More ramblings

Appears I haven't posted anything yet this week, so here goes! :)

Abigail seems to have hit the inquisitive/adventurous twos! (No, I don't approve of the term "terrible twos"! I'm not saying children are perfect, but the word terrible sounds a very negative attitude towards children. And afterall, a lot of what 2yos get up to is just normal curiosity and requires lots of patience! :-) Anyway, rant over!) She's coming up with all kids of ideas, such as going off wandering and says "Bye Mummy! Bye Daddy! I'm going on holiday", or sometimes it's "I'm going to Ullapool" (ever since the other week when Peter took his parents to the dentist in Ullapool). On Tuesday we were at Tesco and I left her with Peter to put the shopping up at the checkout while I went (w/ Benjamin in sling) to get something I'd forgotten from the next aisle over. I came back and only saw Peter. It turned out she'd gotten one of the hand baskets from beneath the till and went down the cereal aisle (immediately opposite the till Peter was at) and had put 3-4 boxes of Grape Nuts into her basket. (She'd already talked me into buying a big 750g box of corn flakes, which she walked all over the store hugging at first!) Anyway, she wasn't very impressed when I put the contents of her basket back on the shelf - she thought she was really shopping! :) So, lots of fun as she explores new things and does lots of climbing too! Still managing to get her to bed early - between 7 and 7:30pm most nights. And usually nights aren't too bad, with 1-3 wakings from then till morning. But having said that, the past 2 nights weren't quite so good, as she woke up at 4-5am and didn't go to sleep again very quickly. This morning it was nearly 5 and after I gave her a dry nappy, she immediately asked for breakfast. So we went downstairs and sat on the couch while she ate a bowl of Cheerios. She chats a lot (even in the "middle of the night"), but it was a bit hilarious when she came out with "Adiós Amigo", and then a few minutes later "Guten Tag" (German for hello, or literally "good day"). She's got this little language pal thing, electronic toy that Leah got for her when we were in Texas and it has about 6 different languages with about a half dozen or so common phrases/greetings, as well as counting. So, already learning foreign languages! She'll soon pass me up! lol

Benjamin is still teething and yet only has the 2 original teeth to show for it! Poor little guy. I think 2 more teeth have just about broke through the gums, but I'm not sure yet. He gets quite fussy at times with the sore mouth. And what makes matters worse is that he's trying to walk, but hasn't yet mastered it, and that means he has frequently falls and bumps his mouth on things. His sleeping is also rather disturbed - less naps or very difficult to get him down for naps, and also restless sleep at night, unless he's snuggled up against his mummy! :) And even then, he seems to stir a lot. I do hope the teething calms down soon. He's trying to talk too! He's had "da da" for a long time now, and when he's really desperate, he'll say "ma ma". But now he's saying "book" (well, a b sounding word that is quite close), as well as "fire" (said very close to the real word whenever he sees the fire in the wood burning stove), "fish" (well a good attempt at it whenever he sees the fish), and if you say dog to him, he replies with "woof woof"! I think there are other "words" he's working on too, but can't think of them at the moment. He's such a sweet little boy! :) I can't believe it's only 1.5 months until his first birthday.

Hmm, wonder what else has been happening! Peter's computer decided to crash this week! I think it was Windows XP that got corrupted. But as it happened, his hard drive was nearly full, so he decided to get a big 160GB hard drive and not worry about repairing the old installation. It's just a good thing our computers didn't decide to go out both at the same time! But still funny that they both "died" within about 10 days.

Guess I really better get in bed. Here are some photos, tho not of very great quality.



Abigail and Benjamin playing at the bath tub before they got in & had a bath ... oh yeah another of Benjamin's words: "baa" for bath! He gets really excited about it and starts tugging at his clothes. He likes to splash and I get really soaked! :)

Abigail sitting in Daddy's chair at his computer. She said "I'm going to do some work. I'll catalouge this book" (and grabbed one of her board books!).

A cute smile! Looking at some Pringles before eating them.

Benjamin and a little ball

Smiling at his mummy :)

Looking out the front window upstairs, into the square. The "blizzard" we had today - tho, unfortunately, it didn't stick and just melted quite quickly!

Our bare back garden, with snow blowing everywhere! I really must attempt to do some gardening whenever spring comes and get the garden in order! I'd just had Benjamin when "spring" arrived last year (and was busy with work while Peter was studying), so the garden was pretty neglected last year. Hopefully once it warms up, and Benjamin is able to walk around, we'll have lots of fun outside! But until then, there's fierce winds and snow blowing everywhere! Brrr! Just the thought of going outside makes me feel cold!

OK, goodnight!

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!

Weekend in Fort William etc

I think it's gone just over a week since I last blogged, so thought I should put something here before the week is finished! :)

We went to Fort William at the weekend to see Dad and the kids. Since Tuesday & Wednesday were holidays, it meant not having to rush back home on Monday to get orders sent out to customers, so we decided to have a longer weekend there from Saturday until Tuesday afternoon. We had a lovely time there and Abigail had loads of fun as usual! Naomi was also there for the weekend (tho she arrived a day before us and left a day before us) - it was really nice to see her again too! I didn't manage to take any photos, but Sarah (as usual! :) ) took loads and has emailed me some, so the below photos are all taken with Sarah's camera - either by her or one of the other kids.

