Sophie makes me laugh so much - she loves nothing better than playing with her Whoopee Cushion! I bought one for Em the other Christmas, a self inflating one (coz blowing them up is too annoying), and DH played with it so much that it exploded on Christmas Day! So I bought Em another one and DH one of his own. Then we discovered Soph was playing with Ems, so I had to buy her one too (Em is afraid her little sister will explode her one just like daddy did!). Sophie sees it and keeps stepping on it, or if you put it on a low chair she will try to sit on it, but as often as not she misses on the first try, and I end up howling with laughter as she keeps trying to put her bottom in the right place! Another comedian in the family! So, if you want to cheer yourself up, and are not of too sensitive a disposition, I can thoroughly recommend them. I bought the first ones from Yellow Moon craft catalogue, but Ive seen them on ebay and the last one came from Asda.

Anyway, see this link if you want to see what it looks like!

And as a picture can paint a thousand words, here are 3:

My FILs efforts on our patio are paying dividends - another afternoon spent playing on it. Soph needed some nappy-free time to help with a sore bottom, so we played chase the puddle outside - 2 puddles later and some great fun showing big sister her tummy button!

It really was quite nice and warm. Which seems strange now coz later we had a thunder storm and got some amazing hailstones, so now I remember the day as cold! Emma has her new stripey clothes on - I know if I buy stripes she will wear it! The trousers are size 9-10 and the top size 10-11 (yes, this is my 5 year old ) and are just a little baggy, thats all!

Sophie was fascinated by the flowers on the lawn. I asked her where the flowers were and she pointed out every daisy and dandelion! She went round de-heading them all for me!

Here she is with Em's watering can. It's empty - I kept having to water her "puddles" with it, then she would drip out the last few drops, hoping she had as much in the can as mummy!

And here she is showing Emma her tummy button! Because she had no nappy on, she showed quite a bit more, but this one is decent enough to post!

We all have the cold right now, a right vicious cold too. Em went to bed at 530 tonight as she was too tired to eat dinner again. Soph isnt sneezing yet, but all she ate today was half a banana and a biscuit, oh and lots of ME! DH has been blowing his nose and had a headache today, but soldiered on at work - why? He gets sick pay - why not give in and get better quicker?! I've just felt like death all day and am filling the bins with tissues. I need sleep but Im scared that co-sleeping while sneezing will make the night even more disturbed. Must go in a minute - anyone who sees me on here after 10.30 (ten mins) please kick me LOL! Unfortunately Soph has been too lively for me to rest properly, though I cried off from Toddlers (which I assist with). But I still had to do the school run, and managed to get a mere hour's nap out of Soph after 20 mins driving! Oh, and I still had to cook! Poor Old Me! Hope I feel better tomorrow! See you!

Well, I wish I had my daughter's consitution! Yesterday she even managed to get up enough energy to go to church and then go on a narrow-guage railway before running out of energy at 3pm and sleeping most of the rest of the day. Today she not only managed to stay at school all day (I said "give it a go, you can always ask me to come in at lunchtime and take you home for  a nap") but she also managed to go to gym club and eat her dinner! But now Sophie & I are sniffling and I feel all full of cold - here we go!

The narrow-guage railway is run by volunteers just down the road from us. It opens once a month from April to October. Emma's grandparents took her the day Sophie was born! The first time I took her was when she was 2 and daddy was flying to America to work for two weeks - we both needed distracting! The weather wasn't great yesterday - grey but not wet - but that was a big advantage for us as it meant virtually no queuing! Poor Soph missed out - she fell asleep on the way there! We have promised Em we will try to go again this year, so Sophie may stay awake next time!

Anyway, here's three pics for you of our afternoon. We only stayed 1 hour - Em was so exhausted by the end but still begging for another go!

You might be able to see that she's looking a bit more tired by the one with daddy? That was her last ride. The first engine was steam, the second (with me) was diesel and the third was electric.

Well, Soph woke me at 6.30am today. OK, so for many Minti-mums that's a lie-in, but I do have two lie-in specialists; Sophs usually good for 7 or 730! Then Em emerged at 650 as she heard Cbeebies.

Em then proceeded to get the chalks out for Soph, who enthusiastically drew on her side of the blackboard, and tried to eat the chalk!  Then one of them decided to chalk on the old tiled kitchen floor.... I tried to explain to Em that although it can easily be wiped up, it wasnt a precident I wanted to set. I lost the argument - Em is a tenacious Miss and to be honest I couldnt be bothered at 7am. I'll regret it I know!

Em did wear me down by promising to wipe up all Soph's chalking, but the cloth got dirty and just spread the chalk around, so I instisted that Em mopped the floor, which she did willingly, moving on to the lino in the rest of the kitchen and the dining room. I have a microfibre mop which velcros onto my broom, and the beauty of microfibre is it doesnt need any chemicals, and can work a treat when wrung out and used, so there is no mop bucket to worry about, and the floor dries out quick, reducing the risk of us all going flying. Then when it's all done, into the washing machine it goes. If Im running the tumble drier, then it goes in and comes out bristling with static and perfect for dry pick-up use! Love it!

