Peppa Pig and Jelly

Ellen decided to submerge poor Peppa in her Strawberry Jelly. Oh to be 2 years old again, such fun.

Lyrics that hit hard

I went to the gym on Wednesday evening, and as always I have my ipod with my gym music with me. I'd bought a few more songs from iTunes and stepped up on the treadmill ready to start my workout. Without going into details about anything, let's just say a good friend of mine is going through a bad time at the moment and I've been trying to support her as best I can, the first song that hit my headphones almost had me sobbing as the lyrics became clear to me.

Kanye, what are you doing to me??? "Love Lockdown video here

I’m not loving you
'Way I wanted to
What I had to do
Had to run from you
I’m in love with you
But the vibe is wrong
And that haunted me, all the way home

So you never know
Never, never know
Never know enough
Til it’s over, love
Til we lose control
System overload
Screamin' no no no no no

I’m not lovin you
'Way I wanted to
See I wanna move
But can’t escape from you
So I keep it low
Keep a secret cold
So everybody else don’t have to know

So keep your love locked down
Your love locked down
Keepin’ your love locked down
Your love locked down
Now keep your love locked down
Your love locked down
You keep your love locked down
You lose

I’m not lovin’ you
The way I wanted to
I can’t keep my cool
So I keep it true
I got something to lose
So I gotta move
I can’t keep myself
And still keep you too

So I keep in mind
When I’m on my own
Somewhere far from home
In the danger zone
How many times did it take
Before it finally got through
You lose you lose

If only it was that easy

Yesterday I went to a playcentre with my two little pumkins Ellen and Jessie.
Ellen was playing with a little boy who was 2 years older than her. When his mum popped to the ladies he came up to me and asked:

- Is she your little girl
- Yes, I said, she's my daughter Ellen and she's 2 years old
- Did the doctors cut your tummy to get her out?
-....ehm.....no.....no, they didn't (???!!!)
- ...I think they did... (looking at me as if I was lying to him)
- Eeeehem....eh, no they didn't actually...
(The boy now looking very confused) - So what are you saying... that she just shot out on her own?!
Me: - ....Something like that yes...

Shot out...well, I wish!

Click!

Oooo I am so happy. My lovely lovely lovely looooovely boyfriend/husband-to-be gave me this stunning digital camera for my birthday. I can't wait to try it out when Ellen and Jessie wake up from their beautifully timed snoozes. I've had about 40 minutes to myself to play with the menus, buttons, self-timers and even got to read some of the manual. The rest is bedtime reading tonight I hope.

Here are two of the photos I just snapped. Many more to come!
Thaaaaank you Steve!

My little doggie asleep in the armchair

View from the bar with our wonky orange candles...

My new look - from New Look!

I look so chic I make myself sick! With my new coat and beret I strut my 6-foot-stuff around Tesco. Why loose your style just because you've got a baby. I am just so pleases with the coat, as I usually don't spend much money on coats. This one cost £40 from New Look and I love it.

What I love about shopping...

...is not only coming home with 3 pints of milk and a loaf of bread, but also a purple butterfly shaped wand that flashes and makes twinkly-tingly-wingly-noises!!! The beauty of going shopping with a 2 year old little girl. We were zapping everything in sight!

Oh dear

Last night it was a struggle to get Ellen to sleep. I brushed her teeth, put her pyjamas on and read her a story as usual. But when I left the room she went absolutely mental and screamed and shouted to come down. I kept my calm and went up to her every 5-10 minutes and simply said: Time for night-night, sweetie-pie
This kept on for about 40 minutes, with her crying and shouting: "Duuuummmy!" or "Doooogggie!" or "Muuuummmy, sick" while she was trying to make herself sick... I wasn't falling for any of it.
She finally started calling out for Daddy who she knows is a soft touch, but Daddy was at the pub, so no luck there either. I then heard a little voice from upstairs saying:
-Oh dear, oh dear.... blood pressure....blood pressure.......oh dear

Hmm...I am not falling for that one!!!

(Her favourite toy at the moment is a doctors kit including a stethoscope, a syringe and a blood pressure monitor...)

A pain in the...thumb

Not what I need at the moment - a sprained wrist. Bugger it hurts. Just been over-doing the lifting and carrying babies round and whizzing round like a nutter. So, last night my left hand decided enough was enough and the base of my thumb started to hurt like f**k.

Bollocks is all I have to say.

Creche

I used the creche in the gym for the first time today. I took Jessie in her little carseat and off we went. Lovely staff and a cute little room for the little ones. I left her in there for 1,5 hours while I worked out in the gym. Ooooooh, the freedom.

When I picked her up (all in one piece and happy as a 6 week old can be!?) she'd been sick on two of the staff. Nice... At least it saved me getting a white patch on my left shoulder. Worth paying £2 for eh!?

Food

Well I spent this time to myself in a productive way in the end. I made a bolognaise sauce with pasta and put it in small containers for the freezer, ready to feed Ellen whenever. I have been slacking in the cooking department lately. Yoghurts and sandwiches seems to have been on the menu for the last 4 weeks.

