Three!

At the end of July, my lovely Caleb turned three. How on earth did that happen, can someone please tell me?! Because I am pretty sure that he was only just born! I used to hear Mums say stuff like that before I had children and I just didn't get it but now that I have my own, I am all too aware of how quickly the time passes!

We bought a water play table for Caleb's Birthday and put it out on the balcony. On his Birthday morning, he opened all of his cards and some of his other presents and then we took him out onto the balcony. He had been with me for some of the time when I was painting it and had spoken words of encouragement to me ("oh Mummy! That's beautiful painting! Clever girl!") but he hadn't seen the end result, nor did he realise that we were turning it into an area for him. He was so thrilled and excited as my boy is obsessed with playing with water. He was out there for ages in his pyjamas playing, he loved it.

 He got a lot of Birthday money and so we bought him some of the cars from the disney film, "Cars". The only one that arrived on time was a huge Lightning McQueen but he was pretty pleased with that so I can't really complain!

We wanted him to have a really lovely Birthday doing things that he loves and talks about doing. Seth had taken the day off work for Caleb's Birthday which made it an extra lovely day. We went swimming with Caleb. Unfortunately Levi had a really bad cough so we thought it would be best for him not to go into the water. Seth stayed out with him and sat in the viewing gallery and Caleb and I went in! This is only the second time in his life we have taken him swimming - he loved it and was terrified at the same time! He was wearing his armbands but he still had his little arms and legs wrapped around me. We ended up being in the water for nearly two hours and the longer we were there, the more confident he got. He ended up jumping in off the side of the pool into my arms and when he finally let me let him go so that he was floating, he said excitedly, "look, Mummy! I'm swimming!" It was pretty adorable.

After swimming the plan was to go to Costa to get carrot cake and a hot chocolate as he loves doing that (my Mum's influence!) and then we were going to go and watch trains; one of Caleb's other loves. When we got into the car to leave the swimming pool I told him the things that we were going to do next. His response? "I want to go home". Um, what? I asked him a few times just to make sure he knew what was on offer but again I got the same response! I thought that maybe we should just go ahead and do what we were going to do anyway, but as Seth pointed out, "it's his Birthday, let him do what he wants!". And so we did. We headed home and he had a lovely afternoon playing with his water table and Lightning McQueen and not once did he get bored! We just had pasta for dinner at his request and then we gave him his Birthday cake - a Lightning McQueen one. No, of course I didn't make it; I know where my skills lie and it most certainly isn't in the kitchen! He freaked out a bit about the candles so Seth ended up blowing them out for him!

It was a lovely, simple Birthday. I kind of feel bad that we didn't do more with it than we did, but we did everything that Caleb wanted and he had a great day with us all, so I'm happy with that!

The balcony transformation

We moved into our flat almost three years ago. It wasn't in bad condition when we moved in but slowly we have made a few changes here and there, as you do! However, one area that we have pretty much ignored was the balcony. We just never go out there and it was a pretty ugly balcony, so we never really wanted to go out there!

We decided a little while ago that even though the balcony isn't very big, we wanted to do something to make it nicer. Seth suggested that maybe we grow some vegetables out there - I laughed at that idea! Anyone who knows me knows that I am hopeless when it comes to growing or cultivating any plant of any kind. (Does anyone remember when I almost killed off Mum's hanging basket by watering it with windscreen wash?). Being as though we don't have a garden for Caleb to play in (although we make up for that by spending quite a lot of time at the park!), we decided that we would turn the balcony into a nice little area for him. We had pretty much decided on getting him a water play table for his Birthday so it made perfect sense.

I forgot to take proper before photos of the balcony but trust me, it was pretty nasty! I got rid of some of the junk that was out there from when we took our fireplace out nearly TWO YEARS AGO (yeah, we hadn't sorted that yet. Don't judge). I swept it all up and brushed the nasty bricks down so that they were free of spider webs and other lovely things.