Em then went up & woke daddy after having a half-hearted go at breakfast. The post arrived and in it was a greetings card to Emma from Grandma apologising in verse that none of the charity shops in her town have a poncho (recently I've managed to get one for Soph and one for myself this way - so Em wants one too!). Em phoned Grandma up to thank her at 10 after dressing. She was sniffing something awful by then, but otherwise fairly normal.

Shortly afterwards the cold germs started winning, and she looked awful by the time we loaded Soph into the car for a quick run out to the hardware store and to send her off to sleep. When we got back, Em whispered that she wanted to eat first and then go for a nap. This is the girl who usually insists she's too old for a nap, how ever tired she is! She fell asleep on the sofa and napped through about 2 hours, including Soph waking up after about 90 minutes and needing a nappy change. She only woke up then as Soph was on the loose and kept coming up to examine her, even bringing a tissue and laying it on her when she heard Em sneezing!

We had an early tea and then Emma agreed to go to bed at 530pm, but she refused to get out of her day-clothes, as she's feeling cold (most unlike her). The remaining 3 of us are now highly suspicious of every cough or sneeze any of us makes - who's next?

DH started watching snooker of the TV tonight and is now watching Top Gear - so I dont think he minds at all that Im on Minti tonight LOL!

Spring is well and truly here - the weeds are growing, the daffodils are going over, and Im sowing my veggie seeds! Usually I sow them in my greenhouse but DH disconnected the electricity when he started on the summerhouse project, so the only veggie which can be sown there are hardy ones like lettuce, peas and carrots. I have them growing in the guttering - looking good so far! On my windowsills I have tomatos (trying to take over!), cucumbers, courgettes (zucchini), peppers (capsicum), sunflowers, and sweetcorn (maize). Gotta get going with a pumpkin soon - Em wants one big enough to hollow out this year - I grew teeny ones last year and she was disappointed with me!

I've been going thru my old seed packets and realised how many duplicates I have. As I have either stored them in the fridge or in a biscuit tin, they're in fairly good condition. When I was younger I invariably sowed the whole packet and then had to deal with hundreds of plants (who needs 50 tomato plants?!) so now I just sow a few at a time til I have the right number. So I always end up with seed left over. So I gave some left over packets away today - tomatoes, peppers and basil to Soph's childminder (who is a competent gardener, with a 4 year old son who loves peppers, & a tiny garden behind her Victorian terrace) and tomatoes and sunflowers to a friend who used to mind Em and who's daughter remembers me giving her a tomato plant to grow one year - now she's 12 she can certainly start from scratch this year, and as they've recently moved house and have nothing but a conifer hedge, patio & lawn, the sunflowers will brighten the place up a bit!

I recommend anyone in the UK to try growing a tomato plant now. They're very easy and there's nothing like eating your own tomatoes ripened in the sun! I just Googled the nutritional value of tomatoes and FYI, a cup of cherry tomatoes (149g!) is a mere 27 calories, 1.8g fibre, high in vitamins (especially A & C, B6 & potassium) and low in fat.

I bought several little tomato plants from my local garden centre this year, so you dont even have to start with seeds. I grow them in old florists buckets (which they sell off sometimes) with holes drilled in the base, but an old bucket would do. I dont bother with grobags as they take so much watering (and if you dont keep up, the tomato skin splits and the tomato starts rotting). I gow mine in the greenhouse, but if you have  a sunny patio, that is fine. To help myself, I mix in water-retaining gel granules, and a slow release fertiliser (seen packs of both in Tescos) so i dont have to remember to feed as often with the tomato liquid feed. I also grow some tomatoes in hanging baskets - some cherry tomatoes are sold as "Tumbling" varieties and it's great going out of my front door on a summer morning and picking & eating a tomato before settling off for school! I like growing cherry varieties as I never have any problem with using them up - no need to slice or cook them - just sit down with a bowlful in front of the telly and see how long they last in an evening! And Emma can fit 2-3 in her mouth at once, which is funny. Actually, it cuts down on the mess if she can keep her lips closed - larger tomatoes tend to become Moonsquirters (as Lola would say)!

With a bit of help, most kids (say, 4+) could grow and care for a tomato plant - they just have to be reminded to water it well at least once a day. If you grow a tumbling or "bush" variety (check the label) then you dont have to worry about staking it or taking off any spare leaves or branches (as you may have seen grandad doing on his allotment when you were a kid). Go on, give it a go!

On Saturday I did some serious digging in my part of the veggie garden, and I didnt want the girls falling in the hole, so Al amused them up on the patio. Here are some pics - a little late for Foto Friday, but I'll label them as that anyway.

