Luke Isaac

Luke has been quietly growing up over the past 3 months... He loves his Mary Poppins DVD that his Nanny & Grandad bought him from their recent trip to Australia. He is a real character & often makes us all laugh with his silly faces, funny remarks or little stories that he makes up.

Back in March Luke had his spine x ray & check up at Alder Hey children's Hospital. For those of you that don't know, Luke has Klippel-Feil Syndrome which is where the vertebrae in the spine are fused together & the spine is curved (he was standing up straight for the x ray!). Luke also has smashed vertebrae & an extra rib! He is monitored regularly, initially having x rays twice a year from the age of 9 months old. Thankfully, the specialist said on the last visit that Luke wouldn't need to have another x ray for 2 years although he will still have to have hospital check ups. We don't know what implications Klippel-Feil may or may not have on Luke as he grows up but for now he seems very happy despite the anomaly in his bones! We keep praying for his healing & that he will not be hindered in any way by it.

At the beginning of April, Luke & I had an afternoon together, just the two of us. Luke wanted to blow bubbles outside. He was amazingly good at blowing them much to my surprise!

Luke loves to dress up, anytime, any place. His favourite thing to wear is a crown or his ladybird or shield bug costume (kindly made by my mum). He even wore his pink crown that he made at church to nursery school one day! He wore it for the whole session (I thought they would have told him to take it off)!

Luke has a huge sense of adventure & laughs a lot....

...and he LOVES splashing in puddles & mud with little regard for how wet he is getting!

We will often find Luke sitting playing quietly in a corner somewhere playing creatively with the trains, cars, doll's house or bricks. Yesterday at nursery he got a sticker for playing so beautifully with the play dough. He made lots of square 'cakes' & counted them out for his friends!

And talking of school, Luke is doing really well with his homework. He holds his pen properly now & really focuses on the task in hand. I just love his little drawings of 4 spoons & a teapot! I can hardly believe our little Luke is 4 & a half & starting Big School in September! ;0)

Annie Joy

A lot happens to a little baby girl in 3 months so there are LOTS of piccies here to update you on our Annie Joy's latest achievements! (Found Annie's name on a bench in Calderstones Park back in April. Of course, I had to take a photo but don't know where else I might use it! LOL!)
Our friend Fliss bought Annie a toy cat when she was born. Jordan named it Clarabel! So this is a piccie of Annie & Clarabel on our bed in mine & Jordan's favourite outfit taken in March. She wasn't interested in smiling for the camera but spent a lot of time chewing Clarabel's tail!

Annie is also wearing the shoes that we were given by a friend many months before she was born that we all fell in love with (see the blog entry about the shoes by clicking here!). Sadly they are now too small for her but they have been preserved forever on film!

Finally, I have managed to capture Annie's lovely beaming smile on camera! She certainly is our Super Baby!
We were very good & waited until Annie was 6 months old before giving her her first taste of baby rice. As you can see, she really wasn't keen at first!...

.... but she soon got the hang of grabbing the spoon & chewing it.....

.... and she has also discovered that the bowl is good to chew as well when the contents have been eaten!

Now, Annie sits in her high chair for her meals & is ready to try eating anything! She gets VERY excited when she sees bread sticks, yogurts or the plastic bowls coming her way! Her favourite foods so far are Ella's Kitchen Carrot, Apple & Parsnip puree, Organix rusks, yogurts & fruit. She also drinks very, very diluted juice from her sippy cup because, just like her brothers before her, she doesn't really like to drink water (can't blame her really- Liverpool water tastes foul! It has taken me a good 6 years to get used to drinking it!). Unlike her brothers though, Annie has learnt to drink out of her cup on the first attempt! Phew! Clever girl! ;0)

Much to Lee's delight, Annie shows great affection for Liverpool Football Club's crest which has Lilly the Library bird on (AKA a Liverbird called Lilly that the nursery school used as part of Liverpool's 800th birthday celebrations last summer).

Over the past few months it has become apparent that Annie loves to read! She especially loves to read my kids craft catalogue! Chip off the old block eh?

Annie Joy is now 8 months old. Yesterday I discovered Annie loves to play the xylophone. She has her own unique way of playing it too.....

... and she just knows she's so cute too!

