Zachary turns one (post over a month late)!

So on the 6th May our little baby boy turned one!

One already! How can that be?

He really isn't so little anymore either, he's a tall and stocky lad, just like his Dad and oldest brother.

I know it's cliche but this past year has flown by and is all a bit of a blur!

Zachary is such a happy soul, you know if he's crying that there is a problem.

So content with the simplest of things.

His favourite toys are balls, and cars. He's often found with a ball in his hand or chasing one!

He's been so good with feeding, taking to solids probably much earlier than he was supposed to really, but it worked for him. I fed him up to around 7 months too which is the longest I have breast fed any of the boys, after that we transitioned him to his own bed rather than his next to me crib. It took a while for me to get evenings back due to him clinging to me most evenings and waking most times we tried him in his cot. Now though he is brilliant, he loves his sleep so much that he will have around a 3 hour nap in the day which the other two boys rarely did, some mornings we might be lucky enough to get a lie in off him-shame the other two don't though.

He adores his older brothers and loves following them around the place, the biggest smiles are always saved for when we pick them up from school, it melts my heart every time.

He is saying a few words now too, mama being his first, followed by dada, Alex (Ala), Sam (lala), hiya, and his first word to an object being Alexa haha. Since his birthday he has least 'ba' which is either ball, book, back, or balloon, and has perfected 'more, more' whenever there is a sniff of food or rustle of a packet!

He's been steady on his feet for ages, standing alone for quite some time, but only started proper steps around 12 months, since his birthday he has got more and more confident. He now walks unaided (with a few little falls on his bum) and if he falls he is straight up again!

For his birthday we kept it pretty simple, the weather was gorgeous, and as we were having walls knocked down at our place we couldn't have people over. So we opted for heading to the local Zoo for the day. My parents and brothers joined us too, we had a picnic and the all important birthday cake before introducing Zac to Cotswold wildlife park, somewhere we have enjoyed visiting for many years (even as kids ourselves).

I made a big vanilla sponge and filled it with jam and buttercream, I've always wanted to make a hungry caterpillar cake for a 1st birthday so this was my theme.

The cake was delicious if I say so myself. 

It was so lovely to enjoy a summery birthday, with the rest of us 4 having birthday's in Nov and Dec it was a real novelty.

We went to my parents for a BBQ and more cake afterwards, and it was the end of a perfect first birthday.

Just can't believe that is the last of the baby days, and last of  the baby firsts! *sob*

3rd Child syndrome

Oops, I've just been updating a couple of bits of an old post as the links weren't complying with something as I've just had a quick flick through some posts of mine to realise that I really haven't written about Zac much at all, if anything other than his birth!!!

Feeling a bit guilty for that I must admit and definitely a case of 3rd child syndrome.

Life with three kids (and lets face it the hubby is sometimes like a fourth haha) is just so busy and full on that I just don't get much time to write anymore.

Zachary is nearly 9 months, which is just unbelievable in itself!

So before I forget or loose the scrappy bit of paper with important dates on I thought I'd type down a few bits I've missed on the blog!

At around 3 and 1/2 weeks he rolled a couple of times from his front to his back, I think this must have been a complete fluke though as it didn't happen for a long time after that. He was a super sleepy baby in the day at this age...night times maybe not so much!

At about 4 weeks old we had the first smiles, some in the bath and them some for Daddy! At at 6 weeks old we were treated with the big gummy grins especially after waking up.

He loved bath time, I think part of this must have been because when he was tiny the weather was really quite hot (feels like forever ago since summer now though) I was giving him baths quite frequently to cool him and make it more comfortable for him. Alex and Sam love bath time with him too, although a bit of a squeeze if they all want to get in at the same time!

At 8 weeks he did he first full night from about 10ish to  6.30, and by 10ish weeks this was most nights (unfortunately this was very short lived much to my disappointment)!

At 15 weeks he rolled from front to back, a day before 4 months old he mastered back to front and also sitting unaided for the first time!!

As he is one of my boys, and a Spencer boy at that I did decide to wean early at 19 weeks ( I know lots of people cringe when I say that), I've weaned all 3 of the boys early as they simply were starving! You know yourself if they are ready for food, Zachary was getting extremely angry at dinner time and was trying to grab anything he could off our plates. I just stuck to simple baby rice for quite a few weeks though. This made him so much happier, although unlike his brothers it made no difference to the night time wake ups and feeds.

By around 23 weeks we really knew that we had him as he no longer stayed in the same place as he got around the lounge with shuffling and his newly perfected rolling, always after the boys hot wheels as opposed to his own toys!

At 25 weeks you could see he was eager to crawl, up on hands and knees and launching himself forward when possible, at 27 weeks the commando crawl was happening and just a week after he'd discovered there were more rooms to explore other than the lounge (eek)!!

Not content with just crawling at 28 1/2 weeks he decided that standing himself up using the bath tub handle would be a fun thing to do too! Just to make bath times even more interesting I think!!

He's a strong lad so at 29 weeks he was able to sit up from a crawling position.

Now the next bits aren't so exact on the dates as A. I have no idea how many weeks he is now and B. we've been so busy I've forgotten to jot things down. Thank goodness I like to use facebook etc though!

I was super excited that one of my children said 'mama' first the other two were definitely 'dada' so I've rubbed this in a little to James who is a little put out by it haha. Such a magical moment, but I do wonder when it starts to change (like now if the older two say Mum constantly it grates on me haha).

