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

Busy days & organising bedrooms

Can she already be 3.5 weeks old?! This photo was taken yesterday. The days and weeks just fly by, always so much to do with 4 little people to look after! I think it was two Saturdays ago that I last blogged, so these photos are from the past two weeks. A few of the first ones below got uploaded to Facebook last week (so anyone who's on there will have already seen them), but the rest are only just off my camera.


Sleeping peacefully - 13 days old


again, 13 days old


A bright eyed Deborah (2 weeks old), and her cheeky brother Clement! :-)


Clement having a peek at his baby sister


Stretching! (15 days old)


Snuggled up next to mummy - 17 days old.


In a pretty pink dress! 2.5 weeks old


Benjamin and Deborah (nearly 3 weeks old)


And again. Benjamin requested that I take a photo of Deborah holding his finger, something he *really* likes her to do! :-)


"Look at my hair!" rather wild hair after a bath - 3 weeks old


As above, but with open eyes!


This week has found me trying to organise the children's bedrooms! Life gets a bit busier when you have 4 children, so I'm realising just how important it is for everything to have a place. It is especially important so children can actually know where things belong and be able to tidy up after themselves! Even 18 month old Clement can be quite useful when he knows where things go! :-) So here are some photos of my progress so far, which I actually took especially for my sister Leah - so she could see what I've been doing! ;-)

Abigail's bedroom! We've been buying lots of plastic boxes with lids lately - they're sooooo very useful! I still need to label these boxes, but at least Abigail finally has some storage space!


Her bed

Dolls and kitchen in Abigail's bedroom


Clement's "new" bedroom! We've been calling this room the "school room" since we moved here, but despite storing educational materials in here, I think it's more likely the children will do lessons at the dining room table! We put Clement's cot in here the day before Deborah was born, so he could have somewhere quiet to sleep should she be born at night (which she was). And he's been sleeping in there ever since, as I wasn't sure I wanted him to wake up every time she did. (As it happens, Deborah sleeps through the night from when I go to bed around midnight - every night since she was born, often not waking for a feed until 6-8am!! Well, occasionally she wakes around 4-5am, but that's usually if Clement has come through to our bed and she gets disturbed.) Anyway, it's worked out well for him to have a quiet place to sleep. So we moved his big bed in there and as seen in the photo below, he's quite happy with his room! :-)


Pleased with his new room!

Benjamin's bedroom! He originally had the train table in there, and then we put the matching beds in the room and the train table in the "school room". But Benjamin has never been happy with the idea of loosing his beloved train table to another room, so he's quite pleased to have it back. And since Clement thinks the best thing to do with a sleeping big brother is to crawl on top of him and try to wake him up, I don't think room sharing is a very good idea just yet! lol


Benjamin's bed - and yes, Deborah was helping me with the tidying! ;-)


This is a unit of shelves in the large walk-in closet in our bedroom. We bought the shelves and boxes together to store the boys' clothes in (as well as cloth nappies, etc). I have to say, I love these boxes - a lot more practical than chest of drawers - in my opinion, anyway! :-)

So, that's all I have time for now!