late birthdays

Wow time for a big catch up. We had two birthdays back in April, yes April I am that far behind on my blogging.
I think it's always hard when birthdays are on a Sunday and we had 2 this month.
On the 15th was Alyssa's first birthday and for some reason I have hardly any pictures to remember the special day by and the ones I do have seem to be lost somewhere on the computer. (I'll post them when I get Spence to find them for me) I am such a bad mum sometimes. But she was spoilt and had lots of fun with her rainbow birthday cake. We also went out the night before for a BIG family meal where we pretty much celebrated everyone's birthday for the year. Best way to do it I think.
Two weeks later on the 29th Elijah turned 4. Now Elijah is such a dude and loved doing a little photo shoot of his outfits he got for his birthday.

I have to say I am rather proud of myself for the cake I made for Elijah. His new favourite program is Mike the Knight. I chickened out of making a Mike cake but I thought his shield turned out pretty well.

I HATE glitter

Ok so I am not the best at letting my kids do art and craft things at home. I don't really know why considering I am the worst house keeper in the world, but the thought of all that mess drives me mad. So glitter and play dough are, as far as I'm concerned, the two worst inventions EVER.
So you can imagine my face when I walked into the kitchen on our first full day of Easter holidays to see Faith and Phoebe and the dinning table and floor COVERED in glitter. It got worse when I saw Alyssa sitting under the table happily trying to catch the falling glitter and eating it. I shouted
"What are you doing? Alyssa looks like a blinking Christmas tree"
So after a bit of shouting (the girls looking very sheepish) which then escalated to a scream after I had seen they had needed the toilet and walked the glitter through the whole house, the girls giggled which broke the tension and calmed me down, a little.
Well later that night Phoebe was saying the prayer and going through the whole family to ask for each of them to be blessed for whatever she thought they needed. When she got to Alyssa she said
"Please bless Alyssa so that all the glitter will come off so she won't look like a blinking Christmas tree any more".
So glad my language wasn't any worse in my stressful moment earlier that day. What a funny little reminder that little ears are always listening and they hear EVERYTHING. 
(Sorry for the lack of picture but trust me I was not in the mood to stop to grab a camera at the time)

One liners I just don't want to forget.

The other day in the car Phoebe bought up the subject of
"Where do people who don't have a house live". While trying to explain to her how some people are homeless she said "but who keeps them warm? Why don't they just buy a house?" I tried to explain that houses are very expensive and not everyone can afford to buy a house. I went on to explain to her that we rent our house from the landlord and we pay him some money each month and he lets us stay in his house. To which her reply was
"What a waste of money" I think we have a future financial adviser on our hands.

When Spencer was asking Elijah how old he will be on his next birthday (he'll be 4) the conversation went on to say how in 4 years time he'll be getting ready to be baptised. Spence said to him,
"Do you remember what happens when you get baptised?" Elijah's reply,
"Yes your eyes have to go under the water" Oh well at least we have 4 years to work on that one.

As I was sitting at the computer today, Elijah came and asked if he could sit on my lap as he was feeling poorly. When I asked him what was poorly he said
"I tummy has a headache"

You've got to love life when you are surrounded by such adorable little monkeys.

Our very own Naughty Little Sister

When I was little my favourite stories were My Naughty Little Sister by Dorothy Edwards. I had them on tape read by Felicity Kendal. Sarah and I used to share a bedroom and she always wanted Alice in Wonderland read by Bernard Cribbins, but that's a different story. Anyway my absolute favourite story was 'Crusts'. It was all about how the little sister would never eat the crusts of her sandwiches which meant that she never got cake. Well one day she started eating her crusts and her mum was thrilled. Till years later the mum found some funny green moss growing out of a crack in the table. It turned out that the crack was a little drawer that had lost it's handle and the naughty little sister had been hiding the crusts in there so that she would get her cake. 

Well the other day Phoebe didn't want to finish off her pizza (she said it had too much cheese on it, which wouldn't have been a problem except they made the pizzas themselves so she had put the cheese on). But she wanted pudding. So I told her she could leave the crusts but had to eat the rest of it. She came in with her plate a few minutes later to show me what she had eaten, so I said ok she could have pudding. 

The next day I was clearing the kitchen counter when I found 3 plastic eggs (the inside of the kinder eggs they had had the previous day) I picked them up to put them in the bin but thought they were a bit heavy. As I opened them up this is what I found.

The cheeky monkey had stuffed the pizza inside the eggs and got to have her pudding. If I hadn't been laughing so much I would have been cross. 

look at her butter wouldn't melt, I'm holding my I am a child of God necklace face.

Oh well, at least I didn't have to clean moss out of the table.

My Little Baker

Yesterday Elijah and Daddy had their first attempt at making bread. It turned out so well and as you can see, he is pretty proud.

Christmas 2011

I know, I know it's a bit late, ok alot late, but I thought I'd better put some pictures on here just to prove that we did in fact celebrate Christmas this year. 

So we start things off with the standard new P.J's that the Christmas elves bought to our house on Christmas Eve.

Followed by the Mummy and Auntie Sarah's creative gift idea.

We decided to make them all aprons and I have to say they turned out great. The 2 nights of staying up till at least 2am were well worth it.

After Church we headed over to Sarah and Jared's for Christmas dinner. After the lovely food it turned into a bit of a made house. Thanks to the HUGE amounts of gifts sent down by Kathy and John and David and Michelle, I couldn't help but think of the old days of Christmas at Nana's house. Oh I loved those Christmas's when I was little, when it was just so magical. It just isn't the same as an adult when along with the magic, comes a whole lot of stress. But that's the joys of being a parent, when you can sit back and think about how wonderful it was when you were that age. But love the fact that you can sit and watch that amazement on your children's face and know exactly what they are feeling.

The prize for the best reactions when opening the presents definatly go to Marissa, she is a child that you love to give a gift to cause you get this reaction every time.

                

Ellie LOVED her polo neck top

And look at the joy in Elijah's eyes with his Toy Story in Hawaii set.

Papa was thrilled with his Kindle

But not as thrilled as Spencer when he saw that the toys Alyssa had received had had the desired affect and knocked her out.

Phoebe with the new dog Pinky (nothing but original when it comes to naming toys) which hasn't left her side since she opened it.

And Sarah's cake made completely from scratch, decorations and all, defiantly deserves a mention.

It was our first Christmas without Mum and words can't say how much we missed her. But we know she was there and loved every minute ;)

We Love you Mum