Abigail is 3!!

Abigail's 3rd birthday was yesterday. It seems hard to believe she's already three years old! Here are a dozen or so photos from the day.

I put up this banner and balloons the night before so she'd have a wee surprise when she woke up in the morning. She's been counting the days till her birthday for months now - birthdays are quite special to her it seems, so I didn't want her to feel too disappointed.

I put her presents and more balloons on the couch for her to find when she woke up.

Abigail looking happy at 7am! Benjamin decided to wake me up at 5am (for the 2nd day in a row) and was rather miserable. He didn't want to be awake but didn't go to sleep again either. So I struggled with him for about an hour (hoping he'd go back to sleep again). Eventually his noisy self woke Abigail at 6am, but I managed to keep them upstairs for another hour or so. I was too tired to feel like going downstairs at 6am for her to open her presents etc. My tiredness was increased by the fact that Benjamin woke up at 11pm last night (having been in his bed since around 7:30pm) and I didn't get him to settle again until well after 12am - so really not enough sleep to have only slept from after midnight till 5am - certainly not when pregnant too! LOL). But anyway, by 7am I was just about coping, so we went down to "begin her birthday"!

Opening her first present (not sure what Benjamin was doing - funny face anyway!) She started with the smallest present and nearly went according to size, with the biggest one last. I'm sure when I was a child I'd have wanted to know what the biggest one was first!

Stick horses - for both of them! Galloping away - they make noises too, and so far they've been having lots of fun with them.

Looking at a set of toy pots & pans

Benjamin helping Abigail open the packaging. :-)

And also being sure to help play with it too! It's a lovely little set with mini cooking tools as well as pots & pans, which look just like the real thing.

And a new pram! So far it's just had baby dolls in it - hopefully it will stay that way too! LOL Most of the time her smaller pushchair has been full of toy cats, but she seems to think this looks more like the real thing and is meant for babies. :)

Abigail's birthday cake! I made the flowers out of royal icing (took me a full 2 hours one evening last week just to make the 30 flowers). She really wanted a cake with flowers, but I wasn't sure if it might look a bit too grown up for a 3 year old, so I bought a small Pooh bear to sit with the flowers.

Birthday lunch - Abigail wanted to have "tasty things to eat" for her lunch, so she picked various things out at Lidl and I modified some ideas as well. ;-)

Last year Abigail wasn't really sure what to do with candles, but this time round she was sooooo quick blowing them out that I didn't even get to catch it with the camera! Dad and Anna arrived at the house just before dinner time, so we had the cake after the meal. By this time (7pm) Abigail was rather exhausted, but she enjoyed the cake even so.

Snow in October & random ramblings

Last Tuesday (28 Oct) we woke up to this:

Snow! Obviously the above photo shows the hills around our town, so they have more snow being higher up. But we had a fair sprinkling of snow down around the houses here as well. Hadn't expected winter to hit *quite* so early. Abigail & Benjamin were both quite impressed & excited. Several of the below photos show the near blizzard conditions we encountered later that day when we went out for food shopping. Meant to post a blog *last* week with these photos, so they seem a bit out of date now.

Here's Benjamin, who was looking out the window at the snow. He's also modeling some further "eczema pyjamas"! I managed to get 4 pairs of them off eBay the other day, which I was really pleased about! :) It's not like there are many of them up there either. But I paid less than £10 for all 4 of them (including postage!), and 3 of them were ones that sell for £32 each new! Obviously not new, but with plenty of wear left for Benjamin, who will probably outgrow a couple of them soon! So an excellent bargain find.

Here's Abigail with clothes in hand, about to get dressed for the day! She's still doing brilliantly with potty training! Basically we're dry both day *and* night! Yay! I have some special Motherease Bedwetter Pants for her (like cloth Pull-Ups, though a bit bulky) and they're brilliant for nights. When we first got them she was still often wet once in the night, and we had no leaks at all. But now she's wearing them just to be safe - but I'm sure we've had over a week with dry nights every night. So that's certainly progress! And day time is usually just as good - even going out to shops, church etc. It's certainly nice to have less nappies to wash - I'm back to my "every-other-day" washing routine, rather than my nearly daily one.

Here's the children all wrapped up warm & ready to brave the cold & snow!

Benjamin enjoying the snow - or trying to work out what it is exactly - as he was rather younger when he saw snow before.

A smiling Abigail! :-)

Abigail & Benjamin with their Daddy

Walking out of the square and to the car - in rather blizzard like conditions!

