Visitors!

Just in case everyone isn't already bored of reading about Lindsey's visit up north on Tully's and Harry's blogs I thought I'd add a quick post here on it too! This post is mostly to sate Mum's curiosity as there wasn't a good photo of either George or Lindsey on either of their posts! We did have a really nice time and it was lovely to see everyone, and although I know I always say this I am determined that we don't go so long without seeing each other again...

Problem is I haven't got a wonderful one of Lindsey beyond the one of us making biscuits - this is probably next best at the park.


But here's a rather cute one of George.

New fence!

I am very excited and pleased with our new fence. The old fence panels were rotten beyond belief but we never seemed to quite get around to replacing them. Last week however I risked a trip to a local cement company (!) that also sells and delivers good quality panels at a very reasonable rate, and they delivered the panels to me later that day.

We enlisted Matt from next door tohelp slot them all into place and hey presto! Job done! It looks fab and if I'd remembered to take a picture before it got dark I'd post it to show you all. Still, gives me a job for tomorrow...

Interview with Tully

1. What is something mum always says to you?
I love you

2. What makes mum happy?
Me being a good girl

3. What makes mum sad?
Me being a naughty girl

4. How does your mum make you laugh?
Tickling me

5. What was your mum like as a child?
A bit cheeky

6. How old is your mum?
I don't know

7. How tall is your mum?
Really really really really really really (repeat a few more reallys) tall

8. What is her favourite thing to do?
Playing with me

9. What does your mum do when you're not around?
Cut that giant bush she hates

10. What is your mum really good at?
Eating chocolate cake

11. What is your mum not very good at?
Being crazy (I'm too sensible, apparently...)

12. What does your mum do for a job?
Just doing things on her computer

13.What is your mum's favorite food?
Chocolate cake

14. If your mum were a cartoon character, who would she be?
That big gorilla (A giant inflatable gorilla she saw once outside a car dealership!!!???!?!?)

15. What do you and your mum do together?
Play

16. How are you and your mum the same?
We both like being mean to Daddy

17. How are you and your mum different?
I play and she feeds Harry

18. How do you know your mum loves you?
Because she says I love you

19. What does your mum like most about your dad?
He's good at working on his computer

20. Where is your mum's favourite place to go?
To Meema's house

Going back to work

I met up with my boss last week whilst he was over from the US to arrange going back to work. I can't believe I've had almost 6 months off - it has gone by quickly and looking back I feel I should have done more with the time. On the other hand, the point of mternity leave is that you've got a pesky small baby to look after which means doing more is somewhat restricted.

Whilst I plan to make the most of my last few weeks off, but I am also looking forward to going back too. I somehow feel 'lost' when not working, but think it's a bit sad that I need my work to help define me. Shouldn't family be enough?

My Wonderful Tully - Aged 4

As it's Tully's birthday I wanted to take a leaf out of the Braithwaites blog and do a bit of an update on her!

Personality:
Tully is incredibly generous and will happily share anything she has - even if she's had to work hard to earn a couple of biscuits or some sweets she'll still give most of them away. She is very caring and loving, and looks after us all and does her best to cheer me up when I am sad (also read hormonal!)... She is very competitive and suggesting a race to do something is often the only way to get anything done, but she often loses deliberately right at the last minute so Mark and I get our turns at winning too. She is mostly happy and obliging, but has the attention span of a goldfish which can be incredibly frustrating.

Skills:
Tully is very clever in some areas well beyond her age: her vocabulary, common sense, general knowledge, and maths / number skills to name a few, but behind in other areas such as writing and anything involving spatial awareness.

Looks:
Tully is very tall for her age - she's been wearing aged 5-6 tops for a few weeks now although she's still in aged 4-5 trousers. She has long light brown hair that I very rarely allow her to wear down as it turns into a birds nest that's impossible to brush within about 30 seconds of her being let loose! I'm biased but she's very pretty, and has the most gorgeous blue eyes with long dark eyelashes.

Likes:
Spaghetti (or any pasta as long as it's plain with a little butter), The Wonder Pets, Holly, books and stories, anything pink, Harry, singing and dancing, swimming, being creative and making things.

Dislikes:
Vegetables, being in trouble, getting dressed, boys(!), kisses, tickles.

