Such a sweetie!

Our little Luke Isaac! What a sweet boy he is! Here he is aged 6 months in his favourite pose of the time. His full name means light & laughter. Luke is so kind & caring, looking after his dolls & teddies. He loves to push a toy pram around & is totally baby mad (it's a Davies family thing! The paternal instinct is very strong!). He will often come up to me & stroke my arm or give me a cuddle. He is popular at school & gets overwhelmed with cuddles when he arrives! Luke is very helpful & always clears the table without needing to be reminded. He is very strong willed but we love our Lukie so much! He is very special indeed. ;O)

He makes me smile!

This is Timothy Asher aged 6 months. His middle name means blessed or happy & he certainly is just that! His giggle lifts my spirits. He has learnt, even at his young age, that a smile can get you a long way (just like his Daddy who's school report once said 'Lee believes his winning smile will see him through in life...' His teacher thought that it wouldn't get him anywhere but Lee is proof that hard work & a happy nature can get you a very long way indeed!). Timmy delights us all with his sense of humour & exhuberance (although his engergy can wear us out!). He is friendly & outgoing & is a little blessing. We love him lots. ;O)

Isn't he lovely?

This is our lovely Jordan aged 6 months. Is it any wonder we had more babies?! Jordan is the sweetest little boy. He is affectionate & charismatic. He makes friends & captures people's hearts wherever he goes. It's a good job he's so gorgeous because he can be a little pickle sometimes!! But we love him sooooo much! And as we tell him all the time, he really is the best Jordan in the whole world! ;O)

Summer in the city

Well, spring in the city actually but it was so warm yesterday it felt like summertime! The morning was very cold & 'froggy' (as the twins call foggy days). We took Lee down to The Albert Docks after we had taken Jordan to school as he had a conference in The Museum of Liverpool Life all about Liverpool's 2008 Capital of Culture plans. He is an Ambassador for Liverpool! The boys loved seeing the 'chips' on the River Mersey emerging from the fog.

By mid morning the fog had lifted, the sun was shining & the boys were playing very happily in the sandpit in our garden. Their favourite thing to do at the moment is to bury toy cars under the sand & then rescue them. By the time I took them to nursery it was baking hot! I went to Tesco's to get the weekly shop & also bought some rocket ice lollies which the boys enjoyed eating in the garden as soon as they got in from school. They spent all afternoon in the garden playing with their Little Tike cars & going in & out of the playhouse without so much as the tiniest of whinges or arguments. Jordan drove around the garden to look at new houses. He decided to buy one for £900 that had 4 bedrooms (with an extra large one for Mummy & Daddy) & a lovely garden too!

I cooked a roast dinner for tea with yummy organic carrots & broccoli & honey glazed roast parsnips. We ate outside much to the boys' delight. It really did feel like summer!

And now, just for a moment I am taking off the rose tinted spectacles to show you another part of our lives just in case you think life in the Davies household is peaceful & idyllic!! I took the photo last March when the boys were fighting over the toy hoover. I grabbed the camera to record the incident so that when the boys are older & ask about their childhood I can show them what their sibling fights were like!! I think we will laugh about them together in years to come. (I remember a photo my parents took of me at the park refusing to smile & obviously in a very big teenage mood. I have no idea why! It's funny to look at it now!). In many ways the boys are loving & caring brothers but the process of learning to share is a slow one, especially as 2 of the 3 brothers are the same age & have the same interests... I am reliably informed that siblings who fight a lot share a closer bond into adulthood...

Well, that's all for now. I am off to spend some time with Lee who I have seen very little of late it seems! Hope you are well. Look forward to reading your comments & hearing your news soon. ;O)

We all scream for ice cream!

On Saturday we went to Crosby beach, one of our favourite places to go as a family. The sun was shining but there was a cold sea breeze. Any trip to the beach always ends with an ice cream- it's family tradition! Saturday's ice cream eating was the messiest ever! I don't know why, but the ice creams just seemed to melt when you looked at them! We watched some men sea fishing while we ate the ice creams. One bloke caught a huge fish! It was his first time fishing there too (he put it back in the sea). Poor Timmy was rather cold by the time he had finished eating his ice cream. When I got him into his clean, dry clothes back at the car I discovered he had wellies full of water! Anyway, here is what we did at the beach before the ice creams!