Hmm, trying to think if there's anything interesting to say. That's the problem with blogs - they're actually meant to have words (well, at least I think that's what the original idea of them probably was). But usually I just think of putting photos up, and the few paragraphs around them are just an afterthought!

Abigail's been doing better at nights with sleeping - going down quite early since she doesn't have naps anymore. But seems her routine has been upset with being away for the weekend and I've been landed with some extra late nights since we got back! Wednesday and Thursday nights had her falling asleep early (once accidentally before dinner and the other night the usual time after dinner), but she was restless and woke up again and it was nearly 1am before I got her back to sleep, on both days! The only positive part of that was that she slept thru till 7 and 8am respectively - but still not very wonderful if it was soooo late that we actually got into bed. We'll see how things go tonight. I put her to sleep soon after 7pm and she was awake again about an hour later but went back to sleep fairly quickly. She made a few sounds in her sleep about an hour ago but so far so good at quarter to 11. Anyway, this must all be very boring! Sorry! I guess a mother's life pretty well revolves around their baby (or toddlers) eating & sleeping and if they do it at the right times and get the right amount! LOL

Benjamin has a second tooth now! Quite cute when the little teeth come through the gums. :) Not sure if it's this 2nd one that's causing him such pain or more trying to get through, but he's had a miserable two days so far. He's been really fussy and clingy and wants me to hold & cuddle him lots. I feel so bad for him seeing him unhappy, as he's usually such a bright & happy baby. Not to say he isn't still full of smiles, but just not as much as usual. Just hoping he won't be teething for as long as Abigail was - which was a long time!

A lovely photo of the two of them, even if they aren't looking at the camera!

Abigail posing for Sarah

Making a funny face :-)

Anna & Abigail working on a jigsaw which was a map of the United Kingdom! Peter, Abigail & the kids managed to do 2 x 1000 and 1 x 500 piece puzzles while we were there! (I did a few pieces on two of them.)

My lovely little Benjamin with is sweet smile :)

Gerrit and Benjamin

Well, I think I'll "publish" this post now. Sorry to those who will have already seen at least most of the photos from Sarah! Next time I'll have to make sure I use my camera so I can get some original shots and not have to borrow photos! :)

Below Freezing ... Brrr!

Guess it's time I put something up here again! :) I try and make a weekly attempt to post photos and at least a few paragraphs to go along with them. Don't get round to much more than that.

I'm nearly over my cold (after 2+ weeks) and feeling normal again. Benjamin and then Abigail got the cold as well (I think B first started feeling poorly around Fri/Sat of last week). Abigail's not been too bad, though I did have at least 1 night where she was waking up every 30-60 minutes for at least half the night, and another night which wasn't a lot better. But she's sleeping better now, though still a sniffly nose. Benjamin been worse with it - very stopped up nose, which has resulted in him gagging at least twice (since he couldn't breathe very well) and emptying his tummy (big time) all over his mummy! Poor thing! He's still not completely over the cold, still coughing, but is settling better at night (his first night with the cold had me awake at least every hour, I think!). Seems Peter has finally caught something of the cold too! Guess it's just the season for these things.

As for the weather here, it's *freezing*, and that is literally! Actually, below freezing! For days most of the town has been quite frozen - no snow, just frost on top of frost, so everything is white and solid. It was -4C (24.8F) this afternoon, and a freezing -7C (19.4F) in Inverness. I think some snow would be quite fun and not quite so cold either. We finally managed to get a fire guard that was big enough to go around our solid fuel stove. Peter found one in the Farm & Household Stores in Inverness on Tuesday that was wide enough and we used some panels from a fire guard that was from *Peter's* baby days(!) to add to the sides and make it come out far enough from the stove. (Pic below) So, now the house is lovely & warm, and safe for kiddies too!

Can't think of much else that I've done. Finally gave the bathroom a good clean & scrub today! Won't say how long it's been since it last had a thorough cleaning! But it's spotlessly clean at the current moment! :-)

Benjamin finally has a tooth! It's only just escaped out of the gum and is hardly visable, but can certainly feel it when he bites my chin! He's continuing to become more mobile and walks along the furniture and from one thing to another. Still not standing on his own, apart from brief periods of mere seconds, though I'm sure that will change soon enough. He's also finally learned to say Ma Ma! Both my babies have started with Da Da long before they ever could say my name. So it's lovely to finally have him calling me, especially when it's accompained with him crawling to find me - so sweet! :)

Here's some photos (and then to bed I go!):

Abigail and some of her many babies! She loves to play with her dolls and copies all the things her Mummy does!

A rather sleepy looking Abigail - sitting *backwards* in Benjamin's walker!

Happy Benjamin :)

The new fire guard put in place

Benjamin nibbling a bit of apple while he slouches in his high chair. Just *can't* get him to sit up straight - he purposely slides down! I think he prefers to sit in my lap for eating, but gets rather messy! :-P

Cold, drive in the sunshine, and books & more books!