He was up against the sofas at 7 months, although happy to just stand up rather than cruise.

At 7 and 1/2 months he tried to say Hiya.

At 8 months he climbed the stairs...I'd like to say with an adult behind him, I'd like to say I watched him do it, but in all honestly he snuck up when the lounge door was left ajar, the boys were supposed to be keeping an eye on him for 2 minutes whilst James and I were on an important call in the office. I've never panicked so much in my own home, the hall was dark, the boys oblivious to the fact he's even got out the room! I ran upstairs to the dark landing and still couldn't hear or see him, then I really panicked!! Sam then found him in Alex's room  (also dark) with a small piece of Lego in his mouth just to top off the bad parenting award! Needless to say a stairgate was bought quickly after that!!

At 8 1/2 months he's now trying to say 'dada' although it's normally just one big 'daaa' or 'dud'. We've had a few bab and lala type sounds too, and it's very cute when he's chatting away to himself.

He's such a good tempered baby, and generally only cries when there is really an issue of hunger, tiredness or pain (downside to an active one is they always seem to bump themselves into things). He is so active though as spots an open door, a little crumb (or not food but something else small to pop into his mouth!) stairs from a mile off, so really have to watch him. He's opening cupboard doors etc now too so will be ordering so door locks.

I'd say the only thing we've yet to master yet is a proper routine, not sure if it's the school routine that has made it harder for him to fall into his own routine or just that's his way of keeping me on my toes. He often sleeps at different times of the day most days so I never really know what to expect, like for example today he's still asleep in his pushchair from our morning school run (nice to sit on sofa with the laptop for a change though), sometimes he won't sleep until after lunch, sometimes he won't sleep in his cot and only my arms.

In the past 4 or 5 months I think I can count on 1 hand how many times he's slept through, he likes to wake and be cuddled in our bed! He does usually go back to sleep straight away though, up until 8 months I'd still been breastfeeding at night when he woke but I decided to try and stop and see if it made any difference. Actually since I stopped feeding him at night he seems to be settling down quicker when he comes in and will then sleep until the morning. In fact he loves a lie in! Sometimes I'm sad to see our breast feeding journey end (without me planning on it) and in other ways I'm glad, a couple of weeks ago I started to get mastitis symptoms so just decided it wasn't worth the pain and to just stop after I'd cleared the blockage!

He's such a cutie and really gaining his personality now, I just wish he'd slow down a little!! Can't imagine our family without him.

Time

Oops, it seems I failed to keep it going with blogtober!

I've decided linkys aren't really for me anymore as I just do not have the time, and any time I may have I am often too tired to think straight let alone type anything readable.

Time is definitely something I which I could have more of right now.

I have so many tasks I would like to do.

And never get around to finishing them off properly, or even starting in some cases.

Some things that I'd like to get done are:

A photo wall

We have a lovely big plain wall on our stairs that is crying out for some artwork.

I've pinned many photos of them on pinterest, and James obviously must have remembered.

It was our 10 year anniversary (of being together not married) back in Sept and James did a bit of a treasure hunt around the house to the end present of lots of frames, and a 'let's fill them with the last 10 years' note.

After returning the original frames he bought (not because I didn't like them but because I thought Ikea ones would be easier to match year after year as we add to them) came the task of slowly trying to work through the thousands of photos on our Onedrive.

This is why the whole thing has been halted as we really do have so many photos, and we really haven't kept on top of them, probably since having Sam!

 I have literally spent hours deleting the rubbish ones, and putting them into folders so that it loads quicker, as much as I just like them all chronologically ordered year by year rather than by event!

I think I've got to about 2013/14 fully done...but it's so easy to be distracted and go down memory lane!!

DIY

We've been in this house for nearly 3 years and even areas we have done are crying out for a freshen up.

That said the lounge is a priority as we have ordered some new sofas from DFS.

 Although our current one isn't old it is just too small for us now, we bought it in our old home and it's never really fit our look or our growing family in the new house.

It will be so nice to have a bit more space when snuggling to watch a film together, rather than one of us ending up on the bean bag!

Also when we have visitors we will actually have some seating!

There's not much to do decor wise thankfully, just a freshen up and possibly paint the gloss, we have ordered new carpet from carpet right, and want some new radiators, and James being an electrician wants to change the lights as we aren't happy with what we have now.

The other room that needs doing is Zachary's, we planned on doing it before he was born but ran out of time, then thought we'd wait until we knew whether it was a boy or a girl.

Now nearly 6 months later, the room is more of a dumping ground than a babies room! I've so many boxes of baby things ready for the loft or to pass onto friends.

We've a patchy wall from tester pots and furniture than needs tweaking!

Zachary is growing out of this next to me crib soon for sure so this is something that needs doing NOW really!

Declutter

I've made headway on this already as I've sold most of my maternity clothes this past week.

I just wish the rest of the family could tidy up and sort through their bits a bit more as there's only so much I can sort through!

James has so many wires and cables for random bits of technology so I am hoping he has a good sort through it all soon!

Time to create

I've actually had a few crafting chances this past week as Zachary has slept longer.

But I do need to create more time so that I have enough stock for the 2 school Christmas markets I'm doing in Nov.

Time to write

My blog has slipped, I know that!

I feel I've missed out so many moments to record, the little things I know I'll forget.

