This post is not a hint to anyone here, it is more for my own benefit, so I can add things here when I think of them, and remember when family ask. But if anyone is wondering, I prefer dark chocolate and pink wine ;) Oh, and I'm allergic to soap/bubble bath etc, so it's easier to avoid smellies!

Me:
DVDS - Princess Bride, stardust, The history of Tom Jones, a foundling, Labyrinth
keyboard sheet music (maybe of disney songs or 80s pop or something people can join in with. I used to be up to grade 4... don't play much now, so no where near at the moment, but only through lack of practise!)
amaretto
DS/GBA games
My Monopoly Voucher
The WI book of preserves
How to Store Your Garden Produce: The Key to Self-sufficiency

Izzy:
Music DVDs - she likes folky stuff.
Disney DVDS - we don't have any yet!
money for savings account (can provide account number if anyone actually wants it!)
toys - Anything that makes noise is good! Look out for age ranges slightly older than what she is now, so she can grow into things and use them for longer. A few ideas: Castles. pirates..
picture books (we have the gruffalo, the very hungry caterpillar and each peach pear plum, but other than that we need to build up the favourites!)

Richard:
Comdy series on DVD. (maybe Dad's Army, we don't have any of them yet or The High Life)
Fleetwood Mac Rumours
mandolin sheet music
spiced rum
airfix kit

collectively/if you win the lottery:
food ... particularly biccies/chocolate of ANY description!
a pressure cooker
wii games or even a wii fit!
money towards our next holiday
homebase/garden centre vouchers

I hope everyone is having a safe and snowy Christmas week :) 2 more sleeps.

Lots of adventures here - 10 hour trip home from work on Monday (they let me go at 3:15, and I got home at about 1:05 am :( ) so I was so achey yesterday I called in sick. Today is holiday, so I'm not in again until Tuesday. Izzy is in nursery today, but I'm off to see her be a sheep in her nativity play later this afternoon.

We saw Nik and Penny on Sunday, which was fab :)

Anyway, what I really came on here to say was that I've not done many Chrimstmas cards again this year. Instead I have bought you all some chocolate. :)

I'm meant to be getting ready for travelling up for the funeral, so I'm going to come post on here quickly.

Not feeling very festive at the mo, but I'm taking Izzy to meet Father Christmas on Friday, and next week she has her first nativity play (Izzy will be a sheep :) )! i'm sure those two will do the trick if nothing else.

We are learning new things at a rate of knotts. She is starting to listen to "Izzy come here" (not always!), but is still ignoring "no". She understands it, just ignores me. She does listen to "be careful" though - I think she hears that one when she is about to hurt herself, and no when I'm trying to stop her from breaking something!

Oh, and we have (just about) mastered eating with a spoon. Which is lovely, but makes meal times take ages. It doesn't help that she is really easily distracted at the moment also - she is currently trying to put a yellow duster on her head instead of eating lunch. No, that is put down - we have moved onto playing with the tube from some wrapping paper - she is trying to fit a bath duck down the tube - I don't think it's going to fit!

Must go tempt her with scrambled eggs again!

Lovely start to the week here - The phone rang at 6:45, which is never a good sign. It was my Mum calling to say Granny (my Dad's Mum) had died in the night :( I'm not too bad, just lkeep remembering things and getting tearful, so decided I would be better off not going to work today. Can't go in tomorrow either as no childcare (My Mum normally does Tuesdays, but they are in staffordshire sorting things out). Wednesday we were due to drive to Leek to go vititing, so I had a half day, but I suppose I won't need that now.

But yep, any cute youtube videos to make me grin would be much appreciated today.


Izzy is fab though. She thinks Mummy crying is hilarious and kees making me laugh. She also stole a chocolate this morning and stuffed it in her mouth before I could get to her, so she is rather sticky. But never mind, she is normally sticky with something!

I'm sure I have lots of cheerful things to update about, but I can't think what they were now, I shall come back to you on that.

I can't believe it is November already. Who stole my year? I want it back. Or a refund at least. Even some store credit would do.

I'm not managing to update here very often - one liners on facebook I can manage, but actually sitting down and writing more than two sentances requires time and being awake. And preferably the use of both hands at once. And not being distracted by farmville. Ooops.