 Seriously, surely everyone in the world knows how much I hate spiders so even I can't believe that I did that but luckily enough for me, there were no spiders in the webs! The next evening while Seth was at a youth activity I painted the bricks. It took around three coats to get them to look nice. I was going to paint them red but I couldn't find a red brick paint that I liked so I decided on keeping it white.

The floor of the balcony isn't that attractive so I decided that needed to be covered in some way to look better. I bought some foam hopscotch tiles and put them down on the floor to add some nice colour and to make it look better. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would but maybe that's because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and every area of the balcony had to be covered so I spent ages measuring, cutting and sticking to make it fit just so! It's not perfect though so don't look too closely at the photos!

I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It looks so much better than it did and while it's not massive, it's nice that Caleb has a little outdoor space now.

That one time when I fell and nearly broke my neck.....

I know that there are some people out there who enjoy cleaning and even find it therapeutic but it is safe to say that I am definitely not one of them; I never have been and I probably never will be. I hate cleaning. Especially bathrooms. I usually get Seth to do it but I decided that this time I would actually bite the bullet and do it myself. I should probably leave it to Seth in the future!

Last week once I had put the boys to bed, I cleaned the bathroom. I did what I have done a thousand times and stood on the edge of the bath to reach the higher tiles. Our whole bathroom is tiled so there are a lot of them to clean! I then tried to clean the tiles that are above the bathroom window, so I put all my weight on one foot on the sink ready to put the other one on top of the sink unit to walk across and reach the other tiles. I thought the sink was pretty secure, but apparently it isn't (maybe it was just the Universe's way of reminding me that I still have a way to go until I lose all of my baby weight, ha!). The sink moved so I lost my footing and fell back. I was frantically trying to find something to grab onto to break my fall and grabbed onto the shower rail, which I took down with me. My head took the full impact of the fall and then I hit my neck on the edge of the bath and ended up laying in the bath at a bit of an awkward angle. Oh my goodness, it hurt more than just a little bit! My head immediately came up in a huge bump and I may have screamed and started crying! Poor Caleb, he had only been in bed for a little while and wasn't yet asleep so he heard it all. He then started sobbing from his bedroom and called through to me, "Mummy, what did you hurt? Stop crying, Mummy, be happy!". I hobbled out of the bathroom and checked that there was no blood before going into his room to try and comfort him, even though I was still crying myself; I'm not sure who comforted who the most as we were both hugging each other and crying!

I then went into the lounge to phone Seth to see if he was nearly home. He must have freaked out when he heard me as at first he had no idea what was going on, just that I was crying a lot, poor man! When he got home, he said I should probably go to hospital to get checked out, so our neighbour came down to look after the boys and off to the hospital we went!

We arrived at the hospital at around 10pm and it took a while to be seen. I went to the urgent care unit first but they then sent me across to A and E. I saw a triage nurse and then saw a doctor. He poked and prodded a lot (oh, the pain!) and decided that they should probably send me for an x-ray just to make sure everything was okay. He then said that they needed to stabilise my neck so he put a neck brace on me and I had head blocks (is that what they're even called?!) either side of me and taped it all in place. I'm not usually that claustrophobic but I really found it incredibly claustrophobic and I panicked a bit. I had 3 or 4 panic attacks during my course of laying there like that! (I was like that for about 3 hours. I am not usually a panicky person and I thought I would be fine but it was actually pretty scary!). Thank goodness for Seth, I don't know what I would have done without him there to calm me down!

I went for the x-ray and for one of them she said that I had to open my mouth as wide as possible. It was pretty much impossible being as though the neck brace was literally forcing my mouth shut! I have this recurring nightmare of my jaw being clamped shut and not being able to open my mouth at all (I had a jaw operation when I was 16 and my jaws were wired together for 8 weeks so it might stem from that!). The radiographer looked at the x-ray and told me that it looked like I had done some damage to my neck. I then had to go back and see the doctor again, who told me that they were going to send me for a CT scan to confirm what exactly was going on. I hadn't been too scared that I had done any real damage up until that point; I thought that the collar and everything was just a precaution! While we were waiting around, I made Seth take a photo of me in my glamorous state! Who doesn't want photographic evidence of being taped down to a hospital bed?!

