So it’s nearly time to do June’s monthly roundup and I’m only just looking through photos from May to write this blog post!  I always think we don’t do too much, but we do always seem to be busy and time is going quicker than ever.  People have said time goes even quicker when the children are at school.  Bella starts infants in September and I just can’t believe it can pass by any quicker.  But I’ll be sure to let you know if miraculously it does.  She does 21 hours at preschool, so maybe it’s already going as quick as it will?!  Here we are now more than half way through this year and that means half way to another Christmas too!  I’m sure we only just had the last one.  You may think it’s a little early to mention this C word, but for my small online shop the buzz usually starts around September, so I’m already thinking about it!

I always think we haven’t done very much each month, but these blog roundups are a great way to see that, actually, we have!  It’s nice to remember the lovely days out we have and look back through the photos reminiscing recent times.  I usually sit and look through all my photos for the month I’m writing about to select the ones I want to use.  This is great fun and some photos seem so long ago, but they are only a few weeks.  I also flick through my planner to see what we got up to.  I don’t know about you, but since becoming a parent and being so busy my days just blur into one big long day!  I’m also super forgetful with things like trying to remember what I did two weeks ago! I pretty much just focus on the here and now, taking one day at a time and not thinking too much about yesterday as it’s gone and I’ll look at tomorrow, well, tomorrow!  One day I’ll look back at these blog posts with fond memories of everything we did during these busy manic family days.

We finally did our kitchen this month WOOHOO!  We’d bought new worktops, a sink, tap and tiles in JANUARY!  The sides were real wood and so needed three coats of oil before we fitted them.  Each coat takes 6 hours to dry.  They’re so heavy (and one was 3m long) that both of us were needed to carry them in and out.  We also obviously needed a dry day to do this.  It basically took us until April to find free weekends and dry days to be able to oil them all.  If we do a kitchen again I’d definitely buy pre-treated to save this hassle!  Or build a veranda or something outside so we have shelter!  Our kitchen is so much brighter and lighter now.

At the very start of the month I had a whole day to myself and visited a friend by train in Bristol.  It was bliss!  It was my first day out with a friend by myself, kid free too, since before I had Reuben, so well over one year!  I had such a great time and chose to take the train rather than drive so I could have even more time to myself!  I took my laptop and wrote blog posts on the train journeys.  Perfect!  I must do it more often. 

I haven’t been doing very much friend visiting or play dates during the week at the moment as I’ve been so busy with work.  I feel pretty much like I’ve been working nonstop for a couple of months now.  Not helped by my employed morning job which starts at 5am, so I am literally working from the break of dawn (or so it feels!) until I close my eyes at night! I’ve been trying my best to take some nights off; Friday and Saturday, and sometimes Tuesday night.  It’s hard to do this all the time though as any small business owner might relate.  The best quote I’ve heard from someone running their own business is ‘I thought I always worked hard, until I ran my own business’ (Mike Pickles from Really Useful Products).

As well as attending a couple of kids birthday parties, both family and playschool friends, we also celebrated Bella’s birthday!  Her 4^th birthday was on 2^nd June, but we decided to celebrate on the last May bank holiday as most people would be off work.  It was also the day of the local Cheese Rolling which is a crazy event behind our home.  We can see it from our house!  We had a BBQ, which was touch and go with the weather forecast for a while during planning, but luckily we had a dry warm day.  We have a 90 foot garden so it’s an ideal length for a garden party with lots of folk and children running around.  I expect we’ll have a yearly BBQ or garden party as the kids loved it.

Bella had a super time and kept saying she wanted another birthday soon!  She also loved the mini cupcakes I surprised her to from The Cakery in Gloucester.  They make delicious homemade cakes (and more) with a huge free from range so I ordered no/low sugar so I could enjoy them too!

The last couple of days in May were the start of Bella’s final half term at preschool.  I can’t believe how quickly it came round and knew after this half term she’d only have a few weeks left as a pre-schooler.  Only just 4 years old and we’re planning her exciting start at big school.

An interview with Bella, now four, and a few funny things she says!

Bella has just turned four!  It sounds so much older than three.  We went to meet her teachers at her new school recently.  I can’t believe she’s off to big school in September!

Here are a few things she keeps saying…!

