Catch up time

Well, things have been busy so no blogging time. We now have a sold sign outside our house. I would post a picture but it is dark, windy and raining! ( Just another night in Manchester!) With regard to moving, we still have a date of May 2nd; we are waiting to hear from the lady who owns the house to see about repairs that need to be done, so therefore negotiation on the price etc. We have started to pack the study and the attic, but it is difficult to work around Emily and the space we need to live in.

We have enjoyed Lent and are looking forward to Easter Sunday and the joys that that brings in our church. Emily is looking forward to the Easter Bunny, but will be really sad about the Easter Tree (branch from the garden with decorations), leaving our house. Every morning she comes downstairs to check if it's there saying 'tree, tree, tree.' I hope it is not as traumatic as it was when 'Ya Ya' (Santa) went away after Christmas!

Emily is so much fun at the moment. Her speech is massive, usually with words we don't understand but we are getting there with the decoding process. She is also learning to dress or should I say undress herself. This brings up interesting situations when it comes to bedtime. 'Fairy' went to bed the other night!

Judith came to visit before she is too far into her pregnancy to fly. We had a fun time. It is great to know that the next time we see her we will hopefully be meeting our new niece or nephew.

Photos from the month

Crazy and busy but we have not forgotten about you all and will try to be in touch soon. On the house front, we are in negotiations about the house we want to buy as there are some building repairs and general repairs that need to be done so we are waiting to hear from the vendor.

Emily copying how her Dada sits! ( And I know she needs her fringe cut!)

Painting with magic water.

I love cheese!

Do you like my rain hat?

Boing Boing!

Stickers or spots?

Half Term has been and gone

We have had an interesting half term break. It started badly on our first Friday night when we had to take Emily to A and E at 3am with a temp of 39.9. We stayed for 4 hours and went home to see if we could get her to pee in a pot. (Have you ever tried that with a 19 month old who is not potty trained?! Messy!) Well we took the sample back and continued to try to get her temp down and failed so ended up back there again from 3 pm to 7pm on Saturday. She was given antibiotics and started picking up on the Tuesday. Meanwhile a rash developed all over her body including her head. (Have you ever tried to stop a 19 month old from scratching? sore!)

My parents came to visit on Monday and Emily, despite being unwell had a great time with them. We visited Bramhall Hall and Spring had sprung!

We have been busy trying to clear our loft whilst I can get up a ladder and whilst we have someone to look after Emily. We took 6 bags of books to the charity shop. I was sad, Jamie was relieved!

We went to Chill Factor E on Friday with some friends and their kids to play in the snow. Emily has never seen snow before. She was bemused but seemed to enjoy being hauled around in a rubber ring.

Auntie Sara and Uncle Greg and Auntie Deirdre will be pleased to see that Emily is getting to experience a little of the winter life they know so well being Canadians! (Do you like my boots and helmet? Sadly the helmet was a little wobbly and didn't quite protect her nose from a fall!)
I have been sick since Thursday and really sick since yesterday. I am sure it is not pregnancy related sickness as it is often related to food, which is a real shame as food is good and not just for me! Poor baby is living on a diet of bagels and jam. I am not well enough to make it to work tomorrow as I have been to sick this evening and don't want to carry it to school. It is only 5 weeks to the Easter break!

All change in our house

Old House New House?

What a busy couple of weeks we have had (again I hear you say!) We have accepted an offer on our little 3 bedroomed one room downstairs house in Manchester and bought a four bedroomed 2 rooms downstairs house in Stockport. Well... when I say bought, I mean the lady has finally accepted our offer and now all the legal stuff is in motion including builders surveys etc. We are cautiously optimistic and excited as we have been in this little house for 6 years on 8th February and have slowly outgrown it. We have had so many good times here it will feel strange to leave as this is the place were we have spent most of our married life, brought Emily home to, celebrated birthdays and enjoyed times in the garden and in the cul de sac with our neighbours. BUT..... we are moving to space.... space... and a little more space. Emily will be able to slide down her slide without bumping her feet into the fence at the bottom and swing freely without the worry of crashing into the fence behind if she goes too high! The lady who is buying our place is really excited to have gardens and 3 bedrooms as she is moving from a flat and has as much joy at buying our house as we do selling it.

