Today I took photos for a ‘this is what we did today’ post, but when I uploaded them, realised that there were loads of other such similar photos that I’d never blogged. So here they are! It looks a bit like ‘look what a wonderful Mummy I am for doing so many activities with my children’ but it really is over a period of time and I’m not about to start taking photos of the times I’m not being such a good Mummy LOL!
Blow-painting, as inspired by Doodle Do (as is a lot of the craft stuff we do - it’s our favourite programme):
Cotton-tail’s first food:
Baking (oh, I am so motherly 
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This is the girls doing footprint painting a while ago. It was good fun and I can’t believe I managed to contain the mess, but somehow I did! The results are on our living room wall 
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Jumping for joy at the excitement of being allowed to do something they’d been going on at me about for ever! (Oh yes, and in pyjamas as well - I think we were having a pyjama day that day)
My preparations for cleaning feet afterwards
Contemplating the paint!
And this is the tea party I discovered them having after I cleaned the kitchen up 
Sorry to brag, but my children are seriously gorgeous! I shall keep the link to this post handy and look at it every time they’re driving me potty to remind me why I love them
Lucy has found a way to learn about her ‘readers’ - something I’ve often wondered about as I know that far more people read this blog than comment on it…so who are you? Tell me about yourselves, and people who do comment anyway, tell me who you are here as well 
One of the things I’m looking forward to most about owning our own house is the garden. Up until now in our rented houses, I’ve half-heartedly planted up pots and hanging baskets but I’ve never felt much motivation to do anything else, despite being very keen to grow our own vegetables and maybe some berries. It’s just too frustrating knowing that any work I do in the garden will not benefit us in the long-term as we may not be staying there for more than one summer. Now it looks like we might be able to stay here for as long as we want, we are excitedly making plans for the garden (and the house…but of course house plans are relatively expensive so they’ll have to wait!).
Over the summer we are planning to clear away the bushes beside the play house. There’s a silver birch where the bushes start to get taller, so we’ll only clear as far as there. Then we’re going to move the playhouse and, in the Autumn, dig that whole regtangle over with some rotted manure from a friend with a farm ready to grow some vegetables in next year.
This weekend, we’re going to cut down the left hand side of this buddleia (can you see that branch growing diagonally? It’s that one we’ll cut off). We’re then going to move the hexagonal wooden ’sand pit’ thing into that space, which gets a lot of sun from noon onwards, fill it with compost from Mum and Dad’s ancient compost bin and plant a load of herbs I bought yesterday.
Yesterday the girls sowed their sunflower seeds that Flopsy won when playing pass-the-parcel at her friend’s birthday party:
And I planted sweet peas: 
And Cotton-tail lazed about on her mat:
Just to round off the photos post, here’s Mopsy before her bicycle accident on Saturday: 
and a great action shot of them both in the paddling pool: 
We received the option of quite a few different mortgages from our broker today so we’re very excited now! I rang up our landlady to make an offer, with my heart beating very fast and feeling very like Kirstie from Location, Location, Location….she wasn’t in!!!!!!!!!!!! How frustrating? Still, in the meantime I rang a solicitor who had been recommended to us by a friend who’s used her twice. I expected to be speaking to someone very important sounding and felt a bit scared but in fact she turned out to be a very bubbly welsh-woman. She started to give us a quote, then said “hang on, what’s your postcode? there are some areas in this city that are exempt from stamp duty.” She looked it up and, lo and behold, we don’t have to pay it! Hurrah! Another exciting thing :-) So now we’re just waiting for our landlady (who doesn’t have an answer machine!) to be in so we can make our first offer. Watch this space!
My computer (6 years old) was getting slower and slower so a friend of DH’s offered to clear it all off for me. However, my computer was so rubbish that it defied nearly all his attempts to do so and he only just managed, after about 6 hours of trying, to get Windoes 98 re-booted (or something - not sure of all the right lingo!) onto it. Unfortunately, the ‘recovery’ disk I had with the computer is not actually a recover disk, so I have no drivers (or something) installed for my sound and video - this means that I can’t hear anything (whichi isn’t so bad) and that everything looks like it’s on an old BBC computer - really big and crappy! It’s quite frustrating. My parents have offered me their old computer, which I’m very graetufl for - it will be slow, but at least I’ll be able to see and hear things! My computer is now super-fast, but super-annoying in other wasy, sadly. I don’t really understand the driver thing, but I’m told that it would take hours to work out which drivers I’d need and to get hold of them, or something. We need to save up for a new computer, but I have no idea how long it’s going to take…if only they weren’t so expensive :-( Anyway, there definitely won’t be any photos on here for some time now. Luckily, DH’s friend kindly saved all our photos onto CDs for us, as well as all my emails and documents so even though they’re not on my computer now, they will be able to be on my parents when I get it next weekend.
Tagged by Carlotta, although this may not be as long as hers as I want to go upstairs and feed Cotton-tail in front of the tv while DH reads Mopsy to sleep!
1. Bit obvious this one: Cotton-tail’s arrival! In fact, along with Flopsy and Mopsy’s arrivals, one of the three best things ever to have happened in my entire life
2. Qualifying as a BFC - particularly when I had thought I’d have to wait until the new year!
3. Watching the relationship between Flopsy and Mopsy develop into a very beautiful friendship - these sisters very clearly love each other and enjoy each other’s company immensely.
4. Continuing to be loved and cherished by my DH who is a very special man and an exceptional husband and father.
5. Continuing to be loved and cherished by my wonderful parents - without their support our lives would undoubtedly be much, much harder.
6. Enjoying the continuing strengthening of friendships - two in particular - both between myself and my friends, and between our children.
7. Realising just how blessed I am in my life at the moment.
Thank you all for your kind congratulatory messages - I had no idea so many people regularly read my blog! Things are going wonderfully with Poppy (who will hear-after be known as Cotton-tail - how convenient that she was a girl!) and Flopsy and Mopsy really do adore her, always asking to hold her or coming to give her kisses. Flopsy even sings to her if I’m not there when she starts crying.
I’m going to try to write a proper birth story, but I know I won’t be able to do it all in one go so it will probably be in several instalments fitted in between other posts. I’m sure it’s easy to work out that I went into labour quite some time before Cotton-tail was actually born. The short story was that my contractions remained irregular for about 24 hours, then at 7.30am on 20th, they got regular and stronger very suddenly - Cotton-tail was born 3 hours later. If my MW had gone on the ’strong, regular contractions’ definition of the first stage of labour, it would have only been 3 hours, but because I was 5cm dilated when she first examined me at lunchtime on the 19th, she had to record that it lasted a whopping SEVENTEEN HOURS!!!!! My longest labour yet 
! However, all of us who were there (Mum, the MW and DH - oh yes, and me!) could quite clearly identify several factors that were holding me back from labouring properly (will go into those later). Once my body finally gave in and got on with it, it all progressed very normally, quickly and quite dramatically towards the end. It all went very well - I only got a first degree tear (3rd deg with Flopsy, which had to be stitched under a spinal anaesthetic in hospital, and a 2nd deg with Mopsy, which the MW stitched at home) so no stitches this time - hurrah!
Cotton-tail is simply gorgeous and wonderful and perfect and DH and I are the happiest we’ve ever been at the moment. I’ll be posting photos soon - just got to upload them to the computer and, considering that this is the first time I’ve even switched the thing on since I posted that I was in labour, it may be some time before I get round to doing that. Cotton-tail’s having her first bath tonight - can’t wait! Once Mopsy is asleep (too stressful to have a little 23m-old involved with that!), Flopsy and I will get in the bath and DH will give us Cotton-tail - Flopsy and I are really excited - it’s so wonderful bathing with a newborn.
This is Clare’s mother and I’m really thrilled to be able to pass on the great news that Poppy Charlotte was born on Wednesday morning, 20th December, at 10.35 a.m. weighing 8lb 6oz. Clare will no doubt be posting later about the actual birth, but suffice to say that Poppy was born at home in water, as Clare had wanted. Both Flopsy and Mopsy were there to welcome their new baby sister into the world.
Clare is taking a few days away from the computer, but I will print out and pass on any messages to her. She is tired, but extremely happy, and all is well with both her and Poppy.
Happy Christmas from Clare and family!
