Got back home from Xmas Wednesday night, but not blogged yet.
But I just had to share this lovely photo that I managed to take of Alys over the break. It’s probably the best photo of the either of the girls I’ve taken. (looks even better as an 8×10 print)
Posted in Butterbean, General
is my Mum’s mum, and we visited her at Aunty Margarets today. She is looking v well, though this latest course of radiotherapy has been tougher than previously [recurrent breast cancer]. SB is v gentle with her now, mostly reading books together and ‘look at me’ play and games. oh, and eating the yummy cakes she bakes!
Nanny has a really soft spot for SB, as she saw her when only 3 hours old, and was the ray of sunlight in the year she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and originally told by junior doctor to abandon all hope. [luckilly excellent consultant at Norfolk and Norwich turned this around, but after SB's birth].
BB went in for the ‘ I’m anybodies, cuddle me’ approach, which she does v well.
Posted in General, Out and About
We went to my parents for xmas, after visiting Chris’s parents – so a bit of a royal review of loyal subjects! [obviously ELinor and ALys's loyal subjects, not ours!!]. my sister and her family also stayed with Mum and Dad, so a jolly household.
Xmas worked really well, got on OK, no rows. part of the ease I think came from the fact that this year us adults opened our presents Xmas eve after children in bed, to Xmas carols, mulled wine and nibbly bits. Made it v relaxed, and got to enjoy own presents rather than keeping eye out on what youngsters ripping open!
Also, when children opened presents the next day, there seemed to be the right number. enough to play with, without having too many, or feeling extravagant. The grandchildren played beautifully together.
Cheers to Mum for catering, and all there for such a lovely time. Cris will no doubt add a few photos and says he’s written a bit too.
Posted in General, Out and About
Ok, I’ve just added a couple of piccies to yesterdays blog, took this one last night when Stringbean had finally got to sleep of her and some of her ‘cuddlies’ – her cute name for them.. Yes there is a small child in there somewhere………
Sorry Alison, haircut pics will have to wait 
Ok, really is time to get sorted so we can head of on our xmas perambulation of the parents. Have fun you bloggers and Happy Xmas everyone.
Stringbean has found todays chocolate on the advent calendar, so looks like she’s sussed what the Twenties’ look like.
Posted in General
Boiled egg and pickled onions is what Stringbean had for breakfast yesterday. She has eclectic tastes in food
Had a half written blog for the weekend last night,but somewhere I los t it. So this will be shorter version.
Butterbean hit 4 weeks on Saturday, and continues to grow in gorgeousness, she often has smiles. She continues to eat for England, and grow similarly (must be well over 12 lB now) – she certainly is a chunky monkey . Her muscles have grown much in strength, she kicks and pushes with here legs and can lift and hold her head up for sometime. She’s taking a fair bit of notice of what’s around here now, looking at things moving here head to track things.
What has been pleasing is how well SB has responded to her, she shows her such affection, and care that it is wonderful to see. Yes of course there are little moments of the jealousy, but nothing more thna you would expect. She loves to help out with bathing, nappies etc. and would help out with feeding if she could. We thought she probably would as she seemed so excited about it and said she wanted a baby, but it’s so nice to see it action.
The other night she was cuddling up on Mummy, when I brought BB in, she said something to the effect that she wanted to cuddle mummy by herself, so me and BB went off and had a cuddle and a doze on the bed ourselves, which was nice.
Saturday SB and I went to the library and took back some rather overdue book. She loves the library and choosing books, though she tends to be a bit random in her selections – if it has a nice picture on the front it’s fair game. They had some free bookmarks on the desk – she wanted to know what they were – I explained about them being used in longer books to keep you place – she took one and then wanted to find a book for it. So she found one about a boy who is in coma after his dog was killed and he was injured in a road accident – a cheerful subject for a 3 year old (though it has happy ending). She insisted Helen start reading it too her, much to Helen’s dislike. I did try to leave it behind, but she wasn’t having it. I had more in mind the rather nice Winnie the Pooh collection the Bookpeople are doing at the moment (?10, 30 quid in Waterstones) . We did also have an educational bit though, we paln to vist the Jovik Viking Centre in York early next year, so are going to do a bit of something on Vikings so got a couple of books, a DK Viking one and a story book/tape about a Viking who got sea sick.
