Schools…..

….we have been deliberating for weeks about which school’s to apply for for Caitlin….  We are very lucky in that all of the school’s near to us are fantastic and so realistically we would be happy for them to go to any of them (apart from one which we are fairly unjustified in not wanting..it also has good results!)  We visited our 2 closest school’s and liked both for different reasons….  school A was initially our favoured school….it has slightly better results and we know lots of people who go there and are very happy.  School B I didn’t expect to like but we did, it also has good results just not quite as good as A but still very good and it’s our catchment school.  We think Noah would be better off at school A and Caitlin should be ok at either so we have put school A as our first choice and B as our second.  It is advised you put 3 choices so we have put the local Catholic school as our 3rd choice.  Now comes the very long wait until March to find out which we have got…..

Brocoli in amongst the dust…..

Well we have no kitchen but Austin is rapidly approaching the age where he needs more than milk….  Really bad timing to start weaning but that’s life….  So yesterday I decided to give it a go!!  Caitlin and Noah were having brocoli for their tea so I steamed a couple of extras, put Austin in the highchair and got my camera out!!!

When I put it in front of him he looked very pleased……

He occasionally grabs at things but generally is pretty content to just watch the whirlwinds of Caitlin and Noah go by….  So after a while since he had just looked at the brocoli I put it in his hand for him…..  Again he just looked at it for ages so I broke a tiny piece off and put it in his mouth…..  he looked disgusted…..

….and promptly spat it out with some milk also following!!!!!!  So I think we can safely say he’s not ready (despite everyone insisting he is!!!) and I am spared for a few more weeks….  I’m glad about this as the tiny preparation space I have means making food in a really hygienic way is very hard and I’m not confident it is good enough for a baby!  A lot of people keep saying I should just give him jars but since I weaned Caitlin and Noah onto home-made food I feel like I would be letting Austin down if he didn’t get the same.  Noah didn’t really eat until he was 7 months…like Austin he didn’t start waking and generally showed no signs of needing it until then.  So maybe in a months time I’ll have at least some kitchen facilities and Austin can starting having what Caitlin and Noah get for meals…..

 

We are still here…..

…it’s just a bit hectic at the moment!!  We have moved into the new house and almost moved out of the old one!!  I had completely underestimated the amount of cleaning required when you move out of somewhere!  We had furniture and belongings everywhere and the dust behind the sofa and shelving units was unbelievable!!  We have moved boxes and bags of things and there are still a few bits left to collect although God knows where we will put them!!!!  With no kitchen we have the dining table in the lounge along with a ton of boxes of pans, baking kit, dishes etc etc!!!  You can barely move in there which makes life that bit more complicated.  What will be the toy store is currently home to the fridge freezer and unpacked dishwasher so all toys are in the bedrooms….again hard work!!!

Over half term the kids all went to my Mum’s so that we could get on with the moving.  It was my sisters birthday the day they went so we had a little party for her and then I headed off to do removals!!!!!!

It hasn’t all been house moving and trying to sort and clean….  We’ve also been to playgroup and did a belated Halloween dress up!!

We met up with Abigail and Katie on Thursday after school.  That was great as Caitlin got to come too which is good.  We went to a soft play and the kids all had a great time running around and playing together, we also had tea which was a bonus as sorting tea out with no kitchen is also hard work!!  Austin even got his first go on a slide!!!!!

We didn’t manage to get out for a bonfire or fireworks display which is a shame as they love fireworks, but it was raining while they were on so maybe we didn’t miss out too much.  We did watch the people who back onto us have some fireworks which were actually quite impressive.

On the house front we now have permission to switch the position of the door and window in our kitchen but not permission to put our chosen windows in so we now have a big drafty hole in the kitchen which will be the door to the utility room and a sawn in half back door with a wall underneath!!  Noah helped Grandad brick up the wall…..

As soon as Richard has finished moving the garage he can start fitting the kitchen which will mean we have a dishwasher and sink….wooohoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And also some units so that we can possibly move again in our lounge!!!!!!!!

Pumpkin carving….

As the kids are at my Mum’s in the run up to Halloween so that we can move house, I thought we’d best get on with our pumpkin carving!!  I turned Caitlin’s tripp trapp back into a highchair so that Austin could join in and put down some newspaper…..  and away we went….

Noah was very enthusiastic and sent pumpkin seeds flying all over the dining room whereas Austin just kept dropping his spoon!!  Everytime he dropped it though Noah came round to pick it up for him!!  Once it was scooped out I cut out the hole…I decided it would be great to make it a mini pumpkin so I cut out a vaguely mini shaped hole!  Noah said it didn’t look like a mini and Caitlin just kept saying she wanted a face…hmmmm not a good idea then ah well….  It really doesn’t look like a mini and I’ve not got a lighter to light the tea light anyway so no photo!!

Tomorrow is delivery day, well for everyone apart from Virgin Media who have cancelled on us…after disconnecting us!!!!!!!!  We are not happy and unless they can come up with some sort of fix it’s unlikely we’ll be customers for much longer!!  The next appointment they have to reconnect us is in two and a half weeks!!!!!!  Bet we still pay for that time!!!!!!!!!

5 months!

Today Austin is 5 months old!!  Where has the time gone???  (On the house I would guess:-)!)

Austin is rolling over and chattering away to himself.  He is still very content and hardly ever cries, he loves his milk and drinks it all but will happily wait over an hour for it if something crops up.  He is a good sleeper but I don’t think he is overly keen on the travel cot..he has been waking at around 5 for his dummy since we put him in that!  He’s not hungry because he just goes straight back to sleep, I think it’s just the extra space he wakes up from moving around so much and then bumping into the edges!!!

