Nearly 3!!

Emily is 3 in one week!! We are pretty sorted with her presents - she is getting a pink bike, and the party is organised - 24 children in fancy dress at the village hall with a Charlie and Lola theme! She is very excited, she is going to be a fairy and Tom will be a pirate!

We haven't been up to much lately, my friend Abby had a beautiful baby girl Isla so we looked after Finn for a day and took him to my mother in laws birthday lunch where he fitted in like one of the family and now keeps asking to go back to Emily's Nana's house! We have been going to Football classes on a wednesday in Lambourn which Emily loves, they are teaching her to score goals, control the ball and most importantly to listen to the coach and not need mummy stood next to her at all times! She has been getting more independant each week and is doing really well now. Wayne also bought her a golf club and we were practicing in our hallway as you can see in the photo! She actually has a decent swing and Wayne is thinking of taking her to golf with him a couple of times over the summer!! (rather him than me!)

Tom is crawling everywhere and can put himself up slightly so that he can reach the DVD's under the Tv and Emily's toys on her table! He is driving me crazy there is no way of containing him, he is also attempting to eat everything in sight. Speaking of eating.... Emily has been doing really well with our zero tolerance approach and is now eating a wide range of food such as ham, bolonaise, garlic mushrooms, carrots, brocolli, roast potatoes, pasta, toad in the hole and loads of things that she never would even have tried a couple of weeks ago - but I am beginning to think that crap food like chicken nuggets and fish fingers was better for her as she has turned into a real madam the last couple of weeks, very defiant and not a day goes by that she isn't sent to the corner!!

Lots to report!

Its been a while since I have posted and we have been up to quite a lot. In February half term we went to Bucklebury Farm with Emily's friend Sophie, it was the first time we have been and although it was cold we really enjoyed it, Emily got to feed a deer and goats from her hand which was great to watch!

Then we had Finn for the weekend and on the saturday I face painted them as tigers! Then on the sunday we all went to Marwell Zoo and saw loads of animals - Emily and Finn walked most of the way around the whole zoo so they were absolutely shattered!

We have started organising Emily's 3rd birthday party and the numbers are above 20 now!! It is going to be fancy dress and Emily will be a fairy. I have ordered a bouncy castle and loads of Charlie and Lola themed stuff. I can't believe she is 3 soon! She will also be starting pre-school just after her birthday!

Emily and Wayne have both been ill this last week, Emily with another viral infection and Wayne with Acid Reflux for the second time - this time he has listened to the doctor and switched to decaff coffee for his 10 cups a day!! Both are better now thank god!

Tom had his 8 month check yesterday and is doing everything that he should be and is also now moving around really well - he commando crawls on his belly everywhere and is really hard to keep track of now - I think I am in for trouble when he gets up and about!! He weighs 20lb 11oz now and is sitting in a proper car seat which he loves. He is also eating anything he can get his hands on. We went out for a special mothers day lunch and he was eating yorkshire pudding and Emily regularly feeds him bits of her breakfast! We went to 2 parties this weekend and he loves birthday cake too! He also sat up at the table at playgroup with all the other children for a snack of toast and juice - he loved it and although he made quite a mess he ate most of his toast!

Egypt.

We had a brilliant week in Egypt, the weather was amazing, the hotel was really nice - we stayed at the Hilton and we had fun spending time as a family! Both kids were fantastic on the flight and behaved impecably! The first day we set ourselves up by the heated pool and pretty much stayed put for the rest of the week - we even got friendly with the pool boy so he would put towels on the sun beds for us to make sure we had our spot then when he saw us on the way to the pool he would put the large umbrella up for us!!

We spent everyday in the pool, Emily loved it and Tom couldn't wait to get in. Then about 12 we would feed Tom and get Emily some lunch then Tom would fall asleep in the pushchair and Emily would fall asleep on the sunbed! We would go out for dinner somewhere - our favourite was the Hard Rock Cafe in the centre of Sharm El Sheikh as they played brilliant music and the waiters danced! (and they served fish fingers!!) Usually we would end up with Emily dosing in the pushchair and Tom wide awake taking it all in, in the baby carrier! We were slightly worried about all sleeping in the same room but it worked really well, only a couple of times did we put Tom in bed with us and one night we all slept in together but it was fine and everyone slept well!

Sharm El Sheikh was great - very busy but loads of little market shops and bedouin bars with big smoking pipes everywhere - it was quite a sight with all the lights and music everywhere. We saw a good show in the hotel with a man who stood on broken glass and led on a bed of nails!!

We were not looking forward to the journey home (especially as we had over 1000 cigarettes in our suitcase and we found out on the way to the airport that we were only allowed 200 each and could be prosecuted for tobacco smuggling and receive a 5 year caution!!!) but the children were brilliant and both slept for most of the flight giving us a chance for a quick nap before the drive home! And we didn;t get stopped at customs!!

Now we are just getting back to normal and after a quiet week Emily is not so tired anymore and Tom is back into his routine with 2 new teeth!! His bottom left tooth came through on the last few days of the holiday and the other bottom one has broken through this week so he is much happier now!

Peppa Pig world.....

Emily's latest game is to create Peppa Pig world where she sets up all her people and toys. She puts all the people in her toy bus and takes them off for a picnic, she can tell you who is sitting with who, who is friends or not and what they are all eating, then she will drive them back again and each one will say goodbye to the teacher as they get off the bus!! She also will put them all in a row and then lie them all down so they can go to sleep! She will tell them off if they fall over and put them in the corner until they can say sorry! Its quite amazing to watch and she really gets her imagination going wild with so much going on and all the things she says to the toys are incredible and she makes them talk to each other!

She has also invented new words and says "Giz" "Lickylick" and various other nonsense words when she is playing or just being silly!

Only 6 days until we go away now - it can't come quick enough - just all the stress of packing and going on the aeroplane to come!

Clever girl!

Emily learnt a new word at the weekend thanks to Mary Poppins - she can now say.... "supercallafragerlisticexpealladocious!" she sang it very loudly all the way around Newbury yesterday and people thought she was most impressive!

New Year.

New Year was fantastic. we had a big group of friends over and did a race night with horses called "nose picker" and "yehbutnobut" which was hillarious and loud with everyone cheering on their horses, by race 4 Christine was up £1000's on everyone so we abandoned it in favour of letting fireworks off!! At midnight we made incredible amounts of noise as we let off more fireworks and toasted the start of 2008 with Jools Holland on the tv for company! Then around 1am we decided to play the game when you stick a post it on your head and have to guess who you are with hysterical consequences - a load of drunk people makng the suggestions then trying to guess who they are makes for an interesting time!!! By 2.30am I was failing and had to realise that our children would be awake in 4 hours so I went to bed but everyone else kept going until 5.30am!! Lots of tired hungover people in our house on New Years Day!

Yummy!

Tom has now been introduced to the world of food and I am afriad to say - is a fussy eater! He doesn't like cheese or chicken. He loved Sweet Potato last week but hates it this week and now only wants to eat yoghurt and sweet fruit puree! He was doing really well with food and was starting 2 meals a day when he got poorly over christmas so we are trying to get him back on track. I am getting the blender out on saturday and have made space in the freezer for millions of little cubes - Annabell Karmel here I come...!!!