Going for the CT scan was fun, about 5 people came with me and lifted me across from the trolley to the table for the scan on the count of three, I felt like I was in an episode of Casualty or something! (is that even still on?! I don't think I've seen it since I was about 15!). It turns out that I hadn't done any major damage, I'm just a freak - my first and second vertebrae are fused together as are the fourth and fifth. Who knew?! It's a congenital thing apparently. So I got to go home 6 hours after arriving at the hospital sans neck brace and all was well! I felt pretty bashed up and stiff for a few days and I have a glorious purple bruise on my thigh the size of a tennis ball (I took a photo of that too. Because I am nice, I will spare your eyes.) which has now faded slightly. My head is still sore and the bump is still there although it's gone down a lot.

The moral of the story? Definitely leave the bathroom cleaning to Seth from now on! I think my "injury" justifiably gets me out of it for at least a few years ;).

The visit

A couple of weeks ago, Caleb had his preschool visit! I'm so pathetic, the morning of the induction I actually felt a little bit nervous, I'm not sure whether I felt that for me or for him! I've mentioned a few times that I have mixed feelings about him getting older, ha! I kind of want to keep him little forever but I also love seeing him grow and develop into the cheeky, fun loving little boy that he is!

When it came to picking a preschool for him, I applied to a few because I wasn't sure where I actually wanted him to go to. I had completely forgotten about the one he is actually going to - they were one of the first ones that I called last summer and was told that they had no spaces! Then they called me a few weeks ago to tell me that a place had become available and when I went to have a look around, I knew that it would be perfect for Caleb and I loved it.

The induction went really well. The preschool leaders went over all of the official stuff with the parents and afterwards, the kids were free to wander around and play. Some of the parents stuck pretty close to their children but I tried to just let Caleb wander off to see how he managed without me being close by his side. He loved it! He was so busy playing and eventually, the only way that I managed to get him to leave was by reminding him that Grandma was at home waiting for us! I really hope that it is a good sign of things to come. He definitely seems ready for preschool now, so I'm hoping that he will adjust quickly and will love it when he starts in September.

The preschool asked for me to send in a photo of him and this was it!

How cute does he look? And when exactly did he grow up?! Surely he was only just born? I'm so proud of this little monkey, I just love him! (had I thought about it, I would have taken his bib off for the photo - he always has them on, he is such a dribbly boy, ha!)

Park life

As it was half term a couple of weeks ago, my sister Lin and my nephew and niece, Sam and Caitlin came down to play with us! I don't really get to see them as much as I would like to, so it's always lovely when we are able to get together. It especially makes me happy to see Sam, Caitlin and Caleb playing together, I love seeing the cousins hanging out and although Caleb is quite a bit younger than them, he just loves being in their company and thinks that everything they do is amazing!

Lin and the family recently went on holiday to Utah and they bought Caleb a BYU t-shirt to match Sam's. When he saw it and saw that it was the same as the one Sam was wearing, he immediately started to try and take his own t-shirt off so that he could put on his new one, it was the sweetest thing!

We did the usual thing we do when we get together and went park hopping. We went to Hall Place first for a picnic. I have so many memories of Hall Place as it's where the family all used to go when I was little. We moved away from the area when I was 8 years old, so it's quite funny that I should end up being back down here and seeing Caleb get to experience some of the things and go to some of the places that I loved as a child. The kids were having great fun playing with a giant frisbee thing and we all had ice creams afterwards. You can just see how much Caleb was enjoying his!