The boys have completed a term at school and Zachary is nearly half a year old already!

Sometimes I wish I could just pause time, get all the boring house jobs sorted and enjoy our family time together!

Baby haze. The early days

Every one says the early days of a new born are hard but I don't think anyone can actually prepare you for it!

The final weeks of pregnancy take their toll on your body both physically and mentally topped with labour (no matter how long or not it is) so when that baby is placed in your arms you need the adrenaline that your body runs on!

This time I think I was running on adrenaline for some time as I couldn't sleep in the hospital despite being up over 24hours.

The first couple of nights I barely slept, not sure if it was some baby insomnia where I was just too worried about baby to sleep!

Zachary was a good baby in that he would sleep laying flat which our other 2 wouldn't do, but the first few nights were hard I had barely any sleep, one night I didn't manage any until 3.30am!

The first few days seemed like we were in de ja vu as we ended up at the hospital on the day 3 (for me with a big clot/membrane), the following day we went to the children's ward for Zachary to have a jaundice check (thankfully fine). I was just in a daze and not with it at all. The bleeding seemed heavy this time around, after pains strong although not as bad as after Sam and I was just an emotional wreck.

Typically when the midwife mentioned heading to the hospital for the jaundice check I burst into tears, partly from tiredness but mostly from baby blues, that was the day my milk came in and thankfully the jaundice worked it's way out after that.

I thought I was on a roll then, thinking that breastfeeding was going well but then they got so sore. So sore I bought an electric pump and then gave him the odd bottle of expressed milk to give me a break and time to heal. I thought that was working but then another spanner in the works.

On about day 9 he screamed from lunch time, he acting like he wanted feeding but then when I tried either breast or expressed bottle he would fuss and arch. He had a small feed at 12am and woke at 7am I was so panicked. He seemed lethargic, hadn't a dirty nappy in the night and I was really scared something was wrong. So much so James went to the docs and managed to chat to my midwife who sent someone earlier than she was meant to be coming over that day.

The midwife was happy nothing serious was wrong, typically (although thankfully) he wet his nappy as soon as she turned up. No temp although warm to touch, fontanelle not sicken, we eventually put it down to him possibly having a sore tummy or something!

I was glad I got to see the midwife I had throughout my pregnancy a couple of days later (I had a couple of extra days on the books and not the typical 10)  and she weighed Zachary who had put on over his birth weight at 8lb 3oz.

I always had in my head that his pregnancy was the easiest out of them and that he would give me a run for my money in the early days!

Easter crafting: shaving foam marbled paper and Easter hats with Marigold.

We've been busy crafting this past week ready for Easter.

Spring is a great time of year to craft, the sun is out and it's time for lots of bright colours too!

On a day where Alex had gone to a friend's house to play after school I took it as a good opportunity to do some crafting with Sam one-to-one. Which I will admit I've not done enough of over the years!

We collected some cards and papers, chose the colours we wanted and bought some shaving foam. (Please read the bottle when buying...we bought the gel one first time and had to head back to be able to make this project)!

How to make shaving foam marbled paper:

Things you need

• Shaving foam
• Paint (at least 3 colours)
• Thick paper or card
• Cocktail sticks/kebab skewers/fork
• Tray with foil (saves on lots of washing)
• Ruler or something else to use as a scraper

How to make it:

• Make sure you clear a space, thanks to Marigold we had plenty of sponges and cloths to wipe down the table and kitchen worktops. 
• Wear gloves if you want to...this would be advisable if you wanted to use food colouring instead of paints.

• Set up the trays, and squirt a generous amount of the shaving foam all over. 
• Choose which colours you want to marble together and dab small blobs all over. 
• Using the skewers etc, make patterns with the paint. Tip: start off with bigger gaps, when you reuse the same shaving foam over a few times you will get a 'tighter' marble affect anyway. 
• Once happy with pattern made place a piece of paper on top. Don't press too hard, but enough for the paint to take. 
• Gently peel off the paper, place on the table.
• Using the ruler scrape the excess shaving foam off, press firmly when doing this.
• Leave to dry
• Put the excess shaving foam back in the tray and mix with the skewer again, repeat until you want to stop. 

I will admit this is quite a messy make! But it is fun, and I will also admit that we aren't too precious about our table as it's on it's last legs. Again having Marigold to help with the clean up was great-as you can see our table needed it!

We actually used these papers this weekend, the boys used templates and cookie cutters to cut out spring shapes for their Easter hats. 

These were really simple to make as it was simply a piece of card for each hat, cut into 3, 2 stapled to fit their heads, and then the extra piece bridged over the top. The 'grass and box of carrots' were from Asda at a £1/e I thought these were pretty reasonable! Using my glue gun I got them to tell me where they wanted their shapes placed.  

Hope you enjoyed this, let us know if you will be crafting this Easter!

This is a collaborative post with Marigold

The 3rd trimester: 28 weeks

I can't quite believe I am already in the 3rd trimester of this pregnancy, the 2nd trimester seemed to fly by, and apart from the odd bit of breathlessness and a couple of faint spells it went by trouble free really.

I had my 28 week checkup on Tuesday as well as a routine blood test.

My blood pressure was fine, and my midwife told me that baby was lying breech (which explains the bad rib pain I've had of late) and for the first time found the heart beat straight away. Baby before now has moved and wriggled at any time the midwife has tried to locate the heart beat!