And finally my lovely tea set arrived. Not impressed by Whittards delivery but hey ho, its here now and I am sipping tea out of a loooovely big tea cup.

Its oh so quiet

Its 13.30 and all is quiet... *deep breath* ... Both children are asleep and both dogs for that matter. We went to Mothercare in the morning to get some bits and bobs and then we had lunch and read books. Jessie spent her morning asleep in the carseat, pooing, then eating and then burping.

When I've got time to myself I hardly know what to do with myself. Because I don't know how long the peace will last I tend just to hover around...

I am heading for the gym again tonight about 8ish. Went to Body Pump on Sunday morning and piled on the weights as I am used to from pre-pregnancies. My thighs and calves are burning today but all in all I feel ok. Not as unfit as I thought I was maybe. Tonight I will be spending time on the treadmill and the rowing machine and crunching those abs.

Autumn walk

England can do beautiful autumns too. Took a lovely long walk round the Hanningfield Reservoir on Thursday with my mother-in-law and my two children. Wonderful weather and the woods looked absolutely stunning with all the autumn colours.

Miss Independent

Liking this at the moment.

Miss Independent

Sisterly love

Goodbye Baby belly

Today I am checking out the new gym I'm going to join. They've got a cheche where I can leave the children if necessary so I can go whenever I want.

Can't wait to do a bit of Body Pump maybe once a week to sort of the last of the baby bulge.
Hurraaaah!

Tea for two

I am into tea big style at the moment. Drinking more tea than I've ever done before. Its due to the first cup of tea I had after giving birth to little baby Jessie in hospital. The morning after they offered me a cup of tea and it was the best cup ever! I am sure it would have beaten afternoon tea at Fortnum & Mason! :)

So, here's my new tea set with tea pot and two lovely cups complete with milk jug and tea tidy.

Chin chin!

Mummy code

Went to Boots today to get some anti-colic drops for Jessie and while I was there I strolled by the fragrance section to have a little look (smell). I tried the Armani code perfume and ooooooh how nice! Usually when you spray a perfume on your wrist the scenario is as follows:
1. First sniff - The smell of alcohol over-powers you
2. Second sniff - The perfume fragrance sneaks in and you nod and sniff again
3. Third sniff - Now you're picturing yourself wearing this perfume in different situations
4. After the fourth sniff you put the bottle back on the shelf and think: I'll let the fragrance sink in a bit and see how I feel about it after having worn it for an hour...
And for me, that's usually it. After an hour I am either hating the perfume or finding it completely too sweet, too strong or too something else...

But this one...I got to the "I'll leave it for an hour" bit and left the shop. I took 5 steps outside the shop and already the little beauty had started to seduce me. I stopped and thought, shall I go back in and get it? No, that's silly. Go back to your car. So I did. In the car, sniffing my wrist again...ooooooooooooooooooh, niiiiiiiice! It smelled so sexy and seductive I was just smiling to myself.

Anyway, I've just been on Cheapsmells website and ordered myself a bottle. Mums don't have much fun, so maybe this will make me feel all sexy and flirty!

PS. I will of course be wearing a dress like above to the next Mother and Baby group!!

Snacking

I am finding it very hard to find time to cook a proper meal at the moment. I find myself eating breakfast ok - me and Ellen sit down with a bowl each of Kelloggs Special K (that she seems to love for some reason) and great, breakfast is done.

Lunch - its either just a Soda Farl with butter, cheese and cucumber - toasted of course or other random things I find in the fridge that is QUICK!
Quick is the word and my absolute favourite snack at the moment are these snack-bars. Go-Ahead Apple and Sultana or any other flavours they do.

Pantone 373C

My sinuses are blocked big-style! My whole jaw is aching, I have an awful headache and it feels like my eyes are about to pop out of my head. I keep blowing my nose every 4 seconds and have now established that the colour of my snot is Pantone 373C.

I thought you'd be pleased to know that!

Storms & Blackberries

Hmm...not my brightest idea - picking blackberries in a storm! Well, almost a storm - very strong winds anyway. For weeks now I've been eyeing up the blackberry bushes in our garden thinking I'd go berry picking one day. And today was the day I decided. I took my little plastic pot, popped Jessie in her pram and shouted "walkies" to the dogs. All set for some serious berry picking! And yes, it could have been serious...I could have lost an eye! The winds were so strong the bushes kept swaying back and forth and the thorns on the branches were swoooshing past my head. Just as I was about to grip one berry, the bush would move and all I got was a handful of air, or the opposite direction and I'd grip the whole branch and hurt my poor fingers on the spikes. I managed to pick about 4 dl and several scrathes later I am now back indoors...
What a stupid idea, why did I have to do it today. Its been lovely weather all week and I decide to pick berries just as bloody hurricane "Gustaf" takes a detour past Wickford. Nice.