Not a baby any more :o(

My baby is officially a toddler! She started walking with confidence about 2weeks before she turned one. Soooo for her birthday we asked Grandma to buy her her first "real" shoes. She looks so grown up now. The photo of them before trashing (read, painting!) is on my mums pc though, as is her cake photo. So that will have to be waited for! I will however share a picture that was taken recnetly so you can see how much the kidlets have grown

"halers"

well, that's what sian calls them any ways! I sat and watched tweedle dum and tweedle dee pull apart the spacer and halers and put them back together perfectly tonight. Darnit, I should have given them some water to wash the spacer in!! they both can also follow all the steps to medicate themselves (with a little help in sian's case and a lot in beth's) did i say follow? they do it for me these days! sian can't quite manage to depresst he haler down yet, but she likes to try!

glasses, ears and a house

so, last night my glasses fell apart at the seams... quite literally! i couldn't see a darned thing unless it was inches from my nose. that warranted a trip to the opticians this morning. luckily as we're getting tax credits i didn't have to pay for my sight test AND i've got £29 to put towards a spare pair of glasses (i paid for some memo-form glasses as they were on special offer and the kids like to hit me in the face a lot!)

ears next. we were walking past claires accsessories and talking about ear piercing. sian asked to get hers done, and when asked 5more times if she really did want them peirced, said yes. she was very brave and is now the proud owner of december birthstone earrings. and mama has some february birthstone earrings too. my mum isn't too pleased with our descision, but she's OUR daughter (note, the word daughter? at 33mos we *still* get asked if she's a boy or a girl) i can't beleive i've finally got mine done though! i wasn't allowed to have them done till i was 16, by which time i wasn't interested. sian asked me to do my ears too so i got brave and did it. still not sure if i like it or not! but i have a wish to get my belly button done, when i lose 5stone.

house. we saw a lovely house that we had to turn down. cause we can't be here to sign the tenancy agreement on monday. darnit.

Oh gosh, I hope not!

Sian's had a wheezey cough for the past couple of weeks. So I've been giving her her "halers" like a good mama. She asked me to take her to the Drs today, to which daddy said "they'll just tell you to put her on her ventilator" well we didn't go quite that far, but we did set up asthma checks for both of us. me tomorow and sian next week... hopefully she won't be so wheezey by then.

The girls both enjoyed noseing around Dr Lamberts office, and now sian wants to know about bugs and blood cells! She was very good, letting Dr L look in her ears, take her temperature and she made her listen to her chest twice LOL.

I've started skipping. I haven't skipped for years. but yesterday i did 150 and today i did 200... wonder if it'll be 250 tomorow! I also (eventually!) managed to get on the trampoline to do 50 back bounces... then Beth decided she wanted to be in on the fun too. I have a sense of Deja Vu!

keep looking

so, we thought it was all good to go with the flat. we wanted it, it suited us. then we went and parked clive's minibus in the parking spaces. darnit, the bus is about 3" too long for the space! that and we can only have one parking permit, in spite of the fact we need two. so either clive leaves his job (no way!) or we pass on the flat. i spent the whole morning on the phone trying to sort parking out to accept the flat (the kitchen, the kitchen!) ah well. something better will come up i'm sure

we've had no heating and hot water intermittently for a while now. yesterday everythign came to a head wtih that and i phoned our housing officer (lovely lady, jsut hard to get a hold of!) she arranged for the gas enginere to come out today - earliest appt- and we found that we need a new CO2 moniter- you can't just change the batteries! and that our gas boiler apparently isn't up to standard regulations, GRRRREAT (said with just the right amoutn of sarcasm!)

oh me oh my! sian wants to paint!

so, we now have a light shade, curtains and wall paper border for one room. that'd be the girls room where ever we end up. the shade is humphreys corner and the curtains and border and winnie the pooh but it's all the same sort of shades! and sian, bless her heart, watns to paint theire room! so i'm gonna let her. yup maybe i'm crazy. io don't care. if she wants to have a go, let her i say!

we saw the flat....

it was ok. nothing special, although i did fall in love with the recently refurbed kitchen! (so much storage!) and there is a BATH! having dealt with a dodgy shower now for a year, a bath would be a luxury :o) oh and the loo is seperate (and large! important for toddlers learning to use the big girl "too-let") we could even fit a book shelf in there rofl. well i'd have to stick a nappy pail and a bin in there anyways!

the bedrooms are actually smaller than where we are now, BUT they have built in wardrobes so floor space wouldn't be taken up with clothes storage (which it is here, c & i don't even have a hanging rail like the girls do!) i think i'd be inclined to squeeze us into the smaller room so the kids can play in there room as well as sleep in it.... although they're going to need some flooring and repainting, one room is BARBIE pink and purple, even *I* don't like the purple! the otehr is yellow with badly stencilled red teddies on the walls. we think a pale yellow with humphries corner light shade (current) and curtains. but who knows *shrug*

the living room is red at the moment, that will have to go eventually. it's livable with for the sake of a quick move. and the floor isn't too bad either- well once we've thrown down a couple of rugs! it might even be possible to make a living section and a dining section and a tiny toy area.... or i'm being super ambitious! i'll give it a go. not like we have HUGE amounts of furniture!

i have to phone monday to see if we can park the work vehicle there (16 seat minibus) the housing officer thinks ther emay be issues iwth that not just for match days (need a permit as we're right on top of twickenahm rugby ground) but parking a trade vehicle in general. if it's a yes to the bus we're taking it if not we know not to bid on any more on that estate!

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!