Lucy's Birthday!

Today has been Lucy's birthday week. We started with a little party with Jack, Ciaran, Annabel & James on thursday, but Lucy actually wasnt well (still teething we think) so didnt particularly enjoy it! But Amelia & Co made up for it .. eating cake & kicking balloons!

Yesterday we had the little cousins round.. Jack, Bella & Stan and Catherine gatecrashed too. We had a great time, I got lots of cuddles and Lucy got some great presents.

And today was the big event. Lucy was obviously so excited that she got up at 5.30am (aaagh!!) but Amelia wasnt up much later and we got cracking with presents. Her main one was a slide, which is actually twice the size I thought it was going to be .. but actually its better than I thought and she LOVES it! We are going to have very strong arms as she wants to be put on it constantly!! She also got a garage as she is loving cars (geezer!!)

We went to Pizza Express for a birthday lunch. Small nightmare as they had run out of highchairs (and gave them to other people before we got ours..) but it was brilliant. Amelia had her own little meal of doughballs, a pizza, a toffee sundae and a little 'bambachino' which was a cappuchino without the coffee ... she LOVED it .. and was such a good little girl the whole time, watching a group of young girls on a table nearby, all wide eyed! Lucy was a bit of a misery sitting on my lap until the food arrived, and then she embarrassed herself by eating her body weight in pizza .. and , as it was her first birthday, she had some ice cream and took all of 2 seconds to decide she loves it!

We then went to a swimming centre in Maldon we thought had slides and flumes... it turns out that they wernt open and the girls wernt big enough for any of it anyway!! But they loved it, there was a bubble pool we went in and foam toggles to play with. Lucy was a little cold and took a while to get into it .. but then went splashing mad! After, as we were getting dressed, I realised Lucy's vest had managed to get soaked in the bag...so she wore Duncans top home! She sat in a little infant seat while the rest of us got dressed and looked so funny! Amelia then insisted on lying on the infant table to get dressed!

It has been a brilliant day - I cant believe that its been a year since we had her. Its been the best year ever. She is such a wonderful, funny, clever little girl who makes every day a joy. I constantly remind myself how lucky I am to get to cuddle this soft sweet little girl every day..its just going far too quickly.

Amelia-ism of the Day

'Is there more pudding? Was that the starter?'

Amelia, after dinner...as today at lunch she learnt about starters, and was hoping for more pudding - the monkey!

The orange pip

Amelia accidentally swallowed an orange pip this morning...and was banging on about it all morning saying her tummy was hurting from the pip. I told her that it would come out in her next poo so she kept going and trying to do one (cue a lot of comedy straining!). She went on about it Alllllllllllllllllllllll day until I told her to try one more time before she got in the bath. So she sat and tried but said she couldnt go so I picked her up to put her in the bath and found a huge gorilla's finger poo in the toilet! I dont know how she didnt know she had done it!! Anyway, the pip was definately in there - as she insisted she could see it. Phew!

Amelia-ism of the Day

'Oh God'
me - 'Pardon??'
'Oh God'
Me - 'Where did you hear that?'
'Nowhere'
Me - 'Does Mummy say it?' (I know I do and I shouldnt!)
'No. Actually it was Uncle Tom. He says it all the time!!!!!!!'

I love how she decided to blame Tom!!

The Sleepover!

So my cheeky little monkeys had their first friends to sleepover this weekend! Well it was their big cousins Gabriella & Madeleine. Emma & Simon had a trip to New York so the girls were staying with Liz & Geoff so we asked if they wanted to stay a night at ours. I knew Amelia would be very excited but also wondered how she would be with them sleeping on her bedroom floor...well I neednt have worried!

They arrived Friday afternoon and it was straight into the dressing up. Gabriella was very impressed with all Dawn's contributions to the fancy dress box! She is so tall that they were ok in length for her. The girls are just so lovely, looking after Amelia & Lucy - who just adore the. Amelia just follows them around like a little puppy - its so sweet her being the little one who isnt so advanced as normally she is the tall, clever one!

After dinner they all went upstairs and had a bath - the four of them were so cute in their together. Then the splashing started... and the instigator?? Lucy of course. She started doing her roaring and splashing and soon the others joined in and it got wetter and wetter! The bathroom was sodden after they got out!

Lucy went to bed as normal but Amelia was allowed to come downstairs and watch Cinderella with her big cousins. She was just so excited and looked so small. Duncan made them some popcorn (which we are still finding bits of down the settee) and they watched the film.

Finally it was bedtime, 8.30. We had put the blow up double bed on the floor next to Amelia's bed. There was some argument over who should sleep in it..as Amelia wanted to be in it too and both Gabriella and Madeleine wanted the other one to sleep in Amelia's bed! But we decided that Amelia should be in her bed. It would have been too short for the other two anyway!

We left them saying they could whisper quietly. They were not quiet. Whispering turned into singing whispers, which just got louder and all we could make out was Amelia's loud belly laugh. We took it in turns to go up every so often to calm them down (and kept finding Amelia in the bed with them!!) and it was clear that Amelia was the one fuelling things and doing all the talking (and jumping on the bed) while the other two had the grace to pretend to be asleep when we came up! Eventually, at 9.45 (!!!) I went and sat in the room with them, making them be quiet. They were asleep in about 3 minutes flat!!

The next morning they didnt have a lie in though!! So after a huge pancake brekkie we went to CJs bowling. It is so cool!!

They put guards up down the lane sides and there is a stand that little ones can use to launch the balls. Amelia loved it! Liz & Geoff came too and the adults had to let the girls 'help' and do most of their bowls!!

Lucy really liked the bowling balls too - i guess as they are so colourful - she kept hugging a purple one! There was also a little soft play bit in there, which i took Lucy in, and Amelia & Madeleine joined us ... so Lucy wore out my arms insisting to go on the slide again...and again... and again!!

After we had some lunch there, we parted ways and took our very tired, but happy little girls home. They had loved every second!!

Amelia-ism of the Day

Gabri-rella!!!!!!

Scarlett's Birthday party

Saturday was Scarlett's Third birthday party. Held in a hall at Chelmsford it was the girls (well Amelia's really) first proper birthday party with games. Scarlett and chums played pass-the-parcel, musical chairs and musical statues! Not sure how much Amelia understood but she got to the final two in musical chairs but missed out at the last! She managed to know she had lost - poor thing! We had a great time though - plenty of balloons to keep the children happy and lots of running around and screaming! Its always so cool to see her playing with other children, bonding over party food and balloon throwing!

Amelia-ism of the Day

...on drinking bath water...

Me 'dont drink it - you will make mummy cross'

Amelia 'But I will be happy!!'