We have had a lovely (if incredably busy) few weeks.

Last weekend I went to a halloween party with Izzy, went to a wedding reception with Richard, went swimming with both of them AND had Becky round for tea too. The party was at Charmel and Summers house - there were 6 babies, and it was surprisingly not as insane as I expected it would be. We are going to Summers 1st birthday in a few weeks, and I expect by then one or two more of them will have worked out how to walk, and it will be a bit more crazy. Definitely the following year it will be necessary to either take painkillers or a bottle of wine and some taxi money ;)

Claire and Pauls wedding reception was lovely. We got to catch up with Patrick, which is always good, saw Claire and Paul for the first time in about a million years, and Holley and Grim for the first time in even longer, and baby Oscar for the first time ever! Claire (and Paul of course, but everyone knows the bride comes first in these things ;) ) looked fab and very happy. And it was the first time I had danced since before I was pregnant too :) Oh. And we must have a special mention for the (everso yummy) pink cake!

This week has been busy at work, and we had a fun day yesterday. We didn't get tto do our normal activities in the daytime, but we were intived to tea at nursery for a bonfire night party! We had tomato soup and baked potatoes with cjeese and the bigger children had tofee apples they had made themselves! Then after tea we had a go with sparklers in the garden. By the time we left Richard was back in winchester and in the pub, and seeing as we were half way there anyway, we decided to join him, so we had an hour or so of being sociable with Dan and lucy too :) Oh and with cheesy chips. Which are far easier to eat than jacket potatoes if you are a baby!

Today is washing/cleaning the loo/going to the supermarket day. No where near as exciting, but it all needs doing!

My, haven't we had a busy few weeks here.

Izzy is getting very big and strong now - she is crawling at sprinting speed, pulling herself up on the furniture and is starting to think that it is better to "cruise" to where she wants to be (walking along holding onto the furniture) rather than getting back down onto the floor and crawling there before standing up again. And we also have a first word. The word in question is Duck. Now I'm waiting for the second word - at least we would get some variation then ;) We also get Dadadada and Mamamama sometimes (mamamamama tends to mean that she wants something, not necesarily me ;) ), but not proper Dada and Mama yet. Oh, and there is lots of waving. And as of Wednesday we have a second tooth!

Last week was a total write off - both me and richard caught swine flu, or at least one of the bugs going round with the same symptoms. Not fun at all - definitely not recommended! Luckily Richards mum took Izzy on Monday and my Mum did the honours Tuesday and Wednesday. No idea how we would have coped without their help. Izzy got to have lots of quality time with her Grannies too, which she thrived on (and they loved too of course!) so it was all good.

I was a bit worried about how she would cope with nursery this morning, but she was too excited to be there to say goodbye to me properly, so I shouldn't have worried. The only thing that did worry me is that it sounds from her book like they tried to give her milk in a bottle not a cup. I'm not bothered if it was a one off mistake, but need to check - if they have been trying her on a bottle it would explain why she has been refusing milk while at nursery!

We had a brilliant weekend this weekend just gone too. Saturday we had a reunion meal with some friends from Symonds, which was lovely - lots of faces I've not seen for FAR too long, and got to meet baby Loki too :) And Sunday Richards parents came here (normally we go to them) to help us with various DIY jobs. Richard and his dad got quite a few bits and bobs finished, and me and his Mum got quite a lot of sorting out done, so it isn't looking too bad in here at all. Not perfect, but coming allong slowly!

I think that's about all I have to update on. Back at work today, busy busy busy. Lots of things coming up in the next few weeks too, no idea when I'm going to get anything done, but never mind, it's all good :)

I can't remember when I last updated - did I mention I'm back at work? Well I am, and it's going well. I'm slipping back into things much faster than I thought I would, although I am getting everso confused about all the things that are different from when I left.

Izzy is having a great time at nursery. Not getting a lot of nap time there, but that will come :) And today was the exciting "first tooth" day. She didn't have a tooth when I went to work, but when I got home I noticed that it wasn't just gums I could feel when she nibbled at my fingers.