From there, we went to a park in the village where my family used to live and after that, we went to the park close to where we live now. Sam, Cait and Caleb especially enjoyed going on the zipwire, we spent a long time playing on that. Who doesn't love a good zipwire?! It was so great to see how much they were enjoying themselves. Here are a few pictures from the day.

Yes, I know I put in a million pictures but with a family this lovely, it just has to be done, I'm afraid! :)

The day we went to Space

A few weeks ago, Caleb and I walked into town and the whole way there and back, the conversation went a little like this - "I want to go to space Mummy, would YOU like to go to space? I am going to be an astronaut and wear a space suit and see the planets. Can we go to space tomorrow? We can go in a rocket and go high in the sky." Yep, literally the whole way there and back. it's a four mile round trip. That boy really wants to go to space!

The next day we decided to make it happen for him, or as close as we could. We could have gone to the observatory in Greenwich but figured that might be a little too advanced for him, so we went to the Science Museum in London. They have a space exhibition there, with parts of space shuttles suspended from the ceiling. I have never seen a little boy so excited! He went charging around that place, trying to find the next rocket to look at. I love seeing how animated and excited he gets over things that he loves. I really wanted to get a good picture of him to capture it but it's pretty dark in there and the photos didn't come out very well.

Afterwards, we went down to the children's part of the museum where he enjoyed playing with the water and boats. He had a great time and didn't even get too soaked, surprisingly.

While we were at the science museum anyway, we also went up to have a look at the aviation section. Caleb loved looking at all of the planes with Seth, he was in raptures. Maybe he will be a pilot one day, who knows?!

Of course, one of his favourite things of the day was being on the train. The boy is obsessed with trains and it's the first time he was actually able to sit on a seat on the train instead of being in his pram so he had a great view and gave a running commentary on everything he saw out of the window. I love seeing things through his little child eyes!

There are so many times when I wonder if I'm a good enough Mum and if there is so much more that I could be doing for him. Whilst there may be many more things that I could do, I love it when as a family we're able to go and do things that he loves to do and I'm so glad that we were able to go to "space" with him!

Four months

It's amazing how fast or how slowly time can pass by sometimes. When I was pregnant, especially in the final weeks, even the days seemed to drag because I was so looking forward to having my new baby in my arms. I really can't believe that our little Levi has been with us for four months now. I know that a lot of people always say, "where does the time go?" but seriously, where did that time go??!

Levi is the sweetest, happiest little baby. Except for when he's not smiling; then he has furrowed eyebrows that make him look so grumpy! Every morning when I look into his Moses basket he greets me with the biggest smile and there is never any doubt that he thinks I'm pretty great! He was born with a ton of black hair and he hasn't lost any of it, except for that slight bald spot at the back of his head.

He loves being tickled, especially on his tummy and under his arms.

He loves dancing and music, so I am hoping that he will end up being musical.

He is so sociable. He hates to be left alone in a room for even a couple of minutes and the more people around him, the better.

He loves cuddles. You could literally hold him all day long and he wouldn't struggle to get away. Or maybe he would, I've not yet tried to actually hold him all day long.

He adores Caleb and will always break into the biggest smile whenever he sees Caleb or whenever Caleb talks to him.

He loves to have his hair brushed or have his hair played with.

He likes to be rocked to sleep. He can fall asleep on his own but when I feed him at around 7ish in the evening, I will always rock him until he falls asleep. Or maybe it's me that likes this more than him, who knows??

He chews his hands all the time. Or anything he can find to chew on. I would say that it's a sign that he might be teething but Caleb did exactly the same thing and didn't cut his first tooth until he was a year old!

He is already showing signs of being independent; when I am feeding him, he will have his hand on the bottle or he will try to pull it out of his mouth. I may have fun with his strong will in years to come, ha ha!

I absolutely love this little boy of mine (well, I adore both of them but being as this post is about Levi, I am referring specifically to him!) In some ways I can't believe that he is four months old already but in other ways, it feels like he has been a part of our family forever. He's pretty amazing, even if I do say so myself!