Between taking the photos yesterday & mid morning today Annie has learnt how to get herself into a sitting position & stay there without falling at the slightest movement. She is able to cover great distances by rolling & shuffling backwards on her tummy. She has been trying to stand for several weeks & enjoys doing a kind of 1 handed press up but last night she showed signs that she will crawl any day now! She started moving her feet up underneath her body and lifting her hands forward one at a time. She is very pleased with herself! Amazing how quick babies develop!

And lastly, the little darling has learnt to smile on purpose for the camera! Say 'Cheeeeeeesee' Annie! ;0)

Thirty Two

The month of March is birthday month for me & Lee! I was 32 on March 4th. I was full of cold & not feeling at all well (see mug of Lemsip next to birthday cake!) but despite that I had a lovely day. Lee took the day off work & let me have a lie in while he took the boys to school. At lunch time we went out for a delicious meal at a little cafe in Woolton called Neighbourhood Cafe. It has shelves full of books which you can read while you're there & they have a weekly book club & often have live music in the evenings. It's a small place & it's always full. Timmy & Luke went to play at a friends house after nursery so it was brilliant to have some 'grown up time' to chat together (Annie was asleep in her car seat perched neatly on the chair next to me!).

After lunch we went round to our friend Jean's house for a cuppa & a chat. it was so lovely to catch up with her. I felt rather spoilt to have had just a few hours quality time with Lee & Jean during the day. The sun also shone on my birthday!
Two weeks later it was Lee's turn to celebrate his 32nd birthday! Again Lee took the day off work & we went our for lunch just the 3 of us. This time we went to the Pub in the Park- a gorgeous old period house set in Clarke Gardens. It's beautiful inside with lots of the original features like the sweeping staircases that curve around from the left & the right hand sides of the circular entrance hall up to what are now offices but that would have been bedrooms when the pub was a home. It was a lovely afternoon & we enjoyed celebrating in a quiet way. Thankyou to everyone who sent us cards, presents, texts, e-mails & messages. We are very grateful! ;0) (PS Photos were taken in our new kitchen so you get a little idea of what it's like!)

Procrastination....

...is the thief of time as the gap between my blog entries proves! So I shall stop waiting for the new house to be picture perfect & blog with what I've got! LOL!

Way back in February we moved out of our lovely detached house as our landlords needed to move back into their house rather suddenly... When we moved in 5 years ago we only had one child & a LOT less furniture! Or maybe the removal van was smaller this time...!! We have had an amazing 5 years in that house but we were very excited to move to our new bigger house!
It took a few hours to load the van up. Our friends Will & Kate had taken the boys to the park for a few hours which made things so much easier to pack up without little boys running around us! (We are so blessed with many many lovely friends who helped us so much before & after the move looking after the boys & helping to clean the old house etc). It was very strange driving behind the removal van knowing that it contained our entire worldly possessions!
Our new house (the 6 windows, front door & garage to the left of the picture are all part of our house!) is just around the corner from the old house so it didn't take long to get there! Unloading the van was quite a job for the removal men as the new house is a 3 storey town house with the living room & kitchen on the first floor (luckily there is an integral fridge freezer in the kitchen so our very large appliance only had to be carried into the garage! One of the removal men said he had never lifted a heavier fridge than ours... Lee didn't like to tell him that the freezer part of it hadn't been emptied out!!). Our new street was built a year ago on an old school site. When we told our friend where we were moving to he told us that the street was named after the deputy head of the school & that he had worked with him & what a lovely man he was. It was great to hear that our very new home had some history already!
Of course once we were in our new house the first thing to be unpacked was the train set! The boys played with excitedly with it while Lee & I directed the removal men with the boxes. Our friend Anne cooked us a delicious meal that evening (& ordered us a takeaway for the next evening too!) which we all enjoyed eating in our new kitchen. It was such a blessing to have a home cooked meal even though we were surrounded by boxes & chaos! Thankyou Anne!

Our new house is very spacious which we are all enjoying. The boys love all the stairs & the extra landings to play on. The neighbours are very friendly & the boys have no end of fun playing with the 3 kids who live next door especially. They are loving the fact that we live at the end of a cul-de-sac so they have freedom to ride their bikes up & down the road (although Lee or I supervise them at all times from the driveway! Despite what other parents in the road may think, I think 4 years old, or even 6 years old is a little too young to be roaming the streets alone especially as our street is directly off the biggest & busiest road in Liverpool). One of the things I love about our new home is the fact that I can watch the sunset from living level every evening (photos don't do the orangey red skies justice though). It reminds me of the chimney sweep scene from Mary Poppins!