The main difficulty with going back to work is getting used to the new routine before and afterwards. It is a bit of a struggle getting to work on time, and a rush in the evenings getting things ready for the next day, but we will get it down to military precision soon enough :) No idea when we will ever clean the bathroom, but it will all come together ;)

We had a lovely day today :)

Once we were all up and sorted we got our picnic contributions packed up and headed to chez maeve_the_red and towerofchaos. They live in Arlesford, which is a pretty little town not far from here. We met Jaine's brother and family (who may or may not have lj names. I didn't ask!) So that was baby number 2. Amber, who is 4 months.

We went for a lovely walk down by the river, where we fed the ducks and swans. Izzy thought this was hillarious, so we will definitely have to do it again soon :) While walking it turned out Richard had to go back to work, so when we got back, after feeding Izzy her lunch, I nipped back to drop him off, then zoomed back to Arlesford to pick up Jaine. She then navigated me to West Wittering using the cross country route, which I never would have found on my own!

When we landed we met baby Jason plus Steve and Emma (I think. The curse of parenting is that you end up meeting families, spending the whole time chatting about the babies, so you end up hearing their name about 50 times, but not remembering what the parents are called.) who again may be on here somewhere, but I don't know! We settled for a picnic (yummy! Thanks Jaine) before venturing down to the water.

West Wittering is a lovely sandy beach - very long and shallow, so the water goes out a very long way when the tide is out. It also goes out very quickly, so presumably comes in quickly and is easy to get caught out on. But yep, we had a lovely paddle. Izzy loved it, the other two weren't so sure, but Izzy would happily have stayed in all day I think! She was walking through the water with a bit of help. The tide was going out so quickly we had to keep walking, as we were ending up with dry feet. It was like someone had pulled out the plug in the sea!

On the way back to our "nest" we saw dogs paddling. That was fun too :) Izzy was also amused by Dave juggling, and Steve using juggling stick things. Oh, and there was fun with kites. And sand is great to eat too.

It ended up being quite a long day - didn't end up leaving the beach till getting on for six I think. Izzy had a nice nap on the way back and I had fun listening to Alan Carr on Radio 2. I don't normally listen to the radio at that time on a Saturday - he's quite good.

Picked Richard up on the way home, bathed Izzy, milk and then tried to get her to bed. She wasn't happy, tried to give her milk again, and (after biting me hard a few times) she had the most mega milk feed ever :) I'm now crossing my fingers that the "blip" is over, and we will be back to normal tomorrow. Hopefully going back to work on Monday won't scupper things again.

The only thing marring the day is that I've got approximately 10000 mouth ulcers. Well, probably about 6, but big ones just in the wrong place so that talking is very painful and eating and drinking aren't much help either. I'm developing a major mouth wash and bonjella addiction. Any magic cures you recommend?

... that someone took their coffee cup off the button that was stopping rss feeds from updating. ~drowns in feeds~

What is the UK version of etsy called?

We've had an eventful few days here. Went up to see my Granny on Friday. Izzy was very grisly on the way up, and we realised she had a temperature, so dosed her up on calpol. We put it down to teething as there was a lot of dribbling going on. She was much the same on Saturday - hardly any sleep Friday or Saturday night, and she refused any milk all day saturday (had a feed at bedtime though). Sunday she was feeling better, but still wouldn't feed. I was ready to pop by half way home, so had to express by hand in a motorway services toilet cubice. (moooo!!!!) Izzy woolfed it down from a cup.

( cut for a long wibble about Izzy not breastfeeding, incase you're not intersted in such things )

Izzy got to have her first day at nursery today (didn't take her in on Monday, as we weren't sure if it was chicken pox at that point). She had a fab time - lots of playing, she ate ALL her food (I sent her in with loads!), but didn't drink very much. And she slept for 45 mins, which isn't amazing, but more than I was expecting on her first day. I think we picked the right nursery :) (and the right baby too ;) )

Morning all. First of all, I have a new icon by miakosamuio. Worship the might of the new icon. Not that it is particularly appropriate for the outside at the moment. I need a sunny day icon too :)

Today is a good day because Rhyme Time starts up again today. This is the singing-songs-with-actions session we go to at the library which hasn't been on over the summer holidays. It will be much harder work today though, as Izzy is heavier than when we went last time, and most of the actions involve lifting baby in the air above your head! Work those muscles you fat mummies ;)

