Manic Monday

Andrew's not well today, he has a sore throat and a barking cough. So he's home from school today, which is fine as it's catch-up week at college and we don't need to be in today. Because there's no college, I didn't see any reason to take Elise into nursery so she's home too. And poor wee Lewis had to go to school so I though it would be nice to let him come home for lunch and cover his uniform in tomato soup for the afternoon.







I've been listing things on Ebay this morning and discovered as my account is fairly new, there's a 10 listings per month limit til I get my Paypal verified. Frustrating!
Anyway, I *should* be studying for two NABs we have on Wednesday.

Back to School

Okay I'm slightly late with this as the boys went back to school on Monday, but it's still their first week! So that's okay. Here they are in their uniform:



I've had a few people comment on how early it seems for them to be going back to school - here in Scotland the schools break up towards the end of June and they go back in mid-August. I have no idea why it's different up here but perhaps it's because August here is more like Autumn than Summer, and we're more likely to get better weather in July (HAH!). Ironically our best weather was back in June when they were still at school, wee shame.

Sunshine on a rainy day...

Yesterday I was perusing a few blogs and came across the perfect rainy day crafting project to do with the boys - so I had a wee practice (nothing worse than them slaving over something only for it to not work out, nothing to do with my childish sense of impatience at all) and posted a little teaser picture on Twitter to see if any of my followers could guess what it was. I thought it looked like questionable scrambled eggs, however I did receive one correct guess (and a few wrong ones) - it's a PVA glue/tissue paper window sticker, as inspired by this blog post over at Cooking, Cakes and Children by Amy Lane. If you check out Amy's post, it tells you exactly how to make one if you or your kids fancy having a go at it.


This morning my practice sticker was all finished, and it was fitting that it was pouring with rain given that I had made a sun.




Here are the boys busily working away on their own stickers. We all decided to make rainbows.




And here they are waiting to dry. There is a lot of PVA glue on these bad boys so I'm expecting them to be ready to stick up around about November.



The boys thoroughly enjoyed making their own window stickers and it was very easy for them to get on with and do themselves. It's a nice, simple little activity for a day stuck inside and takes up enough time to keep them occupied for a while but not so long that they get fed up. Definitely one we'll be filing away to do again.


In other 'sunshine on a rainy day' news, Elise's nursery called today to make a date for her first nursery visit (16th August) and to confirm what date I wanted her to officially start on (30th August). So in less than 4 weeks my baby is going for her first nursery visit then at the end of August she will be officially attending nursery! I explained all this to her earlier, and her response was to laugh in my face and say 'Muummaayyy' in a slightly condescending fashion. I have a feeling we're going to have to take Important Big Girl Nursery Business a bit more seriously than that! Like the 86 forms I have to fill in before she starts.

Have you had any rays of sunshine on this rather grey and dreary day?

Baby got Back

We're home! Had a truly lovely two weeks in the sunshine of Normandy but I'm glad to be home.

We stayed in La Vallee, Houlgate through Keycamp and I think we would definitely do this kind of holiday again - the kids loved it and the park itself was lovely.


I flew out with Elise and my sister Sarah - long story short - the rest of the family drove/ferried over and once they arrived my brother was meant to come get us from the airport. It was all timed to perfection. So of course something went wrong - my brother was late to the campsite so we had to entertain an 18 month old who had had NO SLEEP from around 6-9pm in the stifling heat and metropolis that is Beauvais Tille airport (shop count = 1). I also informed my sister 'Oh it's okay I've got enough money to get us some dinner while we wait' before realising it was all Sterling. We had muffins and went for a wander (or 6) around the airport.

That evening, we got lost and eventually arrived in the campsite at 5.30am. I should point out we should have been there for around 9pm the night before if everything had gone to plan.

So that was exciting. Apart from that neverending nightmare of a start, the holiday was a great success I think.



We went to the beach!



We wore our special holiday purchases that Mummy had been getting stressed about arriving in time (and looked adorable)



We met some interesting creatures.



There were waterfights...



And games of cricket on the beach.



And sometimes it just all got a bit too much...


Are you going anywhere nice this year?

*The observant amongst you may have noticed theres a heck of a lot of extra children in these pics - they are my nephews as this years holiday was a big family affair with my brother, his wife and their kids, both my sisters and our parents.

An Introduction to... Lewis

I'd like to introduce you to my lovely second born, Lewis, today. Lewis is 5 at the moment and just coming to the end of his first year of primary school. Despite being incredibly intelligent (I've been calling him Baby Genius since he was about 5 months old), he's not into blowing his own trumpet - that's my job. On numerous occasions recently he has managed to work out a mathematical problem before me, which is beginning to become a bit of an embarassment.


My mum is so silly. Everyone knows that 457x23 is 10511. Sake!

He has also been on the receiving end of Head Teacher awards in school for his fantastic story writing - in fact his writing has been compared to being of the level expected of a child in P3! We're incredibly proud of how he is doing in school.

Last year we discovered that Lewis has glue ear and he had to go in for a wee operation to have gromets put into his ears and his adenoids removed. He recovered really well and we've noticed a huge difference in him. He's not called Lewis...Lewis...LEWIS...LLEEEWWIIISSSS! any more. Just Lewis.


SORRY, WHAT DID YOU SAY? WHAT?

Lewis loves swimming - he's like a penguin. Slightly awkward on dry land and beautifully graceful in the water. Although not the sportiest of children, this seems to be his activity of choice as not only does he have a knack for it he really enjoys it as well.


You're still here?

So that is my little Lewis - not that he's all that little any more. After the summer he will be going into P2!