I have been more tired recently so when I had a voicemail from the midwife the day after my appointment it didn't come to a great surprise to me that my iron levels are low. I know definitely had iron tablets with Sam and not sure if I had to with Alex also.

So tomorrow I will be picking up my iron supply from the pharmacy and praying it gives me some extra energy!

I was really looking forward to this half term as there would be no rushing around for school runs, but apart from a bit of a lie in each morning I have actually found it much harder than a normal week.

I forgot how much attention Alex needs, he literally does not stop talking, and although the boy's have had moments of playing lovely together they have squabbled a great amount too!

I have not had ANY energy this week, we have been to 2 local parks with friends, and Mum had them yesterday afternoon to take swimming, but apart from baking some cakes we really haven't done much at all. I feel a bit guilty, but I think I'm allowed to be a bit selfish when feeling so rubbish!

I feel huge this week, not sure if I've had a spurt, but I am measuring at 28weeks, whereas with the boy's I think I was still measuring slightly small at this stage (definitely with Alex anyway). As I am bigger the joys of pregnancy have really hit this week, my ribs have been in agony and I have really struggled to work at the desk, sit down comfortably anywhere and get comfortable at night time, as well as bad moments of heart burn and indigestion!

 I guess one good thing is my skin and hair seem to still be lovely at the moment and there is a LOT of movement from baby, although it is starting to get painful occasionally, it's so lovely how excited people get when they see and feel it kick, the boys are always amazed by it!

A Christmas catch up! (A little late)

OK, OK. It's January and I am posting about Christmas, I apologise, but this is the last post catching up before we get into the new year-promise!

Early December we popped along to a local farm to choose our Christmas tree, we got a slightly smaller tree than previous years and actually I am glad we did. We got a 4-5ft tree, so nice to support a local farm, and the boys loved choosing it and were very excited about decorating it when we got home-I wish I was but in all honestly I was so tired and didn't really want it up the first weekend in December! 

When we got home we let the kids have free rein decorating it, I will admit on the Monday I did re-decorate it (I know terrible!), and got my craft wooden tree out for them to decorate on the landing upstairs. 

The finished tree

I think this is actually the best tree we have decorated, I stuck to golds, whites and reds, and there are a few of my own makes on there too! This actually lasted amazingly well, we had it up until the 5th January and it was still looking very green and hadn't dropped that many needles at all. I fed it with some lemonade and water this year and I think the lemonade definitely helps (for whatever reason I don't know)!

December was crazy busy! We had James's Birthday, Sam's birthday, James went to America for a week, Sam's birthday party, and then the last manic week at school with plays, discos, Christmas parties, fundraising and more (or course this was the week James was away too)! 

Alex's play was born in the barn, unfortunately I have no photos, we were able to take them but as he was at the back and I didn't have the best view it was just impossible, I was really hoping they would take individual photos in their costumes like in previous years, but apparently they didn't this year which is disappointing. He was a bird, so was in black with a big beak, singing his heart out, the kids all did a great job. 

Sam's nativity was on the last day of term, and it was super cute, the 3 and 4 year old's did an amazing job. Sam was a shepherd, handy as Alex was at preschool too so had no worried when sorting the costume. Sam loves singing and kept smiling away at me. They had some stalls afterwards, and we got lucky on the tombola for a change! 

Alex had Christmas jumper day on the Friday too, of course we had none and of course I then felt guilty and had to make one up on the Thursday night, sometimes being crafty has it's upsides! I had loads of people saying I should make these to sell next year...I'm not so sure after how long it took me to do!

As I mentioned above, James was away for a week in December, he went out to Florida with his family, his brother lives out that way and he whole family were heading out there until after Christmas. We all had the opportunity to go but in all honestly flying, especially long haul is one of my nightmares let alone when 4 month pregnant, and as it was for the week the boys were happy to stay home. With Alex being ill that week, and then seemingly developing big anxiety over eating and going out we were all very pleased to see James walk through the door that Saturday, he was so lucky with his journey home so was home about an hour earlier than we expected. 

That week before Christmas James was mostly off, we had our scan, and sorted the last of the Christmas bits, as ever we don't have the money for buying everyone presents so we did a big bake off on the 23rd! Photos can be deceiving though, it looks like we are happy families here, but in all honestly it was a day of the boys arguing and being hard work!

However we made lots, cranberry and orange shortbread, gingerbread with lemon icing, marshmallow, and cheese and rosemary straws. These all went down extremely well, I think my favourite were definitely the shortbread....although the other makes went down nicely too!

 Christmas eve was mainly spent having a quick tidy up, wrapping the last of the gifts, seeing a couple of friends and heading out to a Christmas service at the church we got married. It went by in a flash and it was soon time for pj's, hanging stockings, and leaving mince pies etc for the big man himself, Sam remembered we had reindeer food last year and was worried we hadn't got any this year so the boys quickly stepped out the front and sprinkled some oats out. It wasn't long before he visited!

I woke at 4am, and thought I could hear the kids, they were both up in Sam's bed chatting away like 2 old women, they sort of went to sleep at 5ish, Sam ended up in with us and I didn't get back to sleep, so was a bit tired the rest of the day! James and I didn't do gifts for each other again this year, and we purposely didn't get the kids much either, a. to save money and b. they just didn't need nor want much! The kids were happy with their bits, and actually didn't get a huge amount of time to play them as we went to my parent's for lunch, we were back there the following day as my grandparents were there, the following day we went to Reading to visit my other grandparents and all of my Mum's side of the family, as James' parents were back we also popped into them on the 28th, so it was a lovely but manic few days!! I will be honest even now in January the upstairs still has some of the boy's stocking fillers left on the landing as I haven't had the energy or time to sort much out!! 