Here I am again, with a lingering cold still, a week later! My head and chest are quite congested and makes for a bit of misery when in bed. Seems I'm the only one to have it - neither Peter nor the kids have got it yet - guess I'm just rather run down & should be getting more sleep. I *have* been trying to get to bed earlier, and Abigail goes to sleep early in the evenings as well - but I get woke up a few times in the night by each of my "babies", so getting there early doesn't mean everything! Anyway, hopefully I'll be feeling better soon.

On Monday morning we went to Cromarty. We were picking up a couple of steam cleaners that someone was kindly giving away on Freecycle. It turns out that they (well, the one that works) is really more like a steamy mop for doing tiles, rather than cleaning my grubby carpets (which obviously require a carpet shampooer!), but we were actually glad of the excuse to get out of the house & have a nice drive in the sunshine. We took the scenic route which was only slightly longer, and winds along the water etc. The sun was nearly too bright, but it was lovely after so little of it lately. I don't think we would have seen much of the sun had we just stayed at home, as in the winter, (when it comes out) it only barely peeks over the hills and glides along them until it disappears. Guess whoever decided to build all these houses here didn't think about lack of sunshine during certain parts of the year! We're really in quite a dark place, so when there's ice or snow it can often take a lot longer to melt than in other parts of the town.

Today (Wednesday) we were very busy packing up book orders. It seems that people were buying rather a lot, or at least heavy books/largish sets. I was nearly wondering if we sent out a record weight of books for one day, though I'm sure we may well have sent more before. But I totalled the weight this evening and it was 51 kg (just over 112 lbs!). This included an 11 kg box sent within the UK and 6 M-Bags (sacks with a box inside) to customers in USA, not to mention a number of single books to various places! So quite a lot really, which kept me busy with taping lots of bubble wrap over books and packing them into suitable boxes and then taping the boxes securely etc. And it's not like this was post needing to go out over a long period, as we just sent things out on Monday (we post on Mon, Wed & Fri). Anyway, don't suppose many people are interested in such silly details! :)

Here are a few pics of my children. Afraid they're not very good quality, and Abigail's face isn't showing in any of them!

Music lessons! lol Abigail & Benjamin playing an old electric organ together.

Where I found Benjamin the other night! Sitting in the bathroom floor, nearly wedged between two nappy buckets! He gets excited if he thinks someone is leaving the bathroom door open so he can go exploring! And gets rather sad if the door shuts him out!

My newest laundry helper! Benjamin watching his nappies going round & round!

Abigail "checking" to see that Benjamin knows what he's doing, as really she prefers to be my laundry lady! :)

And one final photo, taken just before I started typing this blog. I was trying to see if I could get a reasonable photo of him without using the flash. He seems to close his eyes every time now (he dislikes the flash so much), so most of my attempted pics of him are rather ruined. Peter brightened this photo afterwards, so it's a wee bit better. Thought it was such a cute smile that I'd have to post it anyway.

Well, it's past my bedtime! Guess I'd better get in bed so Abigail can wake me up in an hour's time! :) She usually goes to sleep around 7-8 (or as soon as I put her to sleep) but always seems to wake briefly around midnight. Sometimes I prefer to let her wake again *before* I get in bed, though maybe an extra hour does help me. OK goodnight!

Already December?

This year seems to have just flown by! It's hard to think it's already December. I almost think time actually moves faster when you have kids (though I know there are still the same amount of hours in a day and days in a month etc lol). But I can't think where 2007 has gone! My "baby" will be a year old in just 3 more months! They grow up too quickly.

Just more of the usual things happening this week. Did some baking on Tuesday afternoon. Seemed to have loads of book orders to send out yesterday (Wednesday) and I was kept busy packing lots of boxes (for M-bags) and smaller parcels of individual books. Nice to clear out books though, as our house can only hold so many of them! :) Amazing how many fit in.

It continues to be very wet here, but then again, that's what winter is like in Scotland! Not be able to go outside really, except to and from the car, and getting wet just to do that! Yesterday seem particularly dark! We had to use the lights the entire day, even though all the blinds and curtains were open. You would have thought it was the shortest day of the year, but Peter says it's still some weeks till then! Will be nice when the days start to get longer.

Well, can't think of anything else to say, apart from the fact that I ought to be in bed! I've come down with a cold the past few days, so not feeling very well & ought to be getting some sleep instead of sitting here! Here are a few photos anyway. Yep, of my lovely children, of course! :)


Playing in a toy box (basket!) together. See, I told you they were best friends! :) They just always have to be together and have such great fun too.

"Would you like a strawberry?"

Playing together again - this time with toys piled up on Abigail's "bear bed" (because it has a duvet cover with bears on it).

All dressed for bed, but in a box instead of bed! ;-) He didn't get in there himself, but he *is* always climbing on and over everything.

Guess I shall say goodnight for now & publish this. Maybe someday I'll have something interesting to say. I always come to my blog late at night and my mind goes blank. Sorry!