I'm off to the doctors first though - nothing major, but I realised I'm using a tube of cream which went out of date January 2008, and I was given the prescription by the hospital and the doctors have no record of it, so they can't give me a new prescription without me going in. Which is fair enough really. They have to be careful about these things I suppose :)

The most exciting thing though is that we are going to get the rest of our plot at the allotment (we have about 1/3 of a plot currently). This is very exciting, but comes with mixed "how on earth are we going to look after a whole plot" type feelings. (Plus the added worries of "we are going to need at least 1 new freezer, and where are we going to put it"... and "I wonder which of our friends will help us clear/dig/weed in return for future tasty returns"). I'm hoping she leaves the greenhouse - I've offered to give her some money towards it, so we will see. We will have to work out what we need in terms of stuff to build fruit cages and whatnot with too, then I can ask on freecycle, and see if we can get a few bits for free.

Izzy is being a bit of a pickle about sleeping at the moment, which is a bit of a problem. Especially since she starts nursery the week after next, and I go back to work the week after that. It is going to be really hard for nursery to get her to nap during the day, seeing as she will only feed to sleep (although I'm sure they are used to tackling that) and she keeps waking up at night, although I think that might be due to incomming teeth. I really don't feel safe driving after only 4 or 5 hours sleep though, so no idea how I will manage. Hopefuly she will have settled down a bit by then. If not I will just have to be tired. I'm going to ask Health Visitors for tips though. I know we need to forumulate a plan, and then stick to it consistently (and tell nursery/my mum so they can do it too), but I'm at a loss as to where to start. I don't want to just leave her to cry! (Plus I can't stop feeding her milk as she needs it... I need to wake her up again afterwards and put her down for her nap awake, so she learns to do it herself. But then what?)

Other than that? Erm. I don't know. Oh, she has also decided she doesn't want to eat mush, she wants to eat proper food. Which would be fine if she actually ate it, rather than throwing it on the floor ;) She is so active she needs to eat quite a lot to get as many calories in as she is burning, so I have to try and sneak spoonfulls of puree in between the mangled bread and vegtables. She isn't too bad at eating cheese or roast potatoes though. But she doesn't like olives. And she wasn't at all sure what to do with noodles yesterday either.

Tomorrow I am planning to cook a big thick omelette for us to share, that should be fun :)

According to this handy thingamybob I walked just over 4 miles around London on Sunday, burning 538 calories. It doesn't have a "while pushing a buggy setting, but I'm sure even with a buggy it still doesn't cover two ice lollies and a bit of creamy cake with Reubens name on it in blue icing. But never mind.

In case you are interested, this is the route we took.

In other news I actually got something approaching 8 hours sleep last night. Not all in one go, but with minimum disruption by our current standards :) I'd forgotten what having enough sleep felt like!

Time for another update. We've actually been doing stuff. Izzy is definitely crawling now. Still reasonably inexpertly, but crawling none the less. This evening she crawled into the kitchen to see what I was doing, decideed I was boring, and crawled back into the living room to find something else to do :). Clever cloggs!

Yesterday we had an exciting day - it was Izzy's first trip to London, and first train journey, and we had a brilliant time. We got on the train at 8:25. The train was packed full of people going to see hte cricket, so we ended up sitting on the floor. The guard did say we could go sit in first class, but I couldn't get the buggy down the aisle, and it was more hastle than it was worth to fold it up and carry folded buggy, baby and bags, so we stayed on the floor and played there instead :) We arrived in London at 9:20 on a Sunday morning, and discovered that London is not a city that never sleeps. It definitely does have a lie-in on Sunday mornings - there was no-one about!

