Yay!! I have my computer back!

Anyone missed me? ;-) Probably no one even realised I wasn't here! In any case, my laptop crashed and I was without my computer for over a week & a half. We bought a new hard drive but couldn't use the recovery disk to reinstall Windows XP because the Toshiba disk was a DVD and my laptop's DVD drive has been broken for years! We tried *endless* things to bring my computer back to life but nothing worked. Finally yesterday we got a XP cd from a friend and succeeded in installing it and got the license key registered etc and I'm back online!

I've been trying to post this blog for hours this evening, but Benjamin makes it nearly impossible! He's computer crazy and wants to pound all the keys, or if not allowed to do that, he gets hyper and crawls all over the bed and tries to scare me by nearly diving off head first!! I haven't yet (thankfully!) found out if he'll just crash off the bed, but he crawls with such speed to the far side of the bed and is giggling so much that you never know what he'll do. I think he gets rather bored in the evenings with Abigail going to bed early.

Here are a few photos that I took last Saturday. We went for a walk up the hill that's above our house, though we took a long way round so it wasn't so steep going up. I'm hoping to try and get some more exercise now that I've got (2!) 3 wheeled off-road buggies. No, not that I need 2 of them to go for a walk (as one is a double). I had been thinking of getting an old 3 wheel all terrain pushchair for muddy walks and I found someone giving a single one away for free. So I arranged to have a courier pick it up from the lady. And then I was searching on Google to see if anyone was looking for a double (tandem) pushchair, so I could sell my old Graco Stadium Duo. And while searching I happened to find an ad, posted only hours previously, on a local London meetup board where someone was giving away a Kidz Kargo tandem 3 wheel pushchair - *just* what I was looking for! I emailed the lady and she was happy to pack it up, so I arranged it to be picked up by a courier. So, two days or so later, I have DHL arrive at my house with *2* 3 wheel pushchairs! Not every day you find 2 free three-wheel buggies in the same week! :) So, for one day, I had a total of 8 pushchairs in my small house (3 tandems and 5 singles)! I managed to sell my Graco one and had it picked up by Parcel Force the next day, so now I'm down to a managable 7 pushchairs. I presume there isn't anyone else reading this blog who "collects" pushchairs?! ;-) I try to rationalize it by saying that most women "collect" shoes or handbags, but I do neither (don't even carry a handbag/purse!), so I like to have a selection of pushchairs! They are all different, so you need different ones for different outings! :) OK, enough about my pushchair hobby. Here are some photos & then I must get to bed!

Abigail & Benjamin

Peter with the children

Me and my lovely children :) (Benjamin smiling & Abigail looking the other way)

Going up the hill and looking out towards The Black Isle

Up the hill with a view of our town
Smiling Benjamin in the window

Abigail & Bejamin playing with Daddy's tape measure (I think she was trying to measure him, but looks like he has one end of it now)

A bleary eyed Benjamin, on his computer as soon as he woke up in the morning! lol It's his favourite toy at the moment, though he prefers to use a real one!

Abigail pushing Benjamin - trying out a new pushchair (No, not one of the off-road ones! This is a tiny, lightweight one for fitting in our tiny car. A neat design, found on eBay from a Austrian company - now I just want to buy a second one, so we have one for each of them to ride in, though with the handles all the way down, it's perfect height for Abigail to push!)

Last, but certainly not least, here is our lovely little girl with a great big smile!

A few lines from a sleepy me

I never got round to posting anything last week, so I thought I should begin this week with at least a few photos, if nothing else.

Had a couple of sleepless nights at the beginning of last week (Tues & Wed I think). Mainly because Abigail was waking up at around 10-11pm (after having been asleep since 7ish) and then she was awake till about 1-2am. I think it was bad dreams that were waking her up, judging by the confused sentences that she was coming out with initially, and also one night she was really upset. I think Thursday was OK, but she woke up at 5am asking for something to eat. Peter took her downstairs and gave her a bowl of cereal and I think she went to sleep again fairly easily - thankfully! I think the rest of the week wasn't too bad as far as nighttime sleeping is concerned. But I'm still feeling rather sleep-deprived. Probably mainly my fault, since I never like going to bed early.

Anyway, in addition to the above, for the past two days Benjamin has decided he wants to be like Abigail and not have any naps during the day! :-S I must admit that's it's tiring enough to have a 2yo awake all day (struggling through the sleepy afternoon stages and dinner time, etc), so really I need the 2-4 hours a day that Benjamin spends napping! But the past few days, every time I put him to sleep, as long as he's snuggled in my arms he's nicely asleep & relaxed. But as soon as I try to put him down, he raises his head, smiles at me, and sits/stand up looking as refreshed as ever! :-) But this is usually after only 10 minutes of sleeping and it's not long before he's rather fussy and exhuasted again. He finally went to sleep at 5:30 this evening and slept through me cooking dinner and eating it, but that's about all. Abigail decided she didn't want to go to sleep at her usual 7:30 bedtime and only finally went to sleep after 10:30 tonight! And Benjamin is now finally asleep too (nearly midnight). So, only now after 11:30pm, a few seconds of quiet to catch my breath today! Oh well. The joys of being a mother! :) Perhaps I should rename by blog something about being a sleep/nap diary since it seems that's all I'm always talking about! Oops - sorry!

Still not had any snow really this winter. Wonder if we'll get any at all. I've been wishing for some so Abigail can have fun and play in it, and she's wanting some too. But never know, might just have the frost/ice and no snow at all. Though we did have a sprinkle of snow in March last year, so all hope isn't gone yet!

Oh nearly forgot to say, Benjamin took a step or two on his own yesterday - twice! :) Yay! I stood him up and let go and he must have stood there for what seemed 20-30 seconds. So I turned him around and stood him up again where he could see the stairs in front of him (a favourite of his!) and he put one foot forward and then another before getting too excited with giggling and dropping to his bottom. I repeated the same again and he did it again, one foot and then the other, all on his own! Abigail thought it was really exciting too, so the three of us were all giggling and it meant he stopped concentrating and didn't get any further on that occasion. But I'm sure he'll be a walking little boy soon. He can cross the room quite easily just holding on to my finger. It will be interesting to have such a young baby mobile. He'll be 10 months on Friday but Abigail was a full year and 4 months before she walked on her own!

Here are a few photos, as always!

Benjamin in his Daddy's lap

Drinking his cup of water ... and probably spitting it out down his shirt too! He's such a messy (and cute!) little boy. :)

Abigail didn't want her photo taken so she was making a bit of a sour face!

Abigail showing off her batch of cupcakes with Thomas the Tank Engine decorations - she loves to help with baking!

Benjamin with a few bits of his diner either on his clothes, face, or tray!

Peter and Benjamin :)

Well, it's gone midnight, so I must get some sleep while my children are asleep!