Excuse the dinner on her face still - chocolate lollies go everywhere, dont they?! You can see a couple of her spots on her armpit too - poor thing cried every time I picked her up for a week, but you just cant avoid some of them can you?

Then tonight I logged on to find an email from a genealogy friend to tell me her husband, who has been ill with dementia, died last Wednesday. Its hard to know what to say - in some ways its a big relief for her, and in others the worst loss after 50ish years married. But I hope my mum wont suffer too much longer either.

My inlaws finally went home tonight. The house is so quiet, LOL! Hopefully I will cope ok tomorrow, with the school run etc. Sophie is booked in for a couple of extra hours at the childminders, so I can rest then. Got to book Emma's party, before the end of term (16th) so I can get the invites out. Thats the problem with Em having a birthday the first week of term!

Anyway, better move on, DH is keen to get online and we only just got our internet connection back after 3 days.

Wish me luck!

I've been poorly all weekend. I felt all PMTish on Friday, with a sore tummy, but it seemed unlikely to be that ;-). Although my tummy's been slightly upset, it's not really that either. It got worse during the evening. I couldnt get comfy Friday night and only got snatches of sleep all night. As a result I woke up on Saturday and quickly got a migraine as tiredness is one of my triggers. But the tummy ache seemed to have gone away. I wore a gell-patch all afternoon and another one all evening (never tried before but I can now recommend them now). Sophie wouldnt settle and so I went to bed at 9pm.

By 5.40am I'd had enough sleep, but I felt reasonable. But by breakfast time I felt rough again in the tummy dept. I was well enough again by 10 to go to church, where one of my friends said she'd had a non-descript tummy ache last week. Sophie was miserable in creche. Numbers are low as 3 weeks ago one little boy came down with chicken pox. Now, several of the kids there have it, so I'm watching Soph like a hawk!

I skipped one meal yesterday and two today - boy am I hungry! Sophie fell asleep in the car on the way home and slept about 150minutes. I got her out and offered her a late lunch, but she turned down most of it. So we went out in the garden, where Em was assisting daddy with the summerhouse project. I started to feel very sore tummied and cold (it was gales here today, but it seemed odd as I dont normally feel the cold, whereas Al, who does, was fine in a T-shirt). I came indoors and sat on the sofa, and I started to shake with "cold"  - actually I was burning up. Al came in and got me 2 paracetamol and I went to bed. Em said she had a tummy ache too - not sure whether she's just copying me, I hope so!

Alan gave Em just dry toast for tea, at her request, and Sophie ate well. He's still fine. I fed Sophie to sleep (and she got fed up with me poking her in the eye with my nipples as she has a slightly sticky/pink eye which I dont want to get any worse) and then I took some ibuprofen. It took about 1 hour for the paracetamol to stop the shivering, and in that time I realised that the tips of my fingers and toes felt all pins & needly - odd. Thanks to the painkillers, I'm faily ok right now, but nervous about tonight & tomorrow. What a weird illness!

Here are a couple of recent pictures.

Above is some writing Em did at school, all about having a go at basket ball and scoring on the last go (managed it!). She is so brave just going for it, and seems to be learning fast. I'm so proud of her!

Here is Sophie helping me mop the floors last week! I have a microfibre cover for my broom which can be used damp, so it was perfectly safe to let her help me - no chemicals, no bucket - hurray!

When Sophie saw this stepladder she raced straight to the top of it and sat down - just like she does on Emma's slide. I'm very relieved to say she didnt proceed to slide off it but I did wonder!

I'm afraid I couldnt decide which red dress pic I liked best, so I'm posting both!

Above she is watching herself in the viewing screen on the camera. Below she is pushing the wheel-barrow while DH is working on the summerhouse base. Something looks like it has "gone" as her hands are open (which is her sign for gone).

Today I decided to get out of my comfort zone and start inviting people back for Sunday lunch again. Being constantly tired, and having a rather untidy house (I havent fully regained control since I was ill a month or two back) it's easy to be insular, but I decided I needed to start inviting a few safe people around again. So today we had probably the safest of all, in Sophie's lovely gentle childminder and her son, who is exactly 12 months younger than Emma. The weather has been lovely today, so we spent most of the afternoon in the garden, and just ate in the house. J is a keen gardener too, so it was fun showing her my garden, and her son just loved playing hide & seek with Em and Alan, as his garden at home is about the size of a postage stamp! It was lovely to share my garden with two such lovely guests. They seemed to enjoy the food too, though of course I wasnt 100% happy with how it turned out, but that's my perfectionism trying to bubble to the surface!

