Update

Its been ages since I have posted! Lucy had a wonderful birthday - had a great time at her party and got spoilt rotten! She has had two trials at playschool, which i stayed at, and she really enjoyed it - now i just have to get my head around the fact that she will be going soon :( Its gonna be hard .. but at least I am confident she will really enjoy it.
Amelia is still going from strength to strength at school - her reading is just amazing and her writing is really coming along too. I cant believe there is only one more term left of this school year!

QUOTES OF THE PAST FEW MONTHS!
Just a few that I can remember

LUCY: 'It was Amelia - Look at the face on it!'
             'Strawberry needs a right old haircut'
             'A big salami - you know, a massive wave that washes everything away!'

AMELIA: 'Lucy, you look so stylish, with such flair!'
                 

Amelia's reading

I should have written about this earlier. When Amelia started school in September she could just about recognise the letters A m e l i a as she knew her name. She has since learnt the alphabet and ridiculously quickly learned to blend the sounds together. by Christmas she could read anything that sounded as it could be read phonetically, i.e hat, dad, car.
Now though she is learning to blend and recognize sounds together, like 'th', 'ch', 'st' etc. She can recognize several words and does not need to sound them out and tonight worked out the words 'morning' and 'market,.
I am so so proud. However, she likes to read wearing as little as possible, writhing all over the place with ants in her pants. She also likes to get her face incredibly close to the page, although she does not appear to have any eyesight problems, and starts every line with ... 'So....'

She clearly is not going to struggle in the reading department, I knwo she is bright but I did not think it would be this quick!!!

Christmas

Christmas was wonderful this year. The run up seemed so much shorter than usual, with Amelia being at school. The run up felt like one week only. Before Christmas we had a few parties with the girls friends, which was lovely as Amelia does not get to see her chums much out of school anymore. The day before Christmas Eve mum and dad took the girls to the panto to see Aladdin. Amelia LOVED it ... but Lucy. .... apparantly the first thing on stage was the scary baddy and Lucy immeadiately didnt like it and dad had to take her out of the theatre .. he pretty much spent the rest of the 2.5 hour show playing outside with her!!! What a terror - she says she had fun though!!

On Christmas eve Liz & Geoff took them to buy their Christmas presents, two guinea pigs - they ahd already bought the hutch and accessories which is in the back of the garage - so they came over and completely surprised the girls asking if they want to go pick a guinea pig each! They were over the moon, especially Amelia and went to the pet shop and came home with two girl piggies, both with mad curly hair! Lucy named hers Strawberry and Amelia named hers Fluffy - we cannot believe one is not named Rosie as they seem to have an obsession woth that name! THey are very cute, but very shy and need to be handled often to get used to us - which is not a problem .. especially for Amelia who would cuddle them all day!

After that we went to the cinema and saw Chipmunks; Chipwrecked! Both girls LOVED the film, which wasnt too loud and we had a great time. Then it was home for dinner and to put out Father Christmas mince pie, whisky and carrots for the reindeer and watching their video messages from the north pole itself! They watched them open mouthed and Lucy freely admitted she had not been the goodest girl - but they seemed pretty confident they were getting presents anyway!!

Christmas day was lovely, the girls opened their stockings and then their presents from Father Christmas. There wasnt actually time to give them all the gifts from us .. they finished their presents from us on Boxing Day! Both sets of Nannys and Grandads popped over with gifts and the girls were spoilt rotten! Christmas dinner was lovely and we had an all around great time!

Lucy streetdancer

Well Amelia isnt the only street dancer in the family - Lucy is pretty good too - and she got so hot she had to strip down to her vest ... very street! She loves being videoed and always asks to see it before its finished!!!

Amelia's Christmas Play

This week we went and saw Amelia in her Christmas nativity play. She was one of the three narrators, the main parts in the play. We had helped her to learn her lines and she was so excited about it. We were asked not to bring pre-school children - but we took Lucy anyway!!

Amelia was amazing - she said all her lines perfectly ... and spent the rest of the play looking at us... putting on another show of all her silly faces...smiling, frowning, blowing kisses and mouthing 'Happy Birthday' to Duncan. She was just so cute and funny!! We had a brilliant time.

She is doing so well in school, already been put up a group in her reading books - she has taken to it so naturally - we are so so proud!!

Tiredness

The girls (mainly Amelia) could not be any more tired. After a week at school after half term .. Amelia is shattered. Tonight we have had all manner of hysterics about being unable to tie hairbands properly - apparently it is my fault she doesn't know how to tie Lucy's hair in a ponytail .. I am a 'silly pooh pooh mummy'!! Then at bedtime there were more hysterics as most pupils in the class had the special bonfire night school dinner (she had told me she didnt want to) but apparently she was 'a bit jealous and left out. I dont even know how school dinners work Mummy, I want to check it out'. Then she had all manner of worries at bedtime .. what if a dinosaur/monster comes to get me ... then I explained they dont exist ... so she asked what if a bear came to get her .. and i explained they dont live in England... and this all culminated in a meltdown because she couldnt find the note under her pillow that I had to write for her several weeks ago when she was worrying about dying and going to heaven alone. The note says 'When Amelia goes to heaven, mummy, daddy and lucy will go too'. Funny how a silly little note can soothe the worry. Of course Lucy had to have one too!! Funny little things.
Thank goodness its the weekend.... sleeeeeeeeeeeeep!!

And the video is of the girls yesterday. They were watching a bot of tv while i put on the dinner.. and Lucy walks in to the kitchen, naked except knickers, and covered in my Nivea Creme to stop herself being 'cheesey' ... so cute!

Telling the Girls

When we discovered we were having another baby, the first people we wanted to tell were of course, the girls. We told them at dinner and their reactions were 'really? really? really??' They had been saying for ages about when I have another baby in my tummy and seemed really excited. Since then Lucy asks me at least 5 times a day 'Mummy, is there REALLY a baby in your tummy?' and wants to look and see where it is!! They have been very good at keeping it a secret so far .. wonder how long that will last!!

We are very very excited, and cannot wait to get another little baby, it will be just before Amelia's 5th birthday.