Later in the day (last Tuesday) sitting in a nice warm house, thanks to the wood burning stove!

A photo of me, especially for Sarah - who wondered just how big I might be! LOL :-) I'll be 19 weeks tomorrow. Only 1 week away from being half way through my pregnancy - wow! I think the baby will be here before I know it. :)

And here's Benjamin looking deep in thought.

Now, I'm sure there were several things I was going to say about Benjamin but haven't got there yet - and this post is rather long already! Anyway, his speech is really quite impressive - and he's actually talking in a few sentences too! First one we noticed was him telling his daddy "I need choc!" LOL And then sometime last week he wanted to be carried down the stairs (as he's gotten rather lazy in his old age!) so he held out his hands and said "Mummy carry me" - said *perfectly* clearly! Of course I had to comply! :-) Also the other day he was having a drink of mummy but decided it would be more fun to go see Abigail's night light (while she was falling asleep) so he sat up and said "I'm finished". Had he not had a nap that day, he probably would have been asleep already - but naps mean it's a real struggle to get him to sleep at night.

Speaking of sleep, last night Benjamin slept through the entire night, in his own bed (big boy/toddler bed), in the same room as Abigail! They both were asleep by 7:30pm and Abigail woke up around 6:30am this morning. Unfortunately she woke her brother up at the same time (when he would have probably preferred to get another hour of sleep, at least) but oh well. He was happy enough. It's actually the first time she's woke him since he started sleeping in her room (only been since last week tho) but hopefully she'll get better about letting him have some quiet a bit longer. Previously Benjamin has been sleeping in his cot in our room (next to my bed) but I felt it wasn't possible for him to get used to sleeping properly while he was in a room that had noise & lights on until nearly midnight each night. He would often sleep through a lot of it, but it can't be good for a poor child - certainly not one as old as nearly 20 months! But I've been afraid of putting them in the same room, as it's been hard enough to get Abigail trained to sleep at night and I didn't want to disrupt that. But thankfully they've done quite well together so far, and certainly haven't disturbed each other during the night. I couldn't just move his cot in there, as he head dives out of the cot over the rails (it was only vaguely safe in our room, since next to our bed). But anyway, I got him a lovely bed off Freecycle - just had to buy a new mattress for it. But it's a very heavy/sturdy & pretty light pine bed and I think Benjamin quite likes it too.

Oh yes, one final Benjamin tale before I go to bed (should have gone sooner, as I know children will be up early in the morning!) Anyway, he's super attached to his Daddy and has to keep tabs on Peter all day long! Whenever Peter goes out (even if it's only to the garden or on a different aisle in a shop!) Benjamin gets sad and asks for his daddy. Now he's learned to say "daddy back" in a questioning way, and when I reassure him that Yes, his daddy will come back - then he asks again "soon?". :-) About a week ago he got really upset when Peter would leave the house for something, but now he's a bit better about it once he's made sure that his daddy *will* come back, and soon too! But it's really sweet how much he loves his daddy. Yes, he does like his mummy - quite a lot too - but there's something extra special about daddy! He likes to go to the bottom of the stairs and shout out "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" for him to come down for meals etc - but sometimes he does it just because he wants him to come see him!

OK, enough of my little boy - I'll have everyone bored! Goodnight. :)

Eczema, cookies, & nappies - not in any way related to each other!

I felt like blogging again, so here I am. I feel like I should be in bed (Abigail woke me - and Benjamin - at just after 6am this morning, and I'd gone to bed at about half past 12 last night), so not really enough sleep to survive on...especially when I'm pregnant and have a nasty cold/possible sinus infection. Oh well. I did survive through the day, but I think I felt a lot more grumpy/not coping than I might have done had I slept longer.

