uh oh!

the house is no longer safe! beth took her first (cute!) wobbly steps today. i missed out on sian's first steps so this was extra special for me. wonder if it'll be another couple of months before she does it again lol.

speaking of houses. we have to pay council tax, gas and electirc and we're good to move house! we're looking at a flat closer to the parents tomorow morning. if it's as spacious as i rember we'll probably say yes, and hope they can let us have both properties for a week or so to decorate and move more easily!

Trains, Pizza and Ice Cream!

That was Sian's request for the day. She's been asking to go on a train for some time, and she wanted some ice cream. The pizza she wasn't so interested in, but we had a late breakfast whihc, for her, consisted of three (yes, you read that right!) sausages -opened out of a roll!

so having gone into hounslow and been to mother care (sheets, pillowcase and beth needed t-shirts) and marks and spencers (clive wanted some jeans and he's got short legs) we decided to take a train to hammersmith to get some lunch... and do some more shopping! well i have a new baby to buy for (got that yesterday) a big sister- very improtant person! and a freind is getting marreid so we got her some silly books. and in spite of it supposedly being beths shopping trip, sian STILL ended up getting new clothes. I swear she has more than all of us put together! still, they were cheap

housing.... a year on!

SO, we have been here a year now. FInaly we got our rent arrears sorted out (yay!) well almost! and we have had offers on 2 places that we're top of the list! the first was monday, and we refused it. Nice block and all but i have issues with the 14th floor! friday 1st we go to view another flat on the same estate... 2nd floor this time! i can deal with that. course not sure how getting kids and stroller up and down stairs will wrok.... sling time again methinks if we're not going to far! we rather think we're going to take it though. will let you know after the viweing! i do know that the property has jsut had a new btahroom and kitchen put in though

money issues!

finally, we have our housing and council tax benefit sorted out! 10months of adjustments later we'll have a nice reduced payment for a whole 2mos! gonna suggest to clive we try to keep paying the old amount to try and clear our debt though

got a letter form the dept of work and pensions saying they're stopping my carers allowance for not responding to there letters. i responded to the same blasted letter twice! so i called them today and got it all sorted and my dads name spelt correctly over the phone. no need to worry there.

just the child tax credits to sort out now and we're sorted. gonna try that one later on while the kids eat their teas!

I am an angel, really!

i love this photo of Sian in the pizza place. It's so natural looking, normally she pulls faces or does BIIIIIIG cheesey grins.  All i need to do is crop everything else out till i'm left with my big girl.

mmmmmm citrus

Beth got rather peckish waiting for pizza the other night... so she decided to suck the lemon instead! Luckily her food did turn up soon after this picture (or I might ahve been in the dog house!)

education other ways....

Most of Siân's stay and play freinds are off to nursery htis coming september. She won't be going as she isn't 3 till December. And she quite possibly won't be going *next* year either if we do decide to home educate her. Neither Clive nor I were over enamoured of school and learnt more after we left.

I got to thinking about what she has learnt in the way of shapes and colours..... i'm sure i'm missing some too!

shapes:- star, moon, sun, triangle, square, circle, heart, "hole" this is a semi-circle in her eyes!
colours:- red, yellow, green, pink, orange, gold, purple, blue, black, white, silver

counting she's not so hot on.... 1-2-3-4-7-9-10! the joke of that is she can and does go correctly from 1-10 and can tell me how many #s of things are there (as long as it's 1-4!)

oh and she knows a few anmials from baby signing too
dog, cat, cow, sheep, pig, horse, crocodile, frog, rabbit, monkey, lion, tiger, snake, tortoise, butterfly, bumble bee, snail

next i guess it's the alphabet.... with family specific letters i think, but there is plenty of time for that.

a typical day....

It's been hotter than hot here today... topped off with a NIIIIIIICE thunder storm! I got soaked through to my undies in less than a minute going out to check if the back gate was still shut. It was very refreshing though LOL

We "swam" in a giant paddling pool this morning- I never took our swimsuits out teh car from our holiday! and then we went and played in the sand this after noon... gosh, we could have been at the beach hehe.

beth learnt to paint today... she painted the paper, her face, my arm, her legs, her mouth (inside and out LOL) the easel and her shoes... oh and her sister too. then sian wanted in on the action so i painted her belly and back at her request. what else did beth get up to today... she ate the glue and pulled funny faces at teh taste of it (i would too!) and played iwth sand- probably ate that as well! she cruised the family room at an amazing rate and climbed on the "car" that sian "goes to the seaside" in.

tonight we wen tto the bowling alley so i could pick up the ball i sold on ebay and the girls got ice cream... that thunder storm only cooled the atmosphere a little! and we've added another sparky toy to our collection of park resorts limited editions (3x sparky and 1x sparkle to date)

i better get on with some ebay listings before i hit the hay for a couple hours!

Bloody Incompetence!

The housing saga continues, this time with our benefits. Beth has been in existence out side my body for over 9mos now.... but we're still only credited with haveing ONE child as far as housing/council tax benefit is concerned. Oh and cause I get £30/week in child tax credits we can afford an extra £20/week on rent.... back to not feeding the kids then!

It is too hot to drag the kids to the council and get complaing right now... but as clive is off work till the end of august (rember he drives american school kids to and from) we need the extra help for a couple months. once september comes we're back to noraml till june next yera.

I turned around

And my baby grew up :o( Beth is furniture crusiing like its going outta fashion! She also stood up unaided for a few seconds a few times today. teh first two times she did it my heart leapt! i atually saw what she was doing later on and it looked soooo funny! She balances on a table (chair, leg etc) till she's happy, lets go and pretends to sit down (think knees bedn from the hokey-cokey!) then a couple seconds later she pushes back up on the table (or whatever) again.

no, No, nO, NONONONONO!

