Sorry it's been a while!!!

Well as you can see I (Pauline) haven't blogged since Christmas. Just been very busy and particularly given how long it's taken the photos to upload (nearly two hours!!!!!!).

So this is mostly photos from January until now.



Alice, Stuart and my mum playing ludo from a Christmas cracker.

Alice using her new binoculars to view the birds in the trees.

I bought some new modelling balloons (£5 for 100) and so was trying out some new balloon shapes given these ones don't burst when you blow them up!!! Alice would put the flower up to our nose and we had to sneeze, again and again and again!!!

The plates we had been using with Alice since we was a baby started to fall apart, so we thought it was time to upgrade her crockery and cutlery. This is the first use of it all.


Alice is now 4. What a big girl and she does think she can do what she likes, when she likes now that she is 4. So we've had to have quite a few talks about the rules still being the same even though she thinks she's a "grown up" girl now. We did use her turning 4 to change certain things and she has taken to those new rules really well without any fuss. We had a few of Alice's friends round for her birthday party a few days before her birthday. Nana (Stuart's mum) came up to help with the party. There was lots of cutting and sticking etc. to do before the party. They all made a wee bouquet of daffodils to give to their Mummies on Mothering Sunday.

At the end of the party they were all given a balloon hat to take home, they seemed to go down well, as they were all very excited to show them to each other.

Then on the Monday we took one of her new presents (the kite) to the lighthouse. It was great kite flying weather (windy, but freezing cold), however, I'm not sure who was enjoying flying the kite more, Alice or Stuart.
Grandpa (Stuart's dad) arrived for Alice's birthday celebrations too. Her main present was the bike. She had asked for a bike with a seat at the back so she can take her toys for a ride. She was very excited. We asked her what she wanted to do in the afternoon after lunch (we had planned to go to a farm) but she said she just wanted to play with her new toys.

Grandpa had made this bee hive with a string of bees the same scale as the dolls' house he'd made for Christmas. Stuart's dad keeps bees and has been for quite a few years now, the honey is absolutely delicious!!!

We had a special dinner for Alice and then the birthday cake she had requested. Chocolate cake with strawberry icing. Thankfully Sainsburys do a strawberry flavouring.


The day after Alice's birthday we went to the farm. This photo is for Stuart, he has a weird obsession about pigs!!!


At the farm they have a racing car circuit. We weren't sure how Alice would handle driving it herself. So she had a go with Stuart and then wanted to do it herself. She did really well and had about 4 goes on it!!


The week after Alice's birthday she was invited to a friend's birthday party. It was an emergency services party. So Alice wanted to dress up as a fairy doctor!!! She doesn't really do dress up, when we go to Seven Stories there are loads of costumes in the Attic and a wee theatre and she doesn't want to dress up at all.

Other news. As most of you will know. The trees have finally come down!!!!! They just left all the trunks and wood out there for weeks and we kept seeing people with wheel barrows and saws taking the wood away. Not from the council, just people who live around and about!!! The insurance company has also agreed that we can use our own structural engineer and builder to do the repair work. I was hoping it would all be done by September however, the engineer was saying that the ground will take a couple of years to recover. So not sure if we have to wait that long before we can do the repairs!!!

This is a before shot.

This is an after shot. The garden now looks fairly bare, without the trees and the leylandii in our garden gone too. So at the weekend we planted some seeds in our new vegetable patch. Some carrots and salad leaves, next month we'll plant some courgettes. We also planted some sunflower seeds to see whose will grow the tallest!!!

Also, we found out a couple of weeks ago that Alice will be going to our first choice of First School in September. She will also be starting nursery (at the same school) after Easter three afternoons a week to help her settle in when she goes full time in September. So we've got a visit to the school tomorrow afternoon and hopefully this will help her when she starts mid-May.

Anyway, sorry it's taken me so long to post, will try to do better.