And my Littlest Girl Turned Six This Week!

Well it's been another week of ups and downs..... when isn't it?! After spending a few days with my parents-in-law in their immaculate home I came home to realise that mine had moved a couple of notches up the clutter scale again after feeling ill the weekend before so spent a couple of hours restoring order! It was remarkably easy since I have established routines and places for everything and wasn't the horrible task it used to be!

I feel like my baby bump is enormous. I am only 23 weeks pregnant, but fighting the urge to waddle and horrified by the looming prospect of needing 'big pants' to feel comfortable as such an early stage!! This baby has a kick like a horse already and has perfected the 'bladder squirm' move, mainly practised by babies on long journeys or remote locations where a bathroom is inaccessible! I am looking forwards to my cleaning urge kicking in..... I have experienced this craving for bubbles and cleaning products in all of my pregnancies and it is most useful!!! I have big plans for it this time around and my husband says it is the best of all my pregnancy obsessions (another one is for the colour green, he dreads me wanting to decorate when pregnant - we get very predictable colour schemes!).

I am well on the way with plans for September's 'curriculum'. I remember very well how wonderfully a newborn baby turns everything upside down for a good while and I embrace the slowing down and enjoy it...... however...... we have a really great momentum going on at the moment and the girls have interests they want to pursue so with the benefit of my experience of what worked when Idris was born, I am planning ahead and creating 'newborn friendly' curriculum plans for next year!! More on that soon!

My 2013 goal of becoming more technologically savvy is still moving along well. You may have noticed that a 'follow me on pinterest' widget has arrived on the right hand side of the blog??!! It took an hour and a half of googling 'how to' tutorials, following the steps, then trouble shooting the steps, and a good bit of careful thinking and problem solving on my part too. That bit surprised me but really, I came up with the answers for myself in the end, which is brilliant as for half an hour my pinterest link went to Kate's board, and I can tell you she's a very different gal with very different interests to mine!!!!! I am also trying out linking one or two of my posts to other blogs. Amy at Raising Arrows wrote a great post this week on menu planning and I linked my post on Feeding a family on a small budget to it, although if I link again I need to write the blog post title rather than just my name! I also have plans for trying out the kindle app on my Samsung tablet, although synchronising calenders on that and my phone is still eluding me!!!!

And the biggest news this week? My littlest girl turned six - now exactly when did THAT happen already??!! She wanted to go ice skating for her birthday so skating we went. I didn't realise that it was set up like a disco so it was really hard to get any pictures of her skating in the darkness! We had a simple picnic and spent some time at a National Trust property running around the parkland climbing dead trees. Oh and I made an inedible cake that we could only eat the decorations off. She said it was the best birthday yet! It always blows me away how little makes my children happy, they rarely ask for anything and even then it is something modest - they never make a birthday list or ask for big parties, and hug me hard even when I make horrible cake for their big day - I am truly blessed!

Ah, a nice cuppa, just what I need after this week.....

Idris obligingly drinking cups of lukewarm tea made by Faith with her little china tea set!

Well I've found it tough going this week, the children have had some odd virus that has made them really itchy, and by turn, pretty grumpy and my normally cheerful little boy has been very screechy and very hard to please! Thursday he cheered up remarkably and has been bubbly and giggly again - phew!

On reflection, I tried to do far too much given the circumstances and should have lowered my expectations for the week....... but the flip side is that I did get lots done, including one of my 'bottle necker' jobs. I call them bottle neckers if not doing them is causing me to get so hung up that I then can't make myself do anything else from my list, and it sits in the back of my mind like a little malevolent pixie making faces at me! The bottle necker this time? Getting quotes for a lorryful of concrete to be delivered (don't ask!). As usual when I plucked up the will to do it, it was simple, short lived and the people on the other end of the phone were pleasant and helpful and very willing to give advice. The result of doing that one 'bottle necker'?? I also organised electrician quotes (another thing I dislike doing, getting quotes) and sorted through half of the stack of random tat in my garage that is all that remains of my big organisation and decluttering drive!! It's amazing how good getting a few 'big' things from my list done feels!!

My brother spent a week over here visiting from Canada (sadly without Lorri and Sam - we missed you guys!) and it was lovely to have a few days with him and 'refuel' on my big brother before I see him again who knows when!! It was nice to be able to send back some parcels shoe horned into his case for my little nephew to open up!

I've gone back to cloth nappies this week, I used them for Eve and Faith and then when Idris came along I just couldn't face using them, he hated feeling wet and I was changing them so often that I moved to disposables, and never went back. Since then I gave my favourite stuffable/pocket nappy types to my sister-in-law and the rest of them to a lovely local family who had an unexpected third baby. Then last week I stumbled across a review of some birth to potty pocket nappies that were pretty low cost and ordered one to try. It was put thoroughly through it's paces and got top marks so I ordered a batch more and we are back to cloth. I am happy that we are, and hope that they will suit the next baby too!

I've tackled a change of e-mail address this week too, and tried really really hard to synchronise the calendars on my phone and tablet computer, which should be simple according to the web blurb but has me stumped and is clearly out of my sphere of expertise and my comfort zone! It made me grumpy and I didn't want to devote any more time to it this week so it is shelved pending space and time (and my charger returned from my Mum's house!) to tackle it afresh. It is small progress though towards one of my 2013 goals "get to grips with technology". I am also making progress towards the goals of getting the house organised and maintaining it, home ed co-operatives and building friendships. Having put the list up there, it seems to be keeping it fresh in my mind and I'm making things happen towards them. It's all good!

Idris was happily entertained putting the dice in and out of the tin whilst the others played Yahtzee!