The time has come to enter the twilight zone.

Today I celebrated my 30th birthday. It has been a great weekend of celebrations. Yesterday I had my friends and family for High Tea and today we had a family BBQ to celebrate. Lots of food and cake. It was so cool to celbrate with Uni friends, church friends, colleagues, youth group friends, new friends, old friends and family. My parents came over to celebrate with me, sadly my sisters and brother could not make it as they have had new babies in the last fortnight but my new nephew had his first visit to our house. Tea was great, cakes were tasty and laughter was abundant. (Sadly so was the rain so we didn't spend much time outside!)

Gifts were greatly recieved and much appreciated, plants for the garden, jewellery, bags, books, magazines, photo albums, flowers, flowers, flowers, vases, a gift of an original piece of art work of my choice from my friend who is/was a graphic designer, clothes and candles! ( I realise how loved and spoilt I am!)

Today we had a great breakfast round the table opening more gifts, a new watch, bracelet, necklace, money for sunglasses, chocs, books and a 2 day trip to London to see Phantom of the Opera!! (Did I mention I was spoilt?)

A great BBQ with family and more presents, a beautiful Tiffany necklace, bracelet and earrings as well as another pair of earrings, chocs, pampering things for my feet and a book.

Wow. what a birthday weekend, what a treat. I realise how people rich I am, how loved and looked after I am. I do not take my freinds and family for granted but give thanks for you all, near and far, seen often and seen little, spoken to often and spoken to little, you are thought of regularly and loved.

Many thanks to you all, the cards, letters, emails, gifts, thoughts and love is appreciated. I am signing off now, my first post as a thirty year old, maybe in my thirties I may have more to say that is interesting apart from the ramblings of my daily life.

Another one is here

Lilah Louise Fawcett arrived this afternoon at 4.20pm weighing 7lbs 4oz. Emma is recovering from her section, Paul is on cloud nine, Ellie-May is confused as to why her mummy is in bed and can't walk, my parents are back in the same ward visiting a different daughter 4 days after welcoming a grandson, Judith is introducing Sam to his new cousin, David is paying for more car parking in the hospital car park, Delwyn is on the phone filling me in on all the details and my dad is emailling more photos of a new grand daughter! Phew! What a family. All is well 'Thanks be to God'.

Another Nephew has arrived!

I don't think we can believe that he is a boy, as we come from a biological family of 3 girls and Emma and I have had 2 girls so we expected Judith to have a girl too! But oh no, Judith has bucked the trend and now we have a little nephew and my parents have a grandson. We are so pleased that Samuel, Andrew Croker has arrived safely into the world yesterday, 12/6/08, weighing 8lbs 10.5 oz.

He is really beautiful. Emily and I are going to visit them a week next Thursday. (I got my fit to fly paper yesterday!) Sadly Jamie can't come as he is exam marking but there is plenty of picture sending going back and forth across the Irish Sea. It was great fun choosingblue clothes yesterday, Emily had the basket full of stuff but is a little confused with Lucas and Samuel. She thinks they are the same baby. Wait til our little niece arrives on Tuesday and then a new sibling in August. She really WILL be confused!

So Lucas is here, Samuel is here, we are expecting a little Fawcett on Tuesday then it is our turn in August. What a busy time for the Patterson and McCulloch families. (Our parents deserve a medal!)

Fun in the Garden.

The ball now goes forward more often than backward!

45 mins later and still enjoying the swing. Shame about my arm! (Grandmum took over!)

Just a reminder that Emily is 'Toddling' for Barnado's Charity a week on Tuesday. If you would like to sponsor her, we have a paper sponsor form as well as the secure website link. www.bmycharity.com/emilymcculloch. Thank you to those who have contributed already.

Catching up

Just a few bits and bobs I have found when downloading from the camera.

This is practising an "argh" for Leon's 3rd Birthday party. It was themed as a pirate party!

Life is good, our house is coming along but for now we have stopped painting as it gets mega boring and we are tired of it. We took the sold sign down last night... only 3 weeks late but it wasn't a massive priority as so much DIY inside needs doing!

Jamie starts GCSE exam marking tomorrow so he will be glued to a computer screen for the next 3 weeks. He is at the Foo Fighters and Manic Street Preachers concert tonight so I expect him home late and hoarse! We love our house despite its irks and quirks, for example, the toliet is not attached to the ground, it moves when you sit on it and whan you clean around it. The kitchen floor is very uneven and feels like you are on a rollercoster as you walk from one end to the other. BUT the garden is so, so great. When Emily makes up, most mornings she will say "Outside please." We are having so much fun out there, it is just a shame it takes so long to cut the grass. I am still weeding slowly as there is so much to do.

Our little nephew is so cute. He is tiny and Emily just adores him, as do we all. She is gentle, loving and generous to him in sharing... lets hope that is a positive precursor to her sibling arriving in 10 weeks time!

On Bank Holiday weekend we went away to Castleton with Church for the weekend. We had a great time, it was like an NYI holidy, bunks and all with a toddler in tow. It was a shame that Emily had a cold and couldn't breathe at night consequently causing her to wake around 5am each day. That was hard to manage as everyone else was sleeping and so were their toddlers and kids! We walked, fed lambs, ate ice cream, chatted , attended services and seminars and had a great time with our churhc community. Lots of fun, but really exhausting.

One of our oldest members from church passed away last week. She was a fab lady and will be missed greatly. She was a lady sho lived through war, poor times, the developing society with technology that we now have and had many stories to tell. SHe was also one of the few peole who was at our church when we started going 8 years ago. She stood by our little church when it was little and tried to embrace change when it grew to what is is today. Betty, you will be missed but your testimony lives on.

I think that is all, my 2 sisters are in the last 2 weeks of their preganancies so we are waiting for a phone call any day now. We are excited and looking forward to the new additions to the family. Emily and I are going to visit them at the end of June if the Dr will issue me a fit to fly paper. Before that there is lots to do, School starts abck next week, reports need to be written, its my birthday soon as well as Emily's and Fathers Day in in there too! What a lot to do.