So from our home to yours, we hope you had an amazing Christmas, a lovely new year and all the best in finishing those Christmas food gifts to make a start on healthy eating again (please say that isn't just us)!

My Birthday at Bath Christmas market

My birthday was way back at the end of November, but November and December went by in much of a manic blur!

I'd had a Christmas market night at Alex's school the night before, and had been manically making away that week, as well as trying not to fall asleep on the sofa due to pregnancy tiredness.

Our friends had offered to have the boys for us for a couple of hours that evening and meet us at the market after feeding them, which was so, so helpful as I need James for the car to get me and my makes to the stall and also to help me out whilst there too!

As our friend is also a brilliant cake maker, I had a slight suspicion that the boys might be doing something cakey with her as James had been a little shifty and I had dropped quite a few hints in the lead up to my birthday about wanting a homemade chocolate cake for my birthday as I never get made one but always make them for others!

Anyway the first hour of the fair went well, and I sold about £50 of stock, it could have been better, but actually there really wasn't any footfall after the first hour, But still it made for good experience!

We packed up and the boys may have given the cake game away a little ;) we then enjoyed a nice kebab with our friends once the kids were in bed (proper meat not kebab van style)!

I was exhausted the next morning which was my birthday, we had arranged for the boys to go to James' parent's house and we were heading to Bath Christmas market for the main chunk of the day. James and the boys gave me some presents at breakfast which was lovely as I wasn't expecting anything as we don't have much money!

We picked up a cake which our friend had made and iced, but the boys had decorated it, it was such a lovely idea for them to do that and I am so grateful for the effort from our friends and for James arranging it for me.

We dropped the boys of and jumped in my parent's car to head to the train station, Dad decided driving to Cheltenham would be a good idea, but when we got there we heard an announcement that the trains had all been cancelled, a bit of an annoyance at the time but probably a good thing, as had we had got the train from Swindon, we would have been on a replacement coach at some point I am guessing!

As it was Bath Market, and the first Saturday of it, we probably spent over an hour driving around to various park and rides, Dad was fuming, I hated being in the car (as pregnancy was making me feel iffy) but finally as we were heading out of a massive (and full) park and ride a lady was walking back to her car, so James jumped out and walked back with her whilst Dad got the space!

I think it was after 12 we eventually made it into Bath market, and considering we had to leave at 4 it was a little bit of a stressful start to the outing!

The stalls were all lovely again (we went last year) with many different crafts, handmade goods and food and drink, unfortunately a lot a pregnant lady can't sample-but there's always next time!

I'd say a couple of downsides were how busy it actually was, we literally were like sheep in pens in one particular area by the Abbey, no one could move, you couldn't get to the stalls very easily and getting out to wider space was hard work!! The other downside being the stalls were pretty much the same as last year, with many of them pitching in the same place too, Last year everything was new to us so was all very exciting, this year didn't have quite that same affect as many of the makes were similar-don't get me wrong it was still lovely though, just not quite the same feeling for me.

I think going forward they could improve on maybe spreading the market out a bit more, I wonder if they could have some of it along the main stretch of the high street, but maybe this would loose some of it's charm. There didn't seem much in the way of musical entertainment, even just having Christmas carols or music on speakers would make a lovely atmosphere. Also maybe a couple of areas to sit and enjoy the food and drink bought too.

Yes I was as tired as I look!

Despite having money I didn't personally spend much, only buying one sweet Nordic style girl Christmas decoration, I really wish I got the businesses details too though as I'd love to get another, it was tricky to choose the style I wanted in the first place!

Edit: I've just spent 15 minutes and finally found the shop they were from and it's Salcombe trading, much bigger than I thought it would be, i thought it was from a small craft business, but pleased I found it all the same, just wish I had more pennies for the home items!!

After a few hours mooching it was time to head back as James' parents were sorting a birthday tea our for us all. The busses were very regular and apart from my Mum embarrassing us all when pushing to the front of the queue because we were first to miss the last bus it all went smoothly ;) The traffic was heavy getting out but all in all it wasn't too bad!

It was lovely to have a few hours back at James' parents and not having to cook or worry about food, the kids were happy to see us too, as much as I love them it was a well needed few hours away from them and I definitely would NOT recommend going to Bath Christmas market with younger children!

Proud of their hard work!

And to get back to that cake, it was divine, and VERY chocolatey, much to bump's and my approval :) If you are local and need a special cake I would definitely recommend Sarah (and not just because she is a friend)!

All in all it was a fantastic birthday and nice to be treated too :)

When the weekend turns sour!

I had wanted to do a birthday post today seeing as it's been all 4 of ours the past few weeks, however despite a lovely weekend it's been tainted tonight and now I don't really feel like it :(

James went away with his whole family to Orlando yesterday, his brother lives out there and long story story he's ended up there too...

Sam's birthday was Friday but we didn't do much as he was a preschool all day, and then he just wanted to chill at home that night, then once he was in bed James packed up ready to leave at 4.30.