Not long after we moved into the new house there was a light dusting of snow over night which caused much excitement but actually didn't deliver much in terms of snow play but it did give us this lovely piccie of the view from our bedroom window over the picturesque area known as Wavertree Garden Suburb. It's great to be next to an established area as there are lots of trees & shrubs for the birds to sit & sing in. I love listening to the birdsong as it is something I missed very much in the old house... It makes me almost believe that we're living in the countryside...that is if you block out the sound of 40mph dual carriageway traffic & emergency vehicles passing by!!! So, there it is, a very brief introduction to our new pad! I must go now as it's very late but I promise to blog again this month! LOL!!! Hope you're all well. Do drop us a line anytime we love to hear from you too! ;0)

Not Long Now!!

We are nearly sorted in the new house so we really will be blogging properly again very soon.... honest! In the meantime here's a little piccie I took today, before we went to church, of our gorgeous little darlings! Hope you're all well! We'll be back soon! ;0)

We'll Be With You in a Moment!!!

Hello faithful blog readers! How are you all? sorry there are no photos for this blog... Everything is all over the place at the moment after our house move as you might imagine! We are still surrounded by boxes & Lee & I are still sleeping on the mattress on the floor (a piece of wood is missing from the bed frame- will it turn up somewhere perhaps?). Due to the previous tenants doing a runner without paying any bills we have only just got a phone line 3 weeks after our move & the broadband still isn't sorted yet (nor have we purchased a computer desk to put the PC on more to the point!) And added to all the moving chaos we've all been really ill ever since we moved in here! Lee has just come back from the doctor with a double dose of antibiotics for tonsillitis! Poor chap!

Anyway, hopefully normal blogging service will be resumed asap! I have a whole load of moderately exciting piccies & news to update you with very soon I hope! Hope you are all well. See you back here shortly! ;0)

Movin' & a Groovin'

Well there isn't actually much groovin' going on here but there is a whole lot of moving & packing going on because all of a sudden we are moving house!!!!!! It's been all hands on deck to pack up all our possessions as quickly as possible (the down side of renting a house). Jordan has done a fantastic job of labelling boxes...
...and even Annie Joy has given a hand rustling papers & giving smiles of encouragement every so often!
During the course of packing up the play room with Jordan I picked up a small box & said 'Oh that will be perfect for tapes!' Jordan imediately disappeared into the kitchen. 'What are you doing?' I said. 'I'm getting the sellotape for the tape box' said Jordan. 'Aah!' I said 'Not that kind of tape, music tapes!' How times change eh? It's made me wonder what I should do with my out of date music.... Still love my Wet Wet Wet tape though (nudge nudge! Wink wink! Marie!!)

Timmy & Luke spent 2 nights away at my parents this week. When they came home they found Lee had taken their beds apart & their mattresses put onto the floor. All very exciting! When I said goodnight to the boys they were on a mattress each but when we went to check them at our bedtime Timmy had climbed into Luke's bed with him! How sweet & twinny!!

We have been really blessed by the generous help of family & friends this week who have looked after the boys for all or part of the days making life so much easier for us. Thankyou so much Steve & Gill, Jean, Emma, Steve & my lovely parents- you are all fabulous! And thanks in advance to the cleaning party- Kerry, Tanya, Nicola & Jean!

So anyway, I must get back to the packing as we move tomorrow morning! It might be a while before I can blog again but when I do I will post piccies of the fabulous new house! Hope you are all well. Do leave us a comment to say hello- we always love to hear from you! ;0)

The Very New Mr & Mrs Orange!

My friend Jemma married Peter on 26th January 2008 at The Bluecoat Chapel in Liverpool. Jemma met Peter when they were in the church youth group & asked him out many times back then but he refused her!! Jemma walked away from following Jesus as a young adult but about 2 years ago she realised she was wrong & started coming back to church. When she asked Peter out this time he said yes!! And now look at them- Mr & Mrs Orange!
Pastor Dave married them in a lovely service, Peter's Dad gave a talk about how much Jemma & Peter's faith in Jesus means to them & various people from church played in the band including Peter's sister, Sarah, who is one of Jemma's best friends & was also a bridesmaid. The happy couple walked out of the chapel to Little Richards's song Great Balls of Fire!!

