Happy Birthday Bumpa.

A day in Milton Keynes.

A lovely day was had as we went to visit Derek (Tom's dad's twin)and Anne Stainsby. Courtesy of Tom's cousin Phillip's pool, the family (minus myself!..... well someone had to stay dry to be ready for chilly little ones!) had a January swim....
Lots of cuddles for Aunty Anne, the birthday twins celebrating together a couple of days early and lots of cakes and biccies for high tea and tickles with uncle Phillip.... made for some very sleepy bunnies on the way back home.

An aukward delivery.....

A lot of pushing, moving around, fetching cups of tea, "surgery" to allow a little more clearance and it is finally here!!
Thank you Daddy for all the hard work, preparing a bridge to get it in as well as all the technical calculations for getting it through the doors!

Saga of the fridge...

OK I know I'm sad, but I am now soooooooo excited because we are getting a new fridge!!!!
The old one has been promising to be replaced for while now, the door box is duck tapped on, the door seals hold but are split and we just can't put in everything we need!So I asked daddy for the trusted "Which" reports and scoured the internet for I dare not work out how many man hours to find our ideal fridge. No mean feat when you have a family with growing children.... and thinking ahead we going to need this fridge to hold food for four teenage boys as well as Tom!! and of course a little space for the girls.Believe me finding a 300litre +plus capacity fridge with a freezer and within budget was near on impossible..... but.....I did it!!!

This is our soon to be baby... the American side by side wasn't our preferred choice but availability dictated.
So late next week we will be taking off the door frame into the kitchen and welcome our newest addition to the family!
Will no doubt post more when it arrives!!!

It's 2007!

Good health, happiness, peace of mind, love and spiritual enlightenment be yours in the coming year.

A "quiet" family Christmas...

A calm Christmas @ Four Acres!!!!

An acceptable wake up call at 0730 with 4 excited little boys and a bemused Leah as they all came to our room with their stockings, going downstairs to find out what Santa had left.... A scrambled egg and smoked salmon breakfast with warm pains aux chocolat before Chuch, then off to" The Limes" to say Happy Christmas to" Bumpa" and the residents and open presents from Bumpa. Back home to put goose in oven and start opening our presents....

As we had said that not all presents would be opened on the day, the children played with each toy as it was opened, no clamouring for more to be unwrapped but a calm excitment and tidy afternoon with wrappers being bagged at each opening session. We sat to watch "Five children and It" then had a late lunch (1530!) more presents and tv then Christmas pudding and Brandy white sauce for pudding/tea!!! Children in bed and still a few wrapped presents for Boxing day!!!

No time constraints, no pressure,no expectations.... just us! All 7 together for a quiet family Christmas.

Thank You Lord for sending us your son in the form of a newborn babe... The most loving gift ever given.
Let us be mindful to remember Christmas as a celebration of your arrival on earth, your forgiveness and the everlasting life promised us...

A Christmas greeting.

Merry Christmas,
thank you for visiting our blog!
See you in the New Year!!!
PS please click on link for a card!

http://www.dayspring.com/ecards/card.asp?ID=03b8a37d-bok

An eventful day...

What started out as a quick shop, quickly turned into my idea of a nightmare when running round the corner of one of the shop aisles, at full pelt, Isaac ran straight into one of the metal cage display tables...
All I can still see is him bouncing back from it with blood everywhere!!!!! Having split the skin under his nose and with two eggs on his forhead, as with most children's injuries it looked worse than it was, but as he did go very quiet and bit of an odd colour, the ambulance was called out as were the "first responders".
I did feel somewhat out of my depth as Tom was still London way and I had all 5 children with me (well three were in the bus!) But thankfully I'd seen Penny walk out of the shop as I had gone in so I rang her and she made her way back to Sleaford to my rescue...
Penny together with the Lidl staff got all the children rounded up, and then took Leah and Benjamin back to hers' as I went in the ambulance with a very brave if a little too quiet Isaac and big brothers.
To save on too much disruption the crew arranged for us to be seen at Sleaford medical centre who deal with minor injuries. Isaac charmed the nurses with his big blue eyes and by now had started to smile again and chat. The bleeding had stopped and they decided stitches or glue was pobably unecessary. There were no signs of concussion from the whack he'd given himself although he was very lucky his nose had gone between the bars... I dare not think of what might have happened otherwise...
My big brave soldier is now recovering with a bit of a headache and swollen lip and I think mummy's nerves will take longer to get over it than Isaac's face..... What will Malcolm make of having a beaten up shepherd for Sunday's nativity play in church!

Another birthday in the house....

I can't believe it! Matthew is 9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only seems like yesterday.......

He has had a great day, starting with presents and warm pain au chocolat for breakfast.... School carol service this morning and freeplay afternoon.... a surprise booking at the "Smiley Club" (afterschool) to have some more party fun and then a very" treat tea " @ McD's! and finally home to presents, cake and...the holidays!!!!!!!!!! How cool is that!!!


A little thank you card from him to you...:

http://www.batchmates.com/ecards/viewcard.asp?card=00390708313079130

The Grandparents

Having saved our last Ollan Mills photo session to give to Maman and Daddy for Christmas to have a photo taken of them with all their grandchildren, having arranged for Poppy to come up for the weekend for said photo session, having received a confirmation phone call for said photo session on Weds...... Picked up a message from Ollan Mills on Friday to say the company has gone into receivership..... NO PHOTO!!!!

I can honestly say that I was gutted but Tom put it into perspective for me.... think of all those young photographers who have just been made redundant, a fortnight before Christmas?!

We decided to go ahead with photo session with Four Acres as the venue......

Well I now know WHY we pay a photographer to take group photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lots of shouting, positioning, laughing, giggling, blinking, tilting heads, looking away, tickling, balancing,crying, sulking, getting bored.......probably in the region of 50 odd photos taken (thank goodness for digital cameras!!!) ... I think we have a charming OK photo! (disappointingly not one that jumped out and said THIS IS IT, although M&D have some more.)

Maybe we need to invite Fiona up again for a weekend and have an informal outdoor photo shoot...But we didn't get much notice for this one!!