December in pictures

Once again, no time for many words, but here are 26 photos - one from November, and the others from the past 25 days of December! :-)

Well, when you live in a house that contains around 6,000+ books, you gotta start learning to enjoy them young! :-D This was taken yesterday, Deborah being nearly 10.5 weeks old. She seemed very interested in the book and was moving her fingers all over the page.


This was our first major snow this winter (er, Autumn actually!) at the end of November. It was about a foot deep and stayed for around 2 weeks, if I remember correctly. We had originally planned to go to Edinburgh at the end of Nov to get American passports for Clement and Deborah - even booked a room at Travelodge for the night. But just days before the planned trip, the snow began to fall and it piled up everywhere between here and Edinburgh! So we had to cancel our plans. We were thankful we hadn't tried to attempt going, as there were hundreds of people stuck in their cars around Perth, etc. Eventually we got a thaw around the middle of December and Peter looked at the forecast and realised that there were supposed to be a few days of clear weather before the next lot of snow arrived. So on Monday the 13th we drove down to Edinburgh, stayed overnight, went to the American Consulate the next morning, and arrived back home in the evening (Tuesday). There were piles of snow by the roads everywhere, quite deep in Perth, and a fair bit in Edinburgh too. I found it surprising that some lanes of fairly major roundabouts were still blocked with snow, only leaving one lane left to use. But thankfully we had a safe trip there and back. The following day was still clear of snow, and a nearly complete melt around where we live. I was able to walk into town without meeting anything frozen, which was nice. But by Thursday/Friday, the snow paid another visit. And it's been here ever since. We've had at least 7 inches on the ground for the past 10 days or so. But we're very glad for the 3 clear days that made it possible for us to get to Edinburgh. Clement and Deborah have already received their passports in the post too. And thankfully their British passports don't require any long distance trips! :) So hopefully we'll soon be organised and can think about booking airline tickets for a trip to Texas in February! :-D (Though I think it will be a bit hectic having a transatlantic trip with 4 children aged 5 and under!)


Sitting in the baby swing, around 7 weeks old. She occasionally likes being in it for a bit, but isn't really all that sure about it! LOL


Beginning to chew her hands (beginning of Dec - around 7 weeks old) - and now she loves her hands - and anything else she can get into her mouth! :-)


7.5 weeks old - our dear little sweetheart!


Getting bigger! (7.5 weeks old)


Nearly looking fat here, though she is wearing a few layers of clothes!


Looking quite mature here all dressed up! :-) (8.5 weeks old)


Abigail and Clement doing some colouring - at one of their new sets of table & chairs that we got from Ikea when we were in Edinburgh! ;-) (Can't possibly go to Edinburgh without visiting Ikea!)


Benjamin making a funny face at me for taking his photo with his Lego! He plays with Lego several times a day.


My darling little girl who is too sweet! She's an amazingly good baby and *still* sleeps perfectly at night (yes, waking only once in the night is *more* than perfect for a baby!).


Enjoying some toys, around 9 weeks old. I realised what a bad mummy I was for not giving her toys to explore sooner! [blush] I'm usually trying to keep her safe from her brothers, so she's often near me in the kitchen in her carrycot - watching my every move as I cook and wash dishes! But I sat her on the couch with some toys recently and she loved it. She actually fell asleep like this - guess the stimulation must have exhausted her!


Looking up from her toys at the camera!


Painting in the kitchen = mess!


Some of our snow this month


I love this picture here - she looks so sweet!


A rare quiet moment for these brothers! Enjoying a book together! :-)


Wondering why I'm taking their photo


Beautiful snow - with a robin hiding in the branches!


Robin taken with zoom on my camera


Chaffinch, enjoying some berries outside the kitchen window. Washing dishes has been a lot more enjoyable recently - the snow brings out some birds we rarely see otherwise. I made pinecone bird feeders with Abigail and Benjamin earlier this week (using peanut butter and bird seed to coat them with) and the birds seem to like them!


Blue Tit, on a purchased bird feeder


My dear Benjamin - with lego again! :-) Well, these are actually some "Click Brick" sets I've bought him recently. In an attempt to build up their Lego stash (since it's something that occupies Benjamin quite a lot), I came across Click Brick, which is made by Fia Toys. I was amazed with the quality of their bricks - they really are identical, and I kept expecting to find "Lego" stamped across them as I made up the sets! LOL There are a few design aspects that aren't up to Lego standards (like some wheels too close to the bricks, etc) but the actual pieces themselves are really good! And you'd never dream of getting a brand new 600 piece set of Lego for under £11 including postage! So I have got slightly carried away and bought rather a lot of these sets, as they seemed such good value! But I did stash away a few of them for Benjamin's birthday, which will be here (in March) before I know it.


All cosy and warm - ready to go out! 10 weeks old


Abigail showing me *her* "lego" set earlier this week! This one looked lovely and girly (a cute house) but is a different brand, and I have to say, rather inferior quality. It was a struggle to build and some of the pieces pop off a bit (like the fences, swing and palm tree) but she still has fun with it.