I'm home alone tonight as Al is out on the town with his mates from church - curry night! The house smells delicious though - I bought two sell-by chickens today then had a quick pannic as the fridge and freezer were full after DHs trip to Morrisons yesterday. So I cooked them! Roast chicken for Friday dinner - sounds almost naughty to eat a roast on a weeknight LOL! Us girls enjoyed some of the meat from one, and DH stripped both so we can have it cold with veggies tomorrow, and in sandwiches, and maybe with rice on Sunday, or under pastry, or.....! And then I boiled up the bones for a stock for two hours, so that means I can do a soup too - probably carrot & bacon, yummy!

Emma was fantastic going to bed using her new "List" on Thursday night. (See my Q&A.) She was ok tonight, though she wasnt quite as angelic for DH as she was for me on Thursday. Lets hope she continues to co-operate - bedtime was getting to be a bad joke, with a meltdown every single night. DH is away 2-3 nights next week, so I can do without that when I'm on my own.

Sophie is teething AGAIN - chewing her fingers and everything she can get in her mouth. Whats that - about a fortnight since she was last doing this?! So far she's still eating, which is nice. So far, she has all 8 incisors and 3 molars.

In the garden, my plum tree is in flower, my pear tree is almost flowering, with the apples not far behind. The frogs and bumblebees are venturing out. The birds are nesting like mad - my moss patches are being pulled up. The squirrels still visit...! My guttering in the greenhouse is now full of seedlings of lettuce and leeks, while my windowsills are filling up with seedlings of things which need it warmer, like tomatoes and cucumbers. The anticipation! Oh, and after two weeks of settling in Im gearing up to feed my wormery for the first time!

Spring is here! Well, sort of - we had hail showers today and the wind was bitter! I should know, I've finally stirred myself and got on my bike! Soph loves it - I even distracted her yesterday when she was coming at me asking for mummy-milk with "shall we go on the bike Sophie?" She doesnt say "Yes" yet ("No" came 2 weeks ago and is VERY clear!) so instead she does this kind of demented laugh! She ran off and found her helmet and was practically climbing up the bike into the childseat when we got outside! I can cycle home from school with Emma but so far my attempts at cycling there in the morning with her have not gone well - Miss Daydream took 20+ minutes to do a 5 minute bike ride last Friday! We walked it in 15 this morning! Needless to say the school door was locked by the time we got there last week. One of the other mums cheekily said "you should leave earlier" - we did, we had 15 minutes to get to school before normal going in time! To cap it all Soph had kicked off one of her shoes and lost it. I was not very calm by this point! I retraced my steps but I couldnt see the shoe. Amazingly it turned up on my doorstep while we were away for the weekend - one of the other mums heard me telling Soph off for losing it and then saw it up on a wall where some helpful person had placed it for safety. Somehow (because she only knows me by sight) she found the right doorstep to leave it on! I think she knows a mum in Emma's class who knows roughly where I live coz we walk home together sometimes, but it's still pretty amazing!

I forgot to put this pic of me & Soph in FotoFriday the other week, so better late than never, here it is today! Little Miss One Sock! Actually, Em was also down to one sock at this point too - you can tell they're sisters cant you!!!

We had a nice weekend at Grandma & Grandad's, and got a fair bit of snow all Sunday (roads clear, settled on the cars & leaves). I think Soph has had enough of cars for a bit - she put up a fight every time I strapped her in the car seat today. Unfortunately having a busy big sister means you have to go in the car seat a lot!

Tonight it took nearly 2 hours to settle Sophie, including half an hour of solid screaming. Dont know what was up with her, but Im still a bit wobbly from it. It didnt help that Al was busy showering and couldnt hear the commotion, as he's pretty good at helping in those situations. She was throwing herself backwards and occasionally pausing for 5 seconds before setting off again for several unbroken minutes. In the end she fell asleep in my arms but Ive been hearing her ever since hic-uping tears on the baby monitor. She was a bit Jekyl & hyde today so perhaps she is coming down with something. Not teeth this week - no nipping for a week, yipee! And it definitely is just a nip, how ever much it hurts, as I found out on Friday what a powerful jaw my DD2 has - I was feeding her with a sausage in the car en route to Grandmas when my finger was mistaken for the sausage - OUCH!!!!

I was trying to get a photo of Emma at Grandma's house in her smart dress and tights. I got one or two serious ones and loads of mad ones. So I thought I would post them for your enjoyment (and coz Marg hasnt seen a lot of Emma pics recently!).

We're off to Grandma's tomorrow, so here are two pics from this week - Soph glued to In The Night Garden (wish she didnt love it so, but it's handy as I can get loads done while she grins inanely at Upsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle!) and Em pretending to be asleep (we snapped her later for real, but I prefer this one coz of Eeore and coz she cant stop smiling)!