The boys got stuck in with digging & filling up their buckets with sand & water looking for shrimps or fish. There were a lot of little streams & pools at the top of the beach. Luke enjoyed standing very still in the water & saying 'I'm a man' (meaning one of the 100 iron men statues that line the coast)!
Timmy spent ages filling his bucket & emptying it again & again. He was so engrossed in doing it that he didn't even realise that his bottom was in the water!

All 3 boys love all the bricks & rubble that line part of the beach. (I think they are from houses that were washed away when the water course was changed further up the coast when the rifle range was built way back in the 1940s. Next time we go on the coastal walk I will read the blurb & find out exactly. I searched on the internet but couldn't find anything). They had fun throwing stones into the sea! Jordan especially loves to build houses with the bricks. He piles them up & then fills in the gaps with sand 'cement'. Luke & Timmy enjoyed helping with this part. Jordan found a brick that was shaped like a boot & said 'This is perfect for the corner!' & it was too!
One of the bricks had the words 'Monk & Newell, Ruabon' on it. It was amazing to see this brick out of the hundreds on the shore because Ruabon is just a few miles from my parents home in Oswestry (you might say it's a stone's throw from their house! LOL!). What is even more amazing is that Monk & Newell closed down in the 1920s! This brick has endured tide after tide for all that time & has survived to tell it's story in 2007!
This picture shows the finished house & it's proud builders!
The highlight of my trip to the beach yesterday was the walk I took with Timmy & Luke to see one of the statues (Man Number 9 to be exact!). They love the iron men statues so much! We are so glad that Sefton Council have granted permission for them to stay on the beach. We walked along the shoreline jumping waves & listening to the sounds of the sea. The boys loved the bubbles & white froth as the little waves edged in. We stood for a good time just watching the statue & the tide rolling in. It was very therapeutic. By the time we had got back to Lee & Jordan the tide was almost at the bleachers & by the time we had visited the toilets & bought ice cream the tide had covered all the sand & the fishermen had cast their lines from the prom & were eagerly awaiting a catch.

Rain drops keep falling on my head!

Yesterday the sun was shining & there was hardly a cloud in the bright blue sky. I took the opportunity to take a piccie of the Narcissus that Timmy & Luke planted way back in October at Sticky Fingers. They look gorgeous against the blue sky! We had fun playing in the garden before the boys went to nursery after lunch. I hurried home from nursery to make the most of the sun & peg out my washing. Feeling very organised I settled down with a cuppa to enjoy the tranquillity of our house without children....... I totally forgot about the washing on the line till this morning.....
....and guess what? It rained in the night!! Oh well so much for my organisation eh?!

Have a great day! TTFN! :O)

Lee's Birthday!

It was Lee's 31st birthday yesterday! He took the day off work & after we had taken Jordan to school, Lee,Timmy, Luke & I went into town on the train to spend Lee's birthday vouchers. It was the first time we had done a trip into town without the pram & it went very well! The boys were very good walking around the shops. The lady working in one of the shops said to Lee as he paid for his CD that she wanted to commend us both for the way we looked after our children in the shop. It made our day! (I don't think she saw the cookies I gave the boys though!). Lee took the twins to nursery after lunch & picked Jordan up for his speech therapy. Jordan then helped me to bake a birthday cake for Lee. We made a football pitch cake! Here's how we decorated it....
Each of the boys helped to mix up the icing & colour it green, then Jordan covered the cake. I used white icing to mark out the pitch.

Timmy, Luke & Jordan put on the jelly baby players. The teams were Liverpool FC (in red) & Jordan United (in black & yellow). I had plans of putting the players in 4-4-2 formation but the boys had different ideas! Jordan lay some of his players down on the pitch, Luke got the goal line well covered with a line of players & Timmy stood his players on their heads (hence Jordan's expression in the photo!)

This was the final result! We all thought it looked great! It tasted pretty good too! For Lee's birthday tea I cooked his favourite meal- chilli & rice. Jordan thought it was really funny to eat kidney beans! It was a lovely day. ;O)

SURPRISE!!!!