Things we love about her:
Her generosity, her enjoyment of any kind of outing or activity, her sense of humour, her loving nature.

Things that drive us bananas:
Her inability to listen requiring us to repeat ourselves at least 10 times before she responds, her faffing and dawdling, her dislike of most non pasta based food, and getting her ready in the morning.

Are we or aren't we?

We have had plans to travel to Lincolnshire today for some time. The snow meant we had to assess whether the trip was still on. We dont' actually ahve any snow here mind, but there's lots in Lincolnshire so I phoned Mum first thing this morning to see if we ought to still travel. She said not, so Tully very sadly and reluctantly got dispatched to nursery.

At 9am Mum got in touch to say that in fact all the roads were clear and maybe we could go after all! So I rushed round the house like a nutter going from a state of zero packed to everything packed and in the car, and Harry fed up ready for the journey in about 50 minutes!!!!

Tully was sooo pleased when I went in to pick her up - normally she hates to leave but today came and got ready straight away even though she was in the middle of play dough time!!!

My birthday

This evening Mark and I had our first evening out since Harry arrived! We went into Manchester and had a lovely meal in Chaophraya. Yummm! I should have birthdays more often...

Houses

Some of you may be aware that we've been ruminating with the idea of moving. A couple of weeks ago we got a couple of valuations on our house, and this last weekend we went to view a few houses that ticked all the boxes of things we'd ideally like in a new house.

Based on the valuations we received for both selling and renting we decided that if we were to move we'd not sell this place and become landlords!!! I don't suppose you know anyone that would want to rent a 3 bed semi in Sale do you? :)

All 4 houses we went to see would make a lovely home for us, and all meet our list of 'Must Haves' which makes it rather tricky to choose between them. So, after almost 5 years of talking about moving are we really about to get ourselves in gear and do it? Watch this space to find out!

Tully

It was odd not having Tully here on Friday night when she went to her sleepover at Holly's. It's not that I'm not used to having time away from her - I estimate I've had close to 150 nights away from her in all - but this is the first time I've been at home without her. Still, she had a lovely time, both her and Holly were apparently very well behaved and we are now looking forward to a return visit!

As she missed her swimming lesson yesterday morning (we decided a sleepover was a special enough treat to warrant missing it for once) I took her this afternoon. It was lovely to spend some time with her without being distracted by Harry, as whilst I've had plenty of trips out without him they've almost all been for exciting things like going to the supermarket, or to take Tully to her swimming lesson when we don't actually spend any time together.

Linsey and Beth

Harry and I drove over to Glossop to see Linsey and Bethany. Beth is only 6 weeks old and very very cute. I thougth she'd look tiny next to Harry but whilst Harry was obviously bigger than her she wasn't as diddy next to him as you'd expect. It was lovely to see them both - hopefully they'll manage to come for a return visit soon.

School Dilemma

We have to decide which school to put as first choice for Tully pretty soon, so we've been to have a look around the 2 schools nearest to us. You wouldn't think 2 schools could be so different!

We are in the catchment area for Templemoor Infant School, twinned with Moorlands Junior School. Templemoor is lovely and we'd probably not look at other options except that there are always slightly odd rumours about Moorlands... The other school we've looked at is Springfield Primary School in the centre of Sale. It has a very good reputation but is oversubscribed so although we are right on the border of the catchment area (and in actual fact closer to them that Templemoor) it's by no means certain that we'd get a place.

As I said the 2 schools appear to be complete opposites in terms of approach: Mark labelled Templemoor as a 'Hippy' school - the Head's philosophy is that kids should be kids: they'll be encouraged yet allowed to progress at their own rate, she doesn't believe in giving homework as they've had enough to cope with being at school so just encourages parents and children to read together daily plus some simple suggestions to re-enforce whatever they've been learning during the day. He has labelled Springfield as 'Victorian' - things seemed much more serious and more grown up, and more academically focused.

Having been to look around hasn't really helped as I think Tully would like and do well at both but in different ways. Ho hum - time to flip a coin?

House stuff revisited

During the last few weeks of waiting for Harry to arrive I started a few mini projects around the house. The majority did get completed at that time but the fitting of the internal doors somehow passed me by and only got finished this week... The door frames still need painting though and whilst I'm already very pleased with them they'll look really fab once that's done.