Alan gave them a lift home after tea and then filled up with diesel for me on the way back (my fuel light has been on for several days, but I managed to cycle almost everywhere at the end of last week). For the first time it cost over £60 to fill the car up, with diesel being £1.30/litre here now (that's over £5 a gallon)! When I started driving it was just 45p/litre, which is now a distant memory! Am I old or is it just VERY expensive now?! Oh well, back onto my bike even more!

The reason I'm aching is because I've been doing one of my favourite things - a mini-Groundforce! OK so I'm not nearly as capable as Charlie Dimmock et al (it's a BBC Garden Makeover programme, in case you dont know) but for me, planting is one of the big joys of gardening, and unless you have an enormous garden, you cant do it too often or you'll struggle to get out the back door!

Yesterday I did my annual planting up of a friends tubs on her patio, a job I've been doing for about 8 years now, and planting up the church hanging baskets ready to hang out in a few weeks ready to take their chances with whoever waters them this year!

Today I was asked to pop in on some friends who moved house at Christmas and give them some gardening advice. In the end I cycled home and came back two hours later in my car with a sleeping Sophie and with a load of plants I'd dug up in my garden. We then proceeded to remove a strip of turf from the very front of their garden and plant it up with hardy Geraniums and ferns. Their soil is all clayey which makes it sticky and heavy, and sometimes it just felt like we were trying to plant into plasticine!

My friend is not at all green-fingered and kept saying her husband and her friends wouldnt believe she had been doing this, digging and getting mud all over her hands, but I think she quite enjoyed herself!

Anyway, now I ache, but my halo has had a good polish.  And the plants were free as they were all things which had grown from seed all by themselves in my garden, so I refused to let them pay me, and just said I would accept babysitting sometime in exchange for my time. So I gain twice! Now I just need a good night's sleep. And probably a hoist to winch me out of bed tomorrow morning LOL!

Sophie has forced my hand in the bedtime department. Really, I AM happy, I AM! At 15 months, I taught Emma to stop sucking to sleep, and her sleep improved overnight almost. The theory is, that how ever baby goes to sleep, that is how they will want to get back to sleep when ever they awaken (and we all stir once every hour). So if baby is breastfed to sleep, like my two ended up being (I was trying so hard not to until Soph got ill!) then another feed will be requested. Or if a dummy is lost, it will have to be replaced. etc! Well, for the last two nights, Soph has finished feeding before she was asleep, and I have put her in the cot. She's tried getting out, but I've been blocking her way (have to lower it again - she rolls out and onto my bed quite easily now). Last night I persuaded her to lie down for a sing and a back rub. Eventually after 45 minutes of being in her cot she fell asleep. Tonight, the back rub didnt appeal until the last couple of minutes, and I had to sing at the start, but not for long. I kid you not, "Teddy Bear, teddy bear, turn around" followed by "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" whispered/sung for 45 minutes is pretty tedious! Tonight it was a good half hour before she fell asleep. Feeding to sleep is so much quicker and easier. But I need to keep my focus on the goal. Falling asleep by herself in her own room, one day! AND sleeping though the night, hopefully pretty soon - we are now going 4 - 5 hours between feeds. But I think there's another tooth cutting through shortly - been bitten a little the last few days which is a sure sign.

Oh well, off to bed, I have a busy day planting up tubs with flowers for friends, hanging baskets for church and my own garden with veg, with any luck!

Today I promised Emma an icecream if she was good in the dentists (not very healthy, but it worked!). However, by the time we came away from the dentists, the ice cream van had gone. Racking my brains, it occurred to me that MacDonalds sometimes have a basic icecream, so we went into the nearby restaurant. I dont much like burgers, and fortunately neither does Emma, so it's not somewhere we go in much, but a frantic scanning of the menu proved me right - they do have a "Mr Whippy"-like icecream with a flake, which is what Em was wanting.