Just to show you that 2yos can rear face quite happily lol although I'm not too sure about beth's face here and sian was giveing me her fake smile hehe. Wonder if we could fit 3 seatsa ccorss taht back seat .....

The real reason for this post is in the other picture.. We cleared a space and Daddy let go. Beth walked with the dolls pushchair on Sunday. I'm so not ready for this. SHe doesn't roll or crwall or belly scoot, just sits! She also has an excellent pincer grasp, can pass tiny peices from one hdan to the otehr and feeds herself finger foods quite happily. I guess I'd better let her loose with a spoon soon. Still nurses lots too though, thats my baby :o)

We had fun

In spite of his highness deciding to do overtime today, the girls and i went to Build a bear as planned. As in we planned a family outing over 2wks ago for today to go and stuff some "hug away from home" bears.

Each Build a Bear had 200 bears to stuff for ronald mcdonald house charities http://www.rmhc.org.uk/ so we went and did our bit. the machine scared poor sian to bits as it was rather loud- she wouldn't even hug hte bear after that! and beth wanted to eat the button ( although she did sleep through lunch so i guess that might ahve explained it!)

I want to go abck and stuff bears all day long lol well i'd certainly like to stuff one for each of the girls with a special message in it :o) after we did the bears we meandered round uxbridge looking in shops and (in sian's case) having tea partys with scooters! she also got a new book today - can't have to many books in the house! this one is quite grown up for a 2yo i htink it's a "charlie and lola" book and she loves the program too.

oh my!

My father in law (fil) knows where we live! Several times we've invited fil over to ours to see the kids or for a meal or to watch the footie but he's always said "no" or "maybe" and not come

He rang up out fo the blue last night and asked if he could pop over! Well we had jsut got in and i was cooking leftover burgers from a BBQ so that was no problem. I told him it was nice to know he knew where we lived!

sian's a star!

She was a little upset about it, but she sat on the big (kiddie sized!) toilet and did a poopie! and we read a book tonight called "potty, poo-poo, wee-wee" which she got a BIG kick out of LOL oh and she wanted to wathc "I want my potty" on 'dvdv' we have that book in our home library!

me, i'm wheezey and sneezey so i guess hayfever season really is here. better get my butt to the drs some time. i feel kinda tight chested so i suppose i really oughtta. and beth is rather chesty sometimes during the day too so theres another drs visit..... maybe we should make a family outing tomorow?

hmmmm

mum had a visit from her social worker today...... she's going to get in contact with housing about a house round the corner from my parents. it owuld be ideal cause it'd be close enough that i can get over there in an emergency but far enough taht we're a family alone as well.

all i have to do now is try to reach vinette at notting hill and raj at housing........ they're the hard ones!

the bike...

fits her! we adjusted the saddle to it's lowest position and her feet really do reach the pedals! now she jsut needs to get the strength ot pedal LOL

house update

too small......... waaaaaay too small! even the housing officer said she wouldn't put 2 U5's in it. our temporary house is small and its biggr than the one we just looked at

i now have to get on the phone to our housing officer and get them to bump us either up the list or up a banding to be in with a chance of the property on offer round the corner from my parents. at least i wouldn't be 30+mins away when i am needed then

ebay bargain!

sian's been asking for a bike consistently for over a year....so i browsed ebay. 50p!!! we're going to bognor on sunday to get it. now to find a helmet to fit her tiny head lol oh please let her feet reach the pedals!!!

it goes! it goes!

the car is now fully legal AND working! dh has ONLY been trying to start it in gear for the past month. all it needs now is servicing- it hasn't been used since last october heh.

we had some freinds over yesterday and sian twice asked to "wee wee potty" wtih no nappy on. i was impressed- she only did a little widdle teh first time but she was definley aware of when she was going. roll on the warmer weather- i can see potty, garden and picnics in our future!

Radhav's Funeral

It was a bittersweet day. We knew that Rads was at rest, but still, we had to be sad for us.

Everyone was asked to come in bright colours- Rads fave was yellow and he ALWAYS followed my trampoline club tracksuit top when i was wearing it, how could i not? And his seond favourite was red (possibly seomthing to do with his football team LOL) there was a lot of cream and blue. You could tell the outlaws (Bandana finally got a divorce back at christmas and her ex's family were rather........ patronizing.... about radhav and his CP. when asked what they could do to help they got told "pay for the funeral")

Sian wore a yellow dress with white shoes and socks and Beth a yellow tee with white trousers and red & white stripy socks. I think i managed to incorporate in their out fits Bandanas colour wishes and traditional funeral colors for hindus! We were also given the honor of going to the Gurdwara after the english ceremony to hear Rads granny do the Hindu funeral, but two diabetics and two cranky, wet kids meant we ended up not making it.

I didn't even get to hear Dads eulogy :o( Sian decided she wanted to "play in garden" so we explored teh gardens of rememberance. The kids did get the honor of releasing a balloon each for Rads. They were meant for family. I had more trouble getting Beth to let go of hers than Sian, I thought it would be the other way round!

Mum and Dad said that there was a lot of wetness, but not a lot of crying. Everyone who spoke (Bandana had to cut everyones down and then turn people away) mentioned something to make the group smile (wetly!) I know dad rembered the day we made Rads "walk" on teh trampoline useing a rig belt. That was te last time he came trampolining.

Rads was the reason behind purchasing a Mangar wheelchair for people with special needs ...... he never got to use it at trampolining but he loved riding in it at BBQs!