Alex woke that time in the morning and then got very upset, so ended up in bed with me the rest of the night, he finally fell asleep some time after 5am, but I had a very broken nights sleep, and Sam woke just before 7, although I managed to send him away until near 8 when Alex woke too.

It was a manic morning as I was planning Sam's party, I had cupcakes to bake and the house to tidy...also games to plan or finalise!

After lunch my brothers popped over with Sam's present (a cool Lightening McQueen rc car), and actually that was a big help as they stayed a while and played with the kids whilst decorated cakes, packaged an order up. Mum and Dad kindly offered us to eat at there's so at least I didn't have to worry about doing dinner that night too. Steak and chips as well so really yummy!

Once I got home it was a rush to get kids in bed, and then I started on any food prep I could do then and a big clean, balloon blowing and putting up, printing ninja turtle colouring sheets and games off...the lacking of energy and general free time has put stop to this in the past few weeks!

I didn't stop at all! James got off his flight just after 10.30pm and I think I went to bed about 11.30 when he rang shortly.

This morning I literally felt like I hadn't slept, you know when your eyes are throbbing so much before evening getting up! I did a quick breakfast and got on with the rest of the food, and fast clean up of the washing and once over with the bathrooms before the party at 10.30am, it went quite well, always a bit chaotic with so many bodies in the house as had most the mum's too, could have done with James' help too if I'm honest, have barely any photos as my phone was being used for music, as ever my Mum was super helpful today with the party. James calling at 11.30 wasn't exactly helpful-surely he remembered how manic house parties are!? Argh.

The rest of the afternoon was lovely and fairly relaxing too, Alec kept complaining of a pain, and did have lots of wind both ends but I just thought he'd had a busy weekend and also party food too. Got them both in the bath and out about 7pm to which Alex was really complaining, but more whining than anything else and he is a bit paranoid with aches and pains normally so will admit I got a bit angry with him. He kept saying he didn't want school and was missing James and crying so I thought it was all getting too much for him!

Unfortunately about 15 minutes after he was sick, and has been 3 times as I write this. Now anyone that knows me knows that sickness is a phobia off mine, I hate having to do with it and really freaked out.

Feel like such a bad mum as I got mad with Alex for missing the loo twice, and was having a panic/freak out attack blaming his father for being away, blaming him for not being by the loo and basically wondering how on earth to sort it all out in the process. I sent some horrible things to James' after and now he's not responded at all so I know I've annoyed him greatly!! Him not replying is making more stressed, and I now just can't wait for this whole week to be over :(

I've bleached the bathroom within an inch of it's death, my hands are dry from where I've washed them with weak bleach. I just can't help it though.

I just really hope that it is something that hasn't agreeed with him and not a bug as he was so close to so many of the party today, now in a predicament of whether to send a message around or just leave it and hope for the best.

So the weekend has well and truly ended on a sour note, I just hope that he gets better asap, if he sleeps all night I will be so pleased and grateful. If no one else gets ill that would be perfect!!

I hope every one else's weekend has gone a bit more swimmingly!

Three is the magic number

Super happy and excited to say that baby Spencer no.3 is growing nicely, so nicely in fact my date moved from the 11th of May to 6th May, happy days. 

Keeping everything crossed that it stays that way. 

After weeks of feeling nauseous and sick it has been so nice to be able to eat and be in the kitchen again the past week or so-I'm certainly making up for all the lost eating!!

I even managed to cook last night which is the first time in a VERY long time as I literally couldn't stand the thought, look or smell of food for about 2 months, thankfully James stepped up to the plate and did all the cooking for the kids and himself!

I was so relived to see a tiny heartbeat and pleased to know that everything looks fine, it's always a bit of a worry before a scan, I couldn't help but think "what if", but I have been much more at ease since Monday morning, it definitely feels more real now!

Time to start thinking of all the baby products we need to save up for, we got rid of the cot as part of it was broken, the high chair went mouldy in the loft and a new pushchair travel system is top priority after Christmas! 

Exciting times, the kids are happy, although I am not so sure Sam understands the concept, he keeps saying "but it's not here yet" and doesn't believe it is growing in my tummy!

Autumn half term fun, salt dough leaf imprinting

With any school holidays I am filled with both excitement and dread.

I love the lazy mornings and not having to rush around (no one likes the time limits of the school runs do they)! BUT the arguing between the boys and trying to keep them constantly entertained is difficult and wearing at times! Sam constantly asks to watch TV, Alex comes up to me every 5 minutes saying he's bored, and asks to play on some form of technology pretty much on and off all day!

Today was one of those days! Alex sneaked his tablet in the morning so was quietly playing that in his room, cue tears when I took it off him, after breakfast they started fighting over hot wheels cars and which one was the fastest or the best...this went on for some time!!

So after my shower and a bit of a shouting match I decided it was time to do something fun, I made up a batch of salt dough and we went out to collect some leaves (short walk to clear the head ache for me also)!

The recipe I used was simply, 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and about 1/2 to 3/4's cup of warm water.

After returning i sprinkled flour over the table, got some geometric cookie cutters out and a couple of rolling pins. I let the boys pick the leave and also a couple of acorn cups they had found.

We rolled the dough to about 1cm thick, and then laid a leaf down upon the dough and lightly rolled over the leaf-hard enough to leave an imprint but not too hard to flatten the dough (this happened a few times with my two)!

They then cut with the cookie cutter, using a straw I poked a hole in each shape made in case we want to hang them at a later stage.

