Already 2010??!

I guess it's time I was blogging again! I've got another large batch of photos from the past couple of weeks. The first two were taken in the last week of 09 and then the rest are this year. I still can't get used to it being 2010 - I seem to continue typing/writing 2009!


A cheeky looking Clement digging in a kitchen drawer! Seems there's hardly anything he can't get his hands on; and more often than not, everything goes in his mouth next. But he *can* be amazingly gentle with books. Peter was watching him the other night with a large 250+ page large format paperback book and he was fingering through the pages for about 20 minutes(!!) without tearing or eating any of the pages - amazing!

Clement and his mummy - nice and cosy on her back! He was feeling a bit grumpy with teething and was tired (yet refusing to go to sleep!) so I popped him on my back while I did a few things around the house. He really enjoyed it (even if his face isn't showing it there), though I didn't exactly enjoy him trying to extract my hair!

Before sunrise on New Year's Day (if there was a sunrise! LOL) - we had LOTS of snow fall that morning and through the rest of the day. Basically, we're nearly 4 weeks into having more than enough white stuff on the ground. It started melting yesterday morning (meaning when the water re-freezes, the ground is super dangerous with ice!), but it is rather nice to see the white going away again. But who knows how long it will take for the pavements to be clear - they're still rather piled with snow, just not the 6+ inches we've had for most of the 4 weeks, or the 10 inches we had for a good while either.

Benjamin with his bowl of breakfast - waiting for some milk!

Abigail and her baby brother (seems Abigail didn't get her hair sorted that morning!)

10 inches of snow, measured on New Year's Day - not a drift, but piled up on top the garden waste recycling bin, seen in photo below

Yes, snow!

Cruising along the furniture - and keeping warm with lovely wool trousers! They're just fantastic for keeping little legs warm on the cold floors.

1st of January again, Benjamin in the snow

And Abigail, when mummy finally came outside to "play" in the snow with them (the first and only time I've been out there to try and enjoy the snow! I've mainly been hiding inside for the past month!)

"hmmm, I wonder which book I should pick first?"

"If only I could fit inside!" ... and he actually near enough threw a tantrum a few minutes later, being super frustrated that he couldn't climb inside!

He's invented a new way to use a baby walker and ....

actually gets places too! :-)

My 3 adorable children (all eating something, of course)! And they grow up so quickly (probably from all the eating they do! lol)! Benjamin is only 2 months away from his 3rd birthday, and Clement will already be 1 in just under 3 months.

So, wonder if there's anything else I should be saying? oh yeah, Clement gave us a bit of grief with a tiny speck in his eye! I first saw it on Tuesday last week, couldn't remove it at all (or move it) and it was a bit red, so we took him to the GP the next day. He tried but Clement wouldn't let him really. So we had antibiotic drops for his eyes and were told to come back in 2 days. So we were back on Friday and he tried again but Clem just refused to cooperate. So the GP phoned the hospital's eye dept for advice and they told us to come, so we got an appointment for Monday. Of course, that meant a trip to Inverness (80 miles round trip). The consultant (as well as our GP) was concerned that he'd require an anesthetic so they'd be able to remove the speck. But thankfully the consultant was almost as backward to the idea as I was, so he said he'd try to do it without, and wrap Clement tightly in a blanket while I held him. He told me to be prepared for C to do lots of shouting and screaming, but I thought that was better than having him "put under". However, Clement was totally amazing - he didn't let out so much as a peep, and was very still indeed! The consultant did make "donald duck" quacking noises to make Clement look at him, but in a very short space of time, using tiny forceps, he had the speck out! He showed it to me under the microscope (a big huge, table sized one!) and he thought it looked like paper. Never knew (presumably) chewed paper could cause so much trouble! So I'm having to make sure Clement doesn't add any more paper to his diet! ;-)

As for Benjamin, last week his eczema got very severe on his hands (same day Clement got he speck in his eye), following Benjamin having a major scratch of them while at church 2 days previous, when he had blood dripping down one hand! :-( Thankfully the GP was able to look at his hands at the same time we first took Clement to see him about the eye problem. The doctor thought it looked almost like it could have been impetigo! Certainly, the infection was nasty and B just couldn't stop scratching them, no matter what. So he prescribed some Fucidic Acid Lipid Cream which did an amazing job at clearing his hands. We'd previously (several months back) had Fucidic Acid along with hydrocortisone, which I felt always had a drying affect on his skin (not something you want with eczema!) and the GP agreed with me and though the Lipid cream would help to moisturise the skin. It had a different kind of steroid in it too, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, by Monday this week his hands were lovely and as of tonight (Thursday) they're still very clear. I know the calm periods always go again and it comes back bad, but it's soooo nice to see his skin so free of eczema just now! I'll always remember what Benjamin told me last month when he had a previous few days of good skin. I was just "being slightly silly" one night at bedtime by telling him that his eczema had gone away and was hiding from him and was telling him how happy I was that it wasn't so bad. And Benjamin's reply was "That's what God does!" At first I was puzzled and wondered how that tied in to what I was saying - and then I realised, he was saying it was God who made his eczema better! Afterall, he always prays that God would help him to get better and help him to not scratch. How precious that he was seeing this as an answer to prayer!

And, Abigail who is always so perfectly healthy, developed some patches of dreaded eczema behind her knees! :-( She'd talked about her legs hurting a couple of times over the past few weeks, but always had tights/clothes over her legs, so I assumed she just meant muscle/growing pains. But I then discovered sore and almost bleeding areas behind her knees, and felt awful that I'd not noticed it sooner! But amazingly, a few applications of the manuka honey cream made it all heal up! So I was very pleased/relieved about that.

And as for me, I've been busy sewing - especially now that I've got a lovely Pfaff overlocker! I've decided to open an online shop on various wahm (work at home mum)/handmade good websites. I started on Folksy last week but then found something called DaWanda, which is laid out very nicely and easy to use. So I've got a shop there, which you can see here: http://en.dawanda.com/shop/rachelsews There are some other online places I hope to list on as well, so this is just a start. I'm making little girl's dresses (pinafore/jumpers) and managed to have my first sale last night for 3 dresses, which was encouraging! :) So I must keep sewing and stock the shop a bit more - got lots of lovely fabrics ready for turning into dresses! But I've also got lots of fabrics for making clothes for my own children, which I must not forget. I bought over 30 metres(!!) of fabrics last week - lovely Painting Red Rhinos ones! And since these are no longer produced, I think they're too special to use for the dresses I'm selling - these will be for my darling children! Benjamin is excited and has been going around the house with these lovely fabrics, so I better get him some clothes made before the fabrics get spoiled! LOL And he'll be needing bigger "mitten pyjamas" soon too, so I was very pleased to get cute & fun knit fabrics too.

Right, it's after midnight, and I'll be getting up fairly early in the morning - so I must go to bed. We've finally got Abigail's wall up in her room today, which she's soooo excited about! And the joiner is coming back tomorrow to finish it up and also start on flooring the attic, etc. So need to be up and about early in the morning!

One last photo:

Typical boy - loves things with wheels! He found pushchairs with wheels! :)