The reason for our trip to London was to go along to baby Reuben's dedication. The service was at 11, so we had plenty of time to find where were going and generally have a wander around. We headed down to the Southbank, where I bought an ice-cream (before 10am... naughty naughty) and found out from the ice-cream van lady how to get up onto a bridge with the buggy. We crossed over the jubilee bridge, and walked along to the Strand, and found where we needed to be, then found a shop to buy a contribution for lunch. We met Kate (Reuben's mummy) outside the hotel, which was handy, as she showed us where we needed to go. The service was nice - I'm not really into religion, but there was lots of singing, and there were lots of babies. There were also twin girls (Ruth and Rachel) having their dedication (they were everso cute!) so it was babies all the way. It was brilliant to see Kate and Nathan, and I met both set of Grandparents too. Nathans mum remembered me from toddler group, so it's nice to know I've not changed much since I was 3 ;)

I had arranged to meet [Bad username: myz_lilith"] after lunch. We met outside Charing Cross and it turned out Ellie was with her too - hadn't seen Ellie for years, so it was fab to see them both. We wandered to Traffalgar square to see what was going on on the 4th plinth. It was a man promoting a sailing team and not very interesting, so after stainding in the spray from the fountain, we walked down to St James Park and found ourselves a spot under a tree. It was time for an[strike]other[/strike] ice-cream before Izzy ate her tea and we headed back to the train station. There was just time to grab a bagel before finding a seat on the train.

Today we had a less busy day, but still a few more firsts for Izzy. We went to Southsea this afternoon and she had her first encouter with the sea. She was very interested in looking at it, but wasn't as keen on it when I took her in for a paddle - it was very cold on her tootsies! She did like playing with/eating the rocks on the beach though. And she had her first taste of pastry (part of my lunch) too. So all good :)

Richard is away with work this week, so tonight it is quite a novelty eating what I want for tea and being in control of the remote control. I'm sure I will be missing him by the weekend. Anyway, time for pudding :)

I'm not updating as much as I should be at the moment. All the days kind of run into each other a bit, and I get to bed time and I've still not updated lj.

What is going on at ladybird towers recently? My Granny is in hospital at the mo, so my parents have been going up to see her ever other weekend, and I've been up with Izzy once as well. (We are currently plotting another trip up soon.) She is a lot better, but not well enough to be at home on her own, so she is "taking up a bed" while waiting for a place at her desired nursing home. She is top of the list though, so hopefuly it won't be long :) We have found out she can have a mobile, so my parents are going to get her one this weekend, so we can all call her, and hopefuly that will help her feel a bit more connected to the outside world :)

Here, we are (slowly) still working on sorting out the living room to make it more baby proof. We still have the kitchen to finish too, but we have left that on the back burner while we get the living room done. It will all come together in the end, but I have a feeling we will be still doing finishing touches when we are getting ready to sell whenever that ends up being ;)

Izzy is coming along in leaps and bouds - she can sit up really well now, and can get herself up to sitting from lying down (from her hands and knees rather than doing sittups). She can roll wherever she wants to go, and she can kind of crawl a little way on her tummy - she is getting much better at it, so I don't think it will be too long before she can crawl properly. This means she can roll/crawl to whatever she is interested in and then sit up and reach stuff, so everything has to be moved up a bit. She knocked her first drink off a table this morning, but luckily it was her own drink of water, rather than anything more dangerous/sticky/staining!

We normally meet up with other Mums and babies on Thursdays, but everyone is busy today. I've decided to stay in too, and save our town errands for tomorrow, as I have so much to do here, so I'd best get on with it all! Then Sunday we are off for adventures in London (a christening and lunch, then doing ~something~ with Anna. Maybe touristy stuff within walking distance of Waterloo, or maybe some kind of cafe and people watching activity, depending on our zombie status.) Anyway, must get on with ~stuff~.

Did I miss anything?

We (me and Izzy) had a fab weekend with my parents visiting my Granny. Izzy is very nearly there with crawling. Another week or so and I won't be able to keep up with her I expect!

So yes, plan for today = washing, unpacking and more washing. And some playing and reading a story and visiting the supermarket. Very exciting!

After sorting out new furniture over the weekend. Well, furniture is built and is sitting emptily in the crowded living room. It will be less crowded when we have moved things from the old cupboards to the new ones and we can get rid of the old stuff. Everso exciting.

So yes, I've missed anything important (and all the not important things) in the last few days. Anyone care to update me?

I had a virtuous brainwave this afternoon - I had various bits of baby stuff we are never going to use takng up space where we could be keeping toys, so I called our local womens refuge to see if they wanted to pass it on to anyone. They said "yes please!", so I filled a bag with the bits I wanted rid of (mostly toiletries that Izzy has turned out to be allergic to) and then ran around the house and added in a few other bits too, (a few "mummy" toiletries which I'm allergic to for a start!)