Anyway, it feels like it's been raining all year, though I know it hasn't. But it's been several weeks since we had any decent weather. I guess I'm noticing it more now that I have two children who want to run around outside and get some energy out. And when it's very cold, windy, and pouring rain...it's just not really very nice for being outside, especially when they've still got slight colds. I think I probably let them outside too soon after their previous colds, when it was rather damp outside, and the colds slightly reappeared. Thankfully nothing too bad, but enough to make me think they should be kept inside where it's warm (well, at least warmer than outside!). Also, Benjamin doesn't have any idea about staying dry outside - so he'll just sit in a puddle or on the wet grass, or pick up some toy/bucket and dump water all over himself, etc. Anyway, the only bad thing about keeping them inside is that they really get fed up after a while - they *need* some way to let some energy out, without climbing the walls! Sooo....today I finally took them somewhere indoors to play! We've got a local place here (well, run in a public hall 4 days a week), just around the corner from our house practically, and the man who runs it actually started it about 1.5 years ago because he realised there wasn't anywhere around for children to go play when it was wet outside. Oh, didn't say what it is! Anyway, there's loads of toys and space for children under 5 to play; they have a bouncy castle, slides, lots of riding toys/trikes, doll house, train set, cars & trucks, toy kitchen, area for tiny babies to play, etc. They also have a snack bar and do cups of tea etc. It did cost me £3.75 admission for the both of them for an hour (time over an hour is at a reduced rate), but I certainly felt it was worth it for them to have a big place to run around and play, where it's warm, safe & dry! :-) I've been there once before (met a lady I'd "met" online there), but it must be nearly a year since I've been, so Benjamin didn't remember it, of course. I guess in the warmer/drier parts of the year, it's nice to be outdoors - but a great idea for Scottish autumn and winter.

The below photo shows Benjamin in his new speciality organic cotton "pyjama leggings" from a company called Cotton Comfort:
I think I've mentioned before that Benjamin has a problem with scratching. I guess we've come to the conclusion that he's got eczema (though certainly not - yet - a severe case of it), and it's not been diagnosed by a doctor either. I'm reluctant to take him to the GP, as I know they'll just give him steroid creams etc (and possibly worse stuff) and I'm yet to hear of anyone being cured by these things. I may well have to take him eventually - but for now, I'd like to see if we can keep it under control by less harmful methods. For months now he's been wearing fleece zip-up sleepsuits (from Carters in USA) and they were great since he couldn't get inside to scratch. But he's recently discovered how to do zips, which means they're useless for scratch prevention! Also I think the elastic around the ankles might have made his feet worse. So, long story short, it was a real blessing when a kind lady from our homeschool support group brought me a catalogue from Cotton Comfort a couple of weeks ago! Her daughter also had/has eczema and we'd talked about Benjamin previously, so she thought of me when she got the catalogue in the mail. And it's full of "secure" pyjamas for children who won't stop scratching. They are quite expensive (as in some sleepsuits being £32 each!!), but I managed to find in their online sale the above photographed ones (minus the shirt underneath) for less than half price, so at £10 each they looked a real bargain when compared with the full price ones! :-) We got him a couple pairs and they look a lot more comfortable, and *are* more secure, though Benjamin seems to find a way to slip his hands into *anything*! I am in need of brainstorming to think of something breathable, yet secure, that I can make for him to wear during the days. He's been wearing tights (under vests/onesies), with trousers & shirt over, but in addition to the fact that that's not good for his skin, he can also slip his hands inside - his nappy at least!

So....my brain is a bit overloaded at the moment with trying to sort him out! Not to mention the fact that we thought maybe we should try to omit cows milk from his diet for a little while to see if the itching dies down at all. So it was interesting trying to find alternative stuff in Tesco today! We managed to get goat's milk, some Greek Feta cheese (which is from goats/ewes milk), some dairy-free chocolate buttons (yes, he *must* have some chocolate! LOL), and some soya "yoghurt". The cheese amazingly was approved of by Benjamin, and the goat's milk too (at least with some choc Nesquick added - tho I think he'll be fine with it on it's own too)...but the soya yoghurt....well, let's just say he preferred to feed it to his daddy & Abigail! We'll try it again tomorrow, but I think he's not keen on it. And unfortunately, dairy products seem to be high up on his list of must-haves. I did realise later in the day that I didn't have *any* dairy-free snacks/cookies for him, so thanks to Google, I managed to find a recipe for some oatmeal raisin cookies. I have to say - I think the recipe is great - they taste better (in my opinion) than ones full of butter and lots more sugar, eggs, etc. Here's a link in case anyone wants to give them a try - they use very little ingredients too: http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1710,157166-239206,00.html

Well, I feel like I've already written a book here - and not even got past very many of the photos I uploaded - though I don't think they are very interesting really.

Benjamin, fully clothed, in a bath without water (thankfully!). He likes to hurry as fast as he can and dive into the bath tub - ouch!

Playing with their (Benjamin's) train set - actually in the sunshine too! But I'll bet you it was raining again before the hour was over! ;-) We keep getting bursts of sunshine where you'd think it was going to clear & be lovely...but before you can even get ready to go outside or something, the dark clouds arrive, and with them, rain!

