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...!!!

Happy Christmas...?

Well, christmas was not what we had expected or hoped for. It was a great day but the build up and aftermath have been pretty awful. On the thursday before christmas Emily was really poorly, I took her to the doctors on friday and they diagnosed a viral infection, she was really miserable just wanting to sleep and everything she ate came straight back up or straight out! I ended up having to take her to hospital sunday morning and they suspected viral gasterentoritus so I had to syringe water with a hydrating fluid in it into her mouth so that she could avoid being hospitalised. Luckily by christmas morning she was a bit perkier and managed to last the day well before going to bed early. Boxing day she was back to normal. Tom however became ill on Christmas day and threw up all his feeds, he got worse on Boxing day and the doctor again diagnosed the same as Emily. To make everything worse I then got ill on Thursday and was in bed for 2 days! To add to that our heating stopped working again!!!

Aside from all the illness Christmas day was great, Emily had her piano, books, puzzles, clothes and bits and pieces from us, including some make up which she likes to have on everyday and a doctors kit which she uses to check people and says "oh dear" a lot!

She also had lots of Peppa Pig things and Tom had tons and tons of new clothes which is great as he has pooed on almost everything he owns! Emily also got some new games which she loves playing and lots of craft things to get nice and messy with. She had some fairies and "unicorns" from Nana and Grandad and a Trunki from her other Nana and Grandad, which we will use when we go to Egypt in a few weeks.

Well, nearly back on my feet now which will please Wayne as he has been doing most of the housework! Got to be sorted as we have 10 people descending for New Year so need to be prepared! Happy New Year!

We're on a roll.

Tom has now mastered the art of rolling everywhere - he is no longer safe on beds, sofas or anything he cannot be strapped into! He finds it hilarious to roll into Emily which annoys her! We have decided that 5 months is long enough and we are moving Tom from our room into his on saturday, it will be nice to have our room back and maybe I will get a good nights sleep as Tom is a fidget and a noisy sleeper!!

Emily has been enjoying the christmas tree and the advent calendar and the chocolates on the tree!! She has been really good with not touch the tree but is always asking for chocolate!

Wayne and I took her shopping on friday without Tom which was really fun. We took her for lunch and she bought Tom a teddy which she named George (obviously!) and has asked that Tom buy her a saxaphone for christmas so "Tom" has obliged and bought a toy saxaphone!

Lots happening over the next few weeks, lots of christmas parties so I should have lots to write about!