Louis Toilet Bleach

Well today is the day.  My baby is 2 today.  Can you believe at?  Time seems to have flown by.

We started with a leisurely morning opening pressies in our pyjamas, well the boys were in their pyjamas anyway.

Louis definitely seemed a lot more interested in these presents than he did in the ones at Christmas but that today was all about him whereas Christmas is for everyone.

In all honesty, we could have probably stopped with the presents after he opened his little Upsy Daisy because he was happy then... but we didn't.

When we first saw the present with Theo's name on it we thought the Birthday Fairy must have gotten confused.  I was going to put the present to one side and let her come and collect it tonight but Theo figured it out.  She'd brought a present for him too so that he didn't feel left out what with Louis getting all the presents. lol  She did a good job too, Power Rangers jigsaw was just the ticket :D

Adam wrote the envelope for Louis' card from us.  He likes the way Louis says 'watermelon'.  That and the fact that if you call him something, he says not... whatever it is you've called him.  Like, aww my baby..'NOT baby', is Louis grumpy? .. 'NOT gwumpy' and so on.  Adam asked him if he was a watermelon last night ??? And the response was... 'NOT watermelon'

Now naturally there was a bunfight to be had.  We all decamped to Tiddleypeeps with 18 other littlies and watched them run around for a couple of hours.  I actually think it went really well.  Adam and I pumped up 20 or so modelling ballons in the morning which we took with us.  Lots of the children just wanted the long balloons, then I made a couple of swords which prompted requests for more and Richard, they guy who runs Tiddleypeeps then decided to show of his balloon modelling skills which resulted in him being inundated with requests too.

After having discovered on Thursday that he could do the big slide, there was no stopping Louis, and when I tried to extricate him from the climbing frame to do the birthday cake thing I ended up pushing him, face first (from hands and knees though, not from standing) into the carpet, oops, sorry babe.  He didn't seem to notice though and after a bot of distracting tickling, I managed to pursuade him to come back to the table rather than go and play on the slide.  Unfortunately Richard doesn't do things by halves so bringing the cake out involved 2 or 3 renditions of Happy Birthday as they weren't loud enough, followed by a discussion / arguement about who's birthday it was.  By the time we got round to the blowing out of the candles Louis was screaming because he wanted to go and play and I couldn't put him down!!

He did come round though, when he saw that he got to blow out the candles.

Theo enjoyed the playing too, especially as his best friend from school, Ezra, was there.

After the party we went home to open the mountain of presents he had received from all the party guests.

This picture is the one I've chosen for today's Photo a Day project.  Louis, sporting one of Richards balloon creations, hiding behind a present.

Tina, Jack and Hannah bought Louis this spiderman top, and as soon as he saw what it was he told me he wanted to take his short of and wear it.  So that's what we did.

And I just like this photo.  Louis unwrapping presents without relinquishing the lolly pop

Now finally, why Louis toilet bleach?  Well, as you may be aware, littlies usually need a little help with their writing.  So, in order to help Jack with Louis card, Tina wrote Louis name on a piece of paper for Jack to copy.  She left him writing the card then when she came back, read what he had written "Louis Toilet Bleach".  When she asked him why he had written that he said he had just copied what his mum had written.  Tina checked to find she had written on the bottom of her shopping list and as she wasn't there to tell him to stop, Jack had just kept copying.  I'll be keeping that (handmade) card and re telling that story in years to come.  Hehe

Shopping

Today has been mainly about getting ready for Louis' party tomorrow.  At the last minute I decided, rather than just add the sweets I'd bought to the playgym party bags, I'd make up my own.  So off Louis and I toddled to get some goodies to go in them.  £100 later we're sat at home putting little bags of sweets and goodies into party bags.

OK so £100 was not all on party goodies.  I did buy books and other bits and bobs for party bags together with pass the parcel pressies, but I also bought some groceries and toiletries too, it's just that that's my beef about Tescos.  I go in there for 1 or 2 things and come away having spent loads.  Admittedly they're not forcing me to spend but still.  Our particular branch is a bit pants for food but if you want toys, books or DVDs then you're spoilt for choice.

Today's photo is one of the book aisles in Tescos.  Louis and I spent a while there deciding what to buy so I made the most of a quiet moment when there was no one else there.

Flat Packing

By the exciting nature of todays photo you could be easily fooled into thinking I was housebound again.. but you'd be wrong.

I went out to play today.

Vicky and I are organising, between us, a scrapbooking crop at Samuel Taylors / Embsay Crafts in Embsay and today was our first proper date (we did have a bit of a drop in day in November just to give people an idea of what we were doing).  It was full!  Initially we thought we'd be lucky if we got 6 people but 16 people came and there are more than that on the mailing list now (29 to be exact).