All tucked up in his cot, with his new duvet set! I found it at Lidl last week - half price, and Benjamin fell in love with all the trucks and diggers. I thought it was a single bed size (so we'd get it for when he moved into a bigger bed) but turns out it was cot size! So, he's pleased with his new bedding.

Last week, making some "M & M Cookies" with Smarties (well, Tesco's version of them!). Something to occupy them when it's wet outside.

Without any prompting, or even anyone's example (which is actually rare for me), Benjamin took the big wooden spoon from the bowl and started eating the dough off! LOL

Nappies! :-) I've been having fun with Dylon dye. I bought some size 1 Little Lamb nappies (shaped/fitted terry ones) from someone a couple of months back and thought I'd give them a facelift, instead of 17 boring white nappies. So we got yellow, purple (tho much brighter than the photo shows) and bright orange. I realise it's rather a while before the baby arrives, but better to have them ready early, right?! ;-)

OK, I'm off now - goodnight!

Cars, Colds, Potty Training, & anything else!

I've felt like saying something here for days (nothing in particular, just thought I'd blog) but time has got away from me, as usual. It doesn't help that I've been full of a miserable cold for the past 10 days. Peter had it first, then Abigail, and then Benjamin. It lasted about 2.5 weeks with each of them - the horrible hacking cough being worst of all (I think I mentioned about Benjamin having it last time). Anyway, so now it's my turn. Just hope it goes away soon - the wheezing sounds from my breathing are really annoying! LOL

This post will be unusual in that there are *only* 5 photos! Guess I haven't been using my camera very much lately.

Here's Benjamin with a couple of small cars (which actually, happen to be Peter's from when he was a child!!). Anyway, cars (and buses) are Benjamin's passion at the moment (not to mention chocolate & cheese - hmm - cars, choc, & cheese all start with C!). Anyway, he shouts "cars, cars" whenever he sees some and he just has to hold a couple all day long (even when he's having a feed to go to sleep)! In a similar way that some children would cuddle a favourite teddy, it's metal cars for Benjamin! :) He's learning colours from the cars too. He can correctly identify which car is red, blue, orange and white. But orange is his favourite. The other night he was about to go up the stairs to bed and he started shouting out "orange! orange!" and ran back to get a orange car! It's really fun to watch him learn so many new things each day - and at the same time it makes me realise that he really isn't a baby anymore. Where does the time go? He's already 19 months old.

Speaking of growing up, I think Abigail looks very grown up in this photo! :) She'll be 3 years old in less than a month - wow!

Thanks to Abigail, she's just about potty trained!! Yay - no worries that I'll be washing nappies for 3 children come April! LOL Anyway, about 2 weeks ago Abigail woke up one morning and insisted that she wanted to wear big girl pants. I wasn't feeling very energetic that morning (perhaps it wasn't much past 6am!) and I told her no, she needed to wear a nappy, else we'd end up with lots of puddles in the carpet (as happened the previous few occasions when she wanted to wear pants). Well, she was really determined that she didn't want a nappy, so I gave in. And I must say, that we had far more in the potty than we had in the floor on that first day, and things have only improved with time! We didn't have *any* accidents yesterday, and that even included going to church in the morning (tho she was in a "side-snapping pocket nappy" which pulls up & down like pants, just in case!). I have had 1 or 2 days were we seemed to get several accidents in a row and I wondered what went wrong - but it never lasted long, thankfully. So at last, she's got her reward of big girl pants with Dora the Explorer - and I also found her some with Lola (as in, Charlie & Lola) who she really likes. I'm really pleased with her progress and the fact that she was determined to do it herself (I was feeling too tired with pregnancy to want to do potty training) but she obviously knew better what needed to be done. :)

Here's Benjamin wearing some trousers I'd just made him. He loves the helicopters on them! I thought I should do a bit of sewing and use more of my PRR (Painting Red Rhinos) fabric that I'd bought off eBay back in May. And since Benjamin is outgrowing a lot of his trousers, it was a useful way to spend time - or so I think. :) Especially since it's not always easy to find trousers that fit nicely over cloth nappies. The fabric was meant to be a darker green, but for some reason the dye didn't seem to take very well on this occasion - though the pink fabrics I did for Abigail were lovely, as were the small nappies I dyed bright orange!

Riding a lorry in the back garden.

And here's Abigail wearing a skirt that I threw together in 20 minutes or so. It's probably not very straight or neat looking, but I just cut out a wee square of fabric and sewed up a skirt for her to play in. She's also wearing her "new" winter boots that she got the same day. The weather has been so damp & cold lately that one feels it's nearly winter.