Well, here is the first photo of Baby Davies number 4! I had the first scan this morning at the Liverpool Women's Hospital. We were very relieved to see one little bundle of joy not twins again! All looks well with the baby, who was dancing around quite happily in my tummy. Baby is due around 16th September making me about 14 weeks pregnant. We are very excited! Jordan, Timmy & Luke are looking forward to having another baby in the family. Jordan really wants a sister but we will just have to wait & see! :O)

Well, that's all folks! Hope you are well.

Box Of Delights!

What fun Timmy & Luke have when they are at nursery! This photo was on the school website. All last week the school had a Book Fair & their teacher saved some boxes for the children to play boats with (although Timmy has just told me he was in a train!) We are so pleased with the school that we have chosen for our boys- it got an outstanding Ofsted report by the way praised highly for it's caring community! :D. They all certainly seem to enjoy going to school & have so much fun doing all kinds of different activities.

Timmy & I are playing in the garden this morning while Lee takes Luke to Alder Hey Children's Hospital for his 6 monthly spine x ray & appointment with the specialist doctor who is monitoring his spinal development (he has Klippel Feil Syndrome where the vertebrae in the spine are fused together). Timmy & I have just found a ladybird on our lavender bushes! Hope you are well. Have a great day! Will post again tomorrow hopefully! ;O)

Plane Spotting

Early on Friday morning the Daviestribe crept out of the house on a secret mission! We climbed into the car & drove away to Liverpool John Lennon Airport to take Lee to catch his plane to London. After we had dropped Lee at the departure lounge the boys & I drove round to the viewing area at the end of the runway to watch the planes. The ground shakes when the bigger planes take off! The boys love it & would watch the planes for hours! This blue plane is the VML Air plane that Lee flew down to London City Airport in. It holds 50 passengers & has propellers! On the return flight Lee was flown by a female pilot. He said she drove like a mad thing on the runway!!!!!
On Saturday we were all very ill with coughs & colds so we drove out to do a spot of plane spotting for the afternoon as it requires very little energy, is very exciting & we were hoping that our little darlings might have a sleep on the drive there! (Our boys have to be very very ill before they sit still! Instead they just keep going & get grumpy!) Timmy conked out almost straight away & slept for nearly 2 hours while we watched helicopters, private planes & large passenger planes taking off & landing. It was chocka block full of cars in the viewing area too - must have been about 30 car loads of plane spotters (with their notepads & binoculars & the odd few with a wife in tow reading a paper!) & families of all ages & sizes. The boys love to watch for the red lights to flash which tells you that a plane is about to land. You can just see it on the photo of the Easyjet plane by it's tail. Luke kept saying 'Look! There's a real plane!' everytime he saw one. Timmy & Luke played going to see real planes for ages on Friday morning. It was really sweet! On Sunday though, we were all feeling rather rotten so didn't go to church. Lee & I took it in turns to sleep & we all took it easy!
I took this photo of the daffodils & narcissus at the bottom of our garden. Spring is really in the air! Our pear tree is starting to bud & the bulbs that Timmy & Luke planted back in October have started to flower. We've had quite a few warm, sunny days too. I like spring! :O)

PS Luke is sat with me as I write this. He is looking at the bud on the flower photo & is saying 'It's a lemon! A lemon flower!' And it does look a bit like a lemon doesn't it?!!

Catching Up! (Get a cuppa- it's a long blog!!)

At long last, here is our latest update! I'm going back a bit here to half term. We had a very low budget half term as we had a rather large car repair bill to pay just before the holidays started but we were creative & had lots of fun! On the very first day we went to Lister Drive Fishery & Pet Shop. It is in an old Victorian swimming baths that Lee used to go to every week when he was in primary school. The fish are in one of the pools, all the green Victorian wall tiles are still there & all the alcoves where the changing rooms were. Lee tells us little stories about when he used to go there as a child everytime we visit. I love going there for several reasons- one, it's part of Lee's past that I can connect with; two, you can feed the fish for 20p; three, it's like going to the zoo but free & the kids love it! We spent ages looking at all the tropical fish, rabbits, guinea pigs & birds. When Timmy saw the parrot sitting on it's cage he said 'Oooh! A chicken!' & Luke called the rabbits 'guinea rabbits' which I thought was sweet! We were all fascinated by the bubble eye fish & the golden frogs. I'm amazed at all the weird & wonderful things God has created!

