Where has the time gone?

Last weekend Emily celebrated her fourth birthday. Today we had her party with friends from church, nursery school, baby massage, our friends from school and their kids as well as family. We had a fun time, the sun was out and really hot and we had a great time together.

Emily is great. She has too much to say for herself. She often needs the last word and has an opinion on most things. She is the organiser and is often the leader but likes to be the follower too. She laughs easily and cries a lot. She is clumsy but tries to succeed. She is kind and caring whilst being strong willed and stubborn. She asks great questions but struggles to wait for the answers. She is great. We love her dearly and are so grateful that she blesses our lives every day. There are lots of lovely things about Emily, for me, it's her smile!

Weekends away and family times

We have been away this weekend to Ashbourne in Derbyshire. We had a great time, the sun was shining despite wind and a chill. We visited Chatsworth House, Ilam Hall and the river with stepping stones at Dove Dale.It was lovely spending time with our little nephew Lucas, and for us learning about what it is like to travel with 2 children. (The car was so packed full; I think we take just as much for a weekend as we do for a week!)

In the Bjorn for the first time and very cosy!

Never too cold for ice-cream

Chilling out with the crossword

Nice red leaves, but I am not eating them!

Emily really liked the apple sculpture.

Cousins chilling out before bathtimeTwo boys who will be up to mischief in no time at all!

Joel is doing a little better, he put on 5 oz last week, he needs to put on much more to prove that he is growing and not just staying or maintaining. He had a jab of antibodies to protect him from Bronchilitis ( each jab costs £500 and he needs one every 28 days until March or April) and he has kept his tube in for over a week!

My parents came to visit before they go back to Romania tomorrow. We had lots of fun out and about.

Playing hospitals with Granny

Emily is being potty trained, she was doing well until this weekend. Today just one accident at our childminders so hopefully she is back to dry days. We need to crack that before we attempt nights.

Our house is being rewired next week, we have a great electrician who hopes to do it quickly and without making to much mess. Our floors need to come up in at least 2 rooms and we will need to redecorate at least 2 walls per room, it will be messy but it needs to be done!

We are waiting to find out on Wednesday if we can go to Northern Ireland at half term, we need to be out of the house as we will have no electricity. It will be nice to see my siblings and brother in laws as well as our 2 nieces and nephew. Hopefully the paediatrician will give us the ok!

I had a miracle today. The hospital where I have to take Joel is building a new carpark so it has closed one of the current ones leaving a mass shortage of spaces. Last week I tried for 35 mins to find one and was slightly late to our appointment. I was talking to our electrician who lives in the area who has a friend who has a double driveway 5 mins walk from the hospital. She phoned tonight to offer us the driveway at any time. Not only will it save me a lot of stress but money too. How cool is that? The lady has never met me but is willing to share her drive with me.

Also, when we arrived home yesterday our neighbour arrive with a pumpkin from her allotment for us to cook or carve. What a great neighbour. I am not sure if I have ever seen a dirty pumpkin before, only the shiny, clean ones from Tesco!

At last a family photo with all four of us standing up and with clothes on!

First Family of Four Picture

Introducing the new McCulloch Fmaily complete with all four human members.

Willow the cat and Milo the goldfish may follow later!

More news

Well... I filled you in on news of my sisters pregnancies and the joy of two nieces of nephews arriving in June. Now I can report that our sister-in-law, Nicola, is having a baby too. We are very, very pleased for Dave and Nic and look forward to meeting a new McCulloch in June.

So 3 new babies in June. (Judith is married to a twin and she hasn't had her dating scan yet so we say 3 but who knows?!)

I have included more piccies from the past couple of weeks.

Happy Grandparents Day to Emily's Grandparents.

Click to play Make your own Smilebox

End of summer project and fun with Granny and Granda

Well it is the end of the summer holidays and my parents came to visit us for a few days before they head off to Alaska and Seattle to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary (last year) and my mum's 50th birthday and we go back to work. Whilst they were here they helped us with our end of summer project. We play barked our side garden and with the generous donation from Emily's Uncle Delwyn and the joy of a Toy R Us sale we bought a climbing frame, sandpit and trampet for our play area. It is very big and probably a little too big for our small side garden but we are living in hope that one day soon our little house will sell. We have even got the outdoor suit (thanks Cath, Rob, Alice and Millie,) for Emily to wear through the winter. (maybe we will need one too!) So I have included some piccies of the new play area and of the fun times Emily had with her Granny and Granda.