• Is adamant the birds in our garden are called maggunpies no matter how many times we tell her they are magpies!
• In The Range – ‘That man has a baby about to pop out of his tummy!’ Oh gosh, quick Bella, out of this aisle now!
• ‘But…’  Oh yes – we’ve started to get an answer back to things we ask Bella to do.  There is often a ‘but I’m too busy’ or similar!
• ‘Why?’ – eek, we’ve entered the why stage.  Even when she gets the answer to the why, another why is asked!
• ‘What?’ But really more like ‘WOT?’ and imagine a kind of Kevin and Perry style sound, but she is just FOUR!  Haha.  Oh yes, the threenager has not yet disappeared even though we are into her fourth year.

Bella Interview – 4 years 0 months

Mummy – What would you like to be when you grow up?
Bella – A fairy

Mummy – OK, what job would you like to do when you grow up?
Bella – Making food

Mummy – Who is your favourite person?
Bella - Reuben

Mummy – Who is your best friend at playschool?
Bella - Sydney

Mummy – Where is your favourite place?
Bella – Soft play

Mummy – What is your favourite colour?
Bella – Silver, red and yellow

Mummy – What’s your favourite vegetable?
Bella - Broccoli

Mummy – What’s your favourite fruit?
Bella - Pear

Mummy – What’s your favourite thing to do?
Bella – Go in my little house

Mummy- What’s your favourite animal?
Bella – Fish and turtles

Mummy – Do you mean tortoises?  They live on land?  Shall we get one because Mummy likes them too?
Bella – Yes!  Let’s get a tortoise!

Reuben 13-14 months update

• Walks holding onto one hand and wants to do this more than crawling
• Claps hands to the song ‘if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands’
• Blows big bubbles
• Puts rings from his ring stacker on wrists and crawls around, also loves putting Bella’s bracelets on!
• Has mastered walking with the walker and will now stand up and walk with anything that he can move e.g. high chair, dining chair, activity table!
• We bought his first pair of shoes from Clarks, size 3G
• Looking very blond, more ash blond than Bella’s yellow blond.  Lots more hair than Bella had at his age – she looked almost bald!
• Says hiya, mama, burr (Bella)
• Loves to draw and holds a pencil really well doing small controlled lines
• Builds big towers with his blocks and lego
• Can eat endless amounts of raisins and blueberries
• Eats everything we eat now, so all have the same meal at mealtimes
• Can pick up food with a fork, but can’t get to mouth or doesn’t try yet
• Puts his hands together and sways to dance, if we copy he finds it hilarious
• I’ve noticed he’s slept on his front a couple of times recently.  He’s always slept on his back up until now.  I remember Bella slept on her front as soon as she could roll over.  Reuben never rolled over in bed, it was like he didn’t think he could in his cot or was super accustomed to sleeping on his back in there!
• Still only has 6 teeth and I can’t see any more

Bella update 3 years 11-12 months

Eeeeek Bella is so nearly four!  FOUR.  Oh my goodness!  That is officially school age and so grown up sounding - a real ‘child’ instead of toddler/pre-schooler.  I even started looking at uniform the other day and we’ve been invited to her big school’s open evening for all new parents.  So exciting and so crazy at the same time.

Here’s what my little monkey has been up to lately:

• Becoming more interested in time, so I bought her first watch.  Beginning to understand the concept of the little hand and big hand.  When I ask her what the time is she’ll say ‘2 past 7’.  Which is 10 past 7! So great she’s beginning to understand it and absorbs what we tell her.
• Makes up songs all the time.  Uses the tunes from nursery rhymes but makes up her own words.
• Can make up stories – I’ll say a sentence then Bella will say the next sentence to continue the story.  We do this at bedtime sometimes instead of reading a book.
• Bella tells me she had a dream ‘Nana was up with the birds, so Aunty Jess went in her flying car and got her!’
• Really needs to be out doing things all the time.  She seems to get frustrated at home and plays up.  A little angel when we are out and about though (usually) and people always comment on how good she is.
• Bella has discovered Siri on the phone and iPad and loves to talk to Siri asking things like ‘Have you got any chocolate or cheese?’ and ‘Oh dear you are a poopy and you can’t say anything’!
• She would like a pink fish for her birthday as well as Smarties and Aqua Beads.  She wants a Frozen AND Peppa Pig cake, plus pink flowers.  We’ll have to see what we can do :)