The boys love this space rocket! We fly to Button Moon & Mars in it & past all kinds of aliens! The twins & I went to this park today & they both had a pretend space sleep on it!

Jordan learnt to swing himself on a big swing during half term too. He really is growing up!!

This is Timmy on the helicopter roundabout. He just loves to stand on it & watch the world go by!

This photo is of Jordan & Timmy in the flying saucer with Luke pushing them round! They did this for ages!

On a different day we went to another park with some friends. Timmy (top 2 photos) is so confident climbing up & down the hoop ladder & over the ladder bridge! He does it all by himself no trouble. Luke prefers to stay on the ground for the most part, although he loves climbing up to go down the fireman's pole!

We had some lovely weather over half term so spent a lot of time in the garden. We even had our first picnic & ice lollies of the year too! Timmy & Luke really love wearing the crowns that they made at their birthday party too. They wear them everywhere! Luke wore his on the weekly shop in Asda a few weeks back & made several old ladies days! I got stopped every few aisles with comments about how gorgeous he looked & was it his birthday? Jordan stayed at my parent's for a few days over the holidays too which he really enjoyed. We also visited our friend Jean for the afternoon which Timmy & Luke thought was fantastic! They are always asking to go to Jeanie's house. I was amazed to see how many goldfinches they had in their garden. They are such beautiful birds.

Jordan surprised us all by getting his face painted by the United Colours of Kensington group who have been coming into the kids sessions at church over the past few weeks. He has always refused to have his face painted except by me before! UCK are part of a regeneration initiative in a part of Liverpool called Kensington (where Lee grew up). It is very run down & deprived but a lot of fund money has been made available to re-build housing there & generally make it a nicer community to live in. UCK are training up people to become professional face painters & were in need of willing models to practise on so our church volunteered! In case you are wondering, Jordan is painted as a dog! He also had a lovely butterfly painted on his hand.

It's also that time of year again when Lee delivers the Yellow Pages. We had over 1000 books delivered to our house. The twins loved watching the man unload them all for us. Jordan was a great help to Lee delivering the books. He worked so hard doing it that we said we'd pay him! He is really looking forward to spending his wages in the toy shop! His current ambition is to be a postman (although he was toying with the idea of being an artist yesterday!). He was certainly in his element delivering the books!

We looked after our friend's Alistair & Rachel's cat for the weekend while they were away. The boys absolutely loved Alice the cat! Timmy was convinced that Alistair had turned into Alice & kept saying 'Alistair's not here! Alistair's turned into a white cat!'

Last week Timmy & Luke got their big boy car seats which they love! It was a little sad saying goodbye to their baby car seats but it is great to see them growing up into such lovely boys. It is also so much easier & quicker to put them in the car & they can get themselves out of the seats at the end of the journey too!

Our last bit of news for now is that it was my birthday on Sunday! My sister, Helen, took me shopping for shoes at Cheshire Oaks on the Saturday. I got 2 pairs of Sketchers that I am very pleased with! Lee took the boys over to my parents for the afternoon & Helen & I joined them there for tea. While I was shopping the boys, Lee & my mum planted up some flowers for a surprise for me & made me some beautiful cards & a delicious cake with chocolate hearts on it- yum! (No piccies though- bet you're relieved after all this lot here- as my camera refused to work!) On the Sunday I had breakfast in bed & a lie in. Luxury eh?! I spent the afternoon cleaning up the house (yes I know it was my birthday, but I really enjoyed doing it! Timmy & Jordan helped me too while Lee was out with Luke) in preparation for the evening when we had a few friends round for a cuppa & cake. All in all it was a lovely day, very relaxing & I felt totally spoilt! ;O)

Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief now because I have finished my update! Phew! I really mustn't leave it so long next time! Hope you are all well. Look forward to hearing all your news too!