Did a bit shopping, including getting some bits for making Ice cream Sundaes This all started the other day when SB was doing a maths CD – Jumpstart Maths or somesuch – with a daft bunny called Hopalot. Anyway, they had Ice Cream Sundaes in it somewhere, she wanted to know what they were, and then we decided to make some. Cue getting ice cream, chocolate sauce and various sprinkles organised. We had fun making and eating them later (I like this HE lark…)
Sunday Aunty M, Uncle M and Mark coming round for Mulled Wine and Mince pies in the evening. Me and SB made mince pies. She looks very much the cook now, and can actually manage to do some of the bits herself quite well, which is big change on last year. Cutting out, sticking the tops on she can manage especially well. We had to cut out little stars and hearts to decorate the tops for extra fun though.
A bit of manic cleaning/tidying up and then BB was introduced to her Uncle Mike (well Great-Uncle really) and Cousin Mark. Mark has just the odd piercing, which SB found intriging. Much mulled wine was drunk and food munched.
Monday Nursery day for SB, given the late night she had I’m surprised we managed to get up in time. I went shopping, bit busy but ok, managed to survive a quick hit and run on Ikea and a quick viist to town, I fripped in Waterstones on audio books (Winnie the Pooh, Some Mog stories and a kiddies songs CD) I even got a hair cut All set for Crimble now I think. Helen did some packing – we head of on our Xmas perambulation tomorow.
When I picked her up from nursery, SB was going ‘Ooo Ooo’ at me, and pointing – ‘Look all the rufflies have gone!’ (I’d had a shave as well….) Got to 20 on the advent calendar, she knew it came next, but didn’t remember what it looked like. Last night she complained that her pyjama trouser legs were half way up her legs – so I bought her some more, this time managed to find some reasonable one in Asda, last time I looked they all seemed vomit inducinglly pink/princess/barbie/disney type efforts, managed to find some better ones this time, cute, girly ones but not offensive. SB was pleased anyway.
Helen went out for a meal tonight taking BB with her, she seems to have behaved well. I was uspposed to have tidied packed sort for tomorrow, but SB didn’t get to sleep until 1030 or later,so scuppered things a bit (she came down about 10 saying she was hungry and wanted some cold spaghetti hoops – so she finished off a tin and went back to bed.
Then I wasted the rest of the time writing this…….
Could add some piccies, but must do something useful 
maybe another time.
Well if I could be bothered I’d be an atheist, so not exactly accurate , but then I do like carols, including this one – 15 years of Baptist church attending I guess.
You are ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’. You take
Christmas very seriously. For you, it is a
religious festival, celebrating the birth of
the Saviour, and its current secularisation
really irritates you. You enjoy the period of
Advent leading up to Christmas, and attend any
local carol services you can find, as well as
the more contemplative Advent church services
each Sunday. You may be involved in Christmas
food collections or similar charity work. The
midnight service at your church, with candles
and carols, is one you look forward to all
year, and you also look forward to the family
get together on Christmas Day.
What Christmas Carol are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Posted in General
You are ‘Adam Lay Y Bounden’! Ah, you appear to be
something of a Christmas snob. Whether you are
a musician who has sung one carol service too
many, or merely someone with very highbrow
views on music and culture, you shudder at the
thought of piped music in lifts, wince at
endless repetitions of Jingle Bells and have
put out a contract on Rudolph. While you agree
that some of the well-known carols are lovely,
you are more drawn by the really obscure
medieval carols, or the ones arranged by Bach.
You also know parodies of several carols – a
legacy of excessive carolling, or perhaps just
the product of an enquiring and slighly cynical
mind… Try to enjoy Christmas, anyway.
What Christmas Carol are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Actually do love medieval carols [including this one!], but love most christmas carols. hate christmas ‘songs’ – so am a snob. love the whole snow, holly winter candle thing – mix of yule etc – mostly family and carols and nippy weather rather than religion. could even not miss the presents!
Posted in General
Spent a while writing that last post on the laptop – a little while after posting it I noticed that for some reason it was made twice. I deleted the second copy (from the desktop upstairs). Meanwhile a little later, Helen looked at the pageI had left showing on the laptop, saw the copy, deleted what she thought was the copy, only to realise that there was only one now and she had deleted that………..
Luckily I found the text of the post by going back in the browser a few pages
Women bloggers eh? – Ducks and runs for cover….
Posted in General
?Oh Wow!? being Stringbean?s favoured statement of exclamation when she finds something surprising, exciting etc. I love it, it seems to sum up so much of the wonder and excitement in some much in childhood.
Playing catch up again, why does my mind seem to be such a blank when I sit down at the ‘puter?…
Thursday first
Helen was doing another all day course in town, so the day was arranged around getting her fed. Luckily, Butterbean is less fussy about the bottle than her sister was, and though she’s not exactly a fan, will drink well enough from a bottle (given that this is only the second time that she has had to have one). If anything there wasn?t enough in the bottles to fill her up, but it was enough to keep her happy when she wanted a mid morning feed.
