We all had a fantastic naming day on Saturday here is a quick sneak peak of some photo’s taken at Glo Family by the very lovely and talented Camille Wesser

Here’s my entry to week 50 of Tara’s The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers where the theme is trees.

Lil H and I took this on Monday afternoon on a rare just Mummy and H walk home from pre-school vis the playground where we got to loll in the swing hammock together and watch the clouds in glorious spring sunshine.  On the way how we photographed each other, daffodils, pansies and the first tree blossoms of Springtime on a bright blue sunny sky. 

This picture was taken on a Sony Ericsson X10 Mini pro phone which I have been sent to review, it has a 5 megapixel camera which takes a great quality picture don’t you think?

I haven’t posted in The Gallery for ages, this is my first this year.  I don’t get around to doing pretty much most things I want to these days.  This weeks theme, Simple Pleasures, struck a cord with me. 

We’ve had a really busy half term we have play dated, been to the cinema, eaten out, been swimming, to the park and attended a great blog event hosted by Nutella at Stockley Farm (opens to the public this Sunday 6th March).  The highlight for me, the lifetime memory if you like, was the afternoon a cat wandered into our garden and the children tried to herd it!

My Children have seen cats before, they have stroked cats before.  This has happened before – same cat, same garden, same children.  Just for some reason this time they were bothenraptured by it.  Baby G is now babbling away pretty much constantly with a few words in there too, her excitement was infectious and Lil H was laughing his head off.  He was being the big brother and sharing what he knows about cats (not a great deal to be honest but it was cute!) showing her how to call her over “here puss, puss” and making kissing noises at her explaining that they have claws and can scratch you if you try to pick them up by the back legs – he speaks passionately and from personal experience about this   

The cat lives in a house with four children, it is smart.  It wasn’t coming remotely close to grabbing distance but was happy to entertain Lil H and Baby G from a safe distance, rolling over and walking tantalisingly close past them!  It’s not often I get to just stand back and watch the two of them together without having to mediate, intervene, separate, reallocate toys, request apologies, deliver cuddles, food, drink etc.  I hope now they are getting older this will happen more and more and more often.  My two had a blast cat herding.  I had time to make and drink a cup of tea as well as take a load of photo’s and I had enough time to have a play on the manual settings too.  It was all good. 

I love my children.
My children are beautiful to me.
My son loves his dummy.
I love and hate his dummy.
Dummies are plastic.
Dummies are ugly. 
Dummies hide my son’s beautiful smile.
But things have got ugly without a dummy.
His dummy has on many an occassion spared his & my crying!
The Easter bunny has taken my son’s dummies for another baby.
We don’t have dummies anymore.
Here’s my gorgeous Lil’ H demonstrating his dummy love!

I’ve been really enjoying the posts for The Gallery that Tara is running over at Sticky Fingers 

This post is for this weeks Gallery where the theme is “Ugly”

So preparations for baby number two are well underway.  I am not willing to tempt fate by saying “nearly there” as my new kitchen, that’s the 20,000 swear word kitchen, has taken 83 days and still counting (it justifies a whole post in itself that tale!)  

However number one son, H’s, big boy bedroom is finished and he’s moved in – out of his cot and into a single bed – I am delighted to report the transition couldn’t have gone better.  He remains, touch wood, a great sleeper and couldn’t love his new room or the Elephant beanbag I bought him more.  I took a really lovely photo of him this weekend chilling in his room – an similar image of him age 13 in front of a computer game is, I am sure, inevitable! 

I am so thrilled he loves his room as much as he does.  With so much changing in his world – from cot to bed, nappies to pants (not going quite as well admittedly!), from only child & only grand child to having the imminent arrival of a sibling in October on his horizon.  For him to love his room so much make me really happy.  His new room is where he wants to be if we’re at home, everyone who comes to the house gets “come play upstairs in my bedroom” – so sweet!

So household maneuvers continue – a bit of background for you … we thought about moving prior to baby number two but with three bedrooms and the housing market, or should I say lack of housing market, being what it is, we decided to stay put for a year or two.  Now we are rejigging how we use the space we have.  So the spare room and also my office/study have been converted into H’s new big boy bedroom freeing up his nursery for baby number two.  We have a sofa bed in the living room so will give up our master suite as and when we have guests.  Lets be honest who wants to visit anyone with two kids under three?!  More often we meet friends for weekends or holidays away as they all have babes too. 

I have set up my office/study in our loft area and I absolutely love it, just putting the finishing touches to my “hub/den/retreat” (trip to Ikea planned on Tuesday – wish me luck!) and I will post up some piccies of the finished space for you. 

The less positive side of increasing our household occupancy is that I am having to relinquish / share wardrobe space with my other half, ARGHHHH!  Some quite heated discussions have been had about clothing quantities and on that note I’m off, as R is out tonight, possession is nine tenths of the law and squatters rights rule when is comes to hanging and drawer space, well in my book they do anyway!

Ahhh, just previewed this post, I so love this photo of H, wish I’d taken it on my decent camera and not my phone though – does that happen to anyone else? 

Claire x