While the photos were being taken outside I noticed this kiss in the sky!!

The wedding colour scheme was black & white (something that I forgot when I bought my black & white striped top to wear for the wedding! I was a little more co-ordinated than I wanted to be!). The piccie is of Jemma's parents & the bridesmaids including Jemma's daughter, Millie (from a previous relationship) who is 4 years old & rather cute!

The evening do was great fun! A time to catch up with friends & have a luagh! This photo is of my friends Lorna, Sharon & Nicola. We're doing catalogue poses!!!!!!

The cake was amazing, covered in black roses & trimmed with black ribbon. It was fruit cake, sponge & chocolate cake all on different layers!

We all enjoyed a good boogie at the disco. Lee is here with our friend Alan (in the orange t shirt) who rather stole the show with his dance moves!

For us it was lovely to spend some time together without kids! Annie came to the wedding ceremony with us while Helen & Ian took the boys to Blue Planet for the day. We took Annie home just before her bedtime & Helen & Ian baby sat them all for us. Thankyou very much Helen & Ian!! The boys loved their day with you!

Pancakes!!!!!!

It being Shrove Tuesday & all, I thought I ought to blog about pancakes! Lee is our expert pancake maker & flipper but we are all very good at eating them especially Jordan! We had a chat while eating the pancakes about Lent & how people usually give something up or decide to do something new for Lent. Timmy said he is going to give up Anya's guitar for her for Lent! I think he's missed the point somewhat!!
Timmy & I have had some 1-2-1 time this afternoon while Annie slept & Luke played at a friend's house. We played Twister first & then played with the train set. Timmy put my tiara (from the hen do I went to a few weeks back) on my head & said that I was Queen of the Tracks! I just remembered to take it off my head before answering the door at 2pm!
Miss Annie is dribbling lots & is into chewing things- this is a toy that is attached to her bouncy chair! No sign of teeth yet.... Her eyes are definitely brown now. She is still as gorgeous as ever!

Well, that's all for now folks! Tomorrow I hope to post the piccies from my friend Jemma's wedding from 2 weeks ago- where does the time go eh? Hope you're all well. TTFN!

If the house is tidy the computer must be broken!

Well, our computer wasn't broken (I was fasting it) & our house isn't really tidy but I am having a huge clear out! The photo above is of the junk drawer in our kitchen - you know the place you shove stuff to get it out of the way quickly & because you don't know where else to put it! I am amazed at the stuff that I found in there- 7 boxes of matches, 3 old mobile phones, 4 old pairs of glasses in their cases, hundreds of pens, 5 tape measures, 2 calculators.... And now that it's all sorted (it took me all afternoon to do it!!) we can find what we need in seconds. Lovely!
The rest of the house has been blitzed too. Bags & boxes of clothes & toys have gone to friends & charity shops & items have been sold on eBay to raise money for a nursery school in the Congo, Africa. My mum has done a great job of re-homing all our cast offs. Thanks Mum! ;0)
Our dear old washing machine (almost 7 years old) has been on it's way out for several months. It's a washer drier & the drier part of it gave up the ghost a year ago & over the summer the machine started to make the most terrible screeching noise that frightened us all! Last week our washing machine started tripping our electrics when it went onto the spin cycle & we decided that it was time to retire it. It has served us well. (Piccie above is of Luke helping me with the washing in June 2005).

Lee unplumbed the machine ready for Hotpoint to deliver the new one & while it sat in our kitchen Timmy took time to ponder the inner workings of a washing machine. He was fascinated by the little holes inside the drum. He kept saying 'It's got ovals in it!'

When the new machine arrived, it was fitted in (with much muttering about health & safety from the plumber as he strained behind the cupboards to find the plug socket) &, after I had purused the instruction manual, it was put to use straight away & hasn't stopped washing our clothes since! I love our new machine- it's got little red lights & all kinds of exciting buttons & features! Oh, & best of all it aslo washes clothes really well & it doesn't screech or trip the lights! Timmy told me very excitedly that the new machine is exactly like the old one (which it isn't at all!) by which he means they both have little ovals in the drum! Anyway, now that I have blogged all about our laundry I shall say goodbye! Hope you've all had a great weekend! ;0)