I bought one, meaning to eat it on the move, but by then Em had found Soph and her a seat to share, which I realised was a good idea. Sophie loves to try our icecreams at home, but I never bother giving her one to herself as it seems too big. Im sure she'll want one soon enough! Anyway, I asked Em if she would let Soph have a few tastes, and was impressed that she actually did a proper share.

Everything that Em did, Soph did, so when Em licked, Soph licked; when Em bit the cone, Soph bit the cone; and when Em bit the icecream so did Soph, with amusing results.

Upon biting the cold icecream, she would then do a big shiver, and then suck her cheeks in! We were in fits of laughter at her. I think it was quite involuntary! I wish I'd had a video camera with me. But I'm still smiling at the memory!

This is Soph in the garden playing with Emma's electronic alphabet book - it makes great noises so she loves it even though it keeps telling her to "try again!" in a very American voice.

Emma loves eating cucumbers, and as this needed using up, I let her eat it instead of an apple after school last week!

Here she is still eating the cucumber but posing for a pic to be sent to grandparents showing her plastered grazed knee from school. Two plasters - a record!

I think Soph was watching "In the Night Garden" which she adores & I loathe! As she's smiling it must either have been Upsy Daisy, Igglepiggle or Makka Pakka on screen!!! I'm starting to tie her hair back to stop myself grabbing the scissors (hate long fringes but hairdressing SIL will kill me!) and partly to get her used to hair bands in her hair. Some days she pulls them straight out, others they stay in most of the day. With Em I bribed her with sweets for the first week I put hairbands in , but she was 25 months, which is much easier to bribe than 19 months!

Soph is fairly tolerant still of being picked up by Emma, as long as she's not tired or in the middle of being naughty!

Em was behind the sofa using the torch to look for something lost. Now the torch is lost too!

I asked Emma to smile...!

As the half term weather is so naff I asked Em if she wanted to go swimming today. Instead she chose Soft Play at the Leisure Centre, and she took Soph right to the top too (3 levels)! I had to join them in the end, which isnt easy when it requires a) contortion and b) crawling on your hands and knee...!

While I was cooking dinner, I noticed my old enemy the Squirrel on the bird table, and asked Em to scare it off. I then found the two girls in their slippers on the wet grass.... so I supplied Em with wellies (couldnt lay my hands on Sophs but her slippers have plastic soles, so I thought she'd be ok) and asked Em to keep them both out of the dirt. We have a gate half way down the garden so I can keep little ones in sight all the time - once they're inthe veggie garden they're out of sight from the house. A few minutes later I realised Em had opened the gate and carried Soph past the greenhouse.  Grrr! I was in the middle of something so I decided to go and see them in a few minutes. Before I did, Em came running up the garden shouting "Sophie's stuck!". I had the oven door open and a hot tray in my hands at the time, so I yelled at her to go back to Sophie and I would be as fast as I could (figured Soph wouldnt pannic if she had company). Half way down the garden myself, I hear Emma saying "Where's Sophie?" which was VERY worrying. She had wriggled her way through the fence and in Emma's absence was walking down the public footpath in the nature reserve we back onto! I crawled though the fence after her and she headed off quickly away from me, but fortunately not fast enough! Her slippers were plastered in mud! Upon quizzing big sister, it appears that the reason she did not stop Sophie from wandering off is because she knows SHE must not go through the fence, and so was unwilling to follow her! I am trying to impress on her that it is NOT acceptable to let your little sister go out, even if she WANTS to, and that if Sophie sneaks out, she is allowed to go out and drag her back!

Em woke at 6am this morning (she has been rising around 6 for at least a week now - never been affected by early mornings before AND she has blackout blinds) but she went back to bed until Sophie had given up feeding and wanted to play at 6.20, when I went and asked her if she wanted to crawl in with the rest of us for a change. I know she loves it, but she doesnt often get a chance these days. I dont like early mornings - 7am has always been normal with both of mine. Roll on the dark mornings of Autumn!

Both girls had fun during singing at church this morning, dancing around at the front, which is allowed/tolerated/enjoyed depending on who you talk to. At one point Em sat down on the edge of the stage and Soph decided to sit next to her. Then Soph decided to roll onto her back with her legs in the air. So Em copied her! Somehow it looks much cuter on a 19 month old. Em is all legs!