When I dropped the bits off I also established that they would like the living room furniture we are about to get rid of (have since realised we have a wardrobe in the garage which they are welcome to if they want it).

I was going to give these bits away to friends, or put them on freecycle (or even bin some of it), but I thought I'd much rather give them to the womens refuge, so I know they are going to someone who really needs them, rather than someone who is just saving money to spend it on pizza or something (like me when I get things from freecycle ;) )

So (this is the Blue Peter bit) I have a challenge for the rest of you for this weekend - go round your house with a big carrier bag and see what you can find that you don't want. It doesn't have to be kids stuff, but maybe some clothes that don't fit you any more. Or maybe the old mis-matched plates you have at the back of the cupboard that you never use now you have a matching set? Or maybe even the old furnitre taking up space in your garage where your car should be? There is a website with the numbers for the local Womens Refuge Centres here - give them a call and see if they can find a good home for any of it. If not then pop down to the charity shop of your choice and donate it there instead. Go on, I dare you!

p.s - Womens refuges have to be careful about their locations for obvious reasons, so don't be surprised if they want to meet you somewhere neutral to pass things over. Me and Izzy had to meet two ladies in a pub car-park round the corner. It was like being in a gangster film handing over stolen goods or something ;)

When you keep CDs in alphabetical order, do Bush come before or after Kate Bush?

Also, why on earth do Lakeland think my name is Mrs House?

And why am I asking all these questions when I have an important Lakeland catalogue to look through and order from ;)

Time for another update I think. We've been busy doing all kinds of exciting things - swimming and all sorts. Yesterday we went to Ikea (I'm no longer an Ikea virgin - woohoo!) and bought all kinds of things for the kitchen, and a few bits for Izzy. She now has a crocodile bigger than her :) Then in the afternoon we went off to Cerri and Cakes' for Cerri's birthday party. Lots of fun, great to see people again, and we played singstar :)

Izzy is coming on in leaps and bounds - she is really good at rolling over now - last week when we got her weighed she had stopped putting on weight completely, so I've been trying hard to get more food into her. She is being so active that she needs to eat more - she is burning off all the calories in the world! Luckily since about Thursday she has got her appetite, or realised that life is much nicer when she eats enough. Daft baby. Since yesterday she is just starting to crawl backwards (aparently it is normal to work out that before they work out how to go forwards!) Yesterday she nearly shut me in the kitchen - she rolled over to the door, pushed it shut, and rolled behind it! Luckily she was just about far enough away for me to squeeze out through the door and move her, but it gave me a scare!

We have got a nursery lined up now, for when I go back to work. I'm feeling better about it now I know where she will be and what she will be up to. She will be in nursery 2 days a week and with my mum for 1 day. Still not looking forward to it, but needs must. Well... I'm kind of looking forward to the challenge, just wish I could take her with me ;)

We have another busy week this week - dainul is graduating on Wednesday so we are off to Exeter. Driving down Tuesday night and back on Wednesday night - time for some sightseeing and whatnot, should be a good day :)

Back from Leicester now - no time to catch up, did I miss anything?

We drove up Saturday morning with no problems (Izzy slept the whole time!) and arrived around lunchtime. Spent the afternoon playing with all if Keiran's toys and then had a good gossip and some food once we got the kids to bed, before an early night. Sunday we did more playing in the morning and then headed off on a tour of Leicstershire to scoff a large pub lunch with felishumanus and Paul and some other local friends too. Izzy amazed me by eating her own weight in baby food, and she also gummed at her first chip! We had a play in the playground, and by the time we got back it was time for packing up the car, tea and the drive home.

Richard and his parents had been working on the kitchen while we were away, so we had a lovely surprise when we got back. Not quite done, but very nearly at the finishing touches stage (plus waiting for the ceiling to be replastered!) and it looks brilliant. I can't wait till I can get on with putting everything away :) (Then I can start on the next job ;) ) I will put up picture when it is all finished. It's a shame we didn't take before pictures really, but you will be able to see the "after" pictures of showhomey goodness. Then we can start making a mess again ;)