I've also had another clear out in an attempt to get the amount of junk lying around the house down to a minimum and keep the place looking vaguely respectable. Not easy it has to be said but I feel like I'm making progress. I'll probably pop to IKEA soon to pick up a few bits and pieces to assist with storage so I'll post some photos when I'm finally happy with my work!

Dinosaur Sandwiches

After the success ofTully's bear sandwiches at Mum's house I was quite excited to spot this dinosaur sandwich cutter from Lakeland.

It arrived today and I've never seen Tully's food vanish so quickly, and a second round of sandwiches be demanded and equally quickly demolished. Hurrah for dinosaur sandwiches!

New Year Resolution

I don't normally make resolutions... But whilst I've been working on the blogs the last few days it has struck me that I have very few pictures to upload. So I have resolved to remember to take the camera with me when we do 'blogable' activities, and when I do rememeber to take the camera I will also remember to take some photos!

Christmas

I had a really lovely Christmas, other than Harry being a little high maintenance... Tully however was wonderful and more than made up for him being such a pain.

Highlights for me from our time in Lincolnshire include, in no particular order:

• Watching Tully opening her stocking
• Christmas dinner
• Mum offering and carrying out a full night on duty with Harry
• Meeting Sam and Abigail when we went to Dall's to see Gran, as well as seeing Andrew and Steven as I've not seen them for a few years
• Spending a few minutes at Lincoln Crem saying goodbye to Grandpa
• Taking Tully to the fab play area at Surfleet

Mark's finally succumbed

Traditionally, every year we go to visit Mark's Nan and Grandad on the last Sunday before Christmas. Sadly Mark has finally caught the cold that I've been fighting for 2 weeks so we phoned them to postpone until after Christmas...

Really really poorly

I've had a cold / flu for about a week now, and in comparison to how I was I'm now much better. Last Thursday and Friday I could barely move, had a raging fever and just felt the worst I have ever felt for as long as I can remember. Luckily Harry was mostly well behaved on those days otherwise I'd never have survived. Both he and Tully are now suffering, although both seem to be coping better than I did. So now there's just Mark to catch it! Who's betting he has it over Christmas???

Surprise Visit

Chrissy popped in today to feed Izzy on route to the Wirral to visit her parents. It was a flying visit but lovely to see them both.

Present wrapping unhelper

I foolishly thought Tully would be helpful when it came to wrapping presents so I got everything out and we set too. Now, every year I buy a tin of biscuits or chocolates for some family members so I don't feel bad about spoiling any surprises by telling this story, other than the surprise that I may have been more creative this year....

The first presents we are to wrap are the aforementioned tins of edible delights when Tully says she'd like them for herself. I tell her that they are for other people and sometimes we give presents we'd like for ourselves to others. She thinks for a few seconds.

"But Mummy, it'll go off! You can't give food as presents. That's just madness! So we'll have to eat them all up now!" ('That's just madness' is her favourite phrase of the moment...)

Nice try mate. But being the meany I am I didn't listen to her so you can look forward to your gone off tins next week!

How not to explain a grown ups party to a 3 year old.

Today Mark is going on a work night out, starting out in the middle of the afternoon. Tully also had her nursery Christmas party today. When we get home after I've picked her up we have the following conversation...

Tully: Where's Daddy?
Me: He's got his Christmas party today too.
T: Ooo, will he play pass the parcel?
Me: No, you don't play party games really at grown up parties.
T (sounding both incredulous and outraged!): No party games!!!?!?!? So what will he do at his party?
Me: Well, he'll have some food, drink beer and chat.
T: That sounds really boring...
Me: That reminds me, don't jump on Daddy's head in the morning as he'll be feeling a bit poorly. (Tully likes to wake Mark up every day by bouncing on him...:)
T: Why will he be feeling poorly?
Me: Because he'll have drunk a lot of beer and beer makes people feel poorly so we'll have to be gentle with him.
T: So there are no games at Daddy's party, and he'll feel poorly tomorrow because all there was to do was drink beer...
Me: Yes, something like that.
T: Hmm, that's just madness.

I had to agree...