We have even more reason to move to a bigger house because our family is getting bigger. Not a new pet, although Emily may drag it around as much as she does our cat; we are hoping to welcome a new little McCulloch into this crazy, mixed up world in August. The hospital tells us that he/she is due on August 10th but I think it is due on August 15th. We will wait and see. We had our first scan this week. Wow, is God amazing or what?! I know we have seen it before but as we watched this tiny little thing, 5cm from head to bottom with this heart beat pumping away we were struck by the amazingness of life and God's hand in it. So, we need to move and move soon, as Baby is on the way, I am going on maternity leave again, Emily needs to be registered at a Nursery school, the sooner we move the more hands on I can be in moving and because Jamie and I are mega fed up with the vandalism to the side fences at our house and really cannot be bothered fixing them anymore and that is not a good attitude to have! So just to remind you all. In June, my sister Judith is due on the 10th, our sister in law Nicola is due on the 13th and my sister Emma, is due on the 24th. And in August we are due. (Imagine the excitement for my parents with their 3 daughters all pregnant at the same time and in the McCulloch house... 2 daughter in laws pregnant at the same time!)

This weekend my sister Emma, Paul and Ellie May arrived to visit. We had such a great time and Emily just loved having her cousin to play with. We had a great time in the mud at Didsbury Park, soft play, shopping and playing. It was great to see them and to show them round our town.

Well... I think that is enough news to break today. We are so, so thankful for prayers and best wishes from all as well as the feeling of God's presence in the midst of waiting, as it has been a long time since we began thinking about moving. We are relieved to have an offer accepted and to be ont he first rung of the moving ladder. Hopefully we will stay on and not fall off before we get the keys to our new home.

The last two weeks

Have been quite busy with school starting and adjusting to the rhythms of January. We are well and have done lots of cool things. We have been to the farm at Tatton park to see the animals, to the park to play on the slide and Emily has finally learnt to play with play dough without eating it. What a success!! We have had so much fun with dancing. Emily has got a lot of her dada's interesting bum shuffling moves and the waving arms thing must come from him as I am not taking the blame. She got a great Putmayo World Playground CD for Christmas. (Thanks Auntie Sara and Uncle Greg.) We rarely get past the first one as she loves the beat and can do a mean butt wiggle with arm wave.

They have a breed of sheep that lamb at different times of the year. There were 4 lambs.
This one was mega sweet and could have come home with us as a pet!

This looks like it was painful, I caught her just in time hence the abrupt drop of the camera. Her nose was a little red!

Dances just like her dada

Not so tasty any more. (Yeah)

A selection of Christmas pics

Just some photos of the Christmas Break. We have visited Santa, had Christmas day here in Manchester and a weekend in Belfast. We have been to Dunham Massey to see the ducks and deer and had a nice break. Now it's back to work for me on Monday, Jamie has been back since Thursday. Happy New Year to you all.

BROKEN UPDATE

New freezer and fridge now installed in our kitchen! Yeah.
Gas man fixed boiler yesterday! Coming back this afternoon again as it is NOT fixed! Boo!!!!

Break down day

Our fridge/freezer broke today!

Our central heating boiler went on the blink today!!

Tomorrow the gas man is coming to hopefully fix it for the least amount of money possible.

Tomorrow we have to go to buy a new fridge/freezer as all the food in our frezzer is now in the bin and we have warm milk!

BLAH!!!!!

Bin raiding

I was walking through Didsbury village yesterday afternoon when I saw this pink wheelbarrow sticking out of the top. I would like to label my act of bin raiding as recycling - I am not too sure. :)

Needless to say it has provided hours of fun so far and hopefully we will train Emily to sweep all the leaves off our grass by next Autumn. (P.S. she really uses the word 'again' a little too often!)

Puddles, hair and singing

This weekend we went to visit family in Birmingham and had a great time. On Sunday we went to Dunham Massey to jump in the puddles! It was so much fun.

We have been experimenting with hairstyles this week. What do you think of these?
That is all for now, I have 4 days left until the holidays, one tomorrow and 3 next week. WoW!!!!

We have been practising our singing too! SO cute! (not my voice... hers!)