It rained ALL day - we've had about an inch now (25mm). So in the afternoon, with Soph having skipped her nap, we went off too the local leisure centre to use their pool. Soph got tired and cold quickly, but stopped being grumpy while we were in the water. Em had a great time. Dont know what her eczema'ry skin will think to it. Oh well. She's hoping to go most days during this half term week. We'll see! The only thing that went wrong was me - getting out of the baby-pool up the shallow steps I stumbled and as I fell my knee scaped along the step so I got a very bruised knee with a long cut on it. My knees are over-sensitive and tend to over-react to knocks, so I sat in the pool in agony for about a minute while Soph crawled off towards another baby who had a ball. The thought in my head was as follows "well, the baby has her mummy with her, so if anything happens to Sophie, she'll rescue her, as I cant move right now!" Thankfully she was fine! My knee just doesnt want to bend right now, and I have one of Em's plasters on it. She gets through a LOT of plasters due to having more speed than skill in the school playground!

Well, DH is feeling neglected, so I'd better go see to him now! Ow, hop, hop, hop!

1. If I like it, it's mine
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine
4. If I had it a minute ago, it's mine
5. If it looks just like mine, it's mine
6. If I saw it first, it's mine
7. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically becomes mine
8. If I'm doing something or building something, all the pieces are mine
9.If it is broken, it is yours (no, the pieces are still mine)

Below is Sophie taking a ringside seat to watch the washing going around. She's so different to Em who was still scared stiff of the noisy machines at this age!

Em never looks short until she stands by daddy!

Below are two pics of Sophie sat in her spare car seat & on a toy chair watching tv and eating!

I picked up Emma after Sophie and she was way below parr, all subdued. I dont know yet whether all the sun has filled the air with pollen and that is why she was complaining that her nose hurt (gave her Piriton in expectation of that) or whether its another cold. But she was just about to go to Club at church and she went upstairs to change out of her uniform and I yelled up after a bit to see if she was ok, to hear cross frustrated noises. Uhoh! I popped my head around the door and was told to go away, but I didnt believe her as she had her summer dress half way over her head and looked stuck! She wasnt pleased to be helped out of the mess, but she had somehow tangled one of the sleeves inside out - I think she had given up taking it off and made a hash of trying to put it back on again, and so tried to get it off again! I left her to it and came downstairs, only to hear shortly afterwards sobbing - she'd been trying to get a T-shirt from the back of the drawer and dropped the whole drawer on her foot! Poor thing! Most of DHs family are sooo clumsy when they're tired and Emma is no exception! Finally dressed she came downstairs and struggled into her baseball boots, crying in frustration at the difficulty of it but refusing help. In the end we agreed that she was too tired to go out. Soph was also in a bad mood and by now my ibuprofen had worn off so my headache was back. Fortunately soon after DH walked in asking "so what time does club end then?" - he hadnt noticed my text telling him not to bother, but fortunately the traffic was running better than last week and he'd had time to pop home first.  

Here they are waiting for their eggs with beans on toast - I wasnt up to cooking anything more elaborate! Unfortuantely Soph wasnt interested in anything except milk and fromage frais!

Incidentally, the cushion in front of Soph is her "special" feeding cushion which she collects and brings to me when she wants a feed. I had to placate her with a little skimmed milk or she would have screamed the house down, the mood she was in! It became her feeding cushion by chance as she noticed I would grab it and put it under her head for most feeds as it was nearby, so she associates the two together. Feeding a Toddler is very different to feeding a baby - much more interaction!

Now for a garden shot:

It looks much better in real life! The purples and oranges are really strong at the moment. Yes, that is the summerhouse, still flat, in the background. One day....! The big black box is called Tony - Emma named him - he is a BIG water butt to be attached to the summerhouse eventually.

Lastly, here is my greenhouse bursting at the seems with veg which will all go out in the garden at the end of the month when the threat of a late frost is finally over. The first lot of lettuce has just gone out to take it's chances, but here are some more lettuce with carrots and beetroot in the two long gutters, plus sweetcorn and sunflowers in the short one which are just germinating, and tomato plants, courgettes, more sweetcorn and leeks. The cucumbers are still indoors looking sorry for themselves - not sure what Im doing wrong!