He still looks a lot like Noah at that age, just with darker hair.  He adores Caitlin and gives her the biggest cheesiest grins when we pick her up from school!!  He loves Noah too but Noah loves to jump on him and hug him and sometimes this startles him!!!!  Noah also loves to wake him up to play during the day…this also doesn’t always impress Austin!!!!

Elvis the removals van

You may think that there would be no way of moving house using a mini….but Elvis is the removal’s vehicle!!!!

I’ve not tried driving him yet but Richard has got some mad looks driving him with this massive trailer!!!!!!!  Now it is just a race against time to get the heating working and the garage moved!!!!  I’m sure we’ll do it!!  Thursday is our target for being in the house and a week on Friday for having the garage moved out!

Tagged!

I got tagged…for my family readers who don’t read other blogs that means I have to join in with whatever it is..in this case “proud to be me”….  I think I am supposed to put a badge in my post but I’m a very unprofessional blogger so I can’t figure out how to do it……

So anyway I have to say 5 reasons that I am proud of myself…..

Number 1 has to be Caitlin, Noah and Austin!!  I’m very proud that I had all 3 of them at home, even if I did have to fight for that in Noah’s case!!!

Number 2 is kind of the same…Caitlin, Noah and Austin…but proud of how well-behaved they are, I can take them anywhere and I usually get complemented on them…with Caitlin I just thought it was good luck, with Noah I thought I might have something to do with it, but now Austin is super chilled and content I figure I (well we) must have something to do with it!!  They aren’t screamy tantrum’y type kids (obviously they do have occasional moments!) and are generally happy and healthy.

Number 3 is a weird one….  When I was 17 I used to work on a lifeboat and during a triathlon we were on duty and I was in charge and “driving” the boat when we spotted and rescued someone with severe hypothermia!!  I was in the paper and everything !!!

Number 4……ok starting to struggle now!!!  I am proud that we were (and will be again in a few weeks fingers crossed!!) mortgage free.  Isn’t that important to a lot of people but we have overpaid were we can and been really careful with our money for the past 9 years and so have been able to make ourselves debt free (until we buy our mansion lol)

Number 5….I am proud (possibly bordering on boastful??) that I am a faster driver than Richard… I always beat him at drag racing (in the same car)!!!  He says it’s because I have no mechanical sympathy…I say I’m just a faster driver!!!!!!!!!!

Now I have to tag 5 people….hmmmm now thats hard!  I read a few other blogs but I’m not really a hardcore blogger so although I read some I don’t really comment etc so can’t really tag them…  So I’ll just tag the ones I read regularly and also comment on!

Laura at http://synchronizationofus.com/

Mancais (not sure if her real name is a secret so best not blab!!!) http://mancais.wordpress.com/

not sure if I am supposed to tell them I have tagged them??  (can you tell I am a novice at all of this!!!)  Linda didn’t tell me so maybe its a test to see if they read???????  I have no idea…anyway you are tagged…….

Rolley polley!!! (how do you spell that???)

Today Austin finally rolled over!!!!!  It’s about 4 days earlier than Noah did and only a few weeks after Caitlin….  By now Caitlin was sitting unaided and Noah sat in about 2 weeks time, but Austin is showing no signs of this at all, but I remember Noah doing it all of a sudden so we shall see….  So far Caitlin and Noah have done everything around the same time and now Austin is trying to follow suit!

Our internet gets disconnected on Friday ready to swap over to the new house so from then I’ll be on a blogging holiday!!!!!!!  We get connected in the new house on Tuesday along with everything else!!  John Lewis will be delivering our washer and drier, the dishwasher also gets delivered and the planning appeal site visit is that day!  Just need to persuade the fridgefreezer and fireplace to come that day too!!

Punkin pines….

…(as Noah calls them!!!!)  Today we went pumpkin picking….  While we waited for everyone else to arrive we did some raspberry picking….

 

and then we went to do some sweetcorn picking but to be honest after searching for about 15 minutes I came to the conclusion I had no idea what a ready to pick sweetcorn looked like so we quit and went over to the pumpkins!  Noah and Caitlin had a good look around at the pumpkins but I’d told them they couldn’t pick one until everyone else arrived…

When the others arrived we got going….

As you can see there weren’t many pumpkins left but the kids had a great time picking their pumpkin (and many more!!!!)

Now we just need to admire them for a week or so and then we can get carving!!!!!  After some lunch we headed off to ikea, which everyone said I was mad to do alone with the 3 of them!!  But I am so glad I did!  We have a set of shelves and where we are putting them in the new house we really need another shelf to make it look good.  Unfortunately when I got there I discovered the shelves had been discontinued a few weeks back and they had sold out!  I decided to look in the bargain corner incase they had the display model and there in the corner was 2 sets of shelves, all boxed and nothing wrong with them apart from the fact they were the last 2…both half price!  So I grabbed one and then persuaded to passing men to put it on the roof rack for me….success!!!!!!

Tonight we are staying over at the new house again so we should get some more sorting done in between the x-factor!!!

Getting there!!

The living room is almost decorated!!!  The floor, ceiling and 3 out of 4 walls are done.  Once the plaster is dry the 4th wall can be papered, fireplace fitted and curtains hung!  This morning we moved one sofa in and it has made a huge difference!!!!!!

It’s looking likely that the heating will be active in the next 2 weeks and as soon as that happens we can move in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!  I’ll certainly be happy when the cleaning is all done, it is no fun cleaning all the dust off everything.  Caitlin did help though, she cleaned in her room for over an hour yesterday…odd child loves cleaning!!!!!