The funniest Bella story recently just has to be us sat outside the Aviator which is a pub in Gloucestershire at Staverton airport.  It’s great to sit there as you can watch all the helicopters and small planes taking off and landing, so great entertainment for children!  Anyhoo, Bella started shouting out ‘cock, cock, cock’ really loudly!  We looked at each other in shock (and kind of laughing of course) and asked if she meant cock a doodle doo.  She replied, ‘no I mean ‘cock cock cock’ like a crow’.  Ah ha!  ‘I think you mean ‘caw caw caw’ Bella, not cock’!  There’s a crow that ‘caws’ in one of her books.  Whatever the people on the next table must have thought!

AUGUST 2016

Reuben 14-16 months

Oh gosh!  Just found this unpublished blog post in my Word documents.  OOPS.  Things have been busy with summer hols, etc.  Reuben is now 17.5 months, but here’s what he did between 14 and 16 months.  I’ll make sure I add a new one soon as lots more exciting things have been happening.

• Crawls around with a pouting face constantly
• Never played with his ball pit in his bedroom.  I’ve moved it to the living room and he loves to climb in and just sit in the middle!
• Can feed self pretty well with a spoon.  When he wants to! Still refuses for us to help unless it’s his favourite fruit pot.
• Says mama, Bella, hiya and lots of where and gah noises
• Had his first hair cut!  The fringe and by his ears was getting quite long so I tried to cut it.  It looked awful (!) so Ben got the clippers out once home from work and we cut his baby hair for the first time.  He’s beat Bella to a hair cut!  Hers grows so slowly.  Reuben now looks like a proper boy and even less babyish!
• Reuben isn’t walking yet, but has stood up in the middle of the garden by himself and taken a few wobbly steps!  He wants to walk around constantly holding onto one of our hands, so he’s definitely got walking on the mind!
• He loves tumbling around with us on the floor!  I don’t remember Bella doing this so much.  If I lie down you can guarantee a Reubs will immediately crawl over head first into me for a little rough and tumble play!!  He’ll also just climb on and start jumping up and down.
• He’s still so cuddly which is simply lush!  He’s very good at getting on with playing by himself for a long time, but every now and then will come over for a cuddle. 
• He’s also come out of the mummy’s boy stage a little more and won’t want me instantly when I enter a room.
• Favourite foods are pasta & Organix blueberry fruit pots by far.  But he loves scrumptious home cooked comfort meals such as spaghetti bolognese (veggie)  jacket potato and lasagne.  He’ll wolf down all three!  & he does love pizza.  He nearly jumps out of his high chair when he sees it coming to the table on a Friday evening!
• He’s cut a new tooth!  One at the back on his right. It looks like it’s nearly all the way through.  I thought it was a bit of food, then realised it’s a tooth!  It’s so hard to get in his mouth to look, so I had no idea.  So, unless there’s any more I’ve not seen, that’s 7 teeth!

 

Funny Things Bella Says (Age 4)

Some of the funniest things my daughter Bella has said between ages 4 to 4 and 2 months:

‘You’ve gone all frizzy!’    (I had goose bumps on my arm!)

Bella received a thank you card from her friend Abbie at playschool for her birthday present.  It has a bunny on the front and is pink. 
Bella says to me ‘I’m going to give this card back to Abbie as I don’t like bunnies or the colour pink!’

Reuben is sat in the living room surrounding by kitchen roll.  It was up on our dining table.  I tell Bella off for getting it down and giving it to Reuben. 
She replies ‘ No I didn’t, it was Reuben’
I say it can’t have been Reuben as he can’t reach the table. 
Bella says ‘yes he can, he boinged up!’

‘This busy day is making me dizzy!’

‘Ama Goo Goo’  (Bella’s latest word for Mummy.  It went from Mummy, to Mama, to Ama and somehow to Ama Goo Goo ?!!)

‘Daddy, you naughty!’  (as Ben puts a tub of Pringles in our shopping trolley!)

‘Yesssssssssssss’  (when she gets something she really wants.  I remember saying this when I was younger!)

‘Silly old weather!’  (because I say it’s going to rain!)

‘My legs are foody’ 
Me – what does that mean Bella?
‘They are hungry!’