Precious - don't you agree?! :-)

OK, must get dinner sorted! I feel I've been busy all day - Saturdays are always busy it seems - even when the rest of the world is on holiday! LOL At least I managed to get bathrooms cleaned, several loads of clothes washed, and laundry put away this morning. And I've made some chocolate cupcakes this afternoon, between washing dishes, feeding Deborah, and trying to do a blog post.

Smiles, Snow and Sickness!

At last...we've caught one of Deborah's beautiful smiles on camera! :-) Yep, she's got real smiles for us now and they're enough to brighten any day. She's such a precious little girl.

So yes, I posted something here only last Saturday, but while I'm sitting here feeding Deborah, I thought I'd put up some photos from this week. I've been feeling a bit off-colour for the past couple of days, but rather worse today - and now Peter is too. We're both rather weak/achy - a bit flu like, though not a full blown flu - yet! But it's enough to prevent us getting much done today - apart from looking after children, and the usual washing dishes and keeping the floors clear of toys, etc. (Yes, enough to keep one busy - even if it feels like I've done nothing today!) And then as Benjamin was having his shower tonight, he started crying and complaining of pain everywhere - so I bet he's next! :( I usually sit on his bed while he falls asleep every night, but tonight he fell asleep on his own while I was helping Abigail with her shower and giving Clement a bath. So wonder who will be next! All of the children have had colds this week (including Deborah!) but so far they've been fairly well otherwise.


Clement: "If only I could push *really* hard and squeeze Benjamin inside the washing machine, then he couldn't bully me anymore!" LOL :-) Ok, no, of course these aren't his words. But I thought something similar could have been going through his mind as he tried to push Benjamin inside!


Abigail and Clement singing and "playing church"! They play together a *lot* - Clement seems to love pretending to do/be things with his big sister.


and again - reading their Bibles. And what they're sitting on is their new trampoline - dumped at the front door! Perhaps it was a crazy idea to buy this in the middle of winter, but I was trying to think of something for them to do to get some energy out (particularly Benjamin). And of course, it would happen that it was delivered the day the snow arrived! So still in boxes until we get a thaw and a bit of sunshine!


"Pumpkin" Pie - which was egg-free and didn't actually involve the harming of any pumpkins! ;-) Our fortnightly veg box included an odd looking squash (I have seen and grown a *number* of speciality squashes in the past but don't recall anything quite like this) and I wasn't sure what to do with it. So I asked a friend who also gets a veg box what it was and he suggested to use it like a pumpkin or butternut squash. And since it was the week that Americans everywhere (and even some non Americans) were baking and eating pumpkin pie, I couldn't resist! So with the help of Google I found both an egg-free pie recipe (as pumpkin pies always have eggs in them) AND a "Better than Pumpkin Pie" recipe which said to peel and cook a butternut squash and use it as you would pumpkin. So with a bit of combining the two recipes, the result was delicious! I actually have children who are quite picky about desserts (Abigail doesn't like anything other than plain ice cream, doesn't like her desserts mixed, etc, and Clement won't eat chocolate cake - well, usually needs it fed to him!) so I was amazed to see them tucking in and eating it all by themselves, every drop of it! Not a crumb was wasted or left over - Abigail even went as far as asking if I would make it every week! :-)


So yes, SNOW! And NO, I don't really like snow - after all, I spent the first 21 years of my life in a very hot place that rarely sees this white stuff. The above photo shows our back garden soon after the snow started falling.


And this shows how heavy the snow was - the bush by the wall started leaning way over to one side.


Today, Clement going out in the snow - and immediately falling over



Abigail and Benjamin enjoying the snow


And lastly, Clement coming in (crying) less than 5 minutes after going out - bringing loads of snow inside with him! Seems he takes after me and doesn't really enjoy the snow either - though I'm sure he'll have fun when he's a bit bigger.

Now, I need to tidy up a few things and hopefully have an early night - in the hope that I can get over this illness soon.

Abigail's birthday, etc

The weeks just fly by. It doesn't seem very long since Deborah was born, yet she's already 5.5 weeks old! Our darling baby is quite a delightful little girl - she's beginning to smile and coo at us, which is always a wonderful development in a baby! :-) She continues to be perfect at nights - couldn't ask for a better baby. She does like to feed a fair bit in the evenings, but she is obviously stocking up for the night! Between 9 and 10pm she settles for the night and sleeps in her little rocking bed (carrycot) downstairs until I'm ready for bed. Then I carry her up, give her a dry nappy and a quick feed, and tuck her in beside me in bed, and that's it. For the first few weeks she was sleeping through solid until about 6-8am. But she seems to be waking for one feed in the night, somewhere around 4-5am. Of course, the wonderful thing about co-sleeping means I can near enough stay asleep through her feeds! :-) But in any case, a newborn only waking once max per night (since birth!) is pretty amazing.

This photo was also taken today, at 5.5 weeks old.