Well, I'm now nearly 16 weeks pregnant! Again, I wonder where the time goes - seems the weeks pass so quickly. I'm still feeling lots better, though perhaps slightly more picky about foods than I would be if I weren't pregnant. But it's wonderful not being sick anymore. If only the cold would go away, I think I'd feel just perfect! :)

OK, should get myself to bed. Abigail often wakes up around 6:30 to 7 (somtimes a bit earlier) since she goes to bed before 8pm. I enjoy getting up early in that I get lots more done in the day and am pleased to see what I can accomplish before lunch. But getting to bed too late at night means I'm not all that excited about getting up before 7! :)

Highland Folk Museum etc

Apologies in advance for the huge amount of photos in this post. Most of them are from last Friday when we had a day out at the Highland Folk Museum, though there are a few other unrelated photos too. But anyway, seems I couldn't decide which to leave out, so there are 15 photos in this post!

I'll start by saying thank you for all the kind congratulations that were posted in response to my last post. And I'm pleased to say that I'm feeling remarkably better than I was early last week. In fact, I woke up last Wednesday morning and thought "Wow, I actually feel human again!" and thankfully it's still the same - I'm soooo much better. I won't say that I don't ever have times where I'm feeling a bit sick (mainly if I stay up too late at night or let myself get an empty stomach), but otherwise the awful nausea is gone and I'm back to being able to eat real foods again! For the past 7 days I've been able to eat the same dinner I cook for the rest of my family - no more Rice Krispies for dinner! :)

Abigail and Benjamin both still have their chest colds, though Abigail's doesn't seem to be affecting her very badly. But Benjamin still has a very noisy chest when he breathes and he is coughing a lot at nights (esp tonight). Just hope he gets better soon, as he has to be monitored closely since coughing seems to make him vomit easily.

Benjamin giggling late at night (if you can see his face from behind the blanket), in his cute nightime nappy (a Slinki Minki fleece pocket, stuffed with a bamboo prefold, for anyone who is interested in cloth nappies! LOL) Benjamin usually has *lots* of clothes on (since he has a bad scratching habit) but I had to change his pjs after he was sick one night, so he was having fun crawling round the bed in just his nappy!

Last Friday we spent the day in Newtonmore at the Highland Folk Museum - from about 11am till a bit after 4pm. There was a "home-ed group" going and we thought we'd go along too. It was people connected together through something called NOSHED (North of Scotland Home-Edders) who organised it - it's not a Christian group, just a general way of home educating families connecting with each other and doing educational things together. There must have been 7 other families there with children of all ages and we had a nice day. The museum is certainly well worth visiting - and free admission too - so if anyone wants to come over and see us in Scotland, you'll have to go there too! :) It was interesting to see how local people lived long ago and their ways of survival.

Abigail walking along some sort of bench - not sure what the wood was from or meant for! (Probably the big notice board nearby said, but I don't think I read it!)
Various people from the group - can't remember what this building was either! [blush]

Benjamin on a big tractor! He didn't want to get off it either.

Abigail taking a turn on the tractor.

Benjamin having a go on a real slate. Abigail saw the older children with quill pens, so she decided to dip her "slate marking instrument" in her ink well and made rather a mess!

View of the one room school - with lots of the home ed children (and some parents) sitting at the desks.

A view of part of the museum - the red/white building is the church (can't remember it's name) but I think it's only about 100 years old. It had Gaelic Psalm singing playing inside!

Some of the children all wanting to ride on the digger

Inside one of the houses, from a 1700s period settlement - sitting round the fire (it was nearly too smokey to be able to breathe properly!).

Abigail sweeping her dirt floor - with a broom made from heather.

Playing at the play park at the end of the day - Abigail played there a few times during the day, but Benjamin only got out at the end (as it was really meant for older children) but he had lots of fun in the wee house.

Abigail and Benjamin in one of the high houses together.

This is the way Benjamin makes apple pie - though it looks like he's thinking "oh no!" - he wanted to scatter the apple peelings everywhere and walk around the table! At least it's not quite so bad as having him stand in a chair in the kitchen (which means dishes and water everywhere).

Just to show that he *can* sit nicely and calmly...if he wants to! He seems to enjoy walking across the table and then sitting in his booster seat. In fact, the other day he sat here for a whole *hour*, just looking at books & magazines with Abigail - he wasn't strapped in either. I was surprised when I realised how long he'd been sitting still - but doesn't happen all the time. :)

OK, enough from me - must be a mile long of words and photos - sorry! Will try to be briefer next time. :)