We placed them on some baking paper on a baking tray.

The boys also used acorn cups for making imprints, Alex had the idea of making circle indents in his dough which Sam quickly copied, we tried rolling the acorn cups to leave a pattern but this didn't really leave a great effect.

Once all the dough had gone I popped the shapes into the oven at about 140C and cooked for about 2-2 1/2 hours turning them over half way.

They came out reasonably well, whenever I have cooked salt dough in the past it has puffed so I am glad it didn't this time!

We may draw or paint on them another day...will update if we do :)

This was a fun and cheap activity to do and they had a great time.

Disconnected

Here I am sat on the sofa yet again.

I've spent weeks here half asleep and sometimes in pain.

The nausea taking over in waves, sometimes so strong that I just burst into tears.

I've lost count of the times I have said "I can't take this anymore".

Of course I am happy and excited about the future, but when the sickness takes hold it is hard to look beyond the moment itself, let alone the day, weeks and months ahead.

I feel quite alone at the moment, apart from school runs every day, Alex's swimming lesson, the kids odd party, and a couple of evenings with our parents I haven't left the house.

I'm literally in our lounge most of the day, watching trashy day time TV, I don't have an ounce of energy to do anything!

I feel guilty that I just can't be a good parent to the boys, and a good wife to James.

James has been doing so much, he leaves the house very early in the morning and gets back around 6pm most days.

When he gets home he sorts dinner for the boys and him, the evenings I just can't face the kitchen, the thought of food and definitely the smells.

He's been doing a lot of the bedtimes, some nights the kids have had to come down to say goodnight to me here, on the sofa as I just don't have the energy to move.

Evenings seem to be the worst time for me, from collecting the boys from school to when I go to bed I just feel nauseous and food cannot pass my lips, I'm lucky if I have a glass of water to drink too.

Because of all this, I just feel a bit useless. I am 9 weeks pregnant. Only 31 weeks to go...

The positives, I had my 1st midwife appointment last week and the midwife is lovely, now I am patiently awaiting the scan date, ok not patiently at all, each day the post comes I get all excited but it hasn't appeared yet.

After the heart ache earlier in the year I am very much hoping all goes well this pregnancy!

I was going to wait until the scan to post here, but I just felt I had to get it out somewhere, our close family and a couple of friends we see most days on school runs know but I desperately want to tell everyone, I am sure many of the school mums have guessed as I have looked awful for weeks!!

Mother's Day 2016

I had such a wonderful Mother's day last week. I think it was the first one where I REALLY felt spoilt. 

Where I REALLY didn't have to lift a finger at all really. So well done to James for finally getting it right after 6 years ;)

The boy's popped to the shop with James to get some breakfast and they came back with a lovely bunch of daffodils which are still sat proudly on the windowsill so they have lasted well.

 The boy's actually had no patience with their cards and had given them to me on Friday after preschool and Alex on the Saturday morning after panicking it was still at school! So it was a nice surprise to receive another big Mother's day card off them too, our secret written in too-the only thing I'll ever have of it's existence.

We went to the local zoo, Cotswold Wildlife park, it's somewhere we can gone to before on Mother's day and it's somewhere we will visit a lot this year as we bought a season pass. 

We were joined by my parents and one of my brother's, and later also by James's parents, Nan and some of his brothers and sister and fiancée, so it was a right family affair!

It was very cold but we were well wrapped up, the boys have behaved the best I think they ever had, which made the day so much more enjoyable for us all-definitely the best Mother's day treat. 

We got around to most of the animals, and the boys loved it, there is a really fun park there which was fun for both the boys and the big kids! Although I don't think Sam liked his first trip down the tube slide as he sort of turned over whilst in there and came out the wrong way-my little trouper didn't let it deter him though as he went straight back on it!

I think it is honestly the happiest day I have had in a long time, no arguments, no whining kids and lots of fun. I am so glad that this past weeks events didn't happen sooner, as it was nice to be so happy that Mother's day and so unaware of what would happen this week. 

I needed that day, and now I can look back on it and smile, at least I had one Mother's day with all my babies. 

Sam's 3rd birthday, and a Disney Cars and Planes cake

So last Wednesday my baby turned 3, and boy was he excited about it after desperately waiting after Alex's, mine and James' in recent weeks!!

Sam is a little character, every one thinks he is quiet, but he doesn't miss a trick and takes everything in! Once he gets to know you he will eventually talk, and he really can chat! He loves puzzles, cars and planes in particular, and can at times be a little lazy ;) he suddenly seems to have grown up a little, loosing his toddlerish ways, very good considering he will be starting preschool after Christmas (woop, woop)!

He is a HUGE lover of films, I will admit he often watches one a day when I need to get on my work orders, and it has become a little bit of a bad habit (oops). But he is a big lover or all things Disney and will happily sit through many of the pixar films in particular. His favourites being Cars and Planes, (although Toy Story, Wreck it Ralph and The Incredibles), and although it changed many times, he eventually settled on wanting a planes and cars cake-it was always going to be a chocolate one though!

I used the same chocolate cake recipe as Alex's Iron man cake, but I must admit I think I over cooked it slightly! I made one deep cake and then two smaller cakes and layered them up with some butter icing.

Then the fun/scary bit...decorating it!