The girls and me went into town and met Helen so that Butterbean could have a good fill up. They had three xmas trees at the place we had to go, which impressed Stringbean ? she loves to go up and touch the various decorations for some reasons, then pottered about until she finished. It was cold and windy, Butterbean was wrapped up snug though and kept me warm (!) in the sling. We went to the German Chriskindle Market nearby that is here every December. Bit too cold for browsing really and not exactly busy on windy Thursday. But Stringbean went on a Carousel and enjoyed it (last time she saw one she wanted to go then changed her mind) ? she was the only one on it ? not a good day for trade me thinks. Some lovely wooden toys – I mostly restrained myself. She bought a little wooden decoration on one stall, and I bought a wooden jigsaw type thing of European countries. The jigsaw isn?t that hard and she can do it ok, but I thought it might be a good way to learn the countries. All the names are in German, so extra education value there as well
Here she is playing with it later:
It was too cold to sit outside munching the enticing looking Garlic bread so we headed off to a caf? for some lunch. Stringbean amused the till lady, she likes to pay for things at the moment, so I gave her a tenner to pay. She took the change, went to give it back to me, then changed her mind and said, ?it?s my money now? as she pocketed the change?
Anyway, nice ?Happy Mummy? moment after we got home:
And I cooked roast Potatoes and roast Parsnips with dinner ? yum-yum. And Stringbean munched happily on the Parsnips, which I don?t remember her doing before.
Friday
Had vague plans to maybe go swimming with Stringbean this morning, but she got up a bit later than normal, and I?d already started trying to sort out the disaster that was the kitchen, so I carried on with that through the morning, while playing with Stringbean, helping her out etc. played with her Europe jigsaw, made couple more cards by herself, made various ?constructions? using the card blanks, general playing. Whenever asked if she wanted breakfast she was ?too busy?, we eventually had brunch of baked beans on toasted with saut?ed cold baked potatoes at about 11.30. She cut up the potatoes into chunks mostly by herself, though with close watch taken by me as she wielded the sharp knife. She does know how to use it safely ? keeping her fingers out of the way etc. but of course a 3 year old ?knowing? something and ?applying? that knowledge aren?t the same thing. It would probably scare some people, but I?d rather she know how to use a knife safely, and to respect them (she knows not to touch the sharp knives if one of us isn?t with her). It?s only fairly soft things she can cut any at the moment really anyway.
Once Mummy was up (Butterbean wanting to feed much of the night..), she had to tell endless stories involving the stuffed animals off of the mobile above Butterbeans cot, afternoon involved tidying up the living room and back room where most of the toys live, doing some maths ? adding up, she can 3 numbers up now ? as long as they are small enough and we have been reinforcing the ?teens? using the Advent calendars though she does pretty much know them as far as I can tell., some letters ? words that start with certain letters. It ended with cuddling time. I took Butterbean off for a nappy change, when I came back Stringbean was lying on top of Helen, and said that she wanted to cuddle Mummy herself -she has probably feels that she has missed out bit here, so me and Butterbean went off again, and ended up snoozing on the bed together which was nice
Browsing the web later, I was reading some stuff on the Well Trained Mind website and came across this. Posting it onto the Muddlepuddle list lead to some discussion, as well as on ?A patch of Puddles?. Not sure really what I think of it at fisrt glance it seems a bit intense, but re-reading it probably nor more so than any other home with 4 kids all doing stuff, maybe it wasn?t so much the amount of work they were doing, but the kind of work and the approach.
I feel that I want to spend sometime reading and thinking more about what sort of approaches we might want to take with Stringbean, just doesn?t seem to have been too much time for that this year, we just want to get on with moving down south and get on with life ? just the small matter of selling our house??.
Well my aim was to get today blogged while it was still today – almost managed it, maybe I?ll fiddle the posting date
Posted in General, Out and About
A bit of an addition to Helen’s post and a few piccies.
Yes, today was fun, most of the kids were still not yet mobile, so weren’t able to create too much havoc, and Helen (mostly) cooked a nice meal. Stringbean and another little girl Amelie got on well and played nicely together – Stringbean likes having someone to boss about (like mother like daughter…..). Lots of baby talk (it was all Mum’s except me) which is probably better than doctor talk. and plenty of little cuties
Anyway a couple of piccies. I love the first one – they can hardly believe their eyes
And lots of bubbly fun at Gym:
Posted in General