I had a great time and spent too much money, like you do.  And from all the comments we've had, it sounds like everyone else enjoyed themselves too.  The shop must've made plenty of money out of us too, £40 in crops fees then everybodys spending.  If mine was anything to go by, they made a fortune (oops).

I went home via Next to collect some school trousers I had ordered for Theo, then Tina's to pick up Louis party bag and to beg some babysitting favours, thank you Tina <3

Louis had had a party invitation for the afternoon and Adam couldn't take him so Tina offered seeing as Hannah was going too.  She actually had him nearly all day!  I dropped him off about 9, on my way to the crop, so that he could play with Hannah.  He stayed and played, then they went to the party and he fell asleep in the car on the way back to Tina's so he didn't get home until just after 4pm!  Busy day!

When I got home just before 6pm it was to find that Adam and Theo had been re arranging funiture and my bed was buried under a mountain of clothes.  They had moved my drawers out of our room and into the boys room so that we could put the new drawers into our room (they've been sitting in the utility room, flat packed, since before Louis was born!).  The new drawers were still in pieces, layed out in the space where they were going to live.

Adam and I spent a couple of hours putting the frame and drawers together before bed.  Tomorrow I just need to finish up the drawers with the centre support and then they need securing onto the runners and I can start filling them up.

And last but by no means least.  Just as I was loading up the car to leave this morning the lovely postie delivered my new phone, the T-Mobile G1.  So I stuck that in my bag and whilst I was chattering away, meeting new people and setting up my workspace, I dug it out of the box, put in the sim card and battery and put it on charge.

Unfortunately there is no phone signal in the shop so I didn't get to actually play with the phone until I was in the car in the car park at the end of the day but at least it was charged and ready to play with.  It's taking a bit of getting used to, I didn't realise how much I relied on predictive texting, with a full keyboard this thing doesn't have it.  I love the touch screen though.  The camera is 3.2, same as my old phone, but this one doesn't have a flash which is a pain, I hadn't realised that.  Still, I like it so far and I'm stuck with it for 18 months so it's just as well.

Has it been a year already?

I can't believe it's been a year since Mum died.  I took myself off to the cemetery this afternoon.  I'm not entirely sure why though.  It's not as if I took flowers, or planned on sitting and chatting or anything.  It just felt like it should be done.

As it turned out, I couldn't find the plot anyway.  I wandered up and down the general area but as we haven't had a headstone or anything done and she'd come back just to give us a roasting if we even thought about putting a cross there, there was nothing to identify it by.  Lisa did say there was a rose bush but that it was almost dead last time she was there so I assume someone removed it.

I must have a chat with everybody and see what we can afford to mark it with.  Will probably save my tears next year, or at least some of them.

I took this photo whilst I was there.  I took a couple of others too but my camera battery died, typical, and fitting for a cemetery, heh.  I think I might go back with my DSLR camera one day when the boys are otherwise occupied and get some decent photos.  There were lots of lovely flowers and beautiful headstones there.

On a cheerier note, I took the boys to Jack and George's birthday party this morning.  I think they both had a great time.  There was a magician to start with, followed by eating then game playing.  Oh, and did I mention it was fancy dress?

Theo asked Adam and me this afternoon if we believed in Jesus!  He said that Christians did and he did because they had learned about Jesus at Christmas.  I asked if that made him a Christian he said yes.  A bit young to be making those sorts of decisions in my opinion but who am I to stop him?  I'm sure next week he'll decide he's a Power Ranger or something equally exciting instead lol.

Another Quick Update

Theo went to a school friend's birthday party at one of the local playgym's.  There was a face painter there and initially Theo was just going to get an eye patch to go with his pirate outfit.  However, he saw Seth with a Batman face so he changed his mind :D

Adam and the boys decorating the Christmas tree.

This is Theo's school nativity play.  If you look carefully you can see Theo near the middle, he's a brown donkey.  He did really well if I do say so myself.  Only a little fidgeting and nose picking (bleurgh).

This is my latest masterpiece.  A denim / flannel rag quilt I made as a Christmas gift for my niece Tayler-Marie.  The squares are 6" so you can see it's about 4' x 6'6".  If you look carefully about 1/3 or the way down and 1/3 of the way up there are pockets in the denim patches.  I'm really pleased with this.  Next job is to make one for her sister :D

The last picture of this entry (for some reason I can only put 5 pictures in each entry) is my sleeping beauty.  Look at all those gorgeous curls.

More to come later but right now it's late so I'm off to bed.

Night all

Karen

xx