He's asked for blue icing and that's what he got, it took me a while to do all the elements but it was really fun making the bottom half look a bit like radiator springs from Disney cars and then making the top half looking like the sky and using the planes shaped logo from the film cover.

I made some mini bunting for a finishing line using paper, cocktail sticks and a black pen, a little fiddly but it was needed I thought.  I cheated and used some of our mini figures as I didn't see the point in making icing ones!

We had a few of his little friends over for a party lunch, we didn't do games just had a play as in past experience, party games with 2 and 3 year olds is not a great deal of fun! Then in the evening we had family over for cake too.

He had a great day and loved all his gifts (mainly Planes themed surprisingly!) and is now looking forward to Christmas too!

Superhero party on a budget (games and ideas)

So last Friday my eldest baby turned 6, and yes I say this every year but where did that time go?

He has flown through his first year at school and now we are almost at the Christmas nativity (in which he is one of many shepherds)!

Alex has a thirst for information and since I bought an Usbourne Atlas book for him for Christmas he has loved Geography and also finding out which things are in which country which is really great and nice to see he wants to have knowledge of it all too.

Being a typical 6 year old boy he is also in to many typical boy things like lego and superheroes so there wasn't really much surprise when he asked for me to make an Iron man cake for his birthday-I did however persuade him that making the whole of iron man would be a bit tricky and that just his face would be a lot better ;) for my cake tutorial please check in this weekend...

With money being usually tight I knew we couldn't afford a 'proper' party this year as they are just so expensive, but luckily Alex just wanted a party at home, great I thought until we saw the list of people he wanted. The thought of 16 kids in the house with just myself, mum and James to control them was a little un-nerving but we got there!

It was chaos and they were hyper but we did have some vague plans and times at which to do it! Pinterest as always was invaluable! (Here's my board for the party for more ideas).

I had spent hours making lots of super hero masks using these templates. I think I made about 20 so they had a choice and to leave extras in case any went wrong or got lost. I used cereal boxes and then covered in coloured paper, this would be a lot quicker if you have thick coloured card (I just tried to make it as cheap as I could for myself using bits we already had)!

Alex's mask

I went onto Baker Ross to find they have some super hero stickers and tattoos, I also needed star stickers, sticky back gems and elastic for the masks, they also sold glow sticks which I needed for a game and for the party bags.

They came in and made their masks straight away-this actually didn't take as long as I had hoped it would ;)

As some were finishing up their masks they gradually all queued up to play pin the badge on batman. I'd just cut a large black piece of paper up in a rough batman shape and used yellow paper to make the badges and stuck double sided foam shapes on the back.

After that Alex wanted to play traditional games such as musical bumps and statues which they all really liked as most kids that age do.

Then we played the game 3 corners (usually 4 corners but it was in our lounge so had to cut one corner out due to space) I placed a super hero in each of the three corners, the music played and they danced in the middle, when it stopped they ran to one of the corners whilst I had 3 pictures of the super heroes behind my back and picked one-whoever is on that person are out and you just play on until there is one left.

Then I manically got some of the food sorted that couldn't be done until last minute whilst they played this game, which my husband said they loved. They sat down on the floor in a circle and I got a bunch of 6 green glow sticks taped together and we called it kryptonite (which kills superman if I am correct). Basically they pass this around to music like pass the parcel, but whoever landed with the kryptonite was out and instead of waiting around they came into the kitchen to get their food. This worked really well as meant there weren't 16 kids all around the table choosing their food at the exact same time. James said it was quite hard to get to a winner so the last two spilt the 6 green glow sticks to keep in their party bags.

As we had so many children and have so few chairs in our house we put out picnic rugs on our kitchen floor for them to eat on, surprisingly they really didn't make too much mess and they also had very healthy appetites, I am not sure the school fed them lunch that day!!

We did a typical party buffet of pizza, sausage and cheese rolls, sandwiches, cheese and pineapple, crisps, bread-sticks, cucumber and carrots. After their savouries we sang our happy birthday's and then moved onto dessert.

I'd made a traffic light jelly, and made plenty of cupcakes, I'd bought super hero toppers for them on eBay which Alex loved, I also put out some biscuits of party rings and chocolate fingers!

After the food we played a quick game with some t shirts and balloons, Alex and two others who he chose wore James' and my old tops and we had blown up plenty of balloon (really small) and the kids had to fill the tops up to make them look muscular like super heroes. This was a fun game but it did get rather hectic so would may be better with slightly fewer children!

I loved how Alex ended up looking

After that we had about 10/15 minutes to spare and we were reaching the end of our tether slightly as they were bouncing off the walls, James put his projector on in the playroom and they started watching The Incredibles until their parents arrived-they were sat down so quietly for this and it actually worked out really well for pick up time too as we just called them out with their parent was there.

Alex had a great party, and although hectic there were no problems and for the most part the kids did behave (James did however move his TV upstairs after it nearly being knocked a few times in the first few minutes!), I am hoping next year Alex will choose slightly less children though ;) As ever my mum who works in a nursery was the best of help too, don't know how I would do it without her help!

We had our family over literally straight after so I didn't get to sit down until late at night and then couldn't sleep until gone 2.30am, Sam delightfully woke me at 6.30 too...! The next few days we spent building and playing new Lego sets mainly as he was so lucky and had lots of new sets along with lots of other cool gifts too! I would say that's all the birthday's over for a while but it was mine yesterday, James' on the 3rd and Sam's on the 9th Dec!