Clement "holding" Deborah yesterday. He's finally started saying her name this week and it's quite cute. Ever since she was born he has refused to admit what her name is - she was just "bay-beee". He's starting to say quite a few things these days and loves to sing. For a while his favourite thing to sing has been Psalm 100 (All people that on earth do dwell) and he probably knows all the words to it too! He likes someone else to sing along with him, but you can hear him starting the next word with the correct sound (not totally clearly spoken always) but he obviously has the words memorised even if he can't say them perfectly. He's the same with Psalms 23 and 121. Now he's also going around singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", after enjoying looking at the stars in the sky! And he loves to sing his ABCs too - but seems to prefer the American "Zee" rather than "Zed" for the last letter of the alphabet! And it's *not* me who says "zee" to him either, I think he got it off Benjamin - or possibly they both got it from a Richard Scarry's ABC video! :-) Anyway, Clement is a very keen observer and follows me around the house watching *everything* I do and trying to copy everything. He'll soon know how to run the house himself! I can hardly peel a carrot without him finding his way into the kitchen to "help". And he also uses his observation skills to get up to mischief - and he's very, very quick! He'll often realise I'm at the computer and he'll go in the kitchen to "mess" with the baby, so I'll run to get Deborah, by which time he's ran back to my laptop to try and pull the keys off. Or he'll listen to hear if someone shuts the bathroom door after themselves. Or if he sees someone has gone out the front door and not locked it, he'll look out the front window to see if the gate is left open so he can attempt an escape, etc. Lots of fun - and the need for a few extra pairs of eyes, that's for sure! But he's always smiling and making us smile too - as he's been doing since he was about 3 weeks old! lol


The Benjamin - as cheeky as can be! I took this photo earlier today when I took him and Abigail out late afternoon with their scooters. He was in desperate need of getting rid of some energy, so I thought a bit of exercise might help! We just went round the pavements nearby before it got dark. Thankfully his eczema continues to be at bay (still using a tiny amount of a potent steroid every other day on his hand to keep it away). But he makes up for the eczema with plenty of challenging behaviour, which can be quite a challenge to deal with, and requires a huge amount of patience! Most days I feel like I spend about 80% of my mental energy (and nearly as much of my time) looking after him. It seems the best thing is to keep him occupied the whole time he's awake, mostly with something to keep his hands busy - though nothing is a perfect solution. One positive thing is that at last, he's potty trained!!!! :-) Between the eczema and other perhaps not so related "itching/scratching" issues, he's spent the last 2 years of his life in rather more secure clothing to most children, which made the idea of potty training seem impossible. But I was aware that it really needed to be done since he was 3.5 years old, just didn't have the energy at the time, being 39 weeks pregnant. But Benjamin told me he wanted to potty train, and told me that I was a silly mummy(!) for putting nappies on him, and that he should be wearing big boy pants (underpants). We went back and forth the first week or two, and I put disposable pants on him at first, because I couldn't really cope with puddles in the floor when I was about to give birth! lol Anyway, with pratice over the next few weeks, he mastered it all - and pretty much all at once too! And he's been fully dry days and nights for 2 weeks now - not an accident at all! So we're very pleased and thankful about that!


Abigail with her scooter earlier today - our big 5 year old daughter! Her birthday was Friday last week (12th), so plenty of photos from then below. She's really such a big help to me, not least in spending time with Clement and lovingly looking after him. They play together quite a lot - particularly with her toy kitchen, as Clement loves to have pretend tea parties with her. :) Anyway, whilst it can be a bit hectic having 4 children so young and close together, I have to say a child as young as 5 can be quite a help! This evening she was doing hoovering and dusting - she thought it was quite fun too - but probably this opinion will have changed by the time she's a few years older. lol

Here she is looking all grown up! :-)

Lots of pressies!


Beginning to open them


and again


A much wanted plush Hello Kitty


And a fleece blanket ... yep, she likes Hello Kitty! :-)


Princess birthday cake! I was happy with how it turned out, though I'm well aware of my lack of proper cake decorating skills! :-)


admiring her cake


Benjamin making himself a party hat out of a napkin!


Blowing out the candles


The children pretending to bake a cake one morning (before breakfast!).


Deborah was not quite 4 weeks old here - wearing a "fancy" cloth nappy made by Flutterby Fluff (a UK work-at-home-mum). A lovely, soft velour nappy which I won earlier this year in a competition for a nappy review I wrote.


Again, not quite 4 weeks old. Another nappy photo (yes, I like cloth nappies!). This time she's got a lovely nappy cover from Tots Bots (Glasgow based company), one of their new style wraps, which is really fantastic in all possible ways.



Me and my baby, 4.5 weeks old - attempting to take a self portrait in the mirror, so it's not very good quality.


Getting big - 5 weeks old!



Playing dress-up - Clement wearing Abigail's dressing up outfit that she got for her birthday



All in pink (and a bit of purple) - Abigail's idea for them to all wear pink! lol