If the shoe fits...

I caught Tom trying on his Nanna's shoes this afternoon. He managed to walk the width of the kitchen in them before nearly falling on his face. To give him his due, though, he put them right back on and tried again! I decided it would be best for all concerned if I confiscated the shoes and hid them before it ended in tears!

A nature lesson

Mummy: What do squirrels eat, Tom?

Tom: Tea.

Mummy: That's right. Squirrels like to have nuts and acorns for their tea don't they. And what do acorns turn into, Tom?

Tom: Chickens!

Home is where the heart is

I've finally seen our new house! For those that don't know, I wasn't able to view the house when we put the offer in as the children had chicken pox at the time and we were housebound. I have had nothing but pictures and verbal reports from my husband and in-laws to tell me what my new home would be like. My husband chose well! The new house is lovely and I can't wait to get in there and start turning it into a beautiful home for my family. There is quite a lot of work to do in the house as the lady who owned it has neglected it rather. Luckily for us, her neglect of the house has brought it into our price range. We could never have afforded to buy a house of this size if it were well decorated and well looked after. Most of the work we have to do will involve decorating, but we will have to re-fit the shower in the ensuite and have all the radiators looked at (and one replaced). Some of the laminate flooring in the utility room and the kitchen will have to be replaced at some point as the leaking radiators have damaged it. The garden has been left to itself since we had our offer accepted, so the front garden looks like a meadow and the top of the back garden resembles a jungle!

It's not all doom and gloom though. The lady very kindly gave us her conservatory furniture, which is far nicer than we could have afforded. The conservatory is the most beautiful, restful room and I am so looking forward to relaxing in it with my books. The kitchen is fantastic, with all the storage I could dream of (plus more in the utility room). The garden is huge and will be wonderful for the children to play in. Finally, we have two sitting rooms, so we can keep all the children's toys (they have A LOT of toys) in the family room and still have a nice toy-free room for us to be 'grown-ups' in in the evening. I love that my piano won't be in the 'play room' anymore. I feared for its saftey!

The Podlings and their Nanna playing in what will be the family room

Some of the lovely furniture the previous owner gave us

The furniture is being delivered on the 26th, so we plan to move in the following weekend when I have had a chance to do a bit of unpacking. We have enough work to do on the house to keep us busy over the coming months, but I am so excited about making the house the way we want it. It is going to be such a lovely home for us and I know we will be happy there. It has been rather strange being a housewife without a house, so now I can get back to doing what I love...taking care of my family and creating a lovely home for us all to live in. I truly feel blessed.

My husband and father-in-law relaxing the conservatory

One step closer

We've exchanged contracts on the new house, with a completion date of this Friday. I'm so excited! I will finally get to see our new home this weekend!

"Harbour View" by Paul Landry

A trip to the park

We've had a bit more dry weather up here, so we have been trying to take advantage of it before the rain returns. Yesterday we took the Podlings to a play park in the local country park. I was a bit disappointed when we first got there because I thought the apparatus looked a bit big for Tom, who has never been an adventurous child. However, he seemed happy enough on the swing and playing in the wood chippings on the floor.

Tom has recently started going down the slide in a nearby toddler park, but I thought this one might intimidate him a bit. How wrong I was! Tom declared 'I want to go on 'a slide", so I climbed up to the top of the slide and his grandad lifted him up to me. With Grandad at the side of the slide, me at the top and Nanna at the bottom, Tom was soon happily shooting down the slide with cries of "Weeee!!", followed by "Again!". Next thing we know, Tom is climbing up the steps, crawling through the tunnel and sliding down the slide without a second thought. I didn't need to be there to help him, but I was so afraid of him falling from such a height! Lily came up to join me at the top of the slide and was happy to watch the proceedings until she decided to sit plum in the middle of the tunnel and refused to come out! She finally came out after some coaxing and protested vehemently when she was handed back to her grandad who was standing at ground level...how dull for an adventurous baby girl!

Both of the Podlings had a lovely time, though I am starting to realise that my placid little Tom is fast becoming an active little boy!

The week in pictures

Tom and his Nanna with the train set

Is it really a week since I last posted? Where does the time go! We have had a lovely, though uneventful week. We have had to find lots of indoor things to do with the Podlings because of the dreadful weather. In addition to teaching Tom to say "nice weather for ducks", on Tuesday we built his Thomas the Tank Engine train set. It said '3 and up' on the box. We thought it referred to the age of the child until we tried to put it together and decided it may refer to the number of adults it takes to assemble it! We finally got it together and Tom and Lily both loved it. Lily kept trying to grab Thomas off the tracks every time he went past her!

We are just coming out the other side of Tom's obsession with the Care Bear film that Uncle Ryan gave the Podlings the other week. For about a week we had it on what felt like a continuous loop. As children's films go it is actually quite tolerable and I love the music (I wonder what that says about me!). Here is a lovely picture of Tom and Lily enjoying the film with their Care Bear teddies.

We finally had some decent weather this weekend, so yesterday afternoon we took the Podlings to the park (I forgot the camera I'm afraid) and then took them out to tea as a treat. In the evening, Mark's mum and dad babysat for us, so Mark and I could go out for meal on our own. A rare treat! They babysat for us again this afternoon and Mark and I went to a local antiques and collectibles centre (not somewhere you can take two active little ones with curious hands!). We spent over an hour there and only managed to cover two of the four floors. I could spend many happy hours (not to mention lots of money!) there. We plan to go back again soon as I'd love to get some things for the new house.

Thanks to the beautiful weather we had this afternoon, the Podlings were able to spend much of the afternoon playing in the garden. Here a few pictures of them having fun outside, something they haven't been able to do very much in the past few weeks.

Lily and Daddy in the garden

Magic moments

Every now and then, completely unexpectedly, you are able to catch the most precious moment with a camera. This is one of them.

New shoes!

Now that Lily has well and truly found her feet, I decided it was time for her to graduate from her soft leather slippers to 'Big Girl Shoes'. She really needed more support than her slippers were giving her, and I didn't like her walking outside in shoes that gave little protection to her soles. Accordingly, off we went to Clarks. My one extravagance in clothing my children is that I will only buy their proper shoes from Clarks. The bones in their feet are so soft that I just won't risk damaging them with badly made shoes. I was very impressed with the lovely girl who served us in Clarks in Derby. She was very thorough in ensuring that there was a proper fit, and actually advised us against the first pair of shoes I chose because she said they didn't fit properly round Lily's ankles. In the end, I settled on a gorgeous pair of soft, pink nubuck shoes with little butterflies embroidered on the tops (the style is 'iced tea' in the 'first shoes' section if you want to have a look on Clark's website). As you can see, Lily is completely enamoured of them. She very quickly adapted to walking in her Big Girl Shoes, the only problem is that she keeps trying to look at them while she's walking!

Tom's car

I just wanted to share this rather impressive little arrangement of bricks Tom made entirely independently this afternoon. The only thing I had to do was help him find the second 'O', because he said he needed "anofer O. Wheel." (translation, another 'O' to make a wheel). I was quite impressed, but then he is my son and I am soft in the head where my children are concerned!