Birthday Weekends

Bath time with Granny

This past weekend I celebrated my birthday. It was a great time. Last year I was 4 days away from my due date and quite big, so this year I felt very different, not only because I am a stone lighter but because I felt I could celebrate. Last year J took me out to my favourite restaurant, The Lime Tree. The food was great and very tasty but... I ended up being very unwell. No such thing this time. My Parents came to visit from Belfast and we along with my McCulloch family went out for a lovely dinner... no sickness to report!

We went to visit Llandudno for the day, we had great weather. Mum and Dad had never been to visit so it was great to take them somewhere we really enjoy going.Emily is having a not so good week. She now has 6 teeth through and there are more on the way. She has caught a cold which has brought a nasty cough. Jamie and I are very tired, she is really struggling at night to sleep.(we know Emily has always been a good sleeper so when this happens it does give us a reality check.)

Anyway...

Jamie is still exam marking

Our house is still for sale

It is still raining outside

and we are still smiling.

We are off to Belfast this weekend to celebrate Emily and our niece, Ellie-May's first birthdays; so it will be two weekends in a row of birthday celebrations for us.

A tooth

Yes, on Monday we felt the edge of a tooth. As yet we can't see it; (She won't let us!)

We have been to Durham for a few days. We had a great time. It was nice for Jamie to be back in his University town remembering all the places he/we frequented. We especially enjoyed visiting Durham cathedral. We visited Beningborough Hall on the way home. It is home to half of the National Portrait Gallery's paintings. We experimented with our own type of portrait.

Emily is now spending more and more time on her feet so we invested in her first shoes. Size 3, width G. Hopefully there is plenty of room for growing as they cost just as much as adult shoes!

We arrived home to pick up a parcel. It was a box filled with 4 helium balloons - Thankyou to Emily's family in Northern Ireland.
Well it has been a busy week. Happy Birthday to Esther in Sydney, James and Katy in York, Nicola in Knaresborough, James in Bristol and Geordan in Manchester. Happy Anniversary to Deirdre and Andrew. (I hope that is everyone!)On the house front, three people came to visit today, maybe the person who wants our house visited today!!

We have enjoyed our week of half term, one more day to go with Jamie.

Another busy week.

Emily got a pop up tent and tunnel this week. It takes up the entire floor space in our lounge.We have no space left so we wiggle around it in order to get around in the lounge!

We also went ot our first children's birthday party complete with party bags! Happy second birthday Katie B! We have started thinking about Emily's Birthday party; we are hoping to have an outdoor picnic on July 7th.

We have had a busy week. Emily has now learnt to blow raspberries whilst having her dinner, thus spraying us with yoghurt, pasta, chicken and baby mush! She is also great at mimicing us when we tell her off.

Her love of books continues with her bumping her face daily as she drags the latest edition off the shelf.

Jamie is off to the Year 11 Prom tomorrow night, then Range Rover driving and FA Cup on Saturday morning with his dad and brother (a birthday gift for his dad). Emily and I are hoping to meet up with family.

Thirty one years and counting

Happy 31 years of marriage to my parents. My Mum was only 18 when she got married so it just goes to show that marriage can work. They have been together forever. So, enjoy your day and we hope there will be 31 more to come.

P.S. Please don't kill me for posting these funky, historic piccies!

Family Celebrations

This weekend we went to Birmingham to attend Jamie's cousins daughter's baptism. It was a lovely opporutnity to catch up with the McCulloch side of the family and to attend such an important day in the life of Jasmine and her family.Emily was in good form considering we are still waiting on the teeth to arrive. What is really noticable is that she seems to really enjoy people. She is so smiley and friendly, it gives me great joy to see her smiling at strangers with such ease.

We have had a busy time with Jamie being on a maths residential course, parents evenings and general business in life. We missed our church this weekend but it was good to worship somewhere else. The church we visited are going through Lent reflecting on the book Live Life, Love Lent. It has lots of challenges to do throughout Lent including 'make a cup of tea for someone more busier that you.' It seems like a really cool thing so we are going to try to get a copy of the book. (it we do, we will include some challenges for you to consider.)

Anyway that's all for now, David and Nicola are off skiing this weekend, we hope there will be plenty of snow! For me I have the pleasure of Emily teething